January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

TBA reading 2.1

Here's the link to the reading for Wednesday.

Update: For those of you interested in the Gold Standard and the operation of the Federal Reserve, you might check out the podcasts available here and here. The show is called "Breakdown" and basically explains issues in contemporary policy. It's no longer producing more episodes, but the host, Chris Hayes, has a cable show now on MSNBC. The podcast comes from _The Nation_ so it's definitely left leaning, but he is very fair and quite friendly with conservative policy wonks like Reihan Salam, Kevin Williamson, and Tim Carney, frequently inviting them on his new TV program.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Is the Venus Project just a name for "the direction the economy is already heading"?

Right after class I found this article from one of the more interesting bloggers out there. He's a libertarian who wants to reform our monetary system (the dollar would be backed by futures contracts rather than gold) but who also favors heavy redistribution ("on utilitarian grounds" as he puts it, meaning money is more useful to the poor than to the rich) and thinks the Scandinavian countries are among the most free-market around.

The fascinating thing about this is that he basically is saying a version of the same thing as the Venus Project, but just recasting it in purely descriptive language: basically, the economy is headed almost by necessity toward something that looks like the Venus project. It is the inevitable outcome of capitalist prosperity.

Marx, of course, also said that capitalism would inevitably lead to communism--he just was more focused on the negative aspects, namely, that people would rise up against a system in which such a tiny minority owned the majority of wealth. As automation proceeds, the owners of capital thereby own an increasing share of the wealth even as aggregate wealth is increasing, which would necessitate redistribution. Of course, this is what this blogger is saying too--he's just casting redistribution as something done voluntarily (which I suppose does not exclude the Marxist claim at all that the capitalist is just doing this out of a fear that if he does not people will just take it from him anyway).

So three apparently radically different philosophies--Marxism, a version of libertarianism, and whatever the Venus project is--are all basically saying the same thing. The way questions are framed can make an enormous difference.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

TBA reading 1.25

Here's a link to the Venus Project's "Aims and Proposals" section. Check out the website more generally and we can talk a bit about what they seem to be advocating.

Also check out the following podcast. It's nice and short and pretty interesting, and it describes another example of an idealistic-utopian proposal for economic reform: "participatory economics."

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Essay 1 and MLA

Essay 1: Finding our way between Ethics and Economics

For this first essay, we will compose a short (3-4) page paper focused primarily on developing a thesis and supporting it. We will focus more on research later; for now, let’s just practice developing a claim and using textual evidence to prove it. For this essay, you can write about almost anything that has something of a connection to our readings or to our class discussions. Here’s some general topics you might consider writing about:

1. Compare and contrast the ideas of two different theorists we have read, and develop a thesis that shows how their different assumptions about ethics leads to different ideas about economics. Don’t worry about explaining everything about their ideas. This isn’t a report, but rather a paper focused on developing your own argument. An easy way to approach this paper would be to pick a quote from each writer and focus your paper entirely on showing the important differences that develop from the different ideas each writer expresses in those quotes.

2. Apply some of the ideas we have been discussing to current events. Pick an idea or two from a writer or two and attempt to explain what these show about a contemporary debate in current affairs. What would Hobbes say about the way we finance pharmaceutical research, for example. What would Mandeville think of restrictions on immigration? These are just a few examples of what you could write about. You could also combine this with option 1 and write about differences in how classical theorists might explain contemporary events.

3. Pick a provocative quote from one writer we have read and explain some of its larger implications in terms of the relationship between ethics and economics. If you had a strong reaction to something one of the writers we read claimed, try to formulate in a more formal, analytic language what that is and then explain the nature of your reaction. What larger implications does this quote present?

4. Take a look at the new Dean Baker book, which IS available for free online right here. Baker goes into a lot more detail about some of his claims. Evaluate some of Baker’s more detailed analyses. Explain or define the relationship between this more extensive presentation and what we read earlier. Rather than just agreeing or disagreeing with Baker, try instead to demonstrate how things become more complicated as the details become more specific.

Whatever option you pick, or whether or not you pick one of the above options, try to avoid falling into the twin dangers of offering a book report or a harsh polemic. Avoid opinionated language like “I think,” “I believe,” “is wrong,” “is right,” “is good,” “is bad,” “contradicts him/herself,” etc. Also avoid summarizing or listing a series of facts without connecting them back to your thesis or explaining why they are important. The easiest way to do this is to present a clear thesis that sympathetically approaches your subject matter without becoming either overly enamored of it or totally hostile to it.

I’ll primarily be looking for three things: a clearly defined and argumentative thesis; formal, analytic language; and a detailed analysis of the thesis and its implications. For citations, use MLA style (a works cited list with in-text citations). Bring a rough draft of ~2 pages for 1/27 and a completed draft for 2/3. The final is due 2/6 by 5pm.

For more information on MLA, see here.

