Introduction and Course Description:

This course explores the major paradigms in social philosophy for analyzing relations among state, economy, and society, the study of which is often termed Political Economy. Through readings, lectures and discussion of original texts in political liberalism (both from the right and from the left), conservatism, Marxism, and communitarianism, we examine the fundamental assumptions on which our understanding of the economic world and our economic research are based.

Economists and social philosophers have proposed various ways of organizing an economy and formulating economic policy. Alternatives range from complete laissez faire to total government control, with most proposals falling in between these extremes with varying degrees of government intervention.  In this course we will go beyond the market/state dichotomy and study the role of intermediate organizations as a key to the functioning of a healthy economic society. We will discuss the important texts of Locke, Burke, Marx and Engels, Henry George, Rawls, Nozick, McIntyre, Oakeshott, Walzer, Yates, Friedman, Okun, Reich, Schumacher, and a host of communitarian writers.

Course Objectives:

This course is the primary place where the Economics major focuses on social philosophy and its relation with economics and the economy. Students will become familiar with the main currents of thinking behind economic policymaking and will learn to apply them to a particular policy proposal.

Through your work, you will improve in your capacity for clear, methodical, and systematic thinking that gives primacy to intellectual honesty, inquisitiveness, and creativity.  You will also improve your ability to express yourself effectively through well-structured arguments; use of appropriate evidence and theory; conventional documentation; and oral communication skills.  Finally, you will be able to engage in undergraduate-level research.

Course Readings:

Liberalism and its Critics. Michael Sandel, Ed.
 ISBN 0814778410

Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
 ISBN 0226264211

Equality and Efficiency: the Big Tradeoff, Arthur Okun
 ISBN 0815764758

I’ll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society, Robert B. Reich
 ISBN 0807043419

The Essential Civil Society Reader. Don E. Eberly, Ed.
 ISBN 0847697193

Recommended

 Comparative Economics, Second Edition, James Angresano
ISBN 0133816338

The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw
 ISBN 068483569X

Course Assignments:

• Participation: In this class, the participation is essential.  Students are expected to do the reading before class and to contribute to the discussion.  A student will be deemed to have “participated” if he or she makes at least one significant and intelligent comment during the class. 

Before every class meeting, I will send you questions for discussion in class.  You should use these questions to guide your reading.

• Quizzes: Quizzes will include definitions, short-answer questions, and essay questions about the reading, relying on the questions we’ve discussed in class.
• Term Paper The term paper will consist of:
  • a description of a particular economic topic (may be current or historical) and
  • an analysis of the problem or topic from the point of view of all three of the main schools of ideology we will study.

Each submission should be double-spaced, Times New Roman, (or similar), 12 point font.  All submissions should be sent in by email.
I’ve set up the submission schedule so that you will write an excellent, long paper without having a nervous breakdown from overworking.  Also, I would like to give you helpful comments. For the benefit of my sanity, do not exceed the indicated page limits.  (Of course, you may have written more, but in your submissions, follow the indicated page limits). 
For the dates, check the Course Schedule

Description of the Term Paper

Paper Proposal

The Issue must be an economic topic.  See below for a list.  I will comment on your proposal.  If for some reason you are proposing to work on a dead-end (or on a very fruitful paper that is just not right for the class), I will let you know quickly.  In the proposal you want to answer the following questions:

• What is the economic problem that you will study?  What is its historical context?  Who are the groups of people who have an interest in this problem?
• What are the main actions that are (or were) proposed to deal with this problem?  These actions might be governmental, community-based, business-based, etc.

200 words

While you research this topic, be on the look-out for articles or books with people’s opinions on the issue.
 

Description of the Issue (1 page)

Explain, in detail, the historical context and the interest groups of the economic problem or issue you want to study.
Make sure you support your statements by including data, statistics, charts, graphs, etc. and/or authoritative and trustworthy references.
Take into account the comments you’ve received about the paper.

Description of the Issue and Policies (2 pages)

Expand the previous paper by including a description of the policies that have been used or proposed to address the issue.  You should continue working on this section for the full paper. 
Make sure you support your statements by including data, statistics, charts, graphs, etc. and/or authoritative and trustworthy references.
Take into account the comments you’ve received about the paper.

Ideological Reactions to the Issue (3 pages)

1 page on the Libertarian reaction (following Friedman); 1 page on the Left-Liberal reaction (following Okun); and 1 page on the communitarian reaction (following the readings from Eberly, ed.). 
Make every effort to support your statements about ideology by finding specific passages in the text (either those from class or from elsewhere). You should cite sources abundantly in support of your statements.  For example, if you say that “well, Friedman would probably oppose this,” you’d better give concrete quotations from Friedman that make your assertion believable.
Begin with a short statement of the school’s main ideas; follow this with a longer statement of how that school of thought would view the Issue.

Expanded Ideological Reactions to the Issue (6 pages)

2 pages on the Libertarian reaction (following Friedman); 2 pages on the Left-Liberal reaction (following Okun and Reich); and 2 pages on the communitarian reaction (following the readings from Eberly, ed.). 
Make every effort to support your statements about ideology by finding specific passages in the text (either those from class or from elsewhere).
To the previous paper, add evidence that supports that point of view.  To make sure you have sufficient evidence, it might be better to use a historical example than a current one… but have fun.  By the end of each section, I must be thoroughly convinced of that school’s position (by the logic of the thinker’s argument and by the strength of the evidence you present).  For example, if Friedman would support a position, you have to put yourself in Friedman’s shoes and give evidence (such as graphs, figures, or quotations from studies by other authors) that agree with Friedman and bolster his point.
Take into account the comments you’ve received about the paper.

Final version of the Paper (11-12 pages)

2 pages on Issue description;
9-10 pages on ideological reactions to the issue.
You should NOT write this section as three separate sections.  The separate sections of the previous submissions are intended to help you prepare for this “integrated” discussion of how different ideologies talk to each other about an issue like yours.  A reader should not notice any abrupt breaks in the essay – the arguments should be intertwined.
Imagine that the authors we’ve read during the semester sit down for lunch.  Someone brings up the issue that you’ve studied (“hey, have you heard about …”) and they start having a lively conversation about it. 
Each brings up his point of view, from their own ideas.  Friedman argues that it is most crucial to protect liberty and private property, markets and individual initiative.  Rawls and Okun look for a more just solution and suggest some interventions by the State to look out for the underdog and to work towards equality of outcomes (or at least of opportunities).  Eberly and Berger argue for community, trust, and shared values, for duty and responsibility, and propose that people working together in a small, local scale are more likely to find a better and more stable solution than either people by themselves or a far-away State. 
They might quote their own writings, or those of their friends who have written about the topic.  They might quote very old writers (Locke, Burke, George, maybe even Marx).  They might quote other writers we didn’t mention in class.
You listen in and take careful notes, make them into a beautiful, intellectual, and highly readable essay, and then decide to publish a “A conversation on economics and ideology on …”
Take into account the comments you’ve received about the paper.

The Issue:

The description of the issue must cover 2 pages.  It must include

• A verbal description of the problem in question and the ideas behind the proposal.
• Specific actions that are (or were) proposed.  These actions might be governmental, community-based, business-based, etc.

Good paper topics:

