Category: Undergraduate

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Chicago Exam Questions Undergraduate

Chicago. Introduction to money and banking. Final exam. A.G. Hart, Summer 1933

 

 

In an earlier post you will find (i) the official course description for the undergraduate course “Introduction to Money and Banking” taught by A. G. Hart at the University of Chicago during the mid-1930s as well as (ii) the course syllabus.

A subsequent post provides the final exam for the Fall Quarter 1932; midterm exam for the Summer Quarter 1933; final exam for the Winter Quarter 1933; final exam for the  Winter Quarter 1934; and final exam for the Fall Quarter 1935.

Today I found the following misfiled final examination for the summer quarter of 1933. Before I forget to fill the gap, I add this item to the Economics in the Rear-view mirror collection of artifacts.

_______________________

A.G. Hart
Econ 230

FINAL EXAMINATION, AUGUST 25, 1933

Answer the first two questions and any two others. (One hour)

  1. It has been proposed to require that no bank in the U.S. be permitted to accept deposits to an amount over five times its capital and surplus; any bank wishing to expand deposits after reaching this limit would then have to increase its capitalization. Would this regulation make the depositor’s position more secure than at present? Explain.
  2. Briefly contrast the monetary series of Fisher and Hawtrey.
  3. Discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the scheme just going into effect for guaranteeing bank deposits through a central fund derived largely from assessments on the insured banks.
  4. The circulation of Federal Reserve Notes has decreased from about $4,300,000,000 on March 15 to about $3,000,000,000 last week. Officials of the Federal Reserve System deny that this constitutes deflation, and insisted does not run counter to the government’s announced program of inflation. Is the denial justified? Discuss.
  5. Outline an explanation for the rise of the price of francs from a bit less than four cents early in April to over five cents recently. If prices in this country do not rise appreciably above the present level, what is likely to happen to the price of francs in dollars over the next year? How will these prospects be affected by repudiation or resumption of foreign war debt payments due to the U.S.? Justify your answer.
  6. By what means can the Federal Reserve Banks stop an undesirable credit expansion? An undesirable credit contraction? Evaluate the effectiveness of these powers.
  7. Explain the difference between Federal Reserve Notes and the recent issues of  Federal Reserve  Bank  Why is there just now a tendency for the circulation of the former to contract and that of the latter to expand from week to week?

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Albert Gailord Hart Collection. Box 60, “Folder Exams: CHI Qualifying”.

Image source: “Albert Gailord Hart, Economist, Dead at 88.” Columbia University Record, Vol. 23, No. 5 (October 3, 1997)

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Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Reading list and final exam for course “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”. Schelling, 1970

 

 

There are undergraduate courses, and then there are great undergraduate courses. Today we have the 49 item course bibliography for Thomas C. Schelling’s “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy” along with its ten-page final examination. This material comes to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror from one of the students who took that course, then Harvard undergraduate, Robert Dohner. I am  generally not jealous of Bob’s Harvard undergraduate education, but I’ll admit there are a good half-dozen economics and politics courses in my own Yale training that I would have gladly traded for that single Schelling semester in 1970. You can all thank Bob Dohner for sharing this memory!

The teaching assistant for the course, James T. Campen, was born 1943. He received an A.B. from Harvard in 1965, M.A. at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge in 1971 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976. Campen was active early on in the Union for Radical Political Economics and was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1977 where he worked up into his emeritus years.

_____________________

Economics 1030
“Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”
Prof. Thomas C. Schelling
Mr. James T. Campen
Fall 1970

(*Contained in Coop package)

Introduction (13 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Strategic Analysis and Social Problems,” Social Problems, Vol. 12 (Spring 1965), pp. 367-379.

 

I. Personal Incentives and Social Organization (56 pages)

  1. Hardin, Garrett, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp. 1243-1248.
  2. Olson, Mancur, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 1-3,9-16, 53-57,86-87, 132-141.
  3. Luce, R. Duncan and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957), Chapter 5.4, “An Example: The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and Chapter 5.5, “Temporal Repetition of the Prisoner’s Dilemma,” pp. 94-102.
  4. Demsetz, Harold, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights,” Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 57 (May 1967), pp. 347-359.

 

II. Rules, Restraints, and Conventions (296 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., “Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Game Theory to the Analysis of Ethical Systems,” in Ira R. Buchler and Hugo G. Nutini (eds.), Game Theory in the Behavioral Sciences (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), pp. 45-60.
  2. Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), pp. 68-84, 109-138. NOTE: Different pages in Bantam paperback, pp. 64-80, 104-132.
  3. Piaget, Jean, The Moral Judgment of the Child (The Free Press, 1965, and Collier Books, 1962, same translator and identical pagination in both versions), pp. 65-76, 94-100, 139-174, 197-232. NOTE: Hardcover editions dated 1932 and 1948 have these pages instead: pp. 56-69, 89-95, 135-171, 195-231. To check: the first selection begins, “Consciousness of Rules: II Third Stage.”
  4. Jervis, Robert, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 18, 90-110, 147-152, 197-205, 216-223.
  5. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 3, pp. 53-80, and Chapter 4, pp. 89-108.
  6. Lewis, David K., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 5-8, 36-51, 83-107, 118-121.

 

III. Contests and Disputes (123 pages)

  1. Moore, Omar K. and Alan R. Anderson, “Puzzles, Games, and Social Interaction,” in David Braybooke, Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences (The Macmillan Company, 1965), pp. 68-79.
  2. Langholm, Sivert, “Violent Conflict Resolution and the Loser’s Reaction,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 324-347.
  3. Galtung, Johan, “Institutionalized Conflict Resolution,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 348-383.
  4. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 239-270, “Where the Action Is.”
  5. Skolnick, Jerome H., “Social Control in the Adversary System,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. XI, No. 1 (March 1967), pp. 52-70.

 

IV. Formal Processes of Collective Decision (133 pages)

  1. *Steinhaus, Hugo, “The Problem of Fair Division,” Econometrica, Vol. 16 (January 1948), pp. 101-104.
  2. *Farquharson, Robin, “Sincerity and Strategy in Voting,” mimeograph, February 5, 1955, 7 pages.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “What Is Game Theory?” in James C. Charlesworth (ed.), Contemporary Political Analysis (The Free Press, 1967), pp. 212-238.
  4. Buchanan, James M. and Gordon Tulloch, The Calculus of Consent (The University of Michigan Press, 1962), pp. 43-62, 131-145, 249-262.
  5. *Schelling, T. C., “Voting Schemes and Fair Division,” multilith, September 1970.
    [Handwritten note: 23 10th line 12th 1.27 s.b. 1.55. A gets 295 instead of 241. B gets 85]
  6. Leiserson, Michael, “Game Theory and the Study of Coalition Behavior,” in Sven Groennings, E. W. Kelley, and Michael Leiserson (eds.), The Study of Coalition Behavior (Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, 1970), pp. 255-272.
  7. Farquharson, Robin, Theory of Voting (Yale University Press, 1969), Appendix 3, pp. 77-80.

 

V. Individual and Collective Bargaining (266 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 2, pp. 21-52, and Chapter 5, pp. 119-161.

[Handwritten note: Hour Exam]

  1. Fisher, Roger, International Conflict for Beginners (Harper & Rowe, 1969), Chapter 3, “Making Threats Is Not Enough,” pp. 27-59.
  2. Walton, R. E. and R. B. McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations (McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 4-6, 67-125, 310-340.
  3. Ross, H. Laurence, Settled Out of Court (Aldine, 1970), Chapter IV, “Negotiation.” NOTE: Pending appearance of book, mimeograph copy on reserve, entitled “Negotiation.”
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Communication, Bargaining and Negotiation,” Arms Control and National Security, Vol. 1 (1969), pp. 69-71.
  5. *Rapoport, Anatol and Melvin Guyer, “Taxonomy of 2 x 2 Games,” Papers, Vol. 6, 1966, Peace Research Society (International), pp. 11-26.

 

VI. Violence and Nonviolence (191 pages)

  1. Sibley, Mulford Q., The Quiet Battle (Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963), pp. 9-10, 55-66.
  2. Hubbard, Howard, “Five Long, Hot Summers and How They Grew,” The Public Interest, No. 12 (Summer 1968), pp. 3-24.
  3. Nieburg, H. L., “Violence, Law and the Informal Polity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1969), pp. 192-209.
  4. Schelling, T. C., Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 1-18, 92-105, 116-125.
  5. Roberts, Adam (Ed.), Civilian Resistance as a National Defense (Stackpole Books, 1968), or The Strategy of Civilian Defense (Faber & Faber Ltd., 1967) (the two versions are identical), pp. 9-13, 87-105, 205-211, 302-308.
  6. Walter, Charles W., “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses,” Naval War College Review, Vol. XXII, No. 10 (June 1970), pp. 72-84.
  7. Nozick, Robert, “Coercion,” in Sydney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes and Morton White (eds.), Philosophy, Science and Method (St. Martin’s Press, 1969), pp. 440-472.
  8. Shure, Gerald H., Robert J. Meeker and Earle A. Hansford, “The Effectiveness of Pacifist Strategies in Bargaining Games,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. IX, No. 1 (March 1965), pp. 106-117.

 

VII. Interactive Models: Large Groups (89 pages)

  1. Penrose, L S., On the Objective Study of Crowd Behavior (H. K. Lewis & Company, Ltd., 1952), Chapter 6, “Panic Reactions,” pp. 28-35.
  2. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 6, “The Group as a Party to Conflict: The Ecological Model,” pp. 105-122.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “Neighborhood Tipping,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Discussion Paper No. 100, December 1969.
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Models of Segregation,” The American Economic Review, Vol. LIX, No. 2 (May 1969), pp. 488-493.

 

VIII. Interactive Models: Two Parties (145 pages)

  1. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 2, “The Dynamics of Conflict: Richardson Process Models,” pp. 19-40.
  2. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 97-112, “Embarrassment and Social Organization.”
  3. *Valavanis, Stefan, “The Resolution of Conflict When Utilities Interact,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2 (June 1958), pp. 156-169.
  4. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 9, pp. 207-229.
  5. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 12, “International Conflict: The Basic Model,” and Chapter 13, “International Conflict: Modifications,” pp. 227-273.
  6. Schelling, T. C., “War Without Pain, and Other Models,” World Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (April 1963), pp. 465-487.

 

IX. Randomized Decision (55 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Zero-Sum Games,” multilith, September 1970.
  2. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 175-190, 201-203.

 

Total pages: 1,367

Reading period: To be assigned later [see question 6 in final examination below]

 

Economics 1030
Final Exam
January 22, 1971

There are altogether six questions. The sixth contain several alternatives, according to your choice of reading-period assignment. You are not to answer any five questions out of the six. You may not choose more than one among the alternate forms of question six. Specifically, you may answer the first five questions; you may instead answer any four among the first five and one of the alternates in question 6.

The five questions you answer will be given equal weight and are intended to require about equal time.

  1. Each of the terms, concepts or principles listed on the next page is to be identified by reference to a matrix. Several matrices are provided and are adequate, but you may prefer to construct your own. (There may be more than one matrix shown that illustrates a particular concept; some of the matrices shown may illustrate several concepts. You need not make reference to more than one–your own, or one of those shown.)
    In some cases–marked by an asterisk–you need only identify an appropriate matrix; if, for example, one of the terms were “prisoners’ dilemma,” it would be sufficient to indicate Matrix #1. In other cases–where there is no asterisk–you will have to state clearly just what it is about the indicated matrix that exemplifies the concept; for example, if “promise” were one of the terms listed, you could state that in Matrix #1, if Column had first move, Row could promise first row on condition Column choose column 1, improving the expected outcome from payoffs of 1 apiece to 2 apiece in the upper left cell.

Here are the items to be identified:

    1. warning
    2. inducing move
    3. altruist’s dilemma*
    4. zero-difference game*
    5. Pareto equilibrium
    6. convention*
    7. randomized commitment
    8. dominated strategy
    9. threat-vulnerable equilibrium
    10. social contract*
    11. [a first] alternative concepts of “arms agreement”
    12. [a second] alternative concept of “arms agreement”
    13. Insurance as a bargaining advantage or disadvantage

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. Explain the concept of interposition (Charles Walters, “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses”), and compare it with non-violent intervention (Gene Sharp, “The Technique of Non–Violent Action,” or Howard Hubbard, “Five Long Hot Summers and How They Grew”), then examine the strategic similarities and differences between (a) naval-force interposition and (b) tactics used to blockade, occupy or immobilize a campus building.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. John Stuart Mill argued that even

…if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were the sheer deduction from the benefit.

Assuming that the hypothesis which Mill discusses is true (that nobleness in itself detracts from individual happiness), under what conditions would you expect individuals to choose to develop noble characters? Discuss with reference to readings and lectures concerning interplay of individual incentives, social organization and moral codes.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. One of the questions on a makeup examination which you will take tomorrow will be based on either an article by Smith or an article by Jones. Your limited time in the library’s rules make it impossible for you to study both articles. If the exam question is based on the Smith article, you will have a 90 percent chance of answering it correctly if you read Smith, but will surely fail to answer correctly if you read Jones; if the exam question is based on Jones, you will have a 60 percent chance of getting it right if you study Jones, no chance otherwise. You will get the question either right or wrong; no partial credit will be given.
    You want to use your study time to maximize the probability of answering the question correctly. Your examiner will choose the exam question in such a way as to minimize the same probability. Both you and she know all of the information in this paragraph, and both of you are familiar with the basic theory of two-person zero-sum games.

A.

    1. Draw a payoff matrix to illustrate the situation, letting your payoffs be represented by the probability of getting the correct answer.
    2. What will be your strategy in this situation?
    3. What will be the teacher’s strategy be?
    4. If you use the strategy which you indicated in A2, what is the probability that you will get a correct answer?

B.

You suddenly recognize that the librarian whom you will be asking for one of the articles is also your teacher’s secretary, and knows which article the question will be based on.

    1. If you could get the secretary to tell you truthfully which article you should read, what would be your probability of getting the correct answer be? (That is, you are to estimate this probability before asking for the article, on the assumption that the librarian will know the answer and answer truthfully.)
    2. If you felt that the librarian/secretary would answer your question truthfully six chances out of 10 but there was a 40 percent chance the examiner would be told that you tried to cheat, resulting in your receiving an automatic zero on this question (but with no other negative consequences), would asking the library and increase your overall probability of getting credit for the question?

C.

If you knew (and the teacher knew that you knew) that the teacher believed that you would have .7 chance of answering either question, given that you studied the right article, but you alone knew that the chances were 90 percent and 60 percent for the two articles as mentioned above:

    1. What would your strategy be?
    2. What would be your probability of getting the question right?

D

Now consider the situation where you might be able to get the question correct even if you chose the wrong article. The chances of this are 1/5 if the question is based on Smith and 2/5 if the question is based on Jones. (Both you and the teacher correctly understand the situation.)

    1. What is your strategy in this case?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What are your chances for getting the correct answer?

E.

Consider the same problem as in Part D with one change: you and the teacher both know that he wants you to do as well as possible on the exam.

    1. What is your strategy?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What is your probability of getting the correct answer?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. You are one of two students in a small class who have arranged to write a paper in lieu of a final exam. You are certain that the grade your paper receives will depend not only on how much time you spend on it but also on how much time the other student spends on his. Even if the examiner tries to judge your paper on its merits alone he will be unconsciously influenced by how it compares with the other student’s paper.

You estimate…

    1. …that you will lose about 3 grade points on other exams for every 10 hours you spend on this paper;
    2. …that your grade on this paper will be:
      1. 5, 9, 12, 14 or 15 points according as you spend 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 hours on it,
      2. plus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours more than your rival, and minus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours less than your rival.

When you plot a smooth graph of your overall grade, taking all three factors into account–quality of your paper, quality of the competing paper, time taken away from your other courses–you get the following “contours” of your overall net score as a function of the time you both devote to your papers.

The graph is interpreted this way. If you work 30 hours and he does nothing, you get a net score of 9 (i.e., a gross score of 12 for your paper on its merits, plus 6 for superiority, less 9 for the 30 hours taken from other courses). If you both work 30 hours you get 3 (the same 12 on your own paper, less 9 on other courses, and did nothing for superiority). If you work 20 hours and he works 10, you get 6. Every point on the graph denotes a combination of your work time and his; every point has an associated net score for you; points of equal score can be connected by “contour lines” is in the graph. (The dotted lines at 45 degrees represents equal time for the two of you.)

You are quite sure that your rival, whoever he is, has a nearly identical graph when he considers his own grade in relation to the time you both spend on your papers.

  1. Draw your “reaction curve” (otherwise called in Boulding, “partial-equilibrium curve” or “reaction function”), and explain what it means.
  2. Drawing on your knowledge that your rival reaches identical estimates with respect to his own grades, draw his reaction curve.
  3. Locate and characterize any equilibria that occur.
  4. Discuss the likely amounts of work the two of you will do on each of the following alternative assumptions:
    1. Each of you can see the other work–in the library, for example–and can keep count of each other’s time, but you are unacquainted and not permitted to consult each other.
    2. You have no idea who the other student is and no way to monitor the amount of work he does, nor does he know who you are.
    3. You do not know who he is, but are sure that he can recognize you and watches you work in the library, keeping track of how much work you do.
    4. You are well enough acquainted to get together and talk the situation over, reaching an understanding about how much work you intend to do, perhaps reaching a bargain on restraining your competition; but you are not close enough friends to be unselfish toward each other and furthermore you do not know how badly each other may need grade points.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. This question is based on the reading period assignment. If you chose one of the following four books answer Part A:

Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
J. H. Dales, Pollution, Property and Prices
H. L. Nieburg, Political Violence: The Behavioral Process
Carl M. Stevens, Strategy and Collective Bargaining Negotiation

If you chose James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, answer Part B.

If you chose Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual, answer Part C.

If you chose Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations, answer Part D.

If you chose Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action, answer Part E.

