Z: **Archived**: Political Economy 101

Web Assignment 10: Robert Reich's Domestic Neoliberalism

Robert Reich over at Berkeley's policy school, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, has made a career out of trying to plot political strategy for attaining largely social democratic ends though largely neoliberal means. The Work of Nations may be his best book: an attempt to grapple with how the coming of the second great era of globalization and information technology together change the balance of political-economic forces in the world's most developed economies.

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignme-10.html. Write a comment of at least 200 words on what you think the biggest strength or flaw in his argument is. Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignme-10.html--that is, react and respond to not just Reich but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Due by 5 PM on November 6

Web Assignment 9: Successes of State-Led Development

Back at the start of the twentieth century, social scientists like Max Weber dismissed East Asia as doomed to relative poverty for centuries: the Confucian-bureaucratic-literati culture, they said, was completely incompatible with the technocratic rationality required for modern market capitalism to function. Yet the past half century has seen astonishing growth and moderate progress toward democracy in East Asia, in spite of the region's breaking many of the rules of the role and limits and government that seem to hold in much of the rest of the world.

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-9.html. Write a comment of at least 200 words on whether you think James Fallows adequately accounts for East Asia's special and successful path. Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-9.html--that is, react and respond to not just Fallows but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Due by 5 PM on October 30.

Since we don't have the Fallows book, we are declaring a web assignment holiday for this week: everybody gets two points...

Web Assignment 6: Anderson or Djilas

Academic Benedict Anderson says that nationalism is a snare and a delusion. The worthwhile alternative, he says, is socialism. Milovan Djilas--having helped create and then having lived through really existing socialism, says that it is a snare and a delusion.

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-6.html. Write a comment of at least 200 words on what you think the biggest flaw in the arguments of one of these two thinkers happens to be. Is there a way to turn nationalism into a positive force? Is there a way that really existing socialism can be turned into something that ought to exist?

Set out your view: Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-6.html--that is, react and respond to not just Anderson or Djilas but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Do this by 5 PM on October 9.

Web Assignment 3: John Maynard Keynes's Mission

John Maynard Keynes was brought up a classical liberal and a classical economist, believing in free trade, economic progress, cultural uplift, and political reason. He then finds himself working for the British Treasury during World War I, unable to stop what he thinks are disastrous post-World War I political decisions, and then watching as the classical economic mechanisms he had been taught to admire fall apart. He then picks himself up, and spends his life arguing that if only statesmen would be farsighted and clever enough they could put humpty-dumpty together again and get back to a good world of free trade, economic progress, cultural uplift, and political reason. But what, exactly, does he think needs to be done?

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-3.html. Write a comment of at least 200 words on what you think the core of Keynes's plan to save the world through clever public policy is. Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-3.html--that is, react and respond to not just Keynes but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Do this by 5 PM on September 18.

Web Assignment 2: Why Was Norman Angell So Wrong?

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-2.html. Norman Angell argues that (a) modern industrial war is unprofitable for a nation's citizens; (b) modern nations all have governments that are to a large degree subject to popular political pressure; (c) hence modern governments will be wary of undertaking big, destructive wars; and hence (d) big destructive wars are unlikely to happen. Norman Angell wrote just before World War I. A generation later came World War II.

Write a comment of at least 100 words on what you think the biggest flaw in his--attractive, but for his day completely wrong--argument is. Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-2.html--that is, react and respond to not just Angell but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Do this by 5 PM on September 13.

Web Assignment 1: Hobson vs. Schumpeter

We have read two short books called "Imperialism": J.A. Hobson's and Joseph Schumpeter. They are engaged in an intellectual cage match with respect to the origins and destiny of imperialism--the western European (and American, and Russian) establishment of formal or informal empires over pretty much the whole world back at the start of the twentieth century. Hobson--the socialist--thinks that the growing progress of capitalism will intensify imperialism. Schumpeter--the liberal, sort of--thinks that the growing progress of capitalism will erode and in the end destroy imperialism. Who wins the cage match?

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions/ and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-1.html. Write a comment of at least 100 words on whose arguments you found most convincing, and why. Contribute to the discussion that is ongoing at this http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignmen-1.html page--that is, react and respond to not just Hobson and Schumpeter but, to the extent it is appropriate, the earlier posters and commenters on the webpage.

Do this by 5 PM on September 7.

Web Assignment 0: Introductions

Surf over to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/virtual_discussions and then to http://delong.typepad.com/pe101/2007/08/web-assignment-.html. Add a comment on that page--this page--introducing yourself: write a sentence or two or three about who you are, what you would like to be called, and what you think you most want others to know about you. If you can do it easily, give the URL of a picture of you. Do this by noon on August 29.