Sub-navigation links

VIEW ALL COURSES

Download Course Materials

Readings

When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

Readings table.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
Introduction and Overview
1	The Evolution of the Industrial State
2	Paradigms and History: Kuhn, Foley, Rawls	Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1970, chapters 2-3 and 9-10, pp. 72-95 and 154-197. ISBN: 0226458083. Foley, Ducan K. "Problems vs. Conflicts: Economic Theory and Ideology." In Microeconomic Theory: Conflict and Contract. The American Economic Review 65, no. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Eighty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May 1975): 231-236. Rawls, John. "Some Reasons for the Maximin Criterion." In Concepts of Distribution Equity. The American Economic Review 64, no. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Eighty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May 1974): 141-146. Friedman, Milton. "Methodology of Positive Economics." In Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1953, pp. 3-43. ISBN: 0226264033.
Liberalism and Neoclassical Economics
3	Film: The Fountainhead	The Fountainhead directed by King Vidor (1949)
4	Discussion of Rand	Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. Centennial ed. New York, NY: Signet, 1996. ISBN: 0451191153.
5	Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom	Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. 40th anniversary ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002, chapters 1-3, 6, 10, and 12-13, pp. 1-36, 85-107, 161-176, and 190-196. ISBN: 0226264211.
6	Becker	Becker, Gary. An Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1976, chapters 1 and 13, pp. 3-14 and 282-329. ISBN: 0226041123.
7	Gilder	Gilder, George. Wealth and Poverty. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1981, part 1, pp. 3-101. ISBN: 0465091059.
Marxism, Economics, and Politics
8	Marxism: The Manifesto	Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 1998. ISBN: 0451527100.
9	Elster	Elster, Jon. An Introduction to Karl Marx. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1986, chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8, pp. 21-41, 60-78, and 103-167. ISBN: 052133831X.
10	Capital, The Division of Labor and Machinery	Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of the Political Economy. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1992, chapters XIV and XV, sections 1 and 2. ISBN: 0140445684.
11	Bowles and Gintis	Bowles, S., and H. Gintis. "The Crisis of Liberal Democratic Capitalism. Politics and Society 11, no. 1 (1982): 51-93.
The Social Embeddedness of the Economy
12	Introduction
13	Weber	Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge, 2001, chapters 2 and 5, pp. 47-78 and 155-183. ISBN: 041525406X.
14	Polanyi	Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944, chapters 11-21, pp. 130-258. ISBN: 080705643X.
15	Schumpeter	Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1962, chapters 5-14, pp. 61-163 but especially 121-163. ISBN: 0061330086.
16	Review Session
17	Midterm Exam
18	Keynes	Keynes, Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Prometheus Books ed. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1957, chapters 1-3 and 18-19, pp. 3-34 and 245-279. ISBN: 1573921394.
The Corporate State
19	Introduction
20	Galbraith and Solow	Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. Princeton University Press ed. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1985, chapter VII, pp. 75-90. ISBN: 0691131414. Solow, Robert M. "The New Industrial State or Son of Affluence." The Public Interest 9 (Fall 1967): 100-119.
21	Piore and Sabel	Piore, Michael J., and Charles F. Sabel. The Second Industrial Drive: Possibilities for Prosperity. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984, chapters 2-4 and 10, pp. 19-72 and 251-280. ISBN: 0465075614.
22	Fligstein	Filgstein, Neil. The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Reprint ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, chapters 7-10, pp. 147-237. ISBN: 0691102546.
Civic Republicanism
23	Hannah Arendt	Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1998, chapters 1-2 and 5, pp. 7-79 and 175-247. ISBN: 0226025985.
24	Lester and Piore	Lester, Richard, and Michael Piore. Innovation: The Missing Dimension. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0674015819.
25	Sacks	Sacks, Oliver. Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. ISBN: 0520060830.
26	The Soul of the New Machine	Kidder, Tracy. The Soul of a New Machine. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Modern Library, 1997. ISBN: 0679602615.
27	The Double Helix	Watson, James D. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. New York, NY: Touchstone, 2001. ISBN: 074321630X.