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PLSC 270: Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform

PLSC 270: Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform (Fall 2009, Open Yale Courses). Instructor: Professor Douglas W. Rae. 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. (from oyc.yale.edu)

Introduction


Lecture 01 - Exploding Worlds and Course Introduction
Lecture 02 - Thomas Malthus and Inevitable Poverty
Lecture 03 - Counting the Fingers of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand
Lecture 04 - Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and an Economic System Incapable of Coming to Rest
Lecture 05 - Property, Freedom, and the Essential Job of Government
Lecture 06 - Rise of the Joint Stock Corporation
Lecture 07 - Can You Sell a Scheme for Operating on Beating Hearts and Make a Business of It?
Lecture 08 - Mortal Life Cycle of a Great Technology
Lecture 09 - Guest Lecture by Jim Alexander: Managing the Crooked E
Lecture 10
Lecture 11 - Institutions and Incentives in Mortgages and Mortgage-Backed Securities
Lecture 12 - Accountability and Greed in Investment Banking
Lecture 13 - The Mortgage Meltdown in Cleveland
Lecture 14 - The Political and Judicial Elements of American Capitalism
Lecture 15 - Mass Affluence Comes to the Western World
Lecture 16 - Braudel's Bell Jar
Lecture 17 - The Case of Mister Balram Halwai
Lecture 18 - Microfinance in South India
Lecture 19 - Plight of the Bottom Billion
Lecture 20 - Policy Targets for Capitalist Development
Lecture 21 - Guest Lecture by Paolo Zanonni, Part I
Lecture 22 - Guest Lecture by Paolo Zanonni, Part II
Lecture 23 - Marrying the Devil in Texas
Lecture 24 - Capitalist Enterprise and Clean Water for a Bolivian City

References
PLSC 270: Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform
Professor Douglas W. Rae. Class Sessions. Downloads. Syllabus. In this course, we will seek to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution.