This section deals with the those who reacted to the brutality and misery engendered by 18th and 19th Century capitalism and tried to imagine more attractive alternatives. Some of those imagined what today are often called marginal reforms, others imagined such radical changes in social arrangements that they hardly seemed compatable with basic capitalist institutions.
So, you should be familiar with who these people were (the background that stimulated their imaginations), how Heilbronner dealt with them, what they wrote and proposed, and what I have said about these things.
For example, you should be able to answer questions such as these:
What were Robert Owen's major objections to the organization of British manufacturing in his day? In terms of people's attitudes? In terms of the effects on workers? How did he set about correcting them? Be precise.
On the basis of his own experiments in the factories and communities that he controlled, how did Owen imagine the reconstruction of the world?
What did Owens believe was the major cause of unemployment in England? What policies did he propose to the government to deal with this problem? Of what did he warn if they failed to take adequate measures?
How did the "labor movement" respond to Owen's ideas and how did he respond to them?
What of Owen's legacy still lives?
How, in the wake of his experiences in the French Revolution, did Saint-Simon think the world should be reorganized? Who should lead? And how should others behave vis a vis the leaders?
How did Saint-Simon incorporate religion into his scheme of social reform? Where did he get such ideas?
Is it legitimate to characterize Saint-Simon as a racist? If so why? If not why not?
What was Saint-Simon's belief as to the natural propensity of human beings toward work? Did he believe humans could be accurately characterized as homo faber? What then were the alternatives open to individuals and how should the government act in this regard? How do his proposals compare with those of Adam Smith? Owens?
How did Saint-Simon propose to re-craft Christianity? On the basis of what understanding of the intentions of God for humankind?
For example, you should be able to answer questions such as these:
Why did Marx think that Smith and Ricardo had been correct to settle on a "labor theory of value"? In what way were his reasons similar to theirs and in what ways different?
While he embraced a work-based society, Adam Smith was also aware of how work within in the modern division of labor of manufacturing could have negative effects on workers. Did Marx agree with Smith's analysis of those effects? How did his own analysis of alienation go beyond Smith? What were the four kinds of alienation that Marx analyzed? What were the implications of that analysis for the characteristics of pos-capitalist, un-alienated labor?
Describe Marx's analysis of the success of capitalists in imposing ever more work in their period of their rise to social dominance. What was his explanation for how they lost the initiative and were thown on the defensive by the working class? For how long did that balance of power last? What is the current situation?
In Marx's labor theory of value, he speaks of "abstract labor." What justifies such a concept that "abstracts" from the peculiarity of concrete labor?
What key role does Marx's concept of the value of "labor power" play in his theory of profit (surplus value)? How does this concept differentiate him from the classical economists? What is the "use-value" of labor power for the capitalist class? For workers?
How does Marx define "surplus value"? What did he think were the primary capitalist strategies for getting more of it? What were their primary motivations for such efforts?
How does Marx's theory of "relative surplus value" differentiate his theory of technological change and unemployment from Owen's?
In what sense, and to what degree, did Marx share Malthus' "underconsumptionist" theory of economic downturns/crises?
How did Marx reason that the shifting market forces during a period of rapid accumulation could shift the balance of class power so in favor of the working class as to precipitate a crisis for capital? How would the capitalist response tend to throw the crisis back on workers and create a solution for the capitalists? Given the historical successes of capitalists in thus reversing the crisis, did Marx think workers efforts during the upswing were futile? If so why? If not why not?
In the pursuit of a relative surplus value strategy, capital introduces new technology to raise productivity. What kinds of qualitative change does it also seek? How do the employment consequences of labor displacing technological change tend to undermine the basic structure of the capitalist social order?
How does Marx derive a "tendency for the rate of profit to fall" from his definitions of profit and technological change in value terms? Why does Paul Sweezy argue that this "tendency" is in actual fact indeterminate, and how have I argued against his interpretation?
For the classical economists the long-run outlook for capitalist society was bleak, not only would profits tend to fall, but accumulation would tend to stagnate. Where did Marx find hope for transcendence within the dynamics of accumulation and crisis? Who would be the "gravediggers" of capitalism and why would they bother?
For example, you should be able to answer questions such as these:
Hobson's theory of imperialism is directly derived from his (and Mummery's) theory of economic crisis. Explain his crisis theory and how he uses it to found his theory of imperialism.
Given this theory, how inevitable did Hobson think imperialism was? Did he see any way to avoid it? If so, how?
Lenin drew on Hobson's work but reformulated it in Marxist terms and sought to add to it. What did he add, and how did his his position on the avoidability of imperialism differ from Hobson?
Unlike Hobson, Lenin eventually found himself in a position to directly shape government policies vis a vis imperialism. How would you judge his "theory" in the light of his "practice"?
You should be able to answer questions such as the following:
What did Beccaria and Bentham have in common in terms of their education and preoccupations? Who built on the work of the other?
Explain Beccaria's view of the right of the state to punish and his approach to calculating the appropriateness of punishments to particular crimes. What characteristics did Beccaria think punishments should have in order to be effective?
Who wrote the following: "The punishment of death is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creations, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible as this punishment is usually attended with formal pagenantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?"?
