| |
The Great Courses, Chantilly, Virginia, 2008, 36 lectures on DVD with
two volume transcript, time line, Glossary, biographical notes, bibliography.
|
|
| |
Reviewer comments: This is an excellent lecture series with full
printed transcript. It adds to Professor Muller's book The
Mind and the Market, which is also about the ideas
of significant philosophers and political commentators about capitalism. It has
a similar format or structure. Dr. Muller discusses - the political, economic,
social, and intellectual environment in which the author lived - his family
background and personal biases - his thoughts expressed about capitalism
broadly considered - and something about the subsequent relevance of his views
to posterity. Each lecture is focused on one or several related authors. Each
lecture (and book chapter) has a set of questions and recommended additional
readings.
To me the importance of this book and others like it is the importance of
ideas. My view is - 1 actions that form the general basis of the history we
study - 2 stem from and are the result from decisions. and - 3 decisions are
based on beliefs which are ideas either consciously expressed or unconscious
reactions to 'wired' recesses of the brain. Thus to understand history one must
focus some attention on the beliefs that generated the actions described in the
accounts - including also the beliefs of the individuals who wrote the
descriptions.
|
|
| |
Chapter One - Why Think about Capitalism?
The author states that he is an 'intellectual historian' that is a student of
the development and influence of ideas in society. He considers the usual
public understanding of what constitutes 'capitalism'. But, he writes,
"The premise of this series of lectures is that there is a lot more to
capitalism than that- that capitalism is too important and complex to be left
to the economists. That is because capitalism involves a great deal more than
what we typically think of as economic." He gives examples. He indicates
that the underlying social, cultural, economic conditions in which capitalