Harvard. Exam questions for Social Reform, Socialism, Communism. Carver, 1907-1908

Harvard’s Thomas Nixon Carver, individualist to a fault, played less a devil’s advocate in his courses on social economic reform than he engaged with the theories behind the social movements of his time to disabuse his students’ of the economic schemes of reformers and revolutionaries that attracted them like moths to a flame. 

While  Bakunin, Marx and George are seen in the Rear-view Mirror of today, they were still objects seen in the side-view mirrors of Carver’s time — objects he probably believed to be closer than they appeared. In any case, objects to avoid for safety’s sake.

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Previously posted

Pre-Carver:

• Exams and enrollment figures for economics of socialism and communism taught by Edward Cummings (1893-1900).

Carver’s courses

• 1901-02. co-taught with Frederick Alexander Bushée. Economics 14. Socialism and Communism
• 1902-03. Includes exam with the linked reading list.
• 1904-05
• 1905-1906
• [1906-1907, on European sabbatical]
• 1910.Brief bibliography for serious students on the economics of socialism
• 1919-20, second term. Economics 7^b. Socialism.  [Final exam]

Post-Carver:

• Edward S. Mason (1929)
• Paul Sweezy (1940)
• Wassily Leontief  (1942-43)
• Joseph Schumpeter (1943-44)
• Overton Hume Taylor (1955)

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Course Enrollment
1907-08

Economics 14b ²hf. Professor Carver. — Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 20: 5 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1907-1908, p. 67.

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ECONOMICS 14b
Mid-year Examination, 1907-08

1. In what particulars does the socialist movement resemble a religious rather than a rationalistic movement?
2. What are the leading doctrines of “Orthodox Socialism”?
3. In what particulars are socialism and anarchism alike, and in what particulars are they unlike?
4. State and comment upon Karl Marx’s theory as to the origin of capital and of interest.
5. Compare the single tax movement and the socialist movement.
6. Have you any clearly defined conclusion as to the proper, or logical, limits of state enterprise? If so, explain. If not, state the difficulty in the way of arriving at such a conclusion.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09 (HUC 7000.25), p. 38.

Images: Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Henry George from the Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.  New York Public Library Digital Collections.