INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY
FALL 2002
DAVID F. RUCCIO
Office: 410 Decio
Tel: 631-6434
Email: Ruccio.1@nd.edu
Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-3pm, and by appointment
There are three parts to this
reading list and course. Part I is an introduction to some of the basic themes
of the course, viz., the significant differences between political economy and
mainstream economics and the existence both of different theories of political
economy and of various ways of understanding those differences. Part II covers
the basic concepts and methods of the principle “schools” encompassed
by contemporary political economy: Marxian, classical, post-Keynesian, radical,
institutionalist, Austrian, and feminist. Finally, in Part III we will discuss
the different consequences of these theories by examining some specific issues
and themes: modernism/postmodernism, globalization, households, race, income
distribution, third world development, and alternatives to capitalism.
READINGS
No textbook is required for
this course. The only two book you need to purchase are Economics: Marxian
versus Neoclassical, by Richard D.
Wolff and Stephen A. Resnick and The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S.
Economy, by James Heintz et al. All
of the remaining readings are from 2 “course packets” available at
the Copy Shop, O’Shaughnessy Hall.
ORGANIZATION
The course will be conducted
as a seminar. Therefore, it is important for all students to complete the
assigned readings before each
session and to participate in the discussions.
GRADING
There will be no examinations
in this course. Instead, students will prepare weekly papers, each
approximately 1.5 to 2 pages, due each Tuesday in class. One of the purposes of
the papers is to “grapple” with the readings—to formulate the
main themes, to raise the interesting issues, to pose the key
questions—in preparation for the classroom discussions. I will be looking
for serious, thoughtful, and well-written engagements with the readings. The
other purpose is to develop ideas for an 8-10-page final research paper. For
that paper, students should choose a specific topic, concept, or theme from the
readings and then explore it in more depth than is possible in the required
readings and class discussions. Students should feel free to contact
me—in person, by office telephone, or by email—to discuss paper
topics, ways of investigating the topics, and possible references. An abstract
and reading list for the paper are due on 26 November. The paper itself is due
by 5pm on the regularly scheduled final exam day.
The following journals
regularly publish articles in political economy:
Cambridge Journal of Economics New
Left Review
Capital and Class Political
Economy
Contributions to Political
Economy Research
in Political Economy
Dollars and Sense Rethinking
Marxism
Economy and Society Review
of Austrian Economics
Feminist Economics Review
of Black Political Economy
International Review of
Applied Economics Review
of Political Economy
Journal of Economic Issues Review
of Radical Political Economics
Journal of Post Keynesian
Economics Review
of Social Economy
Monthly Review Studies
in Political Economy
Part I: INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND BOTTOM LINES
27 and 29 August
J.
Heintz et al., The Ultimate Field Guide to the U.S. Economy (New York: New Press, 2000)
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS
3 and 5 September
E.
J. Nell, “The Revival of Political Economy,” in Growth, Profits,
and Property, ed. E. J. Nell, 19-28
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)
B.
Pietrykowski, “A Primer in Political Economy,” in Political
Economy and Contemporary Capitalism,
ed. R. Baiman et al., 13-20 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000)
J.
Amariglio et al., “Division and Difference in the
‘Discipline’ of Economics,” Critical Inquiry 17 (Autumn 1990): 108-37
Part II: THEORIES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
MARXIAN
10, 12, 17, 19 September
K.
Marx, “The Commodity,” in Capital, vol. 1, 125-77 (New York: Vintage, 1977)
S.
Resnick and R. Wolff, “Marxian Theory,” in Economics: Marxian versus
Neoclassical, 125-238 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)
CLASSICAL
24 and 26 September
A.
Roncaglia, “The Sraffian Contribution,” in A Guide to
Post-Keynesian Economics, ed. A
Eichner, 87-99 (White Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1979)
P.
Lichtenstein, “Post-Keynesian Theories of Value and Price,” in An
Introduction to Post-Keynesian and Marxian Theories of Value and Price, 89-148 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1983)
POST-KEYNESIAN
1 and 3 October
P.
Arestis, “Post-Keynesian Economics,” in The Post-Keynesian
Approach to Economics, 86-115
(Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar, 1992)
P.
Davidson, “The Role of Contracts and Money in Theory and the Real
World,” in Controversies in Post Keynesian Economics, 55-72 (Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar, 1991)
P.
Kenway, “Marx, Keynes, and the Possibility of Crisis,” in Keynes’s
Economics and the Theory of Value and Distribution, ed. J. Eatwell and M. Milgate, 149-66 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1983)
RADICAL
8 and 10 October
S.
Marglin, “What Do Bosses Do? The Origins and Function of Hierarchy in
Capitalist Production,” Review of Radical Political Economics 6 (1974): 33-60
M.
Reich, “Radical Economics in Historical Perspective,” Review of
Radical Political Economics 25/3
(1993): 43-50
D.
M. Gordon et al., “Power, Accumulation, and Crisis: The Rise and Demise
of the Postwar Social Structure of Accumulation,” in The Imperiled
Economy, ed. R. Cherry et al., 43-57
(New York: Union of Radical Political Economics, 1987)
INSTITUTIONAL
15 and 17 October
K.
Polanyi, The Great Transformation,
43-76 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957)
C.
K. Wilber and R. S. Harrison, “The Methodological Basis of Institutional
Economics: Pattern Model, Storytelling, and Holism,” Journal of
Economic Issues 12 (March 1978):
61-89
W.
M. Dugger, “Radical Institutionalism: Basic Concepts,” in Radical
Institutionalism: Contemporary Voices,
ed. W. E. Dugger, 1-20 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989)
AUSTRIAN
29 and 31 October
F.
A. Hayek, “Economics and Knowledge,” in Individualism and
Economic Order, 33-56 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1948)
I.
M. Kirzner, “The Driving Force of the Market: The Idea of
‘Competition’ in Contemporary Economic Theory and in the Austrian
Theory of the Market Process,” in Why Economists Disagree: An
Introduction to Alternative Schools of Thought, ed. D. L. Prychitko, 37-52 (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1998)
L.
M. Lachmann, “From Mises to Shackle: An Essay on Austrian Economics and
the Kaleidic Society,” in Why Economists Disagree: An Introduction to
Alternative Schools of Thought, ed.
D. L. Prychitko, 53-64 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998)
FEMINIST
5 and 7 November
E.
Mutari, “Feminist Political Economy,” in Political Economy and
Contemporary Capitalism, ed. R.
Baiman et al., 29-35 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000)
U.
Grappard, “Feminist Economics: Let Me Count the Ways,” in Beyond
Neoclassical Economics: Heterodox Approaches to Economic Theory, ed. F. E. Foldvary, 100-14 (Brookfield: Edward
Elgar, 1996)
D. Strassman,
“Not a Free Market: The Rhetoric of Disciplinary Authority in
Economics,” in Beyond Economic Man, 54-68 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
THEORIES OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY
12 November
Part III: ISSUES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
MODERNISM/POSTMODERNISM
14 November
J.
Amariglio and D. F. Ruccio, ““Keynes, Postmodernism,
Uncertainty,” in Keynes, Knowledge, and Uncertainty, ed. S. Dow and J. Hillard, 334-56 (Aldershot: Edward
Elgar, 1994)
GLOBALIZATION
19 November
P.
Dorman, “Actually Existing Globalization,” in Rethinking
Globalization(s), ed. P. S. Aulakh
and M. G. Schechter, 32-55 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000)
HOUSEHOLDS
21 November
H.
Fraad et al., “For Every Knight in Shining Armor, There’s a Castle
Waiting to Be Cleaned: A Marxist-Feminist Analysis of the Household,” Rethinking
Marxism 2 (Winter 1989): 9-69
RACE
26 November
• abstract and reading
list due
S.
Shulman, “Racial Inequality and Radical Institutionalism: A Research
Agenda,” in Inequality: Radical Institutionalist Views on Race,
Gender, Class, and Nation, ed. W. M.
Dugger, 251-71 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996)
INCOME DISTRIBUTION
3 December
C.
Tilly, “Falling Wages, Widening Gaps: U.S. Income Distribution at the
Millenium,” in Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism, ed. R. Baiman et al., 114-23 (Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe, 2000)
THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT
5 December
D.
F. Ruccio, “Capitalism and Industrialization in the Third World:
Recognizing the Costs and Imagining Alternatives,” in Political
Economy and Contemporary Capitalism,
ed. R. Baiman et al., 203-9 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000)
ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM
10 December
A. Einstein, “Why Socialism?” Monthly
Review 50/1 (May 1998): 1-8
(originally published May 1949)
D.
M. Figart and H. I. Hartmann, “Broadening the Concept of Pay Equity:
Lessons for a Changing Economy,” in Political Economy and Contemporary
Capitalism, ed. R. Baiman et al.,
285-93 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000)
J.
Matthaei, “Beyond Racist Capitalist Patriarchical Economics: Growing a
Liberated Economy,” in Political Economy and Contemporary Capitalism, ed. R. Baiman et al., 48-55 (Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe, 2000)
• final paper due