Open Yale Courses
PLSC 270: Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform
Mirrored from oyc.yale.edu · CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 · Douglas W. Rae Professor of Political Science and Richard Ely Professor of Management
Mirrored from: oyc.yale.edu · Yale University · Political Science
Instructor: Douglas W. Rae Professor of Political Science and Richard Ely Professor of Management · License: CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0
About this course
In this course, we will seek to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution: firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail are analogous to organisms struggling for survival in nature. For this reason, it is less concerned with ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit our more specific objectives--for the natural environment, public health, alleviation of poverty, and development of human potential in every child. Each book we read will be explicitly or implicitly an argument about good and bad consequences of capitalism.
Course details
Course Structure
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was videotaped for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.
Texts
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Harper Collins India, 2008.
Buckley, Christopher. Thank You for Smoking. Random House, 1994. (optional text)
Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Belknap Press, 1977.
Clark, Gregory. Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton University Press, 2007.
Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. Oxford University Press, 2007.
De Soto, Hernando. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. Basic Books, 2000.
Hayek, Friedrich. The Constitution of Liberty. University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party (The Communist Manifesto). orig. pub. 1848.
Posner, Richard A. A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression. Harvard University Press, 2009.
Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism, & Democracy. orig. pub. 1942.
Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations, orig. pub. 1776.
Selected case studies from Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management
Requirements
Students are asked to write three short memoranda along with a midterm and a final. Reading in advance of class is important, and section discussions will presume preparation.
Grading
Three memoranda (800-1000 words each): 10% each Discussion section participation: 10% Midterm exam: 20% Final exam: 40%
Syllabus
1 section · 24 lectures · links open at oyc.yale.edu.
Course sessions
- Exploding Worlds and Course Introduction
- Thomas Malthus and Inevitable Poverty
- Counting the Fingers of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand
- Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and an Economic System Incapable of Coming to Rest
- Property, Freedom, and the Essential Job of Government
- Rise of the Joint Stock Corporation
- Can You Sell a Scheme for Operating on Beating Hearts and Make a Business of It?
- Mortal Life Cycle of a Great Technology
- Guest Lecture by Jim Alexander: Managing the Crooked E
- Guest Lecture by Richard Medley: Entrepreneurship in Business Information
- Guest Lecture by Will Goetzmann: Institutions and Incentives in Mortgages and Mortgage-Backed Securities
- Accountability and Greed in Investment Banking
- The Mortgage Meltdown in Cleveland
- The Political and Judicial Elements of American Capitalism
- Mass Affluence Comes to the Western World
- Braudel's Bell Jar
- The Case of Mister Balram Halwai
- Microfinance in South India
- Plight of the Bottom Billion
- Policy Targets for Capitalist Development
- Guest Lecture by Paolo Zanonni, Part I
- Guest Lecture by Paolo Zanonni, Part II
- Marrying the Devil in Texas
- Capitalist Enterprise and Clean Water for a Bolivian City