• Poverty and its alleviation
  Everyone seems to think that there’s too much poverty.  What is a “market-friendly” anti-poverty measure?  If “market-friendly” anti-poverty measures work, why have State-based poverty measures?  Why is it thought that faith-based anti-poverty measures work better?  Which school of thought would predict that they would work?
• K-12 education and school choice (or) Higher education (finance, choice, quality assurance)
  Should the State finance education and research at all?  Should the State finance private universities?  Religious universities?  Professional/technical schools?  Liberal Arts schools?  Should churches or communities get together to finance and run schools, or should schools behave purely like corporations?
  Should students be pressured, encouraged, or forced into schools that fit them better (think of “vocational tests” in high school, or schools were you feel more comfortable because they share your values – or because they don’t share them)?
  Should the State demand quality in return for its financing?  Should it require mandatory testing, national standards, assessment and quality evaluation?  Should accreditation be run by the State or by voluntary associations of schools?  Should there be accreditation at all – can’t students figure out if a school is good by themselves?
• Discrimination and racial integration
  This is a very charged topic – affirmative action and economic efficiency, etc., etc..
  People of similar race (and socio-economic background) tend to hang out with each other.  Is this a good thing, because people figure out their identity by relating to others?  Is this a bad thing, because “there’s no such thing as society,” every one is an atom, an individual, who should be free to choose without cultural constraints (“no one to tell us no, or where to go”)?  Is this a bad thing, because it limits justice and opportunity?
  Should families and neighborhoods work hard to have friends of other racial backgrounds?  Should the State encourage / enforce integration?  Why not let the market – and its tendency towards efficient utilization of resources, no matter the color of their skin – do it naturally?
• Immigration and cultural integration
  Is a very “liberal” (i.e., unrestricting) policy towards immigration good for business profits?  For workers?  Which workers?  If there are winners and losers, should the winners compensate the losers?  How?
  Should the State encourage cultural integration?  If so, how?  If not, why not?  Is cultural integration desirable – isn’t it better for people to find meaning in their own cultural sphere?  If it is, should we just take a “hands-off” approach and let the melting pot do its own thing?  Should the State require civics instruction and ban non-English languages – or require bilingual education?  Should community organizations spring up to welcome and integrate immigrants?  Should they be supported by the State?
• The social responsibility of business towards shareholders, workers, customers, and the community
  Should companies give donations?  Should they try to take care of their workers’ families?  Should they maximize shareholder value?  Should they stay in a place because of what moving to another location would do to the local community (this is a really hot issue)?  Do they have any responsibility towards customers?  If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, who enforces it?  No one, and it depends on the niceness of the company?  Peer-pressure and shaming by peers?  The State?  By which means?  Fines, incentives, public reporting?
  Check out the Global Reporting Initiative at www.globalreporting.org. 
• Long-term investment in capital and economic development
  “[E]ven the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice. Given the utter necessity of certain economic conditions and of political stability, the decision to invest, that is, to offer people an opportunity to make good use of their own labor, is also determined by an attitude of human sympathy and trust in Providence, which reveal the human quality of the person making such decisions” John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 36
• The social responsibility of labor unions towards shareholders, non-union workers, customers, and the community
  How should the rights of workers be protected?  Why would some people argue that the market, by itself, guarantees the rights of workers?  Why would others argue that State regulation and legislation are necessary?  Why would communities such as labor unions be thought beneficial / necessary?
  Do labor unions have a right to strike?  What limits that right?  What should the role of the State be in regulating labor disputes?  In many countries, the Church ends up having a major role in arbitrating disputes because it is trusted.  Why would this work?  Which school of thought would predict that it would work?
  Should labor unions be able to limit their membership to certain groups?  Should they be able to require that only union members can work at a firm?  Should they lobby against immigration or international trade?
• Marketing and (truth-in-)advertising
  What is the effect of marketing, publicity, advertising, and propaganda on consumption?  Do ads create needs (do you really need a plasma TV)?  Do they just suggest ways of satisfying needs, maybe some very basic needs such as self-respect, belonging, or self-actualization (yes, but would your friends like you if you didn’t have a plasma TV)?
  Do businesses tell the truth about their products?  Why would they?  Why wouldn’t they?  If they wouldn’t, should the State have truth-in-advertising laws?  Should labeling be mandatory or voluntary?  What are arguments for either position?
• Consumption and consumer debt
  If people (families who buy homes, students who get credit cards) get into tremendous risks by getting into debt, should we do something?  If so, who?
• Safety, health, and insurance;
  Should we be required to have insurance for ourselves?  For third-party liability?  If not required, pressured?  Encouraged?  By the State?  By our friends, neighbors, relatives?
  Should safety belts be required?  Smoking banned?  Can peer pressure be more effective and less costly than legislation?  Wouldn’t it be desirable to get away from peer pressure, to live your life the way you choose to live it, even if it means taking lots of risks (maybe as long as no one else gets hurt)?
• Drug use, abuse, and trade
  What is the extent of drug use, abuse, and trade?  What are the policies in place?  Why do we have policies that ban the use and trade of certain drugs?
  Why do some people propose treating drug use and trade like the use and trade of tobacco or alcohol (i.e., they are personally opposed but see no reason for why the government should do anything about it)?  What are the arguments for government intervention in drug use and trade – from banning and regulation to just anti-drug educational campaigns?  What are the alternatives to permissiveness or punishment, either as complements or supplements?  Why is it thought that faith-based initiatives can deal better with drug use and trade?  Which school of thought would predict that they would work?
• Other possibilities:
  • Gun ownership and gun trade
  • Health care
  • Care for and support of the elderly
  • Unemployment (macro stabilization, unemployment insurance)
  • Crime prevention and punishment
  • Wages and work conditions (minimum wages, living wages, sweatshops, etc.)
  • Free trade, fair trade, outsourcing
  • Pollution / global warming
  • Promotion of cultural activity and sports

 If you choose a topic besides one of the ones above, the Issue must be an economic topic and it must be easy to study from all three perspectives.  (For some topics, a particular school might have very little to say – pick a topic that you can study from all three sides).  That is, as you look at a problem,

1. Can the market take care of this problem?
   Self-interest, profit motive, utility maximization; freedom, liberty; efficiency, growth.  Buying and selling, supply and demand, voluntary exchange, the price mechanism to determine who gets it and who doesn’t.
2. Can the government take care of this problem?
   Coordination problems, “what is individually optimal is often not socially optimal”, “what concerns all should be decided by all”, public goods and externalities.  Laws, regulations; fines, subsidies; public recognition, prosecution; educational campaigns in favor and against.
3. Can communities take care of this problem?
   Benevolence, altruism, a desire to do the right thing, to do your duty and live up to your responsibility.  Neighbors and family members; loss of privacy and gain of identity; cooperative action by agreement; gifts and reciprocity; peer pressure, moral suasion.

Submissions

Paper Proposal
Description of the Issue (1 page)
Description of the Issue and Policies (2 pages)
Ideological Reactions to the Issue (3 pages)
Expanded Ideological Reactions to the Issue (6 pages)
Final version of the Paper (11-12 pages)

Schedule of Topics:

This schedule is not meant to be fixed forever.  We will adjust it if we need to.

Introduction

Week 1, Day 1
                      Uchitelle, NYT: Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics
                      Leonhardt, NYT: Economic Advisors influence Presidential Candidates
                      The Commanding Heights: The Battle of Ideas

Distributive Justice and Economic Distribution

Week 1, Day 2         Aristotle, Selections from Book I of the Politics

Classical Liberalism

                                 John Locke, Selections from the Second Treatise of Government. (1690)

Conservatism

Week 2, Day 1         Edmond Burke, selections from Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
                                 An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791).

Marxism and Socialism

Week 2, Day 2         Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. (1848)
                                                      Paper Proposal

Left-Liberalism

Week 3, Day 1         Henry George, “The Injustice of Private Property in Land,” ch. 26 of Progress and Poverty. (1879)

Liberalism and its Critics

Week 3, Day 2         John Rawls, "The Right and the Good Contrasted," Liberalism and its Critics, pp. 37-59. (1971)
Week 4, Day 1         Robert Nozick, "Moral Constraints and Distributive Justice," Liberalism and its Critics, pp. 100-122 (1977)
Week 4, Day 2         Alasdair MacIntyre, "The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition,"
                                   Liberalism and its Critics, 125-148. (1984)
                                                      Description of the Issue (1 page)
Week 5, Day 1         Michael Oakeshott, "Political Education," Liberalism and its Critics, 219-238. (1956)
Week 5, Day 2         Michael Walzer, "Welfare, Membership, and Need," Liberalism and its Critics, pp. 200-218. (1983)
                           QUIZ 1
Week 6, Day 1         Michael D. Yates, "Can the Working Class Change the World?," Monthly Review, March 2004.

Freedom, Justice, Civility

Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Week 6, Day 2         I         The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom
                                 II         The Role of Government in a Free Society
                                                      Description of the Issue and Policies (2 pages)

Arthur Okun - Equality and Effficiency (1975)

Week 7, Day 1         1         Rights and Dollars
                                 2         The Case for the Market
Week 7, Day 2         3         Equality of Income and Opportunity
                                 4         Increasing Equality in an Efficient Economy

Civil Society (Communitarianism): Classic Essays

Week 8, Day 1         1         The Meaning, Origins, and Applications of Civil Society
                                 2         "The Quest for Community": A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom
Week 8, Day 2         3         Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation
                                 4         The Good Society: We Live through Our Institutions
                           QUIZ 2

Markets, the State, Communities

Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Week 9, Day 1         VI           The Role of Government in Education
                                 VII          Capitalism and Discrimination
Week 9, Day 2         VIII         Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor
                                 IX         Occupational Licensure
                           Ideological Reactions to the Issue (3 pages)

Robert Reich - I'll Be Short

Week 10, Day                      Preface
                                 1           Whatever Happened to the Social Contract?
                                 2           Corporate Citizenship
                                 3           Work That Pays, Insurance if It Doesn't
Week 10, Day 2       Break - no class
Week 11, Day 1       4           Lifelong Learning: Education for the Twenty-first Century
                                 5           The Day I Became a Feminist: Real Family Values
                                 6           The Long View: A Decent Working Society

Civil Society (Communitarianism): Classic Essays

Week 11, Day 2       8          To Empower People: From State to Civil Society
                                 9          Professionalized Services: Disabling Help for Communities
Week 12, Day 1       10         Culture, Incentives, and the Underclass
                                 11         The Urban Church: Faith, Outreach, and the Inner-City Poor
Week 12, Day 2       12         The Lost City: The Case for Social Authority
                                 13         Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom (1962)

Week 13, Day 1        X          The Distribution of Income
                                 XI          Social Welfare Measures
                                 XII          Alleviation of Poverty
                                 XIII         Conclusion
                           Expanded Ideological Reactions to the Issue (6 pages)
Week 13, Day 2         Thanksgiving Break

White and Green Conservatism

Week 14, Day 1         Hochschild, Joshua. The Principle of Subsidiarity and the Agrarian Ideal
                           QUIZ 3
Week 14, Day 2         E. F. Schumacher. Towards a Theory of Large-Scale Organization, Small is Beautiful, pp. 257-270

Neo-Marxism and Socialism

Week 15, Day 1         Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis,
                                  “Efficient Redistribution: New Rules for Markets, States, and Communities,”
                                   Politics and Society 24 (December, 1996): 307-317
Week 15, Day 2         Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis,
                                   “Efficient Redistribution: New Rules for Markets, States, and Communities,”
                                   Politics and Society 24 (December, 1996): 317-343.
                           Final version of the Paper  (11-12 pages)

Discussion Questions for the Readings

Aristotle's Politics

According to Aristotle, who makes economic decisions (that is, decisions over the acquisition, distribution, and use of material goods and services)? For Aristotle, what is the purpose of accumulating wealth?  What sets a limit to the accumulation of wealth?
For Aristotle, what is the most important instrument for production?  How does this instrument come into existence?
Would Aristotle be an egalitarian?  Would he support a more or less equal distribution of resources and incomes across people in a society?  How would he justify his ideas about the distribution of resources?

Locke's Treatise on Government

What does Locke mean by property?  In what way are these three elements related?
How is the right to individual property possible, if God gave the world to all humans to hold in common?
What limits my ability to acquire property? 
What role does the rest of society have in the way that I acquire or dispose of my property?  What role does government have?  What responsibilities regarding my property do I have towards the rest of society?

Burke's Reflections and Appeal

For Burke, how does civil society come about?  What is the nature of the social contract?  What is its purpose and the purpose of government?
What is the role of the will of the people for Burke?  (Hint: how does this help us understand Lincoln’s attack on the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the Lincoln-Douglas debates?)  To what do people have a right?
What principles should guide the establishment and the reform of the political system?
For Burke, how should decisions (including economic decisions, by the State and by families) be made?  Who should make them?  According to what principles?

Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto

Why do Marx and Engels believe the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat will have a different result from all previous class struggles in recorded history?
Why do Marx and Engels claim that the bourgeoisie inevitably produces its own gravediggers?
What do Marx and Engels mean when they describe the proletariat as a revolutionary class?
What do Marx and Engels mean when they say that capital has individuality but living persons do not? Is this true of members of the bourgeoisie as well as the proletariat?
Why does a manifesto of the Communist party place such strong emphasis on the remarkable achievements of bourgeois capitalism?
Why do Marx and Engels assume there is a strong affinity between the grievances of the workers and the aims of Communism?
What gives Communists an advantage over the proletariat in understanding the conditions, direction, and general results of the proletarian movement?
What evidence do Marx and Engels give for their claim that human consciousness—ideas, views, and conceptions—changes with every change in material existence?
Why do Marx and Engels insist that the abolition of private property is central to revolutionary change?
If one of the early stages of the proletarian revolution is a despotism of the working class, as Marx and Engels assert, what assures that this order will give way to a free, classless society?
Why do Marx and Engels reject the possibility that existing social and political systems can be reformed?
In part 3 of the Manifesto, why do Marx and Engels advocate supporting the bourgeoisie in Germany when it acts in a revolutionary way, instead of advocating direct support of the proletariat in its class struggle

For Further Reflection
 
Is it possible to define human needs, values, and goals outside the material conditions of a society?
How could a historical process, governed not by ideals but by the clash of materially contending interests ("the class struggle"), lead to a morally desirable result?

Henry George's The Injustice of Private Property in Land

Spell out how H. George uses the Lockean argument for private property to argue against private property in land.
How does H. George suggest that we can “reconcile the stability of tenure, required for improvement, with a full and complete recognition of the equal rights of all to the use of land”? What does this imply, in practical terms?

John Rawls’ The Right and the Good Contrasted

What does Rawls mean by “the original position”? How does he use the original position in the argument?
For Rawls, what are the two principles of justice that a rational person would choose in the original position? What justifies them? How do they work?
Suppose you were going to organize the economic and political system of the US according to these two principles.  What features of the US would you retain?  What features would you change?

For Further Reflection
 
Why does he disqualify moral worth from being a criterion for distributing goods? What does he mean by moral worth?
What are the three ways in which the right and the good are different in the contract view? What is the basis for these differences between right and good?
Rawls argues that the right has priority over the good in contract theory. Why does he think that this rules out intolerance? Why does he think that focusing on the good would lead to violations of liberty and other values held by common-sense opinion?
What philosophical school of thought is his main example of giving priority of good over right? Why does he say that this school of thought is, contrary to appearances, very anti-individualistic?

Robert Nozick’ Moral Constraints and Distributive Justice

What’s wrong, according to Nozick, with the term “Distributive Justice”?
According to Nozick, “a distribution is just if …”
What does it mean to say that entitlement theory is unpatterned?  Give examples of patterned conceptions of distributive justice.
How does liberty upset patterns?  What kind of pattern is upset by Wilt Chamberlain's popularity?  What do we have to do to prevent that disturbance?
Suppose you were going to organize the economic and political system of the US according to Entitlement Theory.  What features of the US would you retain?  What features would you change?

For Further Reflection
 
Why does Nozick say that a “side constraint” is more in accord with a Kantian principle of people being ends and not merely means?
What does it mean to say that entitlement theory is historical?  How does entitlement theory differ from “end-state” principles?

Alasdair McIntyre's The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition

McIntyre says that answering the question "what should I do" depends on answering the question "of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"  If that is so, how does one go about answering the question "how much should I have?"  "how much should I give to others?"  "what different quantities and qualities of goods and services should different people get?

Before answering that question, answer these:
 
Why does he argue that we are part of a story?  Or, rather, in what ways are our lives like literature?  How does he use Kafka as a counterexample?
In what ways is the story of our own making?  In what ways is it not?  How do teleology (the fact that our stories have a point) and unpredictability interact?  What implication do these two considerations have for human freedom, dignity, and identity?
"What is good for me has to be good for one who inhabits these roles."  Compare and contrast that statement with Rawls (original position, veil of ignorance, equal liberty, only the inequalities that improve everyone's welfare) and with Nozick (entitlement theory is historical and unpatterned, "from each as they choose, to each as they are chosen").  They differ in pretty fundamental ways, but there is also quite a bit of overlap and agreement.
The story, when it comes down to it, is a tradition.  How does he define tradition?  What is a healthy tradition for McIntyre?  How does he reconcile the stability of tradition with conflict and with reason? 
What characterizes the virtue of having "an adequate sense of tradition"?  How does that make the traditionalist to be open to change?
Explain what he means by "there may be better of worse ways for individuals to live through the tragic confrontation of good with the good?"  If one good thing is in confrontation with another good thing, is there such a thing as the right way?

Michael Oakeshott's Political Education

What do you think Oakeshott would say about Rawls's or Nozick's ideas?

Before answering that question, answer these:
 
What is wrong with purely empirical political activity (including economic policy)?  He says that it is "impossible."  Why?
What is wrong with doing politics (including economic policy) by following an abstract ideology?
Explain: "This [political] activity, then, springs neither from instant desires, nor from general principles, but from the existing traditions of behaviour themselves."
What does Oakeshott mean by saying that "knowledge of it [of the tradition] is unavoidably knowledge of detail." 
How should the academic study of politics be conducted?  What is society's "legend" of politics and why must it be learned?  What does Oakeshott exclude when he says that our institutions are the footprints of our thinkers?

Michael Walzer's Welfare, Membership, and Need

Explain the three principles he puts forth: political communities need to be concerned with the needs of their members; goods must be distributed in proportion to need; and the distribution must reflect equality of membership. 
Explain: "If all states are in principle welfare states, democracies are most likely to be welfare states in practice."

Michael Yates's Can the Working Class Change the World?

Milton Friedman's The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom and The Role of Government in a Free Society

Required
In what ways does political freedom depend on economic freedom?  Explain why he thinks that a country with a socialist economy, but which values pluralism of opinion and expression, cannot work.
Why is it so important that individuals be effectively free to enter or not enter into a particular exchange?
On page 25 Friedman lists (twice) the three basic roles of government, which are roles that the market cannot perform by itself.  Explain them.
What do pollution and general access roads have in common?  Why does this make collective action (usually through the government) necessary?
Recommended
Why does Friedman think that economic freedom is an end in itself?
What does a (classical) liberal, in Friedman's sense, say about individual ethics and what the individual does with his freedom?
"The basic problem of social organization is ..." 
Why would the believer in liberty be challenged by the fact of human interdependence and the principle of individual freedom?  Why would there be a conflict between the two?
Explain, in great detail, how voluntary cooperation through the marketplace solves the problem of coordinating large numbers of people. 
Notice how this passage "[the market] gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want" is like Rawls, who of course argues for a different set of social arrangements, but who also believes that "the good" (moral merit, utility, etc.) should not be a part of our consideration.
 
In the first paragraph of chapter 2, Friedman makes fun of the idea that "the end does not justify the means", which usually means that a good end cannot justify bad means, but which he takes to mean that if you take morally neutral means (say, a knife), its moral value is determined by the end to which you use it (to slice bread or to slice a throat).  But it's nice of him to not let himself be carried away by making fun of others, and rather take the objection seriously.
"...the more basic end of the use of acceptable means."  Notice how close this is to Nozick's (more precise) description of the right means a side constraint that cannot be violated.
Political decision-making requires conformity, market-based decision-making encourages diversity.  How so?  Why do political mechanisms, which encourage conformity "stress social cohesion."
Friedman thinks that government is necessary in three kinds of situation: to prevent physical coercion and enforce contracts, in cases of ... and in cases of ... .
Although he thinks that, in the case of monopoly, reasonable people will come to different conclusions, what is his argument for keeping monopolies private and unregulated?  How does his argument rely on the dynamism of the economy?
Why is it "hard to know when neighborhood effects are sufficiently large to justify particular costs in overcoming them"?
"Paternalism" is a description of the state acting like a parent (to children or the mentally deficient).  Why would this be troublesome for the liberal?  (Hint: "Father knows best" implies that there is such a thing as a "best".  "Daddy is doing this for your own good" means that there is such a thing as "good".)
Use the Conclusion to put in your mind what Friedman thinks government should do in a liberal society.  Look at his 14 examples of inappropriate government intervention.  Why does he think these interventions are inappropriate?  What typically justifies these interventions (for example, Social Security or professional licensing), and why do you think he'd deem these justifications to be inappropriate?