  1. Identify one or more major themes or propositions in the book which you chose is the reading period assignment. Discuss what you consider to be the most more interesting and/or important ways that these themes illuminate the body of Economics 1030 and are in turn illuminated by it. Be specific.
  2. Buchanan and Tullock
    1. Using their concept of “cost,” explain the roles ascribed by the authors to unanimity rule, majority rule, and any other competing alternatives rules.
    2. On what conditions, if any, or with what reservations, would you accept their point of view?
  3. Goffman

Goffman’s book contains the word, “ritual,” in its title, and every chapter involves some analysis of ritual in phase-to-face behavior even though the chapters were originally independent essays. Explain what “ritual” means in this context and identify its role in the following topics of Economics 1030:

      1. Personal incentives and social organization
      2. Rules, restraints and conventions
      3. Contests and disputes
      4. Formal processes of collective decision
      5. Individual and collective bargaining
  1. Jervis
    Define signals and indices, then illustrate the manipulation of indices, and the veracity and ambiguity of signals, by reference to any one of the following sources of signals and indices, which you should examine in some detail:

    1. An advertising campaign
    2. A student’s essay on a final examination
    3. The public relations involved in the year-long process of selecting a Harvard president
  2. Olson
    Most of Olson’s book is devoted to an analysis of the behavior of large groups. How important is group size? In what ways does the behavior of small groups differ systematically from that of larger ones? What are the most important reasons for this?
    With reference to college courses, speculate briefly on the location and significance of the boundary between “small” and “large.”

Source: Personal copy of course syllabus and final examination shared for transcription at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by Robert Dohner (Harvard, 1974; M.I.T., 1980).

Image Source: From Schelling testifying before a Senate subcommittee on national security in 1966. New York Times, Dec. 13, 2016.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Economists Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus for “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” taught by PhD (1952) alumnus, Richard H. Holton, 1954-55

 

 

The Harvard course “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” was an odd amalgam. The first semester was a course in marketing and the second semester was a course in the theory of micro- and macroeconomic consumption and saving functions with an added dash of advertising economics and agricultural economic policy thrown in. The instructor for 1954-55 was an assistant professor of economics, Richard Henry Holton who had completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1952.  Holton went on to a successful economic policy and academic administrative career culminating in the Deanship of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. His biography is sketched in the memorial piece reproduced below.

The syllabus for Economics 107 “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” completes this post.

_________________________

Ph.D. in Economics awarded by Harvard University in 1952

Richard Henry Holton, S.B. in Bus. (Miami Univ.) 1947, A.M. (Ohio State Univ.) 1948.

Special Field, Consumption, Distribution, and Prices. Thesis, “The Supply and Demand Structure of Food Retailing Service: a Case Study.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1951-1952, p. 176.

_________________________

IN MEMORIAM
Richard Holton (1926-2005)
E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus
Dean, Haas School of Business
Berkeley

Richard H. Holton was the E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus and, from 1967 to 1975, dean of the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Dean Holton, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1957, was a leader in the fields of marketing, international business and entrepreneurship and left a lasting imprint in these areas at the Haas School. Throughout his career, Dean Holton focused on teaching, campus leadership and public service. On leave from the campus from 1963 to 1965, he served as U.S. assistant secretary of commerce. He was thoughtful, considerate, self-effacing, devoted to the greater good of the school and the University, and always alert toward the welfare of colleagues, friends, and family. He was also known for his good stories to liven an occasion, and to soften conflict in an organizational setting.

Holton grew up in the small town of London, Ohio. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1947 with honors in economics. At Miami, he met Constance Minzey, whom he married in 1947. The couple moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he earned a master’s degree in economics at Ohio State University. He then enrolled in the doctoral program in economics at Harvard University. He was a resident tutor in Adams House at Harvard, with Constance (Connie), during several years of his graduate studies.

From 1951 to 1952, Holton was assistant director of marketing projects at the Social Science Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico. His work there led to his 1955 monograph, “Marketing Efficiency in Puerto Rico,” written with the late J. K. Galbraith and others. He also was coauthor, with Richard Caves, of another study, “The Canadian Economy: Prospect and Retrospect” (1959).

He was assistant professor of economics at Harvard from 1953 to 1957, and in 1957 he came to UC Berkeley as an associate professor in the School of Business Administration (later renamed the Haas School of Business). Holton became director of the Berkeley campus’s Institute of Business and Economics Research in 1959. He reorganized it to reflect the growing interest in business science. His own research resulted in a steady flow of publications in marketing policies and competition.

From 1962 to 1963, he served as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. President John F. Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of commerce in February 1963, and he served until February 1965. Holton’s continuing interest in consumer protection resulted in a year’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as chairman of the President’s Consumer Advisory Council. He also served from 1968 to 1972 as chairman of the Public Advisory Committee on Truth in Lending Regulations of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In 1967, Holton became dean of the School of Business Administration at UC Berkeley. During his tenure, he fostered stronger relationships with business leaders, and served on numerous advisory boards of business organizations. He is widely credited with launching some of the current distinctive capabilities of the Haas School in entrepreneurship and international affairs, and its part-time M.B.A. program. As dean, he also initiated a system of student ratings of all courses at the Haas School, a practice still used today to gauge teaching effectiveness and improve courses over time.

In 1970, Holton started a course in entrepreneurship and business development, one of the first such courses at any business school, enlisting a widely-experienced entrepreneur and Haas School alumnus, Leo Helzel, to co-teach the course. This association led to new support for research and teaching in entrepreneurship, and the formation, with contributions from Williams-Sonoma Chairman Howard Lester, of the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His work with the program in entrepreneurship and innovation helped to generate the school’s immensely popular annual business plan competitions. He is also credited with developing the school’s first curriculum for international business studies, another key element of the school’s current academic programs.

To reach an important new group of students, in 1972 Dean Holton initiated a part-time M.B.A. Program in San Francisco to serve qualified candidates who wanted to gain the benefits of a management degree but were not able to leave their jobs for a full-time M.B.A. program. That program has since evolved into the Berkeley Evening & Weekend M.B.A. Program, which now enrolls more students than does the full-time M.B.A. program; it is now offered on the Berkeley campus and in Silicon Valley. It has accommodated the steadily growing demand by students for a top-ranked management education on a part-time schedule.

In 1981, Holton expanded on a longtime personal interest in international business when he became dean of visiting faculty of the newly established National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, which was part of the Dalian Institute of Technology in the People’s Republic of China. Holton and his wife commuted between Berkeley and Dalian for the following five years, while he continued his regular faculty duties at UC Berkeley. Between 1980 and 1992, Holton wrote a number of articles on the emergence of a modern, market-based economy in China, writing about international joint ventures and their financing, China’s state planning as compared to market-driven behavior, economic reform of the distribution sector of China, and China’s prospects as an industrialized country. He also coedited a book, United States-China Relations (University of California Press, 1989). Holton traveled extensively in China and led California Alumni Association-sponsored Bear Trek trips there.

Holton was awarded the Berkeley Citation, the campus’s highest honor, at his retirement in 1991. Even after his retirement, for three years until spring of 2005, when his health began to fail, he taught a freshman seminar, “The Economic Development of Modern China”.

Holton kept taped to his desk lamp at home a quote from Thomas Carlyle, reflecting Holton’s belief in his calling as an educator: “There is nothing more fearsome than ignorance in action.” Holton’s love for the campus community was expressed in his enthusiasm for Cal Bears football, his participation in a campus photography club, and his membership in the all-male Monks Chorus, a group of faculty, alumni and others with campus ties who, clad as Franciscan monks, perform at The Faculty Club Christmas feast. Holton joined the Monks (whose history goes back to 1902) in the early 1960s, and sang bass.

Holton loved the mountains, and took every opportunity to take backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada. He often made these trips with his friend and colleague of more than 40 years, Fred Balderston, an emeritus UC Berkeley professor at the Haas School.

A generous philanthropist and devoted member of public interest organizations, within a year of moving to Berkeley Holton joined the board of directors of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley. His board membership with Alta Bates Hospital spanned nearly four decades. He was to be named a 2006 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Alta Bates Summit Foundation. He also served on the board of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, The World Affairs Council of Northern California, and the board of trustees at Mills College. He and his family shared a longtime commitment to the Point Reyes peninsula and the village of Inverness, California.

As his health failed, he was surrounded by his wife and children. He died peacefully at home in Berkeley on Monday, October 24, 2005, after battling cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Holton is survived by Constance, his wife of nearly 60 years; brother, David, of Washington, D.C.; daughters, Melissa Holton, of Moss Landing and Inverness, and Jane Kriss, of Inverness; son, Tim, of Berkeley; and three grandchildren.

Raymond Miles
Frederick Balderston

Source: Senate of the University of California. In Memoriam—Richard Holton (1926-2005).

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Course Enrollment
1954-55

[Economics] 107. Consumption, Distribution and Prices. Assistant Professor Holton. Full course.

(F) Total 38: 11 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 1 Other.
(S) Total 36: 11 Seniors, 23 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1954-55, p. 89.

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Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Fall Term, 1954-55

Texts:

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Elements of Marketing, Prentice-Hall, 5thedition
Clewett, Marketing Channels, Irwin

  1. Survey of the distributive sector. September 28-October 7.

Compass of the distributive sector; its quantitative importance in the economy; capital coefficients and value added in the distributive sector; the problem of measuring “efficiency” in distribution in contrast with manufacturing; pressures increasing and pressures decreasing distribution costs; distribution and economic growth.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 1
Stewart and Dewhurst, Does Distribution Cost Too Much? Chapters 1, 2, 5, 10, 11
Black and Houston, Resource-Use Efficiency in the Marketing of Farm Products, pp. 22-47
Westing, Readings in Marketing, Readings 1, 2, 3.

  1. The nature of marketing channels. October 14-October 26.

Alternative types of marketing channels; factors affecting the nature of the channel; vertical integration and quasi-integration; recent changes in distribution channels.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 4, 5, 13, 15-20, 23, 24.
Clewett, Chapters 2-17
Westing, Readings in Marketing, 19-21, 23, 25
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: General Mills, p. 199; Whalen, p. 215; National Rock Drill Co., p. 225; Atlas, p. 254.

OCTOBER 28—MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Costs and products of firms in distribution. November 2-November 30.

Empirical cost studies of retail firms; a priori analysis of cost conditions in retailing and wholesaling; selling costs and the advertising budget; cost allocation and cost control in distribution; the nature of the product in distribution; the problem of selecting the product “mix”; the product mix and price discrimination.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 27, 28, 29, 31, 32.
Clewett, Chapters 18 and 19
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapters 3 and 6 (pp. 351-375)
Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 7
Cary Company case (on reserve in Lamont)
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Richwell, p. 117

  1. Price policy of firms in distribution. December 2-December 18.

Retailers’ pricing practices; role of cost in distributors’ price policy; the determination of trade discounts; price discrimination under the Robinson Patman Act; resale price maintenance.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 26
Q. F. Walker, “Some Principles of Department Store Pricing,” Journal of Marketing, January 1950
O. Knauth, “Considerations in the Setting of Retail Prices,” Journal of Marketing, July 1949
R. Alt, “The Internal Organization of the Firm and Price Formation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1949
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapter 9
S.D. Rose, “Your Right to Lower Your Prices,” Harvard Business Review, September 1951
E. R. Corey, “Fair Trade Pricing, A Reappraisal,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1952
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Dewey and Almy, p. 575; Canners’ League, p. 581; Boothby, p. 608

Reading Period: Margaret Hall, Distributive Trading, Hutchinson’s University Library

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Spring Term, 1954-55

It is suggested, but not required, that students buy Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy.

  1. The demand for consumer goods; Feb. 3-Feb. 24
    1. Consumption expenditures in the aggregate: consumption expenditures and savings in the national income data; the consumption function, long run and short run; determinants of the savings to income ratio; consumer demand, economic growth, and the business cycle.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Economics, Ch. 13)
Richard Ruggles, National Income and Income Analysis, Ch. 4, pp. 67-78
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contributions by Goldsmith, Woodward and Bryce, pp. 133-155; Duesenberry, pp. 195-203; Morgan and Reid, pp. 213-220; Hansen, pp. 47-55; and Slichter, pp. 64-72.
Arthur Burns, The Instability of Consumer Spending, 32nd Annual Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 3-20
James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving and Consumer Behavior, Ch. 3

    1. The theory of consumer demand and the demand for classes of consumer goods: The theory of consumer demand reviewed; the utility approach and the indifference curve approach evaluated; income elasticity, budget studies and Engel’s law; psychological analysis of consumer behavior; trends in U.S. consumption.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Ch. 23 and Appendix)
Ruby Norris, The Theory of Consumer’s Demand, Ch. 3
Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Ch. 2
Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory, Ch. 3, “The Motivation of Economic Activity.”
George Katona, Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior, Ch. 5
Lerner and Lasswell (ed), The Policy Sciences, Ch. 12, “Expectations and Decisions in Economic Behavior,” by G. Katona
“The Changing American Market,” Fortune, August, 1953

Section Meetings:

Feb. 8: National income and the consumption function reviewed
Feb. 15: Consumption function in the current literature
Mar. 1: Marginal utility; indifference curves

  1. The demand for producer goods; March 1-March 8

Investment expenditures and the theory of income determination; investment expenditures in the national income data; the determinants of investment expenditures; fluctuations in inventory investment; the firm’s demand for producers’ goods; the determinants of corporate savings.

Readings:

R.A. Gordon, Business Fluctuations, Ch. 5
Tinbergen and Polak, The Dynamics of Business Cycles, Ch. 13, pp. 163-182
Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 10, pp. 549-600
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contribution by John Lintner, pp. 230-255

Section Meetings:

March 8: Producer demand

  1. Identifying demand conditions for the individual firm; March 10-March 15

Survey of market research and sales forecasting methods

Readings:

Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 4, pp. 141-220 only

Section meetings:

March 15: Market research; read Canner’s League of California case in McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing, p. 581

  1. Marketing and public policy issues; March 17-March 24

Economic effects of advertising; the problem of consumer information; FTC and FDA control of labeling, standards, and truth in advertising; consumer research and consumer cooperatives as solutions; resale price maintenance and advertising.

Readings:

L. Gordon, Economics for Consumers, Ch. 24 and 26
Neil Borden, Economic Effects of Advertising, Ch. 28, pp. 837-882

Section meetings:

March 22: Review
March 29: Economic effects of advertising

MARCH 29: MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Marketing of farm products; March 31-April 14

The impact of imperfect markets in agriculture; fluctuations in marketing margins over time; futures market; the functioning and control fo futures markets.

Readings:

Converse, Heugy and Mitchell, Ch. 21 and 22
G. Shepherd, Marketing Farm Products, Ch. 9 and 10
W. H. Nicholls, Imperfect Competition within Agricultural Industries, Ch. 4 to p. 81

Section meetings:

April 12: Impact of price support operations on the marketing of farm products

  1. Federal farm policy; April 21-May 3

The goals of an agricultural policy; predecessors of the present program; details of the present policy; advantages and disadvantages of the present policy; the alternatives

Readings:

T. Schultz, Production and Welfare of Agriculture, Ch. 5, 7, 8
Schickele, Agricultural Policy, Ch. 3, 9-17

Section Meetings:

April 26: Mechanics of parity and price supports
May 3: Review

Reading Period Assignment: Ruth Mack, “Economics of Consumption,” in Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II, plus readings to be assigned; and Editors of Fortune, Why Do People Buy, Ch. 1.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1954-1955”.

Image Source:  “Happy 120th Birthday, Berkeley Haas!” Webpage from Summer 2018.

Categories
Columbia Seminar Speakers Socialism Undergraduate

Columbia. Socialist speakers and undergraduate debates on socialism, 1910-11

 

In the current political times younger citizens see the pathology of centrally-planned, authoritarian socialism à la Stalin as being as distant as the pathology of authoritarian manifestations of capitalism.  “Democratic socialism” has become again a rallying cry, a progressive, small-d “democratic” alternative to the mixed capitalist economy status quo. This is not unlike the debate about socialism on campus and at the ballot box in the years before the first world war. With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to trawl through the Columbia Spectator for a few years (1910-11) to read articles in which the word “socialism” appears. These articles can be read below.

My own favorite item in this post is the description of an invited speaker, a graduate of Barnard College’s (first) class of 1893,  the suffragette  Jessica Garretson (later “Finch” and then “Cosgrave”), as “the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that ‘Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun'”–not quite an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backstory but times have changed.

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SOCIALISM LECTURE FRIDAY INSTEAD

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 141, 6 April 1910, p. 2.

Instead of lecturing yesterday as Spectator announced he would, Mr. Eugene V. Debs will talk Friday. As candidate of the Socialist Party for President in 1908, Mr. Debs is well fitted for his subject, Socialism. Seats in Earl Hall will be reserved until 4 o’clock, after which the public will be admitted.

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DEBS CHAMPIONS SOCIALISM
Twelve Hundred People Greet Famous Socialist at Lecture in Horace Mann Auditorium

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, pp. 1,5.

Before the largest audience that has listened to a lecture at Columbia University since Professor James of Harvard delivered the first of his famous lectures on pragmatism and before the most enthusiastic audience that has crowded a Columbia lecture room in many a day, Eugene V. Debs three times candidate for President of the United States on the Socialist Ticket spoke yesterday for an hour and a half on the work to which he has dedicated his life —Socialism.

The lecture was scheduled to take place in Earl Hall, but long before 4 o’clock it became evident that the auditorium in that building would be altogether too small. It was crowded by half past three. At the last moment, therefore, the lecture was changed to the Horace Mann Auditorium which seats between one thousand and twelve hundred people. It was none too large. When Mr. Debs entered, promptly at 4 o’clock, there was scarcely a seat to be had. His entrance was greeted with an enthusiastic burst of applause that lasted several minutes, and which was renewed a moment later, when, after being introduced by G. T. Hersch ’10L, president of the Socialist Society, the speaker rose to begin his address. Mr. Debs presents a striking figure—tall with a large, narrow very bald head, keen eyes and long, bony arms and fingers which he uses with great effect. His simplicity and sincerity were apparent from the outset.

The speech itself was a memorable one, and one which those who heard it will not soon forget. Mr. Debs began, almost academically with an account of Industrial Era which succeeded the Age of Feudalism, but presently warming to his subject he swept on, carrying with him an audience that listened attentively to every word. Although the speech was essentially a serious one and reached at times depths of pathos hard to surpass, it was relieved ever and again by touches of a dry, quaint humour of which Mr. Debs is a master —a humour so keen that it not only caused the audience to laugh but provoked several times spontaneous bursts of applause.

“Socialism,” said Mr. Debs, “is a scientific analysis of present and past conditions, and a forecast of what, from those conditions, is bound to come. We are not endeavoring to foist Socialism on Society, and we are merely preparing it for its peaceful entrance.” The account of present day conditions was forceful without oratory. Debs told of having seen father carrying the dinner pail to the child who worked in the factory, because the present system of production demands cheap labor. Coming from a man who at thirteen was working on a railroad, and at sixteen was firing a freight engine, the facts seemed all the more forceful.

The Socialist leader related his experience with the “Four Hundred,” some of whom he once had occasion to address. “They wanted to see what kind of an animal I was,” he said. I had great notoriety at the time —and they had great curiosity. They were all attired in evening dress. The ladies wore what, for some mysterious reason, they called full dress. As I looked into their empty faces, I thought, ‘How artificial they seem.’ If you would have perfect social standing you must be useless.”

After a summary of the unfavorable conditions with which the workingman is now oppressed, including child labor, disinterestedness of the employer, and the prevalent desire for cheap labor, Mr. Debs outlined the hopes of Socialism. Under this system he declared that every man and woman would be given the opportunity to work for the common good. Education and cultivation of the arts would be taken up by every individual. This would be possible because by co-operation instead of competition, the child would not be forced to work, and the workingman not ground under the heel of the individual capitalist. The exploitation of the minority at the expense of the majority would thus give place, by a common awakening, to a state where co-operation, instead of competition would be an economic rule.

Most interesting was the speaker’s comparison of the Socialists of today with the men who led the agitation for the American Revolution. “Undesirable Citizens,” then, all of them—Samuel Adams, the arch incendiary—Tom Paine, vilified as a destroyer of Society —Jefferson, branded as a traitor. “I wonder,” said the speaker, “if the aristocratic Daughters of the Revolution could by some miracle come face to face with their revered forefathers as they were in their own time, whether they would not disown them. Those visionary agitators were disreputable then. They are only respectable now because they are dead, and because the world moved up to where they stood. John Brown and the other abolitionists he cited as a further example—as people with a vision of better things who stood up for their convictions and were despised in their generation. “When John Brown was hung they called him a monster, ten years later he was a fanatic, ten years more and he was misjudged, and now only recently the State bought the old John Brown homestead and the Governor, on the occasion of its dedication, said that ‘the spot where his dust reposes is the most sacred in this commonwealth.'”

“One word,” said Mr. Debs, “I want to leave with you young men and women. It is this, Nothing is more glorious than to stand up for convictions, when the world disagrees with you. If your last friend deserts you, you will be in better company than you were before.”

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DEBATING IN CLASSROOM
Novel System to be Inaugurated Under Auspices of Barnard Literary Association

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, p. 1.

Barnard Literary Association in [col]laboration with Dr. Agger of the Economics Department has formulated a plan of compulsory participation in debating; this experiment to become immediately effective in certain economics classes. In conjunction with Drs. Agger and Mussey, the project has been evolved, including all members taking Economics 2. The system will work as follows: A subject for debate will be chosen, probably on some aspect of socialism. Then during class hours every member of the class will have to speak extemporaneously for five minutes on the subject selected. The individual men will not be told beforehand on what side they will talk, so the speeches will be entirely impromptu. These five minute talks will be so to speak, the preliminaries. All the members of the class will act as judges, and at the conclusion of the trials they will vote for the four best men to comprise the team.

This arrangement will be conducted in both, Dr. Aggers and Dr. Mussey’s classes and after each section has chosen its team, a formal debate will be held, probably in Earl Hall. The whole affair will be conducted under the auspices of Barnard Literary Association. A committee on arrangements has been appointed, consisting of C.J.W. Meisel ’11, R.R. Stewart ’11, R.C. Ingalls ’12, and E.W. Stone ’11, ex-officio. To further stimulate student interest, the society has made appropriations in order to present prizes to the winning team.

Dr. Agger is very enthusiastic about the new plan, and predicts great results for the future. It is a most happy circumstance that a debating society should take charge of this undertaking, and by the co-operation of faculty and the undergraduates, student interest in debating cannot fail to be evoked. A new era for debating is dawning. If this experiment proves as successful as it is expected to, it will undoubtedly be extended to other courses in economics and politics, and will become a permanent feature of the curriculum.

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INTERSECTION DEBATE SOON
Both Teams Selected Yesterday

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 164, 3 May 1910, p. 1.

Arrangements for the intersection debate which is being conducted by the Barnard Literary Association, are rapidly progressing. The subject, as the poster on the society’s bulletin board in Hamilton Hall announces, is Socialism.

Yesterday, Dr. Agger’s morning and afternoon sections each selected a team. Ten men spoke before each class and five were chosen by vote of the class. The morning section picked the following men: L.K. Frank ’12, W.M. Delerick ’12, S.R. Gerstein ’11, C.J.W. Meisel ’11, W.W. Pettit (Pg), while the other section is to be represented by I.[?] J. Levinson ’12, W.A. Scott ’11, S.M. Strassburger ’11, W. MacRossie ’11, J. Levy ’11. All these men must meet in 205 West Hall at 11:55 today in order to choose sides for the semi-finals to be held tomorrow. The team that wins will debate the same subject with Professor Mussey’s section.

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DO WE WANT SOCIALISM?
Students in Economics 2 to Decide Question in Debate Held Under Auspices of Barnard Lit.

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 168, 7 May 1910, p. 3.

Those who are interested in Economics will have an excellent opportunity of hearing a debate on Socialism next Monday at 3 p.m. in 301 Hamilton Hall. The question reads, “Resolved that the common ownership of all the means of production will promote social welfare.” The debaters are all members of the classes in Economics 2. As the course is a very popular one, it is given in three sections, two of which are conducted by Dr. Agger and the other by Professor Mussey. Last Monday Dr. Agger’s sections held their preliminaries and each selected a team. On Wednesday these two teams met, and the judges unanimously decided in favor of the negative team, which consisted of S. M. Strasburger ’11, G. W. Scott ’11, and S. J. Levinson ’12, of the afternoon section. The team representing the morning section was composed of the following men: L. K. Frank ’12, S. R. Gerstein ’11, W. W. Pettit (T. C.), and W. M. Dederick ’12. The decision was based upon the preparation shown, and skill in delivery. The judges also selected Strassburger, Pettit and Levinson as the best speakers, and these men will represent Dr. Agger’s sections against Professor Mussey’s next Monday. Professor Mussey’s section has also chosen a team consisting of S. I. Fried ’12, E. V. Broderick ’12, and W. S. Dakin (T. C.)

The debate next Monday promises to be one of the most interesting ever heard on the Campus. It is the first time that debate has ever been introduced into the class-room as part of the work. The planning, and the making of arrangements for this debate was done by Barnard Literary Association in collaboration with Professor Mussey and Dr. Agger. The members of the winning team are to receive appropriate prizes donated by the association. An invitation to be present has been extended to the students taking Economics 2, in Barnard College. The debate will be open to any one in the University.

Not only have the men on the teams shown unusual interest in the contest but all the men in the various sections are very enthusiastic as to the undertaking. Professor Beard of the Politics Department thinks the scheme is an admirable one, and is anxious to extend it to his field. It may also be possible to introduce class-room debate into the various courses in Philosophy.

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SOCIALISTS RESUSCITATED
Open Meetings Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 16, 15 October 1910, p. 6.

Earl Hall yesterday afternoon was the scene of the Socialist Club’s meeting.

The work for the present year was decided upon, and it was planned to hold a series of open meetings, similar to those of last year, which were addressed by such men as Charles Edward Russell, the present Socialist candidate for Governor, Lincoln Steffens and Eugene V. Debs. There will also be the regular club meetings, with speakers of equally independent ideas but of less wide reputation.

The study and discussion of the principles of Socialism necessary for the formation of an intelligent opinion upon this world-wide movement, will also be continued in the hope that the student body’s interest in public affairs may not only be stimulated, but also educated

The next meeting of the club will be on Wednesday, October 19, at 4:15 p m., in room A, Earl Hall. All those who are interested in the radical political thought of the present day are cordially invited to co-operate with the club, while those who are interested it the investigation of social problems are urged to become members.

Mrs. Florence Kelly, in all probability, will speak in the auditorium of Earl Hall on Thursday, November 10.

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INSTRUCTION IN SOCIALISM
Series of Essays Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 20, 20 October 1910, p. 1.

Something which is both novel and valuable was adopted by the Socialist Club at its meeting yesterday afternoon. This is a scheme for instructing the members in the fundamental principles of Socialism by having a graded series of essays read at the respective meetings.

Plans were also laid to have Mr. Russel, the Socialist Gubernatorial candidate make a campaign speech at the University sometime before election day and also to get Mrs. Finch up on the Campus. Mrs. Finch is the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that “Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun.”

On account of the unavoidable detention of N. Levey ’10L, who was to have read a paper entitled “The Original Intention of the Framers of the Constitution,” J. H. Henle ’12 spoke for a short time on the same topic with which he was thoroughly familiar. He pointed out that, while the Radicals in the colonies dictated the Declaration of Independence, it was the Conservatives who controlled the Constitutional Convention. He said in part: “Authentic reports show that behind closed doors, under a pledge of secrecy, they deliberately planned to protect the wealthy and those of higher understanding. Hamilton, in James-fashion, said in convention, that the constitution proposed would be almost impossible of amendment and, in the Federalist papers, that it was easy of amendment. The Supreme Court was effectively put in absolute control by an arbitory vetoing power and the entire government was made as indirect as it could possibly be—the House of Representatives being the only rope thrown out to the Radicals. The main point of interest is the striking contrast between the unpublished speeches of all the members in the convention with the stated views of the same men in the Federalist papers.”

An open discussion followed. The next meeting of the club will be in Earl Hall, room L, on Friday, October 28.

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About Jessica Garretson Finch

Source: Webpage History of Finch College

JESSICA GARRETSON earned her B.A. as one of the seven women in Barnard College’s first graduating class in 1893. Looking back on the four years she studied there, she said she considered them a waste of time, and observed that her college education had prepared her for one thing – to be a tutor in Greek! After marrying James Finch and receiving her law degree from New York University in the same month that she gave birth to a daughter, she decided to establish a post-secondary school for women that was “different,” and she did! The Finch School opened in 1900 with 13 students. Its curriculum was oriented toward the practical, with as many workshops, studios and practice rooms as classrooms. As enrollment grew, additional room was needed, and by 1904, with grants she had received and a hefty mortgage she arranged for the construction of the building on 78th Street known to many Finch women as the Academic Building. There, in addition to an academic faculty, most of whom were visiting professors from Columbia University, were actors from the New York stage, Seventh Avenue fashion designers, performing instrumentalists, singers, poets and politicians.

MEANWHILE, MRS. FINCH BECAME MRS. [John O’Hara Cosgrave in 1913] COSGRAVE. Her first marriage ended in divorce soon after the turn of the century. In 1913 she married the distinguished journalist, John O’Hare Cosgrave, who proposed to her during the intermission of a Carnegie Hall concert.

PREPARATION FOR THE “RECURRENT CAREER” was at the heart of Jessica Cosgrave’s educational philosophy, and along with her intense interest in “current events” (a term she coined), became the inspiration for the Finch curriculum. Women’s lives, she said, are unlike men’s lives; women’s lives have distinct phases. Therefore, a woman should be in school until she is 22; for the next three or four years she should launch into the first phase of her career; in her mid twenties she will marry, put aside her career and devote her energies to raising a family, four children was the ideal number. At about age 40, with her children in school, a woman should resume her career and, Mrs. Cosgrave advised, seriously consider entering politics.

IN ADDITION TO RUNNING WHAT WAS THEN TERMED “a fashionable school for girls,” Jessica Cosgrave worked energetically from 1900 on for two “causes”; Women’s Suffrage and Socialism. She was quoted in a NEW YORKER magazine “Profile” by Angelica Gibbons in 1946 as saying, “If there is any sensation more exquisite than walking up Fifth Avenue to music in a parade for an unpopular cause, I don’t know what it is.” She said that in one of the suffrage parades “People on the sidelines become impassioned to the point of throwing rotten vegetables and eggs at the ladies as they passed.” Angelica Gibbs goes on to note that this experience proved so invigorating to Jessica Cosgrave that after marching, most of the way up Fifth Avenue, she dropped out of line, took a cab back to the starting point, and “hoofed it all the way up again with another contingent.”

JESSICA COSGRAVE’S “SOCIALISM” may seem a bit incongruous considering how many of the young women from all parts of the United States, South America, Europe and Asia attending Finch came from wealthy families. In 1911, asked about her membership in the Socialist Party and the appearance as speakers at the Finch School of Upton Sinclair, Walter Lippman and other “radicals,” Mrs. Cosgrave said: “My chief object is to awaken Social Consciousness in the girls. I want my graduates to become powers in their communities, not idle fashionable women. I don’t teach these young girls actual Socialism, but Social Activism.” Thirty-five years later, in 1946, when a Finch student interviewed Mrs. Cosgrave, and asked about her politics, she said she stood “Just a bit left of center”!

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SOCIALISTIC LECTURE TODAY
Charles Edward Russell Socialist Candidate for Governor to Speak In Havemeyer

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 35, 7 November 1910, p. 8.

Columbia men will have an unusual opportunity this afternoon to hear in interesting man talk about an interesting subject. Mr. Charles Edward Russell, the author and magazine writer who is running for Governor of this State on the Socialist ticket will talk to Columbia men about socialism as a remedy for the evils from which New York is suffering. The lecture will be delivered in 309 Havemeyer, at 4 o’clock and will be open to the public.

Mr. Russell did general reporting for a number of New York papers, including the Herald, and vas then sent all over the country on special articles for the Sunday papers. For a time he was managing editor of the Hearst newspapers in Chicago. Then he began writing for the magazines. His magazine writing has taken the form of vigorous protests against the sort of political corruption and economic injustice that he saw from the inside during his newspaper days. He has become a “muckraker,” and has recently said that he “intends to keep on raking muck until somebody removes the muck.”

Mr. Russell has written quite a number of books, including “Lawless Wealth,” [1908] “Soldiers of the Common Good,” [article series most of which revised and published in]  “The Uprising of the Many,” [1907] “The Heart of the Railway Problem,” “A Life of Chatterton,” [1908] and “Why I am a Socialist,” [1910] and he is now busy on a life of Wendell Phillips [1914].

This is the first time he has run for political office as a Socialist. The renewed interest in socialism all over the country, and the recent Socialist victory in Milwaukee, made it probable that Mr. Russell will poll a large vote tomorrow.

______________________

ECONOMISTS TO HEAR NOTED SOCIALIST

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 106, 24 February 1911, p. 2.

Mr. John Spargo will deliver the address at the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club tonight. The subject of his talk is, “The Wider Aspects of Socialism.” Mr. Spargo is a well-known socialist. The meeting will be held in 510 Kent, at 8 tonight. All members and guests are requested to be on hand promptly. The club is made up of graduate students who are working for a Ph. D.

Following are other lectures scheduled:

Friday, March 10: Henry George’s Theory of Land Rent and the Single Tax. Paper by Mr. I. S. Adlerblum.

Friday, March 24: A detailed description and criticism of the provisions of Senator Aldrich’s Plan for Banking Reform in the United States. Paper by Mr. Oswald Knauth.

______________________

DISCUSSION OF SOCIALISM
Graduate Economics Club

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 107, 25 February 1911, p. 1.

Mr. John Spargo the noted author and lecturer addressed the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club last evening in Kent Hall. About seventy-five members and guests were present. The lecture was followed by an informal discussion in which Mr. Spargo declared himself ready to answer any questions put to him.

The subject of Mr. Spargo’s lecture was in general socialism, but he confined himself for the most part to a consideration of the theories of Marx, Engel, and Riccardo. He said it was not from a man’s enemies but from his friends that the most was to be feared. In the case of these three economists their over enthusiastic followers had been responsible for much misrepresentation. A single bald statement, in a great many cases, had been made a slogan while all that qualified it had been forgotten.

From the statement of abstract theories Mr. Spargo went on to a consideration of the spread of socialism throughout the country and particularly in the West. “The State of Oklahoma,” he said, “has the greatest number of socialists in proportion to the population, of any state in the Union.” He accounted for this chiefly by the fact that those people who had emigrated to the West and had been persevering enough to face the hardships of pioneering were of a more liberal and unbiased turn of mind than the conservative Easterners. Socialism he said in part, offers them a theory of Social Progress, A Social Ideal, and not only that but an organized movement for the realization of that Ideal which appeals to their Western intellects.

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SOCIALISTS TO STUDY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 108, 27 February 1911, p. 5.

The Socialist Club is planning to study socialism in a systematic way. Beginning with the next meeting, definite chapters in Mr. Edmund Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” will be assigned to the members for study. At succeeding meetings these will be discussed by the members and specially invited guests. President Trimble speaks very enthusiastically of the plan and considers this an excellent opportunity for everyone interested in socialism to increase their knowledge of the arguments for and against it.

* * * * * * * * * *

[Economics in the Rear-view Mirror attaches the following notes on Edmund Kelly:]

Kelly, Edmond (1851-1909). Educated at Columbia [Class of 1870?] and at Cambridge. “Lecturer on Municipal Government at Columbia University”. He had founded the City Club and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. Political and professional activities in New York and in Paris.

Kelly, Edmond. Evolution and Effort and their Relation to Religion and Politics. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895.

____________. Government or Human Evolution. Vol. I Justice. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900.

____________. Government or Human Evolution.Vol. II Individualism and Collectivism. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901.

____________. A Practical Programme for Working Men. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906.

____________. The Unemployables. London: P.S. King & Son, 1907.

____________. The Elimination of the Tramp by the Introduction into America of the Labour Colony System already proved Effective in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, with the Modifications thereof Necessary to adapt this System to American Conditions. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908.

____________. Twentieth Century Socialism. What it is not; What it is; How it may come. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911. [Forward by Franklin H. Giddings]

“Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book [Twentieth Century Socialism], and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of “Some Ethical Gains through Legislation” and translator of Marx’ “Discourse on Free Trade,” and of Friedrich Engels’s work on the “Condition of the Working Class in England.” She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author’s son.”  Pp. xiv and xv.

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STUDENTS OF SOCIALISM TO MEET TODAY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 2.

