Lehrman American Studies Center

Purpose of Seminar

This seminar examines several central conversations spanning four centuries on the theoretical and practical relationship between economics and politics. Each conversation addresses an important crisis and participants articulate the problems and recommend the solutions in their own words.   There is as strong ethical and intellectual component to this inquiry. The first conversation is between John Locke, writing in the seventeenth century, and J.J. Rousseau, writing in the mid eighteenth century. This conversation concerns the original human condition, the purpose of government, the right to acquire private property, and the status of democratic government. The second occurs between the contemporary reader and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, often considered the first complete statement in political economy. In the process, we will look at Smith’s critique of the Mercantilists and the Physiocrats. This conversation culminates in a consideration of a) the authors of The Federalist as they interpret the Lockean principles and Smithean perspective on economic liberty and limited government, and b) Tocqueville’s attempt to join the spirit of commerce and the spirit of religion. The third conversation is between Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill as they criticize and defend, respectively, capitalistic democracy and human freedom from historicist and utilitarian perspectives. Finally, we examine the twentieth-century conversations between John Kenneth Galbraith, Michael Harrington, F. A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman over the public sector, community responsibility, free markets, and political and economic collectivism. And we do so, in light of the cutting edge conversation between Hoover and FDR.

 

Course Requirements

1.         Attendance and Participation: 50%.

I want you in the course very much and I hope, and expect, that you are similarly inclined. Participation is central to a seminar grounded in conversation. And this Seminar is really grounded in conversation.

 

2.         Research Presentation and Research Paper: 50%

Each participant shall choose a topic--cleared with me by the 9th of November--that addresses the issue of public policy and political economy as informed by the original literature covered in class. I will give topic “hints” in every class, and I urge you to start early. The paper should be 14-16 pages in length, and conform to standards--margins, footnotes, bibliography, etc.--appropriate for submission to a professional journal. The deadline for submission is 5 pm on Monday, December 7, 2009.  Be sure to proofread and spell-check your work.  Please submit your paper as an email attachment to glloyd@pepperdine.edu.

 

3.         Required Reading Available for Purchase

Adam Smith                             Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund)

Robert Tucker                          Marx-Engels Reader (Norton)

F.A. Hayek                              The Road to Serfdom (University of Chicago)

Milton Friedman                       Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago)

Michael Harrington                   The Other America (Pelican)

John Kenneth Galbraith The Affluent Society (Mariner Books))

Gordon Lloyd                           The Two Faces of Liberalism (Scrivener)

Gordon Lloyd                           “Readings in Political Economy” (Manuscript)

 

Weekly Schedule

Week 1:           Introduction to Political Economy: Where do we begin?

 

The Seventeenth Century-Early Eighteenth Century Conversation

Week 2:           Locke’s Second Treatise: Natural rights and the origin of private property.

                                    Readings in Political Economy.

Rousseau’s Two Discourses: Private property as theft. 

Readings in Political Economy.

 

The Eighteenth Century Conversation

Week 3:           Smith’s Wealth of Nations Book I: “The System of Natural Liberty.” Chs 1-10.

                                    Readings in Political Economy.

Week 4:           Smith’s Wealth of Nations: The Question of “Human Liberty.” Book III, Book IV: Chs. 1, 2, 7, 8, and 9. Readings in Political Economy.

                        Smith’s Invisible Hand in Theory of Moral Sentiments. Readings in Political Economy.              

Week 5:           Smith’s Wealth of Nations Book V: Ch. 1: The Government and Liberty. Readings in Political Economy.

Week 6:           Self Interest and Virtue

The Federalist, 1, 9, 10, 35, 37, 51, 55, 63, and 71: The Commercial Republic. 

The Declaration and the Constitution: Economic Compatibility?

Readings in Political Economy.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America Volume 2, Part 2

“Self Interest Rightly Understood.” Readings in Political Economy.

 

 

The Nineteenth Century Conversation

Week 7:           Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and The Communist

                                    Manifesto.

Week 8:           Marx’s Capital (Selections) and Engels’s Socialism, Utopian and Scientific

Week 9:           Mill’s Principles Of Political Economy 

See Readingsin Political Economy

Week 10:         Mill’s On Liberty and On The Subjection of Women 

See Readings in Political Economy

 

The Twentieth Century Conversation

Week 11                      The Hoover and FDR Legacy

Week 12                      Research Week

Week 13:                    Hayek’s Road To Serfdom and Galbraith’s Affluent Society.

Week 14:                     Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom and Harrington’s The Other America.

Week 15                      Final Research Paper Submission