Course Description
Summary
This course explores how ideas about the economy – from money, to labor, to distribution – have changed over time. We will focus on modern theories of the economy, including those of the mercantilists, physiocrats, classical political economists, and neoclassical economists, placing these ideas in their global context. Our most central focus will be on thinkers working within and against liberalism and Marxism in their multifarious forms. We will travel through the canonical texts of thinkers such as John Locke, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, John Maynard Keynes, and Friedrich Hayek, with the aim of demystifying them and making them accessible for engagement and critique. The purpose of this journey into the history of economic thought is to understand how we have arrived at the principles behind contemporary thinking about the economy, enabling a systematic evaluation of their strengths, limitations, and implications.