In Earl Hall today, at 4:10, the Socialistic Club will hold an important meeting. The organization is taking up a systematic study of Socialism and today there will be discussion, at the meeting, of Edmond Kelley’s “Twentieth Century Socialism.” At the next meeting, March 8, the club will be addressed by some prominent Socialist, probably John Spargo. All students are invited to attend today’s meeting.

______________________

SOCIALISTS ELECT OFFICERS
Trimble Chosen President

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 8.

Election of officers of the Socialist Society for the coming term was held yesterday afternoon with the following results: R.J. Trimble, president; and G.G. Bobbe, secretary and treasurer. It was decided that the club would read several chapters of Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” for each meeting and assign a member to prepare a paper upon them. The next meeting will be held on March 1.

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SOCIALISTS MAKE GIFT TO UNIVERSITY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 111, 2 March 1911, p. 3.

At the meeting of the Socialist club held yesterday afternoon, it was decided to present a copy of “Twentieth Century Socialism,” to the University. Mr. Fraenkel of the Law School gave an interesting explanation of the views expressed in the first few chapters of that book and a general discussion followed. The next meeting will be held the afternoon of Wednesday, March 3.

______________________

SOCIALISTS ON 20TH CENTURY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 117, 9 March 1911, p. 1.

At a meeting held yesterday afternoon in Earl Hall, the Socialist Club took up an interesting discussion on a paper read on Commissioner Edward [sic] Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” was also taken up, and resulted in a lively discussion about the respective merits of the evolutionary and revolutionary points of view on Socialism. The next meeting of the club will be held Wednesday, March 15 and if possible some prominent Socialist will be obtained to lead the discussion.

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“INCOME TAX” INTERESTS ECONOMISTS

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 118, 10 March 1911, p. 1.

Next Wednesday the Undergraduate Economics Club will meet in 510 Kent at 8 p. m. The main subject for discussion will be “The Federal Income Tax,” E. V. Broderick, ’12 will give a history of the income tax and its actual working up to 1895. After an informal discussion of this, there will be reports and outlines for the coming work in the following committee; Socialism; Tariff, Railroads, Banking, Trusts, Conservation of Natural Resources and Labor Problems. Those members who were present at the last meeting have been assigned to committees. Members desiring to work on any special committee should inform the chairman of that committee

The plans for the remaining semester include trips to the Stock Exchange, Clearing House, Plant of Bush Terminal Cos., in addition to an address by Mr. G. A. McAneny, borough President of Manhattan and several other prominent men of the day.

______________________

SOCIALIST SOCIETY MEETING
Mrs. Jessica Finch Speaks

Source: Barnard Bulletin (April 5, 1911), p. 3.

Mrs. Jessica Finch spoke on Wednesday, March 29, 1911, before the Barnard and Columbia Chapters of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Her talk was extremely interesting. She spoke first on the need for getting rid of poverty in this world. Physical well-being is the basis for spiritual well-being. It is very easy for people who are materially well-off to point out people who live beautiful, inspiring lives under adverse conditions. But lack of the essentials of life, such as food, air, light and leisure, are bound to retard intellectual mental growth.

Poverty, moreover, is unnecessary in the world at present. Before the introduction of machinery, it is true that there was not enough of even the necessities of life to go around. But since the industrial revolution there is no need for any one to be without life’s necessities, for there is more than enough for all. To secure for all a fair share of the necessities of life, industry must be socialized. All unearned increments, that is, all profits not due to mental and physical labor, must go to society or equal distribution among those who spent themselves in the production thereof.

______________________

TO DISCUSS MODERN SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 149, 20 April 1911, p. 8.

The Columbia Socialist Society will hold a regular meeting this afternoon at 4:10 o’clock in Earl Hall. The members will hold an open discussion on the third chapter of Kelly’s ““Twentieth Century Socialism.” All members of the University are invited to attend the meeting.

______________________

SOCIALISTS TO GATHER TOMORROW

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 14, 12 October 1911, p. 5.

As announced in yesterday’s issue, the year’s first meeting of the Socialist Society will be held in Earl Hall tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. The society will be addressed by its president, S. S. Bobbe ’13, and an outline of the coming season’s work will be discussed. All members and students interested in Socialism should attend.

______________________

NOTED SOCIALIST TO TALK
Meeting of Club Today

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 25, 25 October 1911, p. 6.

Today at 4:00 P. M. the Socialist Club will hold its second meeting of the year in Room J, Earl Hall. The club will be addressed by the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, H.J. Laidler, Wesleyan ’07, who will explain the work he has been doing as organizer and what the Columbia chapter can do to help create an intelligent interest in Socialism at Columbia.

The Intercollegiate Socialist Society has lately increased its chapters to 30, an increase in the past year of over three hundred per cent. Mr. Laidler has been to a great extent responsible for this increase, and is, therefore, well qualified to give an interesting and encouraging talk to the society. He will also discuss with the club the matter of a course of lectures on radical subjects by prominent men. that is now being planned by the club. The Intercollegiate Society will aid the club in securing the speakers.

Besides Mr. Laidler, several of the members of the club will read papers on different aspects of Socialism. All those in the University interested in Socialism are invited to attend.

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LAIDLER ADDRESSES SOCIALIST CLUB

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 26, 26 October 1911, p. 2.

H. J. Laidler, the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society addressed the Columbia Socialist Club yesterday on the progress of Socialism in the United States during the past twenty and especially in the colleges. His work as organizer has brought him in touch with conditions all over the country, and he spoke of the grasp Socialism has taken on all forms of society.

“I have seen miners,” he said, “take up Karl Marx and study him into the night, and go from him to philosophy, to literature, art and science—all because of the new outlook they had received. If you really want to get the most out of life you should get the philosophy of Socialism; you should study it earnestly and with that sympathy that gives us insight. Socialism has been the means of moulding the lives of many. Further, we should compensate to society that which society has given to us.”

Following Mr. Laidler’s speech the club discussed the question of speakers on various live topics. These speeches are to be given by a number of prominent men and will form a series. They will not be confined to Socialism, but will take up all lines of radical thought. As soon as the speakers have all been secured, the club will publish the list with their various topics. The next meeting of the club will be held next Wednesday afternoon in Earl Hall.

______________________

TRUST PROBLEM DISCUSSED
Seager Addresses Economists

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 32, 2 November 1911, p. 8.

At the meeting of the Economics Club in Hamilton Hall yesterday afternoon Professor H. P. Seager gave a lecture on Trusts. A large audience was present when the president of the club introduced the speaker. Professor Seager began his lecture by giving a short history of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. He praised the law very highly and said that better wording could hardly be framed to cover the situation so thoroughly. Until the term of Roosevelt, the law had not been properly enforced. Under McKinley, only three indictments were issued; under Roosevelt, however, there were twenty-five indictments against trusts and the same policy has been carried on under Taft, his record being eighteen, up to July 1, 1911.

The late decisions of the Supreme Court were next discussed by Professor Seager. He was not very sanguine about the probable efficacy of the court’s orders to the trusts to dissolve. The haze surrounding the court’s decisions must be cleared away in subsequent suits before the real meaning of the Anti-Trust Act is defined.

It was therefore the duty of the President to institute suit against the Steel Trust in order to clear up this vagueness. Industry must necessarily be dull until it is definitely settled whether business, as at present organized can exist or not.

He remarked in conclusion that the tendency seemed to be toward Socialism, but that he had grave doubts whether this tendency would go to that extent. It was his opinion that the present situation would produce a solution for the problems of today.

______________________

FOREIGN SOCIALISM STUDIED
Cooperation Discussed

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 49, 23 November 1911, p. 5.

At a study meeting held in Earl Hall yesterday, R.J. Trimble ’12, addressed the Socialist Club on the cooperative movement in Belgium. This movement has spread into almost all of the retail business of the country, and the working people buy nearly all their goods at these stores obtaining not only a saving in price, but free insurance against unemployment, sickness and accident.

The next meeting of the club will be held on Wednesday, November 29th, when one of the members will give a talk on Edward R. Bellamy and his works. On Friday, December 8, Mr. John Moody, of “Moodys Magazine,” will give a lecture under the auspices of the club on “The Problem of Railroads.”

______________________

ADDRESS ON CHILD LABOR
O. R. Lovejoy Gives Lecture

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 68, 19 December 1911, p. 3.

“Child Labor” was the topic of the third lecture in the series on “Modern Problems” held under the auspices of the Socialist Club given yesterday afternoon by Owen R. Lovejoy. Mr. Lovejoy drew largely from his own experience as secretary of the National Child Labor Committee. “As compared with the great problem itself, the effects of child labor on the child dwindle into insignificance. Really the most important aspect of the problem is its economic aspect. It means a menace to our economic interest from the standpoint of wages. Wherever child labor is employed the standard of wages in the community is lowered. Thus, in some New England towns men get only eight or nine dollars a week as a result of the competition from child labor.

“Child Labor” acts indirectly to destroy the family. No more faulty argument can be used against Socialism than to say it will destroy the family, it is already destroyed. The employment of children during the hours they should be under the influence of the home tends in this direction. But even worse, the lower standard of wages resultant on child labor makes it the duty of a man subject to those conditions not to attempt to raise a family.

“Legislation regulating this course has been secured in thirty-eight of the states, but the great fault is not that sufficient legislation has been had, but that there has not been sufficient enforcement of the legislation.”

“The main opposition to child labor regulation has come in the past from those most vitally interested —from the employers, from the parents of the children and even from the children themselves. It has actually been demonstrated by comparison of factories in New England where no child labor is employed and those of the South where it is employed that the employer suffers in economic loss by their employment—and yet the employers oppose us. The parents are against us either because they are ignorant or because they suffer the want of a larger income, whereas child labor itself acts to lower their own wages.

 

Image Source:  1912 U.S. presidential campaign poster for the Socialist Party ticket: Eugene V. Debs and Emil Seidel from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Swarthmore Undergraduate

Swarthmore. Honors Examinations. Economic Theory and Social Economics, 1934.

 

It is not quite clear whether the following exams that had been prepared for Swarthmore College’s honors economics degree were simply misfiled with Johns Hopkins’ political economy department exams or whether those exams had been been recycled expressly for examining Johns Hopkins’ economics majors. In any event we can add Broadus Mitchell’s two exams for Swarthmore here to those of later external examiners  Paul Samuelson (1943), Wolfgang Stolper (1944), and Richard Musgrave (1946).   The Swarthmore department exam for 1931 was also posted earlier.

A 90 page transcript of an oral history interview with Broadus Mitchell from August 14 and 15, 1977 can be found in the Southern Oral History Program Collection at the website Documenting the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Selections from that oral history will be added later.

____________________

Abstract from the Oral History Interview with Broadus Mitchell
August 14 and 15, 1977

John Broadus Mitchell was born in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1892 into a family with roots in religion and education. Mitchell describes his upbringing and the strong influence of both his parents. Mitchell discusses his father’s education and career as a professor of history, his parents’ liberal political leanings, and their community involvement. Mitchell also describes his perceptions of race while growing up in Kentucky, Virginia, and South Carolina. Mitchell became an economic historian; he describes in detail how the textile industry shifted its base of power from New England to the southern states in the late nineteenth century, and he talks at length about the impact of industrialization on southern communities. Mitchell became particularly interested in the politics of labor and race. He explains the purposes of labor education programs—notably the Summer School for Women Workers at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and the Southern Summer School for Women Workers in North Carolina—and his participation in those endeavors. In the 1920s, Mitchell moved to Baltimore to teach at Johns Hopkins University. In the 1930s, he came under the administration’s scrutiny when he publicly spoke out about a lynching in Salisbury, Maryland, advocated for the admittance of an African American graduate student to the university, and began to embrace socialist politics. He resigned in 1939. During the years of World War II, he worked briefly at Occidental College and New York University before finding a tenured position in the economics department at Rutgers University. Mitchell continued to be involved in leftist politics during the 1940s, and in the 1950s he participated in a movement at Rutgers to combat McCarthyism in academia. Throughout this interview, Mitchell emphasizes the influence of his upbringing on his political beliefs, and he relates his own experiences to those of his siblings who also were engaged in activism related to labor and race. Towards the end of the interview, Mitchell’s wife, Louise, joins the interview and discusses her career in teaching, her own community involvement, and her efforts to balance the demands of work and family.

____________________

Swarthmore College
DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
HONORS EXAMINATION: ECONOMIC THEORY
May 17, 1934 at 8:30

Examiner: Professor Broadus Mitchell, Johns Hopkins

Please answer any five.

  1. What are the relative importances today of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of wealth?
  2. “The business cycle is inherent in the capitalist economic system.” Discuss this statement.
  3. How do “pure profits” arise? Under what circumstances did the enterpriser, as a distinct functionary, enter economic life? What are some of the means of avoiding economic risk?
  4. Under what economic circumstances was the differential or Ricardian theory of rent announced? Explain the use made of this theory by Henry George.
  5. Discuss as many theories of interest as you can, indicating which seems to you to be the most reasonable.
  6. Explain (with the use of schedules and diagrams if you choose) how market price is determined under conditions of perfect competition. Discuss briefly monopoly price and class price.
  7. What was the Wage Fund Theory and why was it abandoned?
  8. Discuss the relationship between the Malthusian theory of population and socialism.
  9. Give your definition of money.
  10. What are the main arguments for and against fiat money inflation?
  11. How would you provide a cure for “technological unemployment”?
  12. What are some of the limitations upon conscious economic planning within the capitalist system as these have appeared during the present depression?

 

Swarthmore College
DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
HONORS EXAMINATION: SOCIAL ECONOMICS
May 18, 1934

Examiner: Professor Broadus Mitchell, Johns Hopkins

Answer the questions marked with an asterisk and any four (4) others.

  1. *What do you consider to be the chief economic desire of the mass of the people of the United States? Explain.
  2. What would you say is the major thesis of the majority of text books in the principles of political economy? Is it accurate to say that these books are practically invalidated by the events of the past four or five years?
  3. Make an argument for the continuance of capitalism.
  4. Indicate the chief wastes of the competitive system.
  5. What is R.H. Tawney’s criticism of an acquisitive society?
  6. From the standpoint of probable future change, what have been the principal economic and political tendencies in the United States?
  7. *Discuss the effect of the present business depression upon the problem of economic reform in the United States.
  8. Give your judgment of the sufficiency of the single tax as a scheme of social reform.
  9. *Distinguish between “utopian” and “scientific” socialism.
  10. What are some of the relative advantages in compulsory unemployment insurance of the “company reserve” plan and the “pooled fund” plan?
  11. In your opinion, is widespread organization of labor indispensable to radical social reorganization in this country?
  12. If you consider that there is a theory of social reform running through the recovery measures of the present Administration, give your critical appraisal of it.
  13. *What would you recommend as next steps in the “New Deal”.
  14. In what respects can the experiment of Soviet Russia be taken as a guide for the United States? In what respects is it not a guide for us?
  15. *What book in the College library, no matter what the character or subject, has interested you most? Why?

Source:  Johns Hopkins University.  The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Records.Series 6, Curricular Materials and Exams, Box 2, Folder “Exams, 1930-35”.

Image Source:  Broadus Mitchell in his office, ca. 1938. From the Johns Hopkins university graphic and pictorial collection.

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Undergraduate

Johns Hopkins. Comprehensive Exams on Reading List for Economics Majors, 1933-40

 

 

The exam questions transcribed below come from two folders of economics examinations at Johns Hopkins University from the 1930s in the Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives at the university. The folders are mostly filled with individual course final examinations at mid-year (Jan/Feb) and end-year (May), but the following exams are not associated with any particular course and, considering the breadth of the topics addressed,  we may presume that these exams had the function of serving as comprehensive tests (see the May 11, 1935 exam below).

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EXAMINATION ON READING LIST FOR A.B. MAJORS IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS
May 24, 1933

  1. Discuss the more important abuses in corporation management in recent years.
  2. Indicate some of the more important departures from the laissez-faire doctrine in recent years in the United States.
  3. What were the ideas of Adam Smith as to the desirability of state interference in economic activity and as to the proper sphere of state activity.
  4. Distinguish between Socialism and philosophical Anarchism.
  5. What is meant by a planned economic system? Discuss its feasibility.
  6. Distinguish between the statistical method, the historical method, and the theoretical method in the study of business cycles.
  7. What has been the policy of the United States as regards the protection of American investments abroad?

[Examination on the reading list in political economy (May 1934) was not in folder]

COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION FOR MAJORS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
May 11, 1935

  1. Contrast, as to structure and methods, the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor.
  2. Contrast “Utopian” and “Scientific” Socialism.
  3. How would G. D. H. Cole make the transition from Capitalist to Cooperative Society?
  4. Describe in brief outline the mechanics of setting up a “code of fair competition”.
  5. Contrast the position of the journeyman under the Guild System and the average American wage-earner today.
  6. What does Mr. George Soule mean by saying that we are now passing through an economic and social revolution?
  7. “Economic behavior” constitutes an attempt to work out an institutional approach to the study of economics. Discuss this statement.
  8. What are the effects of the corporate system on fundamental economic concepts?
  9. Who were the leading members of the Austrian School of economists? What in general was the contribution of this group?
  10. What has been the contribution of the statistical method upon the study of business cycles?
  11. What is meant by the open door as an international economic policy? What has been the policy of the United States in this respect?

 

EXAMINATION FOR MR. HOWELL ON READING FOR MAJOR IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
October 5, 1935

  1. What have been the main policies of the American Federation of Labor?
  2. What where the chief contentions of Karl Marx?
  3. How would Mr. G. D. H. Cole use social control of credit to bring about a cooperative commonwealth?
  4. Describe the organization of rural life in England in, say, the 12th and 13th centuries.
  5. What are the economic consequences of “the Power Age”?
  6. What is an institution? Illustrate. What is the institutional approach to economics?
  7. What is Ricardo’s place in the history of Economic thought?
  8. Discuss the dispersion of stock ownership.
  9. Professor Wesley Mitchell says: “We do not say that a business economy has developed in any community until most of its economic activities have taken on the form of making and spending money.” What is the meaning of this statement? What is its significance in the theory of business cycles?
  10. What is the meaning and purpose of the “most favored nation” clause in commercial treaties? What has been the history of the American interpretation of this clause?

Source:  Johns Hopkins University. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Records, Series 6. Curricular Materials; Exams, 1924-29; Exams, 1951-55. Box 2, Folder “Exams, 1930-1935”.