Arthur Okuns's Rights and Dollars and The Case for the Market

"There are some things that money can't buy."  Do you agree with Okun's list of things that money shouldn't buy?  What would you take off that list (that is, what are some things that Okun declares to be off-limits but which you think should be bought and sold)?  What would you add to the list of areas that are off-limits to the market?
Reproduce, in a couple paragraphs, Okun's argument for why capitalism might not be ethical, but it is more efficient than the alternative.
Arthur Okuns's Equality of Income and Opportunity and Increasing Equality in an Efficient Economy
Is inequality of opportunity something that we (as a society) should try to remedy?  Should the government be involved in ameliorating inequality of opportunity?  Should this be the job of other organizations/institutions (i.e., private charity, churches)?
Some policies for redressing opportunity-inequality that are particularly inefficient (they waste much more than they help); others are rather efficient (the cost of administering the program and the cost of the changed incentives are relatively small compared to the improvement in welfare).  Give one example of each, trying to explain how they are working today (not in Okun's time).

Eberly's Introduction: Meaning, Origin, and Applications of Civil Society

Define "civil society".  Describe some of the functions of civil society.
Nisbet's Quest for Community
What is the main cause of the weakening of the family (and neighborhood and church) according to Nisbet?  What is the main (bad) consequence of the weakening of these ties?

Wolfe's Whose Keeper?  Social Science and Moral Obligation

Wolfe says that the state and the market have a similar logic, and therefore lead to similar results.  In what way does reliance in state or market weaken our sense of moral obligation?
 
In the second paragraph of page 59 and on page 60, Wolfe lists a number of issues that he says neither state nor market can satisfactorily solve: obligations between the young and the old; mothers' choice to work at home or in a job; parks versus growth; charity that crowds out needed government programs; inefficient farms versus distressed farmers; paying/cheating on taxes; unemployment and dependency; business relocation and outsourcing; culture; pollution; drug trade; the military.

How would an approach that relies on civil society deal with these issues?  Pick ONE example and explain.
 
In pages 66-67 Wolfe points out that the "old" civil society of tight-knit families and local communities not only is dead, but also quite ambiguous (domestic abuse, racial segregation, xenophobia).  Do you agree with his proposed solution of a replacement for who will instill moral obligation in us?
Bellah's The Good Society: We Live through our Institutions
What is the "politics of generativity" of which Bellah speaks?

Friedman on Education and Discrimination

Describe the externality (neighborhood effect) of education and how it justifies government financing of education.  Why is it fine to subsidize elementary schools or liberal arts colleges, but it is not fine to subsidize professional programs such as business or medical schools (hint: human capital accumulation)?
What is the argument behind "vouchers" for schools?  How would de-nationalizing (i.e., eliminating public schools and just handing money to private schools to educate everyone) tend to increase equality of opportunity?  What are some of the consequences of public schools having so little competition?
Friedman mentions a particular method of financing professional education that looks like "partial slavery", and that although economically efficient seems repugnant.  What is this method?  Explain how he defends his proposed solution.

Why does Friedman say that minorities and oppressed groups should be really, really in favor of the free market?
Why are anti-discrimination laws so bad for freedom?  Why are "right-to-work" and "yellow-dog" laws bad for freedom?  Why does he argue that the free market would be so much more effective than laws at fixing the problems that laws attempt to fix?

Friedman on Monopoly, Social Responsibility, and Occupational Licensure

Why does Friedman think that monopoly is damaging, but less damaging than commonly thought?  Why does he think the main problems from monopoly come from inappropriate government intervention?
What is business's (and labor's) social responsibility, according to him?  Why does he hate the common way we use the term?
What is so wrong with requiring doctors and lawyers to pass a test before they are allowed to practice?  How would we identify good or bad lawyers and doctors without licensure? 
What are the reasons that Friedman gives for why many professions have licensure requirements?

Reich on the Social Contract, Corporate Governance, and Work

In chapter 1 (which is full of Rawls overtones), Reich lays out what he think is the ages-old American "Social Contract".  What are the 3 "provisions" of this contract?  Do you agree that these provisions are as American as apple pie?  Why or why not?
In chapter 2, Reich lays out 5 things that businesses can do to be better corporate citizens.  List these 5 proposals for corporations.  Do you think that businesses indeed have that responsibility?  What do you think would take to get businesses to implement these ideas?
In chapter 3, Reich lists some 5 proposals that would "make work pay", that would increase the incomes of wage-earners, lifting them out of poverty.  List them.  For some of these, he also lists downsides to be avoided: what are these downsides?
Also in chapter 3, Reich gives the rationale for a comprehensive social insurance system.  He also mentions some of the problems with the existing social insurance system.  Explain the rationale and the problems.

Reich on Education, Economic Security, and Long-Term Economic Policy

In what ways do standardized tests increase inequality?  How does competition between universities for students contribute to inequality?
In chapter 5, Reich is making a polemical, political point.  Try not to get distracted by his anger about whether the words "family values" are correctly used.  His point is that stable families require economic security, and that economic security is denied by discrimination and inequality of opportunity.
Consider his lists of "do's" and "don'ts" in pages 101 and 105.  How would following Reich's recommendations contribute to strengthen families?  To reduce the incidence of divorce, out-of-wedlock birth, abortion, and domestic violence?
Why does he say that a high-productivity strategy for countries is "consistent with a decent working society"?  What would contribute towards making a society to a highly productive one?