How does Bentham define "utility" and what is his "principle of utility"? Is Bentham's utility that of the individual, or of the community, or of both and if of both then what is the relationship between the two?
In Chapter IV of his Introduction to the Principles..., Bentham spells out his ideas about what must be involved in measuring utility. What "circumstances" or dimensions must be taken into account, according to him in order accurately assess the amount of utility to be associated with a given act? Once these are taken into account, how does he suggest one should calculate in order to judge the worthiness of a proposed action?
Ignoring the whole discussion of pain, pleasure and utility, Augustin Cournot offered a mathematical formulation of the demand curve: D = F(p). What was his rationale for this formulation and what assumptions did he have to make in order to specifiy a curve of the usual shape (downward sloping to the right and convex to the origin)?
Utilizing, rather than ignoring, Bentham's concept of utility, William Stanley Jevons gave mathematical form first to the relation between consumption and utility and then, from there, hewould move to Cournot's downward sloping demand function although he would not be able to formally derive it. Given that Jevon's treatment was eminently quantitative, just how much of Bentham's determinants of the "measure" of utility did Jevons take over?
What does Jevons consider to be "the most important law of the whole theory" of the relation between consumption and utility?
What does Jevons mean by "the degree of utility" and by the "final degree of utility"? What are the contemporary counterpart expressions in microeconomics? To what "general law" does Jevons think these considerations give rise?
How does Jevons's approach to this mathematical formulation lead him to the concepts of "disutility" and "discommodity", and what does he mean by these?
The first use to which Jevons puts his theory is in the analysis of the logic to be employed in the allocation of commodities to various uses. What might be seen as the implications of this analysis for the distribution of wealth in society?
Jevons' utility theory is said to be "cardinal." What does that mean? And how does it imply the existence of interpersonal comparisons? What controversial political-economic conclusions did some draw from this kind of theory?
In 1866 Jevons gave a lecture to school teachers on the importance of an understanding of political economy for workers to avoid "evil". What was the greatest evil that Jevons feared might follow from workers' actions? What did he think was the best way to educate workers in the principles of political economy?
Under what conditions did Jevons, and Marshall, believe it was reasonable for workers to fight for, and win, higher wages? Were they speaking of money or real wages? Of time-wages or task-wages? How did their position constitute a break from the positions of the classical economists we have examined?
What was the "Wages-fund" doctrine and how did Marshall's notion of a "wages and profits fund" solve the limitations he saw in the wages-fund doctrine?
How did Marshall think workers might achieve shorter working hours without harming undermining capitalist profits, growth and the demand for their labor?
With respect to trades unions, what kinds of issues did Jevons think were legitimate and desirable ones for union actions? What kind were not? Why not? In the light of subsequent history, what do you think of how he draws the line between the legitimate and the illigitimate?
The formal derivation of the demand function from utility was accomplishe by Alfred Marshall in his Principles of Economics, of which you have read the relevant third chapter of Book III. (Although we did not go over the mathematicall appendix where the formal derivation is spelled out.)In laying out the derivation verbally, Explain how he gets from utility to demand.
Marshall compares the marginal utility of money to a rich man and to a poor man. How might his analysis be used to buttress "socialist" calls for the redistribution of income?
Hicks ties the pieces together to demonstrate how economic theory can do without utility and all its associated concepts (e.g., diminishing marginal utility), but he draws on the work of his predecessors to do so. Who according to Hicks' account were those predecessors and what of theirs did Hicks appropriate and reformulate?
Explain the assumptions necessary for the derivation of well-behaved indifference curves and then how such indifference curves allow Hicks to dispense with the utilitarianism he obviously feels uncomfortable with.
Besides escaping utility, Hicks also provides a theory without the politically uncomfortable concept of cardinality. How is that possible?
What does Hicks substitute for the ratio of marginal utilities that allows him to retain the significant notion of interrelationship among items being chosen? What are the implications for the principle of diminishing marginal utility to which Marshall et al were so attached?
Who was Buridan's ass and what was his problem?
Given the way Hicks introduces the notion of "equilibrium" in this discussion, what do you make of its importance?
Towards the end of his chapter on utility theory Hicks suggests that the new formulation of the theory of consumer choice points toward "a unifying principlefor the whole of economics." What is that principle and how does it compare with the "principles" of Marshall and with the Classical preoccupation with the "wealth of nations"?
Explain the logic by which the income-consumption curve associated with an "inferior good" slopes downward rather than upward.
Why does Hicks bother to construct and contemplate the income-consumption and price-consumption curves while working his way towards the derivation of demand curve from indifference curves?
In the course of establishing that a downward sloping demand curve can be generally expected Hicks differentiates an Income Effect and a Substitution Effect. Which of these is key in determining whether a demand curve will have the "normal" slope or not? Why?
What kind of people are most likely to have behavior patterns that violate the necessary conditions for downward sloping demand curves? Explain those patterns. Now Hicks says of such circumstances: "it is evident how rare such cases must be." Is this true? Contemplate the world and the size of the populations whose patterns might fit his troublesome example. Is that population negligibly small or significantly vast? Does it matter?
That's it folks. Some of these questions require more thought and effort to answer than others but they are crafted to lead you through the material and to help you be well prepared for the test.