__________________

[Examination on the reading list in political economy (May 1936) was not in folder]

EXAMINATION ON THE READING LIST IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
May 17, 1937

  1. What can you say of the relationship between trade restrictions in the world depression?
  2. What where the similarities of the Statute of Apprentices, 1563, and the NRA?
  3. Contrast the general character of the economic doctrine of John Stuart Mill with that of Karl Marx.
  4. Characterize briefly the factory acts movement, Chartist, cooperative, labor union, and Socialist movements of 19th century England.
  5. Discuss administrative prices.
  6. What is meant by quasi-rent?
  7. Discuss Lutz’s requisites for a sound tax system.
  8. What is the “most-favored-nation clause”? What are its consequences? What has been the American policy with respect to this clause?
  9. Give an explanation of what seems to you the most reasonable theory of business cycles.
  10. What does Veblen mean by Business Enterprise? What economic consequences does he ascribe to a system of business enterprise?

 

EXAMINATION ON THE READING LIST IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
May 2, 1938

  1. What does G. D. H. Cole say as to the causes and consequences of present-day protectionism in the world?
  2. Give some account of the Factory Acts Movement in England in the 19th century.
  3. “Modern industry has produced a set of conditions radically different from those in which laissez-faire principles apply. It has introduced new types of industrial and business organization whose operations impede or distort the process of automatic adjustment.” Discuss.
  4. Should tax-exempt securities be abolished in the United States?
  5. Comment upon the various methods of commercial diplomacy that have been employed by the United States in order to promote the export business of the country.
  6. Discuss the theory that the explanation of the business cycle is to be found in the capitalistic process of production.
  7. What are Veblen’s ideas concerning the causes of the business cycle? His suggested remedies?
  8. What does Marshall mean by the phrase “the representative firm”? How does he employ the concept?
  9. Contrast the doctrines of Friedrich List and Adam Smith.
  10. Given the following figures concerning the cost and the demand for the output of a single firm operating under the conditions of “Imperfect” competition, determine the price. Explain and discuss briefly your answer. Construct the demand schedule for the product of this firm under the condition of “perfect” competition, using as one figure in the schedule a price of 19 for an output of 11. What would be the price under “perfect” competition and how many articles would be sold? (Remember that the demand schedule for the product of a single firm is different from the general demand schedule for all firms operating under perfect competition.”

Output

 Total cost at given output Demand price for given output
9 183

21

10

 188 20
11 195

19

12

 205 18
13 220

17

14

 239 16
15 263

15

 

[Examination on the reading list in political economy (May 1939) was not in folder]

 

EXAMINATION ON THE READING LIST IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
May 10, 1940

  1. To what extent does the present Federal corporation income tax conform to the requisites of a sound tax system set forth by Lutz?
  2. What lines of government policy seem to you most likely to succeed in reducing unemployment? Explain why.
  3. What are the principal methods used by producers to stabilize the prices of their products? Discuss the probable economic consequences of private price fixing.
  4. Explain clearly and fully Professor Marshall’s concept of the “representative firm”. What place does this concept have in Marshall’s exposition of the process of price-determination? Do you think that the concept is useful as an instrument in the elaboration of value-theory under modern conditions of industrial organization? Why or why not?
  5. Explain the relationship between money and the business cycle. In what ways can monetary control affect the business cycle?
  6. What is meant by the “open-door” and the “closed-door” in international economic relations? Explain the policies which the United States has pursued as respects these doctrines.
  7. In respect to the theory of economic development, compare David Ricardo and Karl Marx. In your answer take note of (a) theory of value, (b) theory of distribution, (c) relation of state to industry, (d) method of analysis, (e) degree of realism of each (give your opinion as to the validity of their doctrines).
  8. Contrast the English reform movement before 1860 with that after 1860. (In your answer indicate the motives that prompted the reforms; mention also what in your opinion were the two most important reforms in each period.)

Source:  Johns Hopkins University. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Records, Series 6. Curricular Materials; Exams, 1924-29; Exams, 1951-55. Box 2, Folder “Exams, 1936-1940”.

 

Source: Gilman Hall, Johns Hopkins University. Hullabaloo 1924.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus and assigned readings for interdisciplinary course, Social Sciences 2, 1970-71.

 

Regular followers of this blog will have noticed a recurring theme of economics education within a broader historical/social scientific curriculum. This post looks at a long-time staple of Harvard’s undergraduate General Education course offerings, Social Sciences 2 “Western Thought and Institutions” that was conceived and taught by government professor Samuel H. Beer over three decades assisted by a changing stable of “section men”[sic! Theda Skocpol was a section leader in 1970-71]. 

I am a firm believer in the virtues of building a broad interdisciplinary foundation before allowing (compelling?) economics majors and graduate students to turn their attention to the technical methods of the discipline. The former promotes the capacity to pose interesting questions and the latter creates a capacity to seek solutions to those questions. 

Following the two Harvard Crimson articles on Professor Beer and his course, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is delighted to provide the course syllabus with its reading assignments from the academic year 1970-71. Students had to write three papers each term and according to the source for this syllabus (see below), he spend “as much work for SocSci 2 as [he] did for the other three courses combined”.

__________________

Beer’s Soc Sci 2 Comes to A Close With Last Lecture
by Jaleh Poorooshasb
The Harvard Crimson, May 5, 1978

A chapter of Harvard history ended yesterday as Samuel H. Beer, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, delivered his last Harvard lecture before retiring.

Beer spoke before a packed hall of about 300 students, admirers and colleagues, some of whom had come as far as a thousand miles to hear the grand finale of Social Sciences 2, “Western Thought and Institutions.”

Although Beer will take advantage of retirement regulations that allow him to teach on a half-time basis, Soc Sci 2, which Beer has taught for 30 years, will be gone from Harvard forever.

“In this case, the man made the course and we would not presume to replace him,” John H. Harvey, assistant director of General Education, said yesterday.

In the lecture, which received thunderous applause and a standing ovation, Beer discussed Nazi Germany and ended with a quote from a prison camp survivor saying good and bad people exist everywhere.

Then, before the audience realized the lecture was over, and began clapping and cheering, Beer bounded out the door. He was halfway down Divinity Ave. before Michael Walzer, professor of Government and a former sectionman for Soc Sci 2, caught up with him and invited him to the Faculty Club, where more than 20 former sectionmen attended a luncheon in Beer’s honor.

The list of former sectionmen in Soc Sci 2 includes such notables as Henry A. Kissinger ’50 and James R. Schlesinger ’50.

Old Soldiers?

“Good courses never die,” Walzer said yesterday, adding that Beer’s influence will continue through his former students.

Beer, who is best known for his work in British politics and federalism in America, will continue to study and write books in both fields, Beer said yesterday.

He will teach two government courses at Harvard next fall and will repeat them during the winter quarter at Dartmouth, he added. One course is entitled “American Federalism” and the other “Modern British Politics and Policy.”

One of a Kind

Beer, former chairman of the Government Department at Harvard and author of several major works, “is a rich scholar of the type that is not created any more,” in a world geared toward specialization,” Sidney Verba ’53, chairman of the Government Department, said yesterday.

Beer said he is “quite content to terminate Soc. Sci. 2.”

“My father took it when he was here but I didn’t sign up because he told me it’s too hard,” one freshman, who wished to remain anonymous, said yesterday.

Beer made no personal observations during the lecture. He began by saying, “I really have changed my lectures over the years. I’ve even changed the jokes. But this lecture I haven’t changed. There’s such an air of finality about it.”

Beer has long been considered one of the foremost American experts on the theory of federalism. His writings include “The Modernization of American Federalism.”

Sam Beer, Legendary Gov Prof, Dies at 97
By Huma N. Shah
The Harvard Crimson, April 14, 2009

Last year, when the Harvard government department organized a meeting for alumni, current professors were asked to give a presentation on their projects and research. One participant was former professor and department chair Samuel H. Beer, who gave a short statement about the nuances of political science during his tenure at Harvard from 1946 to 1982.

“He completely stole the show,” said government professor Stanley Hoffmann, a former student of Beer’s. “[The current professors] were all preempted by the master, who spoke without notes, remembering everyone and everything. No one believed the man was 96 years old at the time.”

Beer, a noted scholar of British and American politics, passed away on April 7, at the age of 97.

“He was a spectacularly good teacher because his classes were all in the form of questions he addressed to himself and his students, for which he had all sorts of arguments before coming to his own conclusion,” said Hoffman. “It was very different from the typical top-down sort of lecturing. It was as if he was struggling with his own opinions.”

Beer, the chair of the Harvard government department from 1954 to 1958, served as the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government for years before moving to Boston College in 1982 to be a professor of American politics.

Receiving his B.A. from the University of Michigan, Beer went to England on a Rhodes Scholarship before receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard in 1943. He was later granted an honorary doctorate from the University in 1997 in recognition of “his scholarship and [the] enormous impact his teaching had on undergraduates for over three decades,” said Peter A. Hall, Beer’s former student, who is currently a European studies professor at Harvard.

Beer was most famous for his self-designed course Social Studies 2: “Western Thought and Institutions,” which he taught for 30 years. Students studied six key moments in the development of Western Civilization, and “used theoretical lenses to understand the historical process,” said former teaching fellow Judith E. Vichniac, the current director of the fellowship program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

“Everywhere he went he was stopped on the streets by people who have taken that course,” Hall said. “It was one that inspired thousands of Harvard students.”

The teaching fellows who worked with Beer often went on to careers as academics or public service officials. Some of his famous students included Henry A. Kissinger ’50, Michael Walzer, and Charles H. Tilly ’50.

Before studying at Harvard, Beer was a staff member of the Democratic National Committee, and occasionally wrote speeches for former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 and 1936.

Active in American politics, Beer was chairman of Americans for Democratic Action during his tenure at Harvard from 1959 to 1962. He also actively opposed student rebellions at Harvard during the late sixties.

Beer was elected president of the American Political Science Association in 1977, and was also appointed as a fellow of the British Academy in 2000.

After earning his Ph.D., Beer earned a Bronze Star fighting with the U.S. Army in Normandy. During his time at Oxford in the 1930s, he travelled to Germany, where he saw Hitlerism first hand, according to Government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, another of Beer’s former students.

“He wanted to know how Germany could have fallen so far to embrace these vicious totalitarian ideas,” Mansfield said. “His courses were often directed to that subject.” Beer described the influence of these travels on his graduate work at Harvard in the Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions.

“By the time I came to Harvard in the fall of 1938, I was a fierce anti-communist, a fervent New Dealer, a devotee of Emerson, and ready to try to put it all together….[in] a defense of liberalism against the totalitarian threat,” Beer wrote. Many of his former students praised Beer’s engaging personality and dedication to teaching.

“He had a very good eye for the most important questions in politics and was intensely engaged with the thinkers over the ages who had worked with those questions,” Hall said. “When you talked to Sam Beer you were engaging in a dialogue with Marx, Weber, or Augustine. He had read an enormous amount, and he thought deeply about the big social and political questions throughout his life.”

“He would come to class wearing his military outfit and pump his fist, and tell us what to think about,” Mansfield said.

__________________

SOCIAL SCIENCES 2
READING LIST
Fall Term 1970-71

The work of the Fall Term consists of three essays, one for each topic, and the mid-year examination. Section men will make specific assignments and suggest additional reading for these essays.

Books for Purchase

Students should own the following books, available at the Harvard Coop, or elsewhere as announced:

  1. Bunyan, John, THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
    Paperback: New American Library: Signet Classics
  2. DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE (Assize of Clarendon, Writs from the treatis called “Glanville” Magna Carta, and the Constitutions of Clarendon). Pamphlet: University Printing Office. On sale in General Education office, 1737 Cambridge St., Rm. 602.
  3. Hill, Christopher, THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION 1603-1714
    Paperback: W. W. Norton
  4. Marx and Engels, BASIC WRITINGS ON POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY
    Edited by Lewis S. Feuer. Paperback: Doubleday (Anchor)
  5. Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
    Edited by Samuel H. Beer. Paperback: Appleton-Century-Crofts (Crofts Classics)
  6. SOCIAL CONTRACT: ESSAYS BY LOCKE, HUME, AND ROUSSEAU
    Introduction by Ernest Barker. Paperback: Oxford (Galaxy Books)
  7. Tierney, Brian, THE CRISIS OF CHURCH AND STATE 1050-1300
    Paperback: Prentice-Hall (Spectrum)
  8. Weber, Max, THEORY OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION, translated by A. Herderson and T. Parsons.
    Paperback: MacMillan Free Press.
  9. Walzer, Michael, THE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS
    Paperback: Atheneum

 

Attention of members of the course is directed to the new book written by former section men in Social Sciences too, Melvin Richter (Ed.), Essays in Theory and History: An Approach to Social Sciences (Harvard University Press 1970)

Assigned Reading

Everything on the following list is on “closed reserve” in Lamont and Hilles Libraries. The date suggested here will vary during the semester; lectures and section discussions should be your guides.

TOPIC 1: TRADITIONALISM AND THE MEDIEVAL POLITY

  1. Week of September 28: THE SOCIOLOGY OF AUTHORITY
    Weber, Max, THE THEORY OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION, pp. 324-392.
  2. Weeks of October 5, 12, and 19: FEUDAL MONARCHY IN ENGLAND
    Bloch, Marc, FEUDAL SOCIETY, pp. 59-92, 103-120, 270-274.
    Poole, Austin Lane, FROM DOMESDAY BOOK TO MAGNA CARTA 1087-1216, chaps, I, II, V, X-XIV.
    Jolliffe, J.E.A., THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, pp. 139-263.
    John of Salisbury, THE STATEMAN’ S BOOK (from the POLICRATICUS), translated by John Dickinson, Introduction, Text: IV:1, 2, 3, (pp. 9-10), 4, 11; V:1, 2, 5; VI:18, 20, 21, 24; VII:17-19; VIII:17 (pp. 335-9), 18, 20, 23, (pp. 398-9; 405-10)
    DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE: Assize of Clarendon, Writs from the Treatis called “Glanvill,” Magna Carta.

Optional: ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 1042-1189 (Vol. II of series) edited by David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway. Nos. 1 (years 1135-154), 10, 12, (pp. 322-4, 331-3, 335-8), 16, 19, 58-9, 268.

TOPIC II: DYNAMICS OF MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENT

  1. Week of October 26: THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
    Weber, Max, FROM MAX WEBER: ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY, edited by H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, “THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF WORLD RELIGIONS,” pp. 267-301.
    Weber, Max, THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION, edited by Talcott Parsons, chaps. VIII, XI, XIII.
  2. Weeks of November 2: THEORIES OF SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL POWER.
    Lovejoy, Arthur O., THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA, pp. 24-77.
    Tierney, Brian, THE CRISIS OF CHURCH AND STATE 1050-1300, pp. 1-95, 127-138.
    Brooke, Z. N., LAY INVESTITURE AND ITS RELATION TO THE CONFLICT OF EMPIRE AND PAPACY (article listed separately in the libraries)
    Tellenbach, Gerd, CHURCH, STATE, AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF THE INVESTITURE CONTEST, Introduction, chap. 1 (sections 1 and 3), chap. 2, chap. 5 (section 3) and Epilogue.
  3. Week of November 9: THE GREGORIAN REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
    Duggan, Charles, “From the Conquest to the Death of John,” THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE PAPACY IN THE MIDDLE AGEs, edited by C. H. Lawrence, pp. 65-115.
    Poole, A. L., FROM DOMESDAY BOOK TO MAGNA CARTA, chaps. VI, VII.
    DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE: Assize of Clarendon.
    Knowles, David, THE EPISCOPAL COLLEAGUES OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET, chap. V.

TOPIC III: RELIGIOUS REVOLT AND POLITICAL MODERNIZATION

  1. Weeks of November 16 and 23: Analytical Perspectives
    Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, edited by Louis S. Feuer, pp. 1-67, 82-111.
    Marx, Karl, CAPITAL, Modern Library edition, pp. 784-837 (chaps. 26-32). In some editions this is chap. 24, entitled, “Primary Accumulation.”
    Beer, Samuel H., Introduction to Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, pp. VII-XXIX,.
    Weber, Max, THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM, translated by Talcott Parsons, pp. 35-c. 62, 79-128, 144-183.
  2. Weeks of November 30, and December 7, 14: THE PURITAN REVOLUTION
    Hill, Christopher, THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION 1603-1714, chaps. 1-11.
    Bunyan, John, THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, portions of the First Part: in Signet edition, pp. 17-30, 66-110, 131-148.
    Hexter, J.H., “Storm Over the Gentry,” in Hexter’s REAPPRAISALS IN HISTORY.
    Walzer, Michael, THE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS, chaps. I, II, IV, V (pp. 148-171), and IX.
    Walzer, Michael, “The revolutionary uses of repression,” in Richter (Ed.), ESSAYS IN THEORY AND HISTORY.
    Locke, John, AN ESSAY CONCERNING…… CIVIL GOVERNMENT, chaps. 1-9, 19. Available in SOCIAL CONTRACT: ESSAYS BY LOCKE, HUME AND ROUSSEAU.

 

SOCIAL SCIENCES 2
READING LIST
SPRING TERM 1971

Students are asked to buy the following books, which are available at the Harvard Coop, or, in the one case, at the General Education Office.

  1. BRIGGS, Asa, The Making of Modern England
    Paperback: Harper Torch books. Hardcover title: The Age of Improvement.
  2. BURKE, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France
    Paperback: Bobbs-Merrill: The Library of Liberal Arts
  3. HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan
    Paperback: Penguin
  4. MILL, John Stuart, On Liberty
    Paperback: Appleton-Century-Crofts: Crofts Classic
  5. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, The Genealogy of Morals
    Paperback: Vintage
  6. RUDÉ, George, Revolutionary Europe, 1783-1815
    Paperback: Harper Torchbook
  7. de TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis, The Old Regime and the French Revolution
    Paperback: Anchor Books

Everything on the following list is on “closed reserve” in Lamont and Hilles Libraries. The date suggested here will vary during the semester; lectures and sections should be your guides.

TOPIC IV: IDEOLOGY AND REVOLUTION

Weeks of February 8 & 15

HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan, esp. Intro., Chaps. 11, 13-15, 17-21, 26, 29-30, and Review and Conclusion.
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract, especially Book I; Book II; Book III, chaps. 1-4, 12-18; and Book IV, chaps. 1-2, 7-8 (in the Galaxy paperback edition used for Locke’s SECOND TREATISE in the Fall Term).
BEER, Samuel, “The Development of the Modern Polity,” chap. 3 (Typescript on reserve).

