Essay Topics
1. Did capitalism emerge in the city or the countryside? What ‘social property relations' were necessary for the development of capitalism? Why did they develop in agrarian communities? How do these differ from pre-capitalist relations according to Wood? How did relations between ‘appropriators' and ‘producers' become so market dependent?
2. Is a wealthy nation a prosperous nation?' What is the ‘division of labour' and how did it shape social relations both within and outside the factory? Use Heilbroner's concept of the ‘drive for capital' and how it simultaneously produces ‘wealth' and ‘misery' to analyze EITHER Dickens' OR Sinclair's insights into the nature of industrial life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
3. Are democracy and the ‘free market' allies or rivals? How does Phillips define ‘political economy' and how can it help us understand our ‘everyday life'? How does he integrate an analysis of ‘power' into an economic analysis of the role of markets? What neoliberal arguments are made to justify privatization, de-regulation and trade liberalization? How does Phillips' critique of the market system represent a response to these?
4. Is ‘free labour' more profitable than slave labour? Examine William's analysis of the role played by African slavery in the development of capitalism in the New World. Why were African slaves preferred over indigenous (native) slaves and indentured (white European) servants? Compare Williams' analysis of the economic realities of staple crop production in the New World with the colonial moral ideal of ‘bringing light (civilization) into darkness (savagery)' in Conrad's work.