17.100
Field Seminar in Political Economy
Examines broad range of topics — such as social classes, states, interest groups, inequality welfare states, comparative capitalism, race, and gender — from both classical (Marx and Weber) and contemporary theorists. Limited to 12; preference to Course 17 PhD students.
Spring 2016 · Political Economy I
Topics
- Introduction: Paradigms and Social Science
- Theories of the Liberal State and Politics
- Neo-classical Theories of the Economy
- Liberal and Neo-classical Approaches
- The Keynesian Revolution
- Marxist Politics
- Marxist Economics and Value Theory
- Sociological Theories of Capitalism (I)
- Sociological Theories of Capitalism (II)
- Sociological Theories of Capitalism (III)
- Crisis and Capitalism
- Institutionalism
Readings
- SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction: Paradigms and Social Science · READINGS: Kuhn, Thomas. Structure of Scientific Revolutions . University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226458083.
- Locke, John. Chapters 1–5 and 7–9 in Second Treatise on Civil Government. The Editorium, 2010. ISBN: 9781434103055.
- Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty . Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780192810342.
- Becker, Gary. Chapters 1, 8, 12, and 13 in The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. University of Chicago Press, 1990.
- Olson, Mancur. Chapters 1–4 in The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups . Harvard University Press, 1971. ISBN: 9780674537514.
- Hayek, Frederich. Chapters 1, 2, 4, and 5 in Individualism and Economic Order . University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226320939.
- Keynes, John Maynard. “The Great Slump of 1930,” “Economy,” and “The End of Laissez-Faire.” In Essays in Persuasion . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2009. ISBN: 9781441492265.
- Gramsci, Antonio. Selections From the Prison Notebooks . Edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. International Publishers Company, 1971, pp. 1–276. ISBN: 9780717803972.
- Rubin, I. I. Introduction and chapters 1, 8, and 18 in Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value . Black Rose Books, 1973. ISBN: 9780919618183.
- 9 · Sociological Theories of Capitalism (II) · Polanyi, Karl. Chapters 3–14 in The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time . Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807056431. Except chapters go from 1–14.
- 10 · Sociological Theories of Capitalism (III) · Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. “Conclusion: The Force of Critique.” In The New Spirit of Capitalism . Verso, 2007, pp. 485–524. ISBN: 9781844671656.
- Review relevant passages from Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Capital . Review Keynes.
- Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy . Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008, pp. 81–163. ISBN: 9780061561610.
- Akerlof, George A., and Robert J. Shiller. Preface and chapters 1–4, 6, and 7 in Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism . Princeton University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780691145921.
- Rajan, Raghuram. “Let Them Eat Credit.” In Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy . Princeton University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780691152639.
- Hall, Peter, and David Soskice. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage . Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 1–68. ISBN: 9780199247752.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Fall) 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2016
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.