Weeks of February 22 & March 1

RUDÉ, George, Revolutionary Europe, pp. 65-241
de TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, Forward, pp. 1-211.
RICHTER, Melvin, “The uses of theory: Tocqueville’s adaptation of Montesquieu” in Richter, Essays in Theory and History, pp. 94-102.
TILLY, Charles, The Vendee, chaps. 1, 2, 4, 9, 13.

TOPIC V: MODERNIZATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

Week of March 8:

BURKE, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, especially 3-4, 18-129, 138-144, 169-200, 233-266, and 286-291 (Page citations to the Library of Liberal Arts paperback edition).

Weeks of March 15, 22, & 29:

BRIGGS, Asa, The Making of Modern England (Hardcover title, The Age of Improvement), chaps. I, II (sections, 2-3), III (section 5), IV-VI, VIII (sections 1-3, through p. 416), and IX (section 3).
DICEY, A. The Lectures on the Relations Between Law and Opinion in England During the 19th century, Lectures 4, 6, 9, 12 (pt. 1).
BEER, Samuel H., British Politics in the Collectivist Age, Introduction, Chaps. I-II, Epilogue (391-409).
MILL, John Stuart, On Liberty, chaps. 1-2, 4

TOPIC VI: THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY

Week of April 12:

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, The Genealogy of Morals (trans. W. Kaufmann; Vintage paperback).

Weeks of April 19, 26, & May 3:

PINSON, Koppel S., Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization, chaps. 15-21 (First or Second Edition).
EPSTEIN, Klaus, “Three Types of Conservatism” in Richter, Essays in Theory and History, pp. 103-121.
BULLOCK, Alan, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, chaps. 1-4, 7.
REICHSTAG, Election Statistics, 1919-1933, Mimeographed. To be distributed.
PARSONS, Talcott, “Certain Primary Sources and Patterns of Aggression in the Social Structure of the Western World”, Mimeographed. (This essay also appears in Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory).
VIERECK, Peter, Metapolitics: From the Romantics to Hitler (Capricorn paperback subtitle: The Roots of the Nazi Mind), Prefatory Note (or, in paperback, “New Survey,” sections 3-4, & chaps. 1-2, 5-7, 11-13).
ERIKSON, Erik H., “The Legend of Hitler’s Childhood” in Childhood and Society, chap. 9.
ECKSTEIN, Harry, A Theory of Stable Democracy.

Reading Period Extra: Nazi Films
Wednesday, May 12, at 7 p.m., Lowell Lecture Hall

FINAL EXAMINATION June 4

Source: Personal copy of course syllabus shared for transcription at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by one my longest, dearest economics and personal chums, Robert Dohner (Harvard, 1974; M.I.T., 1980).

Image Source:  Samuel H. Beer, 1953 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Three Undergraduate Economic Field Exams, 1942

 

The Harvard undergraduate economics departmental exam and the essay topics for 1942 were transcribed for the previous post. Below we have three field exams for money & finance, market organization & control, and labor economics & social reform from the same year. In the Randall Hinshaw papers at Duke I did not find field exams for statistics & accounting or economic history that I suspect would have also been offered (judging from Part II of the economics departmental exam).

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Money and Finance
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. monetary conditions of full employment equilibrium,
    2. the functions and importance of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920’s, the 1930’s, and today,
    3. investment banking by commercial banks – theory and practice in the past and future,
    4. international monetary problems after the last war, and after this war,
    5. modern improvements on the classical theory of international trade,
    6. ideas for post-war liberation and control of international trade – conditions of progress in respect of justice to all nations and prosperity for all,
    7. modern federal taxation in peace and war times – functions, and types of taxes and tax programs required,
    8. ways of mitigating the undesirable future consequences of our mounting national debt,
    9. effects of the war on financial problems of state governments,
    10. the background of the modern vogue of monetary management and deficit finance, in fundamental economic changes over recent decades,
    11. prospective war-time and immediate post-war changes in America, in demand and supply conditions for investment funds and real capital,
    12. post-war problems and prospects in Anglo-American economic relations.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) “The spectre of ‘secular stagnation’, which threatened the capitalist world of the 1930’s, is being exorcised by this war and will probably not return after it, at least for some decades.”
  2. (*) Outline succinctly, and explain and discuss as fully as your time allows, what you regard as the best analysis – either one writer’s or your own compilation – of the fundamental causes of the business cycle.
  3. Explain, and discuss critically, several different concepts of “velocity” and “hoarding” found in the modern literature of monetary theory.
  4. “Just as banking policy was unable, in the 1930’s, to play any important part in producing recovery, it is now unable, for opposite and parallel reasons, to play any important part in combating war inflation.”
  5. (*) Discuss the economic and other causes of the world-wide growth of new nationalistic restrictions on international trade, in the interval between the last war and the present war.
  6. (*) “As a stabilizer of the monetary basis of international trade, nothing short of one world currency under the management of a central, international authority, can be an effective substitute for the 19 century’s international gold standard.”
  7. Discuss the effects which the “lend-lease” arrangements through which this country is aiding its allies in the war, are likely to have on our foreign trade, economic relations with the outer world, and economic position in the post-war period.
  8. “If country A has strong labor unions which force up and hold up wage-costs in all its industries, while country B enjoys cheap labor together with industries as modern and well mechanized as those of A, progressive depreciation by A of the external value of its currency is its only means of maintaining competition with B in world markets.”
  9. (*) Discuss the relative merits of compulsory savings plans, a further lowering of exemptions from the personal income tax, and a general sales tax, as methods of diverting a larger share of war-time wages from consumption expenditure to investment in the war effort.
  10. (*) “Federal expenditures on welfare projects, or benefaction’s to the under-privileged, are a national luxury which must be sacrificed to the war effort.”
    “No; on the contrary, the war increases our obligation to all we can for the well-being of our poorest citizens; for in relation to the war effort, their morale is more important than are all economies, which would benefit only the over-privileged – whose patriotism, we hope, will stand the strain.”
  11. Discuss the merits of the view that in wartime the income tax should be supplemented by a special, progressive tax on all increases of individual incomes above the average levels of the same incomes in a group of pre-war years.
  12. “The chief danger in severe taxation of business profits in wartime is that of causing under maintenance of industrial plant, to the extent of making the country pay for the war to largely by consuming its capital.”

 

PART III
(About one hour)

(Answer TWO questions)

  1. “Future alternations of prosperity and depression are unlikely to occur with the nearly exact regularity or periodicity, which has made the term ‘business cycle’ appropriate in the past. The ‘cycle’ in that sense was one of the regularities peculiar to a quasi–automatic, laissez-faire capitalism.”
  2. “Money and finance are of no importance in modern war; only physical resources and production count. The Axis countries are already bankrupt, but it makes no difference. And we, in order to win the war, will have to give our physical production experts – not our monetary and fiscal experts – a free hand.”
  3. “America is sure to have, before the war ends, an inflation that will largely wipe out the real incomes and wealth of all its professional people and small savers – the backbone of the middle-class – and divide the spoils between rich speculators and skilled, industrial wage-earners. And that will make impossible the future maintenance of the country’s conservative-liberal, political tradition.”
  4. “The effort to knit the Latin American economies into ours, and make the Western Hemisphere a largely unified and self-sufficient, regional economy, cannot succeed in any large and lasting way. Our principal, natural economic ties are with Europe, and so are those of the Latin American countries; and these old, natural tendencies will reassert themselves after the war.”
  5. “By ending the imperialism of the white race in the Orient, the war is ending what have been essential factors in the prosperity of England, Holland, and America – exploitation of cheap Oriental labor and rich natural resources acquired at little cost, and a market for ‘dumping’ industrial surpluses, so as to make something near to full employment in the Western countries compatible there with excessive prices for the same industrial products.”
  6. “The spread of industrialism throughout the world does not merely alter the incidence everywhere of ‘comparative advantage’, and the international division of labor; it increases the diversity of productive powers and the self-sufficiency of every country, and thus radically diminishes the total importance of international trade.”
  7. “Financial, or monetary and fiscal manipulations cannot save capitalism. They could, if the right manipulators could work freely and not be defeated by a ‘strike’ on the part of Capital. But every attempt, in a time of depression, to redistribute money income and thus restore consumption and employment, always will be defeated by the further decline of investment due to the fears of the capitalists, who fear what immediately attacks their positions more than they fear the eventual, socialist revolution that is certain to result in time from an unrelieved, severe depression.”
  8. “In opposition to the nineteenth century orthodox explanation and defense of interest as a payment necessary to induce, through saving, enough creation of real capital, Keynes in effect revives the basic idea and resulting attitude of Aristotle and the medieval writers against ‘usury’. Like them, he sees in the demand for interest only the reluctance of the rich to part with their money hoards, and thus makes it the villain of the economic drama.”
  9. “In the economic world, the ‘real’ in contrast with the ‘monetary’ factors do indeed determine, as the older economists thought, what everyone must do in order to reach true equilibrium. Where they went wrong was in supposing that everyone always does fairly soon reach true equilibrium, that is, adjustment to realities; that deceptive, monetary changes have only very brief, transitional, or ‘short run’ consequences. Money is much more important than they thought it was, because the truth is that activities supported only by illusions, of monetary origin, prolong and aggravate those illusions and themselves in a cumulative fashion until unreality, or non-adjustment to reality, becomes so drastic that it collapses violently and then gives way, only, to a like, prolonged departure from reality in the opposite direction.”

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Market Organization and Control
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. corporate profits,
    2. the problem of converting plants to war production,
    3. some recent developments in the study of costs of production,
    4. the war and American agriculture,
    5. why farmers are poor,
    6. the “parity” concept in agricultural policy,
    7. a wartime plan for the railroads,
    8. the future of private and public ownership in the public utility field,
    9. public utility rate-making: science or art?
    10. the relation of price control and rationing to fiscal policy,
    11. bureaucracy in industry and government,
    12. the Supreme Court and the regulation of economic life.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) Select any two American industries and compare their respective pricing methods and policies. Which seems to you more desirable from a public standpoint? Explain.
  2. Suppose you were put in charge of a trust fund with the duty of investing funds in corporate stock. What factors would you take into account in deciding which stocks to buy? Why?
  3. (*) Explain the relation, if any, between industrial price policies and the size of the national income.
  4. “The recent downward trend in the stock market is an utter absurdity from an economic point of view.” What facts and theories underlie this statement? Do you agree with it? Explain.
  5. (*) “We are now experiencing an agricultural revolution no less profound than the industrial revolution of 150 years ago.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
  6. (*) Discuss the chief problems of public policy connected with the growing and marketing of cotton.
  7. Discuss critically the recent agricultural policy of one foreign country.
  8. What are the principal changes that have been introduced in the methods and living conditions of American farmers by the internal combustion engine?
  9. (*) “Whenever you tried to define a public utility you will always come down finally to one and only one factor: discriminating monopoly.” What is a discriminating monopoly and what conditions favor its existence? Do you agree that discriminating monopoly is the distinguishing characteristic of public utilities? Explain.
  10. (*) What justification, if any, can be offered for the principle of railroad rate-making which attempts to equalize the competitive position of producers over a wide area?
  11. What conditions in the field of public utilities led to the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935?
  12. Discuss the relative merits of water-power and steam-power in the generation of electricity. Should it be public policy to favor one against the other (a) as a war measure, (b) in the post-war period? Explain.

 

PART III
(About one hour)

Answer TWO questions

  1. “It is an odd circumstance that capital fought for the right to incorporate, while labor fights against the compulsion to incorporate.” Discuss.
  2. “From an economic standpoint there is little to be said for excess profits taxation. As a method of controlling inflation it is obviously quite inadequate. Hence the only important consequence is an undermining of the financial position of precisely those corporations which are most essential in war production.” Discuss.
  3. Discuss the methods which have been employed in financing plant expansion requirements necessitated by the defense and war efforts. Why were these methods adopted? What is their significance for the post-war period?
  4. “The technical and managerial classes are slated to succeed the owners in the sequence of ruling classes.” Discuss.
  5. Some experts believe there is likely to be a great increase in the number and importance of corporate farms in the relatively near future. What are the reasons for this belief? Explain why you agree or disagree.
  6. Do you think direct control over wages is necessary to effective price control? Why or why not?
  7. Sketch the traditional policy of our government toward participation by American businessmen in international cartels and combines. Discuss the reasons for this policy and its results.
  8. “From the standpoint of economic organization, the Nazi economy represents the uninterrupted continuation of trends in German society which reach back at least to the 1870’s.” Discuss.

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Labor Economics and Social Reform
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. wages and war inflation,
    2. the closed shop,
    3. should the 40-hour week be abolished during the war?
    4. the problem of migratory labor,
    5. an ideal system of unemployment insurance,
    6. a population policy for America,
    7. class struggle – reality or propaganda slogan?
    8. the probable effect of the war on American movements of social reform,
    9. can socialism be achieved by a gradual process of reform?
    10. labor and the anti-trust laws,
    11. trade unions and political action,
    12. labor in World War I.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) Discuss the benefits which one important C.I.O. union has won for its members, and the methods and policies by which it has won them.
  2. (*) Assume that a new industrial union enrolls all the workers in a particular industry, and succeeds in raising their wages. Make, and stayed clearly, your assumptions about all the main economic conditions (supply and demand conditions in the various markets) relevant to this problem; and on your assumptions, analyze the determination of the shares of the cost of paying for this wage-increase, which will be born in the end respectably by (1) the employers in the industry, (2) the consumers of the product, and (3) groups connected with other industries as workers, employers, or consumers.
  3. Discuss the history, methods, and achievements of union-management coöperation in one American industry where it has become established.
  4. What principles, as to policy and procedure, would you advise the federal war labor Board to adopt as its guiding principles in dealing with industrial disputes during the war period? Explain your reasons for each principal you propose.
  5. (*) Is the Malthusian theory of population wrong? If so, in what respects and why? If not, what is the evidence to support it?
  6. (*) Explain and evaluate the theory of non-competing groups.
  7. Can fascism (including Nazism) be called the “revolution of the middle class”? Explain.
  8. What, in your opinion, would be the chief economic effects of a cessation in population growth? Why?
  9. (*) Discuss critically Marx’s theory of capitalist crises.
  10. (*) What kind of a “new order” from an economic standpoint do the Nazis want to create?
  11. Discuss the main characteristics and results of economic planning in the Soviet Union.
  12. According to a number of economists, the price policy of a socialist society should be based on one single principle: equate price to marginal cost. Explain the meaning of this rule and argue for or against its general validity.

 

PART III
(About one hour)

Answer TWO questions

  1. Discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages, from the workingman’s standpoint, of the sales tax and a tax on wages deducted at the source as methods of closing the gap between outstanding purchasing power in the quantity of consumer goods available in the war economy.
  2. “Whether profit-sharing be but a slight modification of the ordinary capitalist system or contained within itself the germs of a true coöperative system need hardly be discussed in view of the fact that its history has been a record of repeated failure. The cause of failure in almost every case has been the apparent incompatibility of profit-sharing with trade unionism.” Discuss.
  3. What is to be said for stabilization of money wages as a goal of monetary policy?
  4. “Can even the most ardent free-trader doubt that in the post-war world American labor will continue to demand and deserve protection from cheap foreign labor?” Discuss.
  5. Discuss the economic problems of the construction industry, placing the kind of unionism which prevails there in its proper setting.
  6. Discuss the structure, problems and policies of the labor movement in backward or colonial countries.
  7. “There is no mistaking the economic foundations of race prejudice in the contemporary world.” Discuss.
  8. “Historically the connection between freedom of enterprise and freedom in other fields of thought and action is obvious. Must we not, then, assume that the destruction of free enterprise would likewise deprive us all our cherished liberties?” Discuss.

 

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

Image Source: Harvard Square from the Tichnor Brothers Collection of postcards. Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate Departmental Examination and Essay Questions, 1942

 

 

The next post will provide transcriptions of three division special (i.e. field) examinations from 1942.

The 1939 departmental examination and  essay questions have been posted earlier.

______________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 1, 1942

ESSAY PAPER
(One hour and a half)

Candidates for honors may write on ONE topic only. Others may, if they prefer, write on TWO topics. Please note on the front cover of the bluebook the number of each topic upon which you write.

  1. Economic imperialism.
  2. The pre-requisites of lasting peace.
  3. The economist who has most influenced your thinking.
  4. Some unsettled questions of economic science.
  5. Welfare economics.
  6. The relation of economics to sociology and political science.
  7. The distribution of wealth and income.
  8. The classical economists and their legacy.
  9. The nature and significance of general equilibrium analysis.
  10. Economic warfare.
  11. If Great Britain loses her empire.
  12. What killed laissez-faire?
  13. “The rise of political centralism is largely the product of economic centralism.”
  14. The relations and roles of the economic interests, and the social and cultural traditions, movements, and ideals, which are in conflict in the war.
  15. The American war effort and the profit system.
  16. Government controls which the American economy requires during the war, and those which it will require in the period of post-war adjustment.
  17. The applicability of traditional economic theory in explaining the course of economic life in totalitarian states.
  18. The future of capitalism.
  19. “The claim of economics to be a true science, like the modern physical sciences, must be given up as untenable.”
  20. Planned economies and human liberties.
  21. The value of training in economics, for success in business, and for good citizenship.
  22. “The physiologist’s task is not the physician’s; analysis and therapy are different; and economists, like physiologists, should confine themselves to explaining what happens, and leave the giving of advice to others.”

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

___________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 4, 1942

DEPARTMENTAL EXAMINATION
(Three hours)

Answer SIX questions; at least ONE question must be answered in each part, but not more than THREE questions may be taken in Part II. A senior may not take more than ONE question in that section of Part II which covers his special field.