Basic summary of MLA: It consists of a Works Cited list starting on the top of a separate page at the end of the paper, which contains all the various sources you refer to in the body of the paper AND ONLY those sources that you refer to directly--don't include works that you have read but do not quote from, paraphrase, or cite as evidence. To cite paraphrases, just place the author's last name and the page number at the end of the sentence in parentheses, with the period outside the parentheses [example (Freud 8)]. For quotes, just add in quotation marks around the direct quotation and place the citation again in parentheses at the end of the sentence. If you refer to the author in the sentence and are not referencing a specific page, then you do not need an in-text citation beyond the mention of the name.

The basic rule-of-thumb for MLA is to give as much information in the Works Cited as needed so that a reader can find your source (author, title, publisher, date of publication, title of publication if the work appears in a journal or magazine or newspaper, translator, etc.); for the in-text citations, list only as much information as needed to find the source in the list at the end of the paper. The custom is to start with author's last name and page number, then add a shortened version of the title, and finally a first initial if there is still confusion.

So: (Freud 8), (Freud, Dreams 8), and (S. Freud, Dreams 8)

would be how we would provide an in-text citation for the following entry in a works cited list:

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. and Trans. by
James Strachey. New York: Avon, 1998.

A critique of Baker's argument from a libertarian perspective

Here's an optional follow-up to the Baker reading. It's a response from a libertarian blogger who also writes for Econlog, the website where Arnold Kling's posts appear (see the link in the previous post).

Some blogs to follow

Some blogs to start reading

Liberal/neoliberal blogs:

Mathew Yglesias

Paul Krugman

Brad DeLong

Dean Baker

Ezra Klein

Libertarian/"right-wing liberal" blogs:

Scott Sumner

Tyler Cowen

Arnold Kling et al.

Will Wilkinson

Marxist/Marxist-friendly blogs:

Mike Konczal

Doug Henwood

Crooked Timber

Jacobin Magazine

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Course schedule with links

This is our official, dynamic course schedule. Check back frequently for updates.

Week 1: Intro – What is “The Market” anyway?

M Jan 9: Introduction

W 11: Liberalism, in the classical sense. Dean Baker, Taking Economics Seriously. Listen to This American Life podcast if time permits. It will help you understand some of Baker’s ideas.

F 13: Provocations and precursors. Read Hobbes (chapter XIII – skim other chapters if you have time) and Mandeville (for some interesting background, read this, and check out the larger site more generally for good explanations of some of the concepts we cover).

Week 2 – Direct influences on Smith

M 16: MLK day. No class.

W 18: Read Hutcheson and Swift.

F 20: First writing day. Read Nancy Sommers. Make sure you are following class blog.

Week 3 – Smith, and our first current event reading

M 23: Read Smith.

W 25: Reading TBA. Post response to weekly current events reading by Wednesday’s class and leave two comments on another student’s blog by Friday’s class.

F 27: Bring in rough draft.

Week 4 – Recessions

M 30: Read Krugman.

W February 1: Reading TBA.

F 3: Bring in rough draft.

Week 5 – Division of labor and recessions

M 6: Read Smith. First paper due by 5pm.

W 8: Reading TBA.

F 10: Possible library day or writing workshop.

Week 6 – The political economy of recessions

M 13: Read Marx (especially section 2), Beggs, and Krugman.

W 15: Reading TBA.

F 17: Bring rough draft for peer editing.

Week 7 – Money, then and now

M 20: Read Smith.

W 22: Reading TBA.

F 24: Bring rough draft for peer editing.

Week 8: Topics fair

M 27: Paper 2 due by 5pm. Short presentations.

W 29: Short presentations.

March 2: Short presentations.

Week 9 – Spring break

M 5: No class. Spring break.

W 7: No class.

F 9: No class.

Week 10 – Crisis theory, recessions, and the origins of macroeconomics

M 12: Read Mills (via Delong) and Marx (especially section 3).

W 14: Reading TBA.

F 16: Writing workshop or possible library day.

Week 11 – Recessions – a political or an economic problem?

M 19: Read Marx, Delong, and Delong (which explains the issue in a slightly different way).

W 21: Reading TBA.

F 23: Bring in rough draft for peer editing.

Week 12 – The moderns read the classics

M 26: Read Keynes (primarily section VI).

W 28: Reading TBA

F 30: Bring in rough draft.

Week 13 – Becoming classical again?

M April 2: Read Sumner. Paper 3 due by 5pm.

W 4: Reading TBA

F 6: Easter break. No class.

Week 14 – Finishing touches

M 9: Easter break. No class.

W 11: Reading TBA.

F 13: Writing workshop.

Week 15 – Almost there

M 16: Bring in rough draft.

W 18: Peer editing/workshopping.

F 20: Peer editing/workshopping.

Week 16

M 23: Last day of class. No final exam.

W 25: Study day. Final paper due by April 26^th at 5pm.

F 27: Exams.