PSCI 238
Economic Liberalism and Its Critics Fall 2009
Division II
Cross-listed POEC 250 / ECON 299
This is not the current course catalog

Economic liberalism holds that, society is better off if people enjoy economic freedom. Its critics point to what they believe this position ignores or what it wrongly assumes, and hence, how it would make bad policy. This course explores the relationship between politics and economics by surveying influential works of political economy. Its first part examines major thinkers in relation to the historical development of capitalism in Western Europe and the United States: the classical liberalism of Adam Smith, Karl Marx’s revolutionary socialism, and the reformist ideas of John Stuart Mill, R. H. Tawney, and John Maynard Keynes. The second part considers more recent writings that revise and critique liberalism from a variety of perspectives. The historical focus of the course permits you to appreciate the ongoing dialogue between classical and contemporary views of political economy, while classroom discussion involves frequent reference to current public policy issues.