Slouching Towards Utopia? The Economic History of the Twentieth Century

Midterm Cancellation and Paper Assignment: Econ 115, Fall 2009

I really do not want to give up November 19 as a lecture day--and bitter experience has taught me that an afternoon lecture on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the 24th, simply does not work.

Therefore: the midterm scheduled for November 19 is cancelled.

In its place is substituted:

Due Friday December 11, 5 PM: 2500 words. Take one of your short papers for this course--I hope the one you liked most--and expand it and its argument to about 2500 words.

This assignment substitutes for the November 19 midterm in all respects.

California Politics since the "Revolt of the Haves" (Econ 115 Short Essay: Due Friday November 13)

750-1000 words; use your own words; provide pointers to where you got any information that is not your direct personal experience or "common knowledge"; due Friday November 13 at 5 PM.

In the generation after World War II, California bet on social democracy: fueled by large federal defense expenditures and by the migration of Americans to the resource- and sun-rich west, California set out on a high tax, high infrastructure, high public education system, high social welfare benefits trajectory. Then come 1979 all that changed: California voters turned, and for the past generation they have been voting in larger numbers for politicians who and referenda that seek to transform California into a low-tax state.

Briefly, research and narrate how you understand the course of California state politics since this shift in 1979--what Robert Kuttner called "the revolt of the haves."

Write 750-1000 words. Submissions of less than 750 words will receive grouchy readings. Submissions of more than 1000 words will receive grouchy readings. There is a symmetry here.

Comparative Economic Systems (Econ 115 Short Essay: Due Friday October 30)

750-1000 words; use your own words; provide pointers to where you got any information that is not your direct personal experience or "common knowledge"; due Friday October 30 at 5 PM.

At the start of the twentieth century the basic issues of political, social, and economic organization were wide open. Was a good society one in which the leders told the people what to do, or one in which the leaders were really much more like the people you hire to rent out your great aunt's cottage in Miami Beach when she isn't there? Was a good society one in which people could change lives and roles from generation to generation--or year to year--or one in which people had places and knew them? Was a good economy one of rational planning or of individual action? Were good policies decided by popular referenda or by technocrats meeting in rooms paneled with green silk?

Today, after the history of the twentieth century, the space of admissable argument about what a good political, social, and economic order for a good society would be seems to be much less wide open. Briefly, tell the story of how in your view the history of the twentieth century and its lessons have narrowed that space--have created what Francis Fukuyama once rashly called the "end of history" (and what Daniel Bell had earlier rashly called the "end of ideology).

Write 750-1000 words. Submissions of less than 750 words will receive grouchy readings. Submissions of more than 1000 words will receive grouchy readings. There is a symmetry here.

Twentieth Century Growth (Econ 115 Short Essay: Due Friday October 16)

500-750 words; use your own words; provide pointers to where you got any information that is not your direct personal experience or "common knowledge"; due Friday October 16 at 5 PM.

He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins!

What do you know about the daily style of life of your ancestors over the half-decade 1910-1914? How is it different from the daily style of life of you and your family over the past five years?

Write 500-750 words. Submissions of less than 500 words will receive grouchy readings. Submissions of more than 750 words will receive grouchy readings. There is a symmetry here.

The Era of Chaos (Econ 115 Short Essay: Due Friday October 2)

500-750 words; use your own words; provide pointers to where you got any information that is not your direct personal experience or "common knowledge"; due Friday October 2 at 5 PM.

In the terrible years of the Yezhovchina I spent seventeen months standing in line in front of the Leningrad prisons. One day someone thought he recognized me. Then, a woman with bluish lips who was behind me and to whom my name meant nothing, came out of the torpor to which we were all accustomed and said, softly (for we spoke only in whispers), "--This, can you describe this?" And I said, "Yes, I can." And a sort of smile slid across what had been her face.

No, it was not under a strange sky,
Not strange wings that gave me shelter--
I was in the midst of my people,
There, where, in their misfortune, my people were.

Think of your ancestors again--this time between 1914 and 1945. On August 4, 1914, because Austria and Russia were threatening each other in a dispute over Austria's plans to punish the Serbian government for supporting the terrorists who had assassinated Austria's crown prince in Sarajevo the month before, Imperial Germany attacked Belgium. On August 14, 1945, Imperial Japan surrendered unconditionally--after the atomic terror-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had convinced the Japanese government that the United States had the power to win the war by killing every human in the Japanese archipelago, and would prefer to do so rather than lose soldiers in an amphibious invasion. On July 27, 1953, a truce ended the Korean War and the world froze into its Cold Peace configuration that was to last until 1989. In between 1914 and 1953 you have communism, nazism, fascism, two world wars, a great depression, and innumerable smaller acts of chaos and destruction.

Write 500-750 words about how this age of chaos and terror and poverty affected the lives of your ancestors--or how the lives of your ancestors were, by luck, not much affected.

Submissions of less than 500 words will receive grouchy readings. Submissions of more than 750 words will receive grouchy readings. There is a symmetry here.

How Did I Get Here? (Econ 115 Short Essay: Due Friday September 4)

400-600 words; use your own words; provide pointers to where you got any information that is not your direct personal experience or "common knowledge"; due Friday September 4 at 5 PM.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself--well...how did I get here?

How did you get here?

Think back to where your ancestors were and what they were doing in 1870, and (briefly) recount the historical, familial, and personal processes that have led you to be:

• in greater San Francisco
• attending college
• at U.C. Berkeley
• and taking a course on the economic history of the twentieth century

Submissions of less than 400 words will receive grouchy readings. Submissions of more than 600 words will receive grouchy readings. There is a symmetry here.