PART I

  1. Define: elasticity of demand, unit elasticity, elastic demand, inelastic demand. Say weather, and explain why, you would expect the demand for each of the following commodities (in normal times) to be elastic or inelastic: automobiles, milk, tobacco, fur coats, window glass, oriental rugs, quinine, coal.
  2. Suppose that industries A, B, and C are all “purely competitive”, and that A has constant costs, B increasing costs, and C decreasing costs, for increasing outputs. If all three of these industries experience rapid, marked, and lasting increases of the public’s demands for their products, what will be (a) the immediate and (b) the ultimate effects upon the prices of the three different products? Explain your answers, and illustrate each case by the appropriate diagram. If now a cost-reducing invention (new method or machine) is generally adopted in each industry, show on your diagrams the effects of this on their cost conditions, outputs, and prices, and explain.
  3. Suppose a firm to be operating under these conditions:

Its total fixed cost is $1000 per day.
Its total operating cost for 1 unit output per day is $1000.00; for 2 units, $1800.00; for 3, $2550.00; 4, $3400.00; 5, $4500.00; 6, $6600.00. It can sell at price $1800.00, 1 unit; at $1500.00, 2 units; at $1250.00, 3 units; at $1100.00, 4 units; at $1000.00, 5 units; at $925.00, 6 units.

Infer from those figures, and draw on a diagram (as smooth curves) this firm’s average total unit cost, marginal cost, demand, and marginal revenue curves.
Now show on your diagram, and explain, the price and output required to maximize the firm’s profits.
Now assume “free entry” to the field, and that new competitors of this firm appear.
Show on your diagram, and explain, the ultimate effects of the new (increased) competition on this firm’s demand curve, output, average total unit cost, selling price, and profits.

  1. Explain as fully as you can, in terms of the relevant conditions of demand, supply, and marginal productivity, the present high wages of skilled workers in American war industries.
    To what extent, and how, do you think the efforts of trade unions make these wage-rates higher than they would be otherwise?
  2. In what principal ways do you think the war is affecting and likely to affect, while it lasts, the aggregate demand for and supply of capital and the level of interest rates within this country?
    What developments in the same respects do you think are most likely in the post—war period? Explain fully.
  3. Explain and discuss the significance of each of the following: total utility, law of diminishing utility, average and marginal utility, and consumers’ surplus.
  4. How would competition, if universally “pure”, tend to allocate resources, in a state of equilibrium of the whole economy?
    How is the equilibrium allocation altered by general prevalence of “monopolistic competition”?
    Explain concisely.
  5. Suppose that economic conditions in a country over a certain decade undergo the following changes. (1) The country’s population increases rapidly, while no additions are made to its territory or known natural resources. (2) Technological progress in all branches of production is steady and substantial; all innovations are capital-using, labor-saving inventions; physical outputs per man-hour of labor increase substantially. (3) A constant, rather high percentage of the national money income is annually saved and invested within the country. (4) Credit expansion is continually greater than the increase of total physical production, hence the price-level rises throughout the decade.
    Explain and discuss the probable, separate and joint effects of those developments on the absolute and relative shares of the national, real income respectively allotted, at the end as compared with the beginning of the decade, to (real) wages, economic rent, interest, and business profits. If you need to make assumptions more definite than those stated above, or additional assumptions, in order to reach definite conclusions, make clear the uncertainties in the problem as stated, and resolve them by explicit assumptions chosen as you please, at appropriate points in your discussion.

 

PART II
A
Statistics and Accounting

  1. Is it possible to devise an “ideal”, all-purpose, formula for price index numbers? Why or why not?
  2. What, in your judgment, are the greatest dangers that have to be guarded against in applying statistical methods to the available data of economic life?
  3. “Currently practiced accounting methods lead almost invariably to either overestimation or underestimation of true net earnings.” Explain carefully, indicating what is meant by “true net earnings” and why accepted accounting principles may lead to their misrepresentation. Do you think that in wartime, net earnings are likely to be overstated or understated?
  4. Answer concisely the following questions: (a) A corporation issues $100,000 par value stock to the promoters for nothing. In order to make the totals of the balance sheet equal, an item of “goodwill $100,000” is placed on the asset side. Assuming there is no reasonable ground for considering the “goodwill” to be actually valuable, how would you correct the balance sheet? (b) The amount of fixed assets – buildings and machinery – is less at the end of the year than at the beginning. What other changes would you expect to find on the balance sheet? Why? (c) In case a reappraisal of fixed assets shows a value in excess of value and it is desired to bring the appreciation into the books, how may this be done?

B
Modern Economic History

  1. What role would you assign to the National Banking System in the pattern of American business fluctuations from 1870 to 1914?
  2. Describe and explain the development of American tariff policy during the 19th century.
  3. Argue for or against the proposition that the Nazi economy is no more than the logical outcome of German economic policy from the time of Bismarck on.
  4. “The depression (1876-86) is, indeed, the watershed between the era of British industrial supremacy in the era of international competition.” Discuss.

 

C
Money and Finance

  1. Imagine that someone with no knowledge of economics asks you to explain to him, fully and clearly, why as an element of war finance government borrowing from the banks is peculiarly “inflationary”; and write out the explanation you would give.
  2. “Since government spending has become the main regulator of the volume and tempo of economic activity, Federal Reserve policy has become an academic subject of no real importance.”
  3. In a world at peace, with international trade proceeding normally, but with all countries on independent “paper standards” and exchanges “free” (with no fixed parities”, a position of general equilibrium and stable exchange rates has been reached. Now country A embarks, alone, on an internal monetary expansion which raises its price level.
    Trace and explain what effects, if any, this will tend to have on the balances of payments of A and other countries, foreign exchange rates, international transfers of products, factors, and “purchasing power”, and price levels in other countries. At what point, and how, will a new position of equilibrium be reached?
  4. “In the development of trade between an industrial nation, A, and an agricultural nation, B, both nations will gain by the trade, but the division of the gain will become unequal, in favor of A. The elastic demand for A’s products in B, and the inelastic demand for B’s products in A, will cause the terms of trade to shift in favor of A, as production in both countries in the trade between them expand.”
    Give a full and careful explanation of the concepts, assumptions, and reasoning suggested, and state any criticisms or qualifications that occur to you.
  5. Discuss the meaning and validity of the statement that a general sales tax is “regressive”; and the principal arguments for and against the view that this type of tax, even if undesirable in peace times, is peculiarly appropriate in wartime.
  6. “Our immense and upward-zooming federal debt is a prelude either to national bankruptcy, or else to socialism.”

 

D
Market Organization and Control

  1. Sketch the background, provisions, and chief consequences of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
  2. Is it possible for a Board of Directors to pursue a dividend policy which will consistently harmonize the interests of the corporation, its stockholders, and society as a whole? Explain.
  3. What are the methods which may be adopted to control war-time profits? What policy do you favor in this respect and why?
  4. “In the pricing of electrical energy no case can be made out on economic grounds for differential charges unless they are likely to lead to an improvement in the load factor, i.e., To a more uniform distribution of demand through time.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this proposition.
  5. “Only a socialist has a right to complain about crop-restriction and price-raising in the field of agricultural production.” Discuss.
  6. “There seems to be little doubt that the complete ‘trustification’ of the economy, with the relative stability of prices which would follow therefrom, would go a long way toward eliminating business fluctuations.” Discuss.
  7. “Price stability is prima facie evidence of monopoly.” Discuss.

 

E
Labor Economics and Social Reform

  1. Outline and defend what you would advocate as the best national war-time policy in regard to wages, and whatever else you think must be controlled in order to control wages effectively.
  2. What principal, lasting effects do you think the war is likely to have on the American labor movement – union structures, strength, status, and policies? Explain your predictions and the evidence and reasoning on which you base them.
  3. “The current outcry against federal centralization of unemployment insurance, and in favor of ‘states rights’ in this field, is without merit, and a mere device of employer interests to limit the development of unemployment insurance and keep it as innocuous as possible.”
  4. “American labor unions are deluding themselves in blaming only the false propaganda put out against them by unprincipled opponents, for the better anti-union feelings of some millions of middle and lower-middle-class Americans. Real faults of union leadership and policy have done a great deal to cause and justify this public hostility, and the unions in their own interests can and must assuage it by putting their own houses in order.”
    Discuss this, as far as you can, in terms of concrete, illustrative situations and evidence of which you have some knowledge.
  5. “The Marxian theory that all property-incomes, or non-labor incomes, originate in exploitation of labor, is entirely compatible with the ‘marginal productivity’ theory of income distribution.” Explain and discuss.
  6. Outline, and discuss critically, what you regard as the logical, Marxist explanation of the origins and issues of the present war.
  7. What do you think American Labor, in supporting the war-effort, should put first among its “peace aims”, or aims in respect of the post-war settlement? Explain and defend your answer.

 

PART III

  1. “Economics can either explain the quasi-automatic operation of a true free enterprise economy, or devise a blue-print for rational planning in the socialist economy. But in a half-way house like our present society, where both private and public decisions must respond more often to political than to economic facts, economics can neither explain events nor guide public policy.”
  2. “After the last war, the reaction of business and the public against the war-time government controls gave a new lease of life to laissez-faire, with disastrous results; and there is danger that a like relapse will occur at the end of this war.”
  3. “The proper work of the economists, in helping to solve the problems of industry and society, may be said to begin where that of the engineers or technicians ends.”
  4. “If the opportunity for the employment of idle men and idle money is to be found in a free, private enterprise system then, obviously, we must find a way to stimulate new, private enterprises by encouraging the investment of private savings in them.”
  5. “The causes which bring trade barriers into existence and produce centralism in every form of economic activity must be attacked if a real system of free enterprise is to be re-established.”
  6. “To maintain and improve labor’s position economically is the traditional task of the unions. Today, not only the growth but even the existence of the unions has become in large measure a political problem.”
  7. “The last war, in its impact on the American economy, produced war-time overexpansion and post-war depression chiefly in agriculture. This time, it is the industrial sector of our economy which is threatened with that sequence, on a much more disastrous scale.”
  8. “The patriots who denounce, in war-time, all self-interested demands or actions on the part of business, labor, or farm groups, generally do not recognize the fact that rivalry of all interest-groups over distribution of war-time prosperity is inevitable under our profit-system, and cannot be eliminated unless we are willing to replace that system entirely, while the war lasts, with a governmental dictatorship of all economic life as complete is that now practiced in Germany, Japan, and Russia.”

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

Image Source: John Harvard Statue from the Tichnor Brothers Collection of postcards. Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Categories
Columbia History of Economics Undergraduate

Columbia. Undergraduate History of Economics Syllabus, Assignments. Gregg, ca. 1951

 

 

In the Joseph Dorfman Papers Collection at Columbia University, the following materials for a General Studies economics course on the history of economics taught by Dorothy E. Gregg were found. Gregg was awarded an economics Ph.D. in 1951. Dissertation title: The exploitation of the steamboat–the case of Colonel John Stevens.

For the next post I have saved biographical and career information that I found in the process of my sleuthing to identify the mysterious “Dr. D. Gregg”. While she quite apparently never went farther in research concerning the history of economics, her course materials would indicate a fairly serious academic interest in the history of economics. Joseph Dorfman, who taught the graduate history of economics courses at Columbia, added her materials to his own teaching files.

 

_______________________________

G.S. ECONOMICS 11
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Fall Semester
GENERAL OUTLINE OF COURSE
(Dr. Gregg)

The chief object of this course “…is primarily to acquaint you with the way in which economics has developed as part of humanity’s struggle to deal with the problems that evolving social life has brought upon us, to deal with those problems by trying to think them out, by seeing how successive generations have faced their problems, what they thought to be the central points of difficulty, the matters of grave social concern, and how they have dealt with those problems to which they have attached such importance…One of the results of any survey of the development of economic doctrine is to show that in very large measure the important departures in economic theory have been intellectual responses to changing current problems. That is, the economic theorists who have counted most in the development of thought have been men who have been very deeply concerned with problems that troubled their generations. Their theories have…dealt definitely with what ought to be done…We have good ground for supposing that the further growth of our science will be shaped in very large measure by the appearance of how social problems and the reaction of trained minds toward those problems…The times in which we live are likely to produce a very considerable stimulus to the growth of economics…And those of you who are now young and looking forward to the future have…a peculiarly heavy responsibility to face, a responsibility of endeavoring to equip yourselves thoroughly for constructive work in a task which the world need to have solved fare more desperately than it needed such aid or was conscious of needing such aid in recent generations.”
(from class lecture by Professor Wesley Mitchell, Columbia University, 1934-35.)

Books and Materials

The required texts for the course are: (1) Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought, 1947 ed., (Prentice-Hall), (2) Masterworks of Economics, edited by Leonard Dalton Abbott (Doubleday & Co.), (3) Selections from The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan, 1 vol. edition).

Unless otherwise noted, the greater part of the reading in the course will be in reference books to be found either in Burgess Library on the fourth floor, southwest wing, of the Nicholas Murray Butler Library or in Business Library, second floor of Butler Library. The running outline of the course is supplied in a mimeographed syllabus.

Reading Assignments

(An asterisk (*) indicates the required readings; the other readings are recommended)

SECTION I – MEDIEVAL ECONOMICS

*Roll, Eric, pp. 33-57
Bloch, M. “Feudalism—European,” in E.S.S., vol. VI, pp. 203-210.
Pirenne, H., Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe, pp. 45-57, 58-67, ch. IV, chs. VI-VII; Medieval Cities (1939 ed.), chs. 7-8
*Tawney, R.H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, (35¢ Pelican ed.), ch. I, “The Medieval Background,” pp. 11-60

SECTION II—MERCANTILISM

*Roll, pp. 57-132
*Thomas Mun, “England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade,” in Masterworks in Economics, pp. 11-37
Hayes, C., “Nationalism,” E.S:S:, v. XI, pp. 241-8
Malynes, Gerald, Consuetudo, ch. 9
Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. 2, pp. 1-20, 25-52, 214-223

SECTION III—THE PHYSIOCRATS

*Roll, pp. 132-142
*Turgot, “Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth,” in Masterworks, pp. 39-61
Quesnay, F., Economic Works (ed, A. Oncken, 1888), pp. 305-378, 538

SECTION IV—THE PRECONCEPTIONS OF ECONOMICS

  1. The Basic Preconceptions of Economics
    1. The various strains

*Veblen, Thorstein, “The Preconceptions of Economic Science, I, II, and III,” in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization, pp. 82-179
Ayres, C.E., The Theory of Economic Progress, chs. 1-4
Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation, chs. 5-6
*Hamilton, Walton, “Competition,” E.S.S., v. 4, pp. 141-47
*Laski, H.J., “The Rise of Liberalism,” E.S.S., v. 1, pp. 103-124
Brinton, Crane, “The Revolutions,” E.S.S., v. 1, pp. 124-144
*Beard, C.A., “Individualism and Capitalism,” E.S.S., v. 1, pp. 145-63
Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia, ch. 4
*Cole, G.D.H., “Laissez-faire,” E.S.S., v. 9, pp. 15-20
*Sombart, Werner, “Capitalism,” E.S.S., v. 3, pp. 195-202
“Economics”, “Liberalism”, “Natural Law”, “Natural Harmony”, “Natural Order”, “Utilitarianism”, “Hedonism”, “Social Darwinism”, “Freedom of Contract”, “Liberty”, “Rationalism”, “Nationalism”, “Social Contract”, “Natural Rights”, “Property”, “Vested Interests”, in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
*Becker, Carl, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, ch. 2
*Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, chs. 2-3, 10
Spencer, Herbert, “Poor Laws,” in Man Versus the State(1892 ed.), pp. 144-55
*Commons, J.R., Legal Foundations of Capitalism, chs. 7-9
Tawney, R.H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, ch. 4, pp. 164-226
Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, chs. 2, 4-5
Robertson, H.M., Aspects of the Rise of Individualism, ch. 7
Parsons, Talcott, “Capitalism” in Recent German Literature: Sombart and Weber(an essay)
Sombart, Werner, The Quintessence of Capitalism, chs. 1-6
*Arnold, Thurman, The Folklore of Capitalism, chs. 1-5, 8-12
*Hogben, Lancelot, Retreat from Reason, chs. 2-3
Hawkins, Willard E., Castaways of Plenty: A Parable of Our Times(Basic Books)
Sumner, W.G., Folkways, ch. 15

    1. Utilitarianism, or the “felicific calculus”

“For political economy, ever since Adam Smith, has rested entirely on the thesis of the natural identity of interests. By the mechanism of exchange and the division of labour individuals, without desiring or knowing it, and while pursuing each his own interest, are working for the direct realization of the general interest.” (Eli Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism,p. 16)

      1. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
        *(1) Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians, [remaining half line smudged, illegible]
        (2) Eli Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, [remaining half line smudged, illegible]; Pt. II, ch. 3; Pt. III, ch. 1,4
        (3) Edwin A. Burtt, ed., The English Philosophers [remaining half line smudged, illegible]

(a) Bentham, “An Introduction to the Principles [remaining half line smudged, illegible] Legislation,” pp. 791-852

SECTION V—THE CLASSICAL SYSTEM

  1. Adam Smith (1725-1790)
    1. General

*Roll, pp. 143-183
*Smith, Adam, “The Wealth of Nations,” in Masterworks, pp. 63-189

    1. Value

Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Introduction and Plan of Work, and Bk. I, ch. 4 (last two pages), chs. 5-7 (Cannan’s ed., v. 1, pp. 30-40, 49-65)
Whittaker, Edmund, A History of Economic Ideas, pp. 95-108

    1. Wages

Smith, Adam, the Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, chs. 8, 10, Pt. I (Cannan’s ed., v. 1, pp. 66-88, 101-120)
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 199-200, 229-238, 359-362

    1. Profits

Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, ch. 9; Bk. 2, ch. 4 (Cannan’s ed., v. 1, pp. 89-100, 332-339)
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 200-203, 276-279, 366-369

    1. Rent

Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. 1, ch. 11, secs. 1 and 2, and “Conclusion of the Chapter” (Cannan’s ed., v. 1, pp. 45-175, 247-257)
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 216-221, 310-312

    1. Capital

Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Bk. 2, “Introduction,” and chs. 1, 3, 5 (Cannan’s ed., v. I, pp. 259-269, 313-331, 340-354)
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 53-89

MID-TERM EXAMINATION OF NOVEMBER 8. The questions on the exam will be drawn from the “Study Questions” at the end of the syllabus.