Berger and Neuhaus on Mediating Structures

In page147, Berger and Neuhaus outline the three principles that they attempt to advance in this essay.  What are these three principles?  Explain them, and also explain how they are distinct from one another.  Finally, describe how they apply these three principles to education, child care, and care for the handicapped.

McKnight on Professionalized Services

In what ways does McKnight's argument support Berger/Neuhaus?

Wilson and DiIulio on Community and Poverty

Wilson says that although (external) incentives and (internal) habits probably cause each other over a lifetime or over generations, at any given point in time, a policy that is meant to address a problem can either focus on changing external incentives or internal habits.
He points out that although changing incentives can explain a great proportion of the variation in crime rates among groups, they cannot explain all of the variation.  What are the two personal characteristics (which are habits) that he finds are correlated with criminality?
Recount Wilson's description of the evidence of how broken families result in more anti-social behavior.
Wilson's primary interest is in public policy, some large-scale effort devoted to personal, individual redemption.  He finds that the effect of public policy depends positively on the intrusiveness and the length of the intervention.  Strong families are very intrusive, intense, and intervene on a person's character for a long time.  Is he suggesting that public policy should focus into turning boarding schools into surrogate families for kids without strong families?  Explain.
In what ways does Wilson suggest strengthening families and voluntary associations?  In what ways does he suggest using families and voluntary associations to achieve public ends?
Why are inner-city blacks particularly in need of the kinds of help that religious volunteers can offer?  Why are religious volunteers particularly good at offering that kind of help?  (Read all of DiIulio's piece and think hard about what all that information implies for these two questions).

Ehrenhalt and Fukuyama on Authority and Trust

In many of our Civil Society readings, Government was the enemy. But, for Ehrenhalt, as for the social critics of the 50s, the market is the enemy. Discuss the ways in which the market has disrupted relationships and the order for which people long.
Although sometimes that order was brought about by an authority (principal, priest, policeman), sometimes that order was/is spontaneous, a result of people's natural sociability, their habits of trust and regularity, and all sorts of social pressures to conform and keep the status quo. Discuss how habitual order, spontaneous sociability, and trust contribute to a well-functioning market, rather than being opposed.
Authority and trust can strengthen each other (as Ehrenhalt suggests) but authority can also destroy spontaneous trust, as Fukuyama suggests. Discuss.
Do you think people would be happier if they had to make fewer choices, if more was decided for them by authority, tradition, or lack of alternative products? Would you be happier if you didn't have to stress over choices ... because everything is predetermined?

Friedman on Poverty and Income Distribution

What is the capitalist principle that Friedman finds "cannot in and of itself be regarded as an ethical principle"?  What is the major instrumental role in the market place of distribution "in accordance with product"?  What are the beneficial roles played by inequality?
Give a few examples of government policy actually end up achieving an end exactly opposite to what was desired (in terms of redistributive tax schemes or poverty alleviation measures).  If those government policies have unintended effects, why were they put in place?  Why are they kept in place?
Discuss the "negative income tax" proposal, its pros and its cons.
Describe the difference between a liberal and an egalitarian.
The conclusion is a splendid summary: study it carefully.

Hochschild on the Agrarian Ideal

Under the principle of subsidiarity, what obligations do "lower-level" associations have?
What is the place of the individual in the principle of subsidiarity?  Why is subsidiarity not individualistic?  (Look at the comparison between Thoreau and Randolph)
In what way has technological progress contributed to the violation of the principle of subsidiarity?
Describe the connection between the principle of subsidiarity and the "agrarian type."

Schumacher on Large Scale Organizations

Describe Schumacher's interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity.
Describe the principles of vindication, of identification, of motivation, and of the middle axiom.
Schumacher worked for a long time as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades.  From his experience and from the systematic way in which he sets them out, one can hope that his theoretical ideas can have immediate, practical application.  Consider two of the "five principles" and how they can be directly applied to improve our course.

Bowles and Gintis on Efficient Redistribution

Why do Bowles and Gintis think that it is essential for egalitarian proposals to be productivity-enhancing?  Why don't they accept Okun's equality-efficiency tradeoff?
How does inequality weaken trust and increase transaction costs?
Describe the sources of "equality-productivity complementarity".
Describe the "prejudices" that Bowles and Gintis identify as standing in the way of the "necessary reconstruction of political economy."
They imply that greater reliance on communities would reduce transaction costs and make their proposal of asset-redistribution more viable. How so?
List Bowles and Gintis' 3 "major claims".
Bowles and Gintis propose relocating ownership and residual claimancy from capitalists to workers.  How does this solve the problems of conflict of interest (workers are paid to work but they would rather work less) and asymmetric information (monitoring work effort takes resources).
How does the combination of redistribution with insurace actually promote risk-taking?