Earlier Economics in the Rear-view Mirror posted the course outline and final examination for Joseph Schumpeter’s course on the economics of socialism that was given in the second semester of 1945-46. None of the final examination questions were shared between these two years, so together the exams provide a better idea of what was actually covered than either alone.
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Course Announcement
Economics 11b. Economics of Socialism
Half-course (winter term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Schumpeter.
Source: Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences During 1943-44. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 40, No. 21 (September 29, 1943), p. 33.
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Course Enrollment
[Economics] 11b (winter term) Professor Schumpeter. –Economics of Socialism.
Total 26: 3 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 13 Navy.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1943-44, p. 56.
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ECONOMICS 11b
1943-44
OUTLINE AND ASSIGNMENTS
- FIRST TWO WEEKS: The Socialist Issue.
Socialist ideas and socialist parties. Socialism and the labor movement. Laborite and intellectualist socialism. The Definition of Socialism.
H. W. Laidler*, History of Socialist Thought, 1927.
T.M. Sogge, “Industrial Classes in the U. S. in 1930,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 28 (1933), pp. 199-203.
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, article on Socialist and Labor Parties.
- THIRD TO FIFTH WEEK: The Theory of Centralist Socialism.
O. Lange and F. M. Taylor*, The Economic Theory of Socialism.
H. D. Dickinson, Economics of Socialism, 1939.
- SIXTH TO NINTH WEEK: The Economic Interpretation of History. The Class Struggle, and the Marxist Theory of Capitalism.
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, chs. I, IV, V, VI.
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Paul M. Sweezy*, The Theory of Capitalist Development, 1942, chs. I-VI (pp. 1-108).
- TENTH TO TWELFTH WEEK: The Socialist Theory of the State and of the Proletarian Revolution, Imperialism, National Socialism.
V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution.
V. I. Lenin, Imperialism.
M. Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism, ch. VII.
Paul M. Sweezy*, The Theory of Capitalist Development, Chs. XIII-XIX.
READING PERIOD ASSIGNMENT
Read E. Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, especially pp. 18-95, and survey again the items in the reading list marked *.
Source:Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1). Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1943-1944 (2 of 2)”.
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1943-44
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11b
[Final. February, 1944]
One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
- Describe briefly the emergence of either the English Independent Labour Party or the German Social Democratic Party.
- In the Second International, opinion was divided on the question whether socialists should or should not participate in bourgeois governments. What were the arguments that were adduced for and against? Which groups expressed the one and which the other view? Which view prevailed eventually within the Second International?
- What are the rules of rational allocation of productive resources in a socialist society, and how do they differ from the corresponding rules in a capitalist society (a) under conditions of perfect competition and (b) under conditions of monopolistic competition?
- State and criticize the Marxian proposition known as the Theory of Increasing Misery (“immiseration”).
- Most socialist writers recognize that the transition from the capitalist to the socialist form of life will raise a number of problems that are distinct from the problem of how to run a socialist society when established. What are those “transitional problems” and what methods have been suggested for dealing with them?
- What is meant by Reformism? By Revisionism? By Laborism?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 8, Folder “Final examinations, Winter term, 1943-44”.
Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1942.