Paper details:
Directions: In no more than ten total pages (single or double spaced), five pages per response, respond to the
prompt as thoroughly as possible, clearly identifying (1) the problem it raises; (2) how the economic thinkers
invoked by the prompt solved this problem; (3) how their temporal and spatial location might shape their
response; and (4) why the problem remains significant today. When you cite texts listed on the syllabus, you
should use in-text citation (e.g., Smith 1776z84). You are encouraged to work with other students as you
develop responses to these prompts. However, if you plagiarize another work, you will receive no credit for
the entire examination.
1.Human communities have existed for approximately 2.4M years. Markets have existed for nearly as long.
And, yet, it is only within the last seven centuries (.03 per cent) of human existence that social life has come
to be mediated by equal units of abstract time. D Landes, G Arrighi, and K Polanyi each tackle a different slice
of capitalism, the emerging social system. Drawing upon their research, explain why capitalism appeared so
recently, why it might have spread so rapidly, and why the recent appearance of capitalism (as a social form)
might be of interest to economic thinking today.
2.The world of the utilitarians was barbaric. Children filled the streets of industrial cities. Opioids filled the
snuff jars of the investor class. Prostitution was rampant. Disease spread rapidly in the crammed tenements
of industrial cities. Homeless vagrants wandered between cities and day jobs. To such terrifying conditions
most utilitarians attempted to give a positive spin. Drawing upon the works of] Mill, 15 Mill, J Bentham, N
Senior, and J-B Say explore why (or even whether) any of these thinkers found the new economic system the
least problematic, how they justified these deplorable circumstances, and how (if necessary) they felt the
problems of industrialization might be overcome.
(JSMill,PrinciplesofPoliticalEconomy;JBentham,AnIntroductiontothePrinciplesofMoralsandLegislation;JMill,Pri
nciplesofPoliticalEconomy(MedemaandSamuels))