  1. The Period 1776-1817
    1. The Doctrine of Population

*Roll, pp. 207-211
*Malthus, T.R., An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1sted., chs. 1, 2, 8, 8-15; 7thed., Bk. 1, chs. 1-2; Bk. 2, ch. 13, Bk. 3, chs. 1-3; Bk 4, chs. 1, 3, OR Masterworks, pp. 191-270.
Bonar, J., “The Malthusiad: Fantasia Economica,” in Essays Contributed in Honor of John Bates Clark, pp. 22-28
Keene, James, “Two lectures on the subject of Machinery, delivered at the Bath mechanics’ institution; tending to prove that machinery is not the cause of the distress among the industrious classes; that the country is not over-populated; and that the real causes of the distress are within the power of the people to remove.” (1831, Seligman Library)

    1. The Doctrine of Diminishing Returns and of Rent

Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 147-168
*Whittaker, E., pp. 384-392
Malthus, T.R., “Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws”
Malthus, T.R., “On the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn”
Malthus, T.R., “The Nature and Progress of Rent”

    1. Theories of Profit (Interest)
      1. The Residual Claimant Theory (Ricardo)
        *Whittaker, E., pp. 611-613
        Ricardo, D., “The Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock” (reprinted in Ricardo’s Economic Essays, Gonner ed.)
      2. The Productivity Theory

Lauderdale, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth
Boehm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, Bk. 2, chs. 1-3 (to p. 149)
*Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 107-109, 203-204

  1. David Ricardo (1772-1823)
    1. General

*Roll, pp. 183-207
*Ricardo, “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,” in Masterworks, pp. 271-342
Mitchell, W.C., “Postulates and Preconception of Ricardian Economics,” in Essays in Philosophy, ed. By T.V. Smith and W.K. Wright
Stephen, Leslie, The English Utilitarians, v. 2, ch. 5

    1. Value

Ricardo, D., Principles of Political Economy, chs. 1, 4, 20, 28, 30
Hollander, J.H., “The Development of Ricardo’s Theory of Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, v. 18, pp. 455-491, Aug., 1904
McCracken, H.L., Value Theory and Business Cycles, ch. 1
Whitaker, A.C., History and Criticism of the Labor Theory of Value, ch. 5

    1. Rent

Ricardo, D., Principles of Political Economy, chs. 2, 3, 24, 32
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 225-227, 321-332

    1. Wages

Ricardo, D., Principles of Political Economy, ch. 5
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 242-257
Wermel, M.T., The Evolution of Classical Wage Theory, pp. 153-161

    1. Profits

Ricardo, D., Principles of Political Economy, chs. 11, 21
Boehm-Bawerk, pp. 87-95
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 279-291, 339-354

  1. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
    1. General

*Roll, Eric, pp. 212-226
Patten, T.N., “Malthus and Ricardo,” in Essays in Economic Theory
Stephen, Leslie, The English Utilitarians, chs. 4, 6

    1. Value

*Malthus, T.R., Principles of Political Economy, 2nded., Bk. 1, chs. 2,6

    1. Rent

Malthus, T.R., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. 1, ch. 3
Whittaker, E., pp. 502-503

    1. Wages

Malthus, T.R., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. 1, ch. 4
Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 257-259
Wermel, M.T., The Evolution of Classical Wage Theory, pp. 139-152

    1. Profits and Capital

Malthus, T.H., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. 1, ch. 6; Bk. 2, ch. 1; secs. 3,5

SECTION VI—REACTION AGAINST CLASSICISM

  1. The Romantics.

*Roll, Eric, pp. 226-248
Dorfman, Joseph, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, v. 1, pp. 382-397; OR Johnson, E.A.J., Some Origins of the Modern Economic World, pp. 126-141

  1. Early Social Criticism
    1. General

*Roll, pp. 248-270

    1. Utopian Socialism
      1. Robert Owen

*Owen, Robert, “A New View of Society”, in Masterworks, pp. 343-378
Beer, M., History of British Socialism, v. 1, pp. 160-181
Laidler, H.W., History of Socialist Thought, ch. 10
“Owen and Owenism”, in E.S.S.

      1. Fourier

Fourier, C., Selections from the Works of Fourier (esp. “Introduction”)
Laidler, H.W., History of Socialist Thought, pp. 69-74, 123-133
Ely, R.T., French and German Socialism, ch.. 5
**Fourier and Fourierism” and “Brook Farm” in E.S.S.

  1. Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
    1. General

*Roll, Eric, pp. 271-324.
*Marx, Karl, „Capital“ in Masterworks, pp. 453-614

    1. Marxian Philosophy and Interpretation of History

Handbook of Marxism, ed. by Emile Burns, pp. 21-59, 209-231, 240-301, 370-401, 537-547, 634-673.
Strachey, John, The Theory and Practice of Socialism, chs. 28-32
___________, The Coming Struggle for Power, chs. 1,2

    1. Value and Surplus Value; the Machinery of Capitalist Exploitation

Handbook of Marxism, pp. 405-275, 547-552.
Marx, Capital, v. 3, chs. 1-3, 8-10.
Engels, F., Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (International Publishers, ed.), pp. 211-250
*Dobb, Maurice, Political Economy and Capitalism, chs. 1, 3
Cole, G.D.H., What Marx Really Meant, chs. 7,8
*Sweezy, Paul, The Theory of Capitalist Development, ch. 4

    1. The Laws of Capitalist Development

Handbook of Marxism, pp. 475-547, 552-570
*Dobb, Maurice, Political Economy and Capitalism, ch. 4
*Sweezy, chs. 8, 9, 12
*Lenin, N., “Imperialism”
Cole, G.D.H., What Marx Really Meant, chs. 3,4
Strachey, John, The Coming Struggle for Power, Pt. II, Pt. IV

    1. Criticism of Marxian Theory

*Veblen, T., “The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx, I and II,” in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization, pp. 409-456.
Skelton, O.D., Socialism: A Critical Analysis, chs. 5-7
Boehm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of His System

  1. Heterodox Socialism
    1. Revisionism

Loucks, and Hoot, Comparative Economic Systems, ch. 15
*Laidler, H.W., History of Socialist Thought, chs. 20-21
Bernstein, E., Evolutionary Socialism

    1. Fabian Socialism

Fabian Tracts, No. 7, 70, 142, 147, 159, 164
*Fabian Essays, pp. 3-29, 131, 149, 173-201
Webb, S. and B., A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain
Laidler, H.W., History of Socialist Thought, chs. 17-18, 29

    1. Revolutionary Socialism (non-Marxist brand)

Laidler, H.W., History of Socialist Thought, ch. 22
Estey, J.A., Revolutionary Syndicalism, ch. 5
*Sorel, G., Reflections on Violence

 

G.S. HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Fall Semester
STUDY QUESTIONS

SECTION I-MEDIEVAL ECONOMICS

    1. Outline the social structure of medieval Europe and the economic organization of the manorial economy.
    2. Trace the development of the medieval concept of “just price” as the beginning of a theory of value.
    3. Trace the evolution of the attitude of the medieval church toward usury.
    4. Trace the evolution of the attitude of the medieval church toward commerce and trade.
    5. What were the most powerful economic forces leading to the breakdown of medieval society?

SECTION II—MERCANTILISM

    1. Discuss the thesis that mercantilism can be explained primarily in terms of state-making. Do you agree?
    2. Discuss the thesis that mercantilism can be explained primarily in terms of the national and international power struggles of the rising bourgeoisie. Do you agree?
    3. Discuss the mercantilist attitude toward; (a) money (b) interest (c) international trade (d) domestic industry (c) wages (f) population.
    4. Distinguish between bullionism and mercantilism proper.
    5. Compare and contrast mercantilism and the classical economic system.

SECTION III—THE PHYSIOCRATS

    1. Discuss the meaning of the phrase “produit net.” Compare this concept with the labor theory of value and surplus value.
    2. Analyze the circulation of this “produit net” as set forth in Quesnay’s “Tableau oeconomique”
    3. What role did agriculture play in the physiocratic theoretical structure? Give reasons for this.
    4. Compare and contrast physiocracy and the classical economic system.

SECTION IV—THE PRECONCEPTIONS OF ECONOMICS

  1. The Basic Preconceptions
    1. The various strains
      1. Trace the importance of the following concepts for the development of the classical economic system:
        (1) Protestant Ethics
        (2) rationalism
        (3) natural order
        (4) individualism
        (5) laissez-faire
        (6) liberalism
        (7) competition, scarcity, and the survival of the fittest
        (8) Social Darwinism
      2. Compare Sombart’s and Weber’s explanations of the main forces leading to the rise and development of capitalism.
    2. Utilitarianism, or the “felicific calculus”
      1. Distinguish between the “Westminster philosophy” and the “Manchester philosophy”, showing the utilitarian roots of each. What major differences in policy flowed from these two schools?
      2. Which school triumphed in England? What social and economic forces brought this about and what were the consequences of the triumph?
      3. According to Bentham, what are the forces which control human behavior and how are these forces to be measured?
      4. What are the major difficulties in Bentham’s theory of human nature? Explore the full implications of Bentham’s theory of human nature.
      5. Discuss Halévy’s statement that “political economy, ever since Adam Smith has rested entirely on the thesis of the natural identity of interests.”
      6. What is the basic paradox of the thesis of the natural identity of interests?

SECTION V—THE CLASSICAL SYSTEM

  1. Adam Smith
    1. State or describe the preconceptions and assumptions of Adam Smith’s system of economic thought.
    2. How did Adam Smith define and measure the wealth of a nation? Can you suggest reasons for his particular definition and measurement? Summarize briefly what Smith regarded as the causes of the wealth of nations and note the implications of his argument.
    3. Develop Smith’s theory of economic order.
    4. State Smith’s theory (or theories) of value.
    5. Develop in some detail Smith’s theory of distribution, noting his concepts of the distributive shares, the determinants of each, and contradictory elements in this theory.
    6. Develop and analyze critically Smith’s theories (a) of saving, and (b) of capital.
    7. Discuss Smith’s theory of production.
  1. The Period 1776-1817
    1. Account for Malthus’ first essay on population and develop the doctrine expounded in the first essay.
    2. What are the chief differences between the first and the second essays?
    3. Appraise the validity of Malthus’ doctrine of population.
    4. Discuss the development during this period of the doctrines of diminishing returns and of rent. Explain both doctrines.
    5. Describe the evolution of the doctrine of diminishing returns.
    6. Why did the classical economists develop the doctrine of diminishing returns solely in relation to production on land? On what grounds did West argue that technological progress could not offset diminishing returns in agriculture? Note weaknesses in this argument.
    7. Compare the theory of rent developed by Sir Edward West in his Essay on the Application of Capital to Land with Malthus’ theory as developed in his essay on The Nature and Progress of Rent.
    8. Discuss the development of Ricardo’s theory of profits ad describe its nature.
    9. State and criticize Lauderdale’s productivity theory of interest.
  1. David Ricardo
    1. State or describe the preconceptions and assumptions of Ricardo’s system of economic thought.
    2. Explain carefully Ricardo’s theory of value, noting its nature, the assumption on which it is based, the problems involved in this type of theory and Ricardo’s solution of them.
    3. What is the significance of the labor theory of value as found in Adam Smith and Ricardo? What are the major differences? Account for the decline of the labor theory of value after Ricardo.
    4. How did Ricardo explain the nature, the existence and the amount of rent? What was his explanation of the relation between ret and prices?
    5. Develop and criticize Ricardo’s theory of wages.
    6. Develop Ricardo’s theory of capital. In what sense is classical theory essentially a theory of capital? How do you account for the particular form which the classical theory of capital formation assumed? On what grounds is this theory subject to criticism?
    7. Explain Ricardo’s theory of economic development. Give the theoretical reasons for his conclusions.
  1. Thomas Robert Malthus
    1. Compare Malthus’ theory of value with that of Ricardo, and account for the difference between them.
    2. With reference to the theory of rent, what were the points of difference between Ricardo and Malthus? What conclusions did each draw from his rent theory?
    3. Develop Malthus’ theory of wages.
    4. Develop Malthus’ theories of saving, capital, and profits. Compare the theories of profits of Ricardo and Malthus. How do you account for the differences between them?
    5. Compare Ricardo and Malthus as to their theories of the effects of capital formation on economic progress and the functioning of the capitalist economy.
    6. Show how in Ricardian economics the business cycle is impossible and how in Malthusian economics it is inevitable.

SECTION VI—REACTION AGAINS CLASSICISM

  1. The Romantics
    1. What were the chief economic forces leading to the rise of the German romantic movement?
    2. Trace a similar development in American economic history in the writings of Mathew Carey and Henry Carey.
    3. What were the major economic doctrines of: (a) Adam Muller, (b) J.G. Fichte, (c) Friedrich List.
  2. Early Socialist Criticism
    1. General
      1. It is sometimes claimed that economic theory is a rationalization of class interests. With reference to classical theory, is there any evidence that this characterization is warranted? If so, what? Would you agree that economic theory can properly be so characterized? Support your position.
      2. Discuss the major criticisms of the weaknesses of capitalism as set forth by Sismondi and evaluate his remedies.
      3. Discuss the major criticisms of the weaknesses of capitalism as set forth by Proudhon and evaluate his remedies.
    2. Utopian Socialism
      1. Outline succinctly Owen’s economic theory.
      2. Outline clearly Fourier’s economic system
      3. Discuss the major differences between Fourier and Owen
      4. What are the chief criticisms of utopian socialism? How valid do you think these criticisms are? Why?
  3. Karl Marx and Friederich Engels
    1. What does Marx mean by (a) forces of production (b) relations of production (c) the class struggle (d) classes? How does he use these concepts in his system of thought?
    2. Define the following terms as used by Marx: (a) use value, (b) exchange value (c) value (d) constant capital (e) variable capital (f) surplus value (g) price of production.
    3. Discuss Marx’s labor theory of value and compare it with Ricardo’s and Smith’s theories of value.
    4. Describe the so-called “great contradiction” in Marx’s labor theory of value and the way in which Marx resolved the contradiction.
    5. Discuss the origin of surplus value and the significance of this concept for Marxian theory.
    6. Discuss Marx’s theory of capitalist competition and the consequences of this. Do you find anything comparable in Ricardo?
    7. Discuss Marx’s theory of economic development and also Lenin’s contribution.
    8. Contrast Ricardo’s explanation of the falling tendency of the rate of profits with Marx’s explanation of the falling tendency of the rate of profits. What conclusions did Marx draw from this theory?
    9. Compare Marx’s theory of crises with Malthus’ theory of market gluts.
    10. Discuss: “Marxist economics is the economics of capitalism; orthodox economics of socialism.”
  4. Heterodox Socialism
    1. What is meant by evolutionary socialism? Describe briefly the chief points of difference between evolutionary socialism and Marxian socialism.
    2. Develop or outline the economic theory of the Fabian socialists. Criticize carefully the main arguments.
    3. On what grounds and in what respects did the revisionists and evolutionary socialists criticize the Marxian analysis and program? What programs of change did these critics set forth? Evaluate these programs.
    4. Describe briefly the chief points of difference between Marxism and the non-Marxist brand of revolutionary socialism (such as syndicalism). In what places in the world has revolutionary socialism had an important following? Why?

*  * *  *  *  *

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
[Handwritten: “D. Gregg”]

Selected List of Histories of Economic Thought and Other Reference Works

Ashley, W.J., “Introduction to English Economic History and Theory.”
Beer, Max, “An Inquiry into Physiocracy.”
Beer, Max, “Early British Economics.”
Beer, Max, “History of British Socialism.”
Blanqui, J.A., “History of Political Economy.”
Bonar, James, “Philosophy and Political Economy.”
Boucke, O.F., “The Development of Economics, 1750-1900.”
Burtt, Edwin A., “Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science.”
Cannan, Edwin, “A Review of Economic Theory.”
Commons, J.R., “Legal Foundations of Capitalism.”
Cunningham, William, “Early Writings on Politics and Economics.”
Feguson, J.M., “Landmarks of Economic Thought.”
Gambs, “Beyond Supply and Demand.”
Gide, C., and C. Rist, “History of Economic Doctrines.”
Gray, Alexander, “The development of Economic Doctrine.”
Gruchy, A.G., “Modern Economic Theory.”
Halévy, Elie, “Growth of Philosophical Radicalism.”
Haney, L.H., “History of Economic Thought.” (3rdrev. ed.)
Heckscher, Eli F., “Mercantilism.”
Homan, P.T., “Contemporary Economic Thought.”
Ingram, J.K., “History of Political Economy.”
Johnson, E.A.J., “Predecessors of Adam Smith.”
Laidler, H.W., “History of Socialist Thought.”
Loucks, W.N., and J.W. Hoot, “Comparative Economic Systems”
Palgrave, R.T. (ed), “Dictionary of Political Economy.”
Patterson, S.H., “Readings in the History of Economic Thought.”
Peck, Harvey W., “Economic Thought and its Institutional Background.”
Price, L.L., “A Short History of Political Economy in England from Adam Smith to Alfred Marshall.”
Robertson, H.M. “Aspects of the Rise of Individualism.”
Roll, Eric, “A History of Economic Thought.” (1947 rev. ed.)
Scott, W.A., “Development of Economics.”
Seligman, E.R.A., and A. Johnson (eds.), “Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.””
Sombart, Werner, “The Quintessence of Capitalism.”
Spann, Othmar, “The History of Economics.”
Spann, Othmar, “Types of Economic Theory.”
Stephen, Leslie, “The English Utilitarians.”
Strong, Gordon, B., “Adam Smith and the 18thcentury Conception of Progress.”
Tawney, R.H., “The Acquisitive Society.”
Tawney, R.H., “Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.”
Weber, Max, “General Economic History.”
Weber, Max, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”
Wermel, “The Evolution of Classical Wage Theory.”
Whittaker, Edmund, “A History of Economic Ideas.”
Dorfman, “The Economic Mind in American Civilization”

Selected List of Critical Works

Ayres, C.E., “The Theory of Economic Progress.”
Boehm-Bawerk, E. von, “Capital and Interest.”
Boucke, O.F., “A Critique of Economics. ”
Cannan, E., “A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848.”
Cannan, E., “A Review of Economic Theory.”
McCracken, H.L., “Value Theory and Business Cycles.”
Polanyi, Karl, “The Great Transformation.”
Spann, Othmar “The History of Economics.”
Taussig, F.W., “Wages and Capital.”
Triffin, R., “Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory.”
Veblen, Thorstein, “The Place of Science in Modern Civilization.”
Whitaker, A.C., “History and Criticism of the Labor Theory of Value,” in Columbia Univ. Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, vol. 19.

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection. Box 13