SluitenHelpPrint
Switch to English
Cursus: GE3V17023
GE3V17023
Thinking about Capitalism: From Adam Smith to Thomas Piketty
Cursus informatie
CursuscodeGE3V17023
Studiepunten (EC)7,5
Cursusdoelen
Inhoud
This is the third course of Specialisation 4: The Great Challenges: Crises, Inequality and Sustainability (English track History).

LAS and TCS students who follow this course as part of the core curriculum of their major need to complete a compulsory preparation https://tcs.sites.uu.nl/


Capitalism is undoubtedly the most successful economic system, outcompeting others such as communism. Free markets, the specialization of labour, entrepreneurship and the maximization of profit have brought unprecedented wealth to the developed world. Capitalism itself, however, turns out to be unstable. Growth and recession alternate, producing winners and losers. Critics of capitalism have proposed alternative economic orders, or argued for some moral order to be imposed on capitalist market economies. In this course the views of a number of classical thinkers on capitalism will be discussed: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Friedrich Hayek, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and Thomas Piketty. What was, in their view, the nature of capitalism? Which problems did the system have? And how should these shortcomings be remedied?

​This is a classical history course with students reading key texts on the topic of capitalism as an economic system.
SluitenHelpPrint
Switch to English