Economics - Course Description
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
TOPICS COVERED AND READING TO DATE::
--What did it take to create a bar of Swiss chocolate (from raw materials, to machines, to transportation, to organizational structure, to education and human skills...).
-- Heilbroner -- the Economic Revolution. Factors that worked against innovative thinking in economics: tradition, authoritarian control. Earlier views on the morality of personal gain in contrast to today's.
-- "Pre-Capitalist Economics." Land, Labor, & Capital. How were these viewed earlier and how did these views have to change for a market system to be viable?
-- Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith: Factors that affect a nation’s wealth. The pin factory: an example of the division of labor. Three features of the division of labor that make it so effective.
-- Heilbroner & Buchholz: the Laws of the Market. Adam Smith—The Laws of the Market: self-interest & competition as interacting co-factors that function as an "invisible hand" to create a self-regulating system that determines: what is produced, how much, price levels and income.
-- Jeffrey Sachs: the Price of Civilization: on “Free Markets”, and—in the context of the presidential election—“the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Government.”
--Joel Bakan (The Corporation): Externalities
--Table of Demand and Demand Curve for prune juice. The Law of Demand. Factors affecting demand. How change in demand affects demand curve.
-- Supply Schedule & Graph of Supply Curve. Demand and supply curves on same graph show Equilibrium point, or Surplus or Shortage. Changes in demand shift demand curve and affect supply and price.
-- Big Capitalism (before the internet and globalization)
-- Robert Reich (Supercapitalism):
• “The Paradox”;
• “Of Two Minds”;
• “Democracy Overwhelmed”;
• “Politics Diverted”
• “A Citizens Guide to Supercapitalism”
-- Thomas Friedman (Hot, Flat & Crowded”)
• “The Regeneration”
• “Code Green”
Faculty: Michael Holdrege, High School Sciences Teacher
Class Dates: October 29th-November 21st, 2012
Curriculum Area: Morning Lesson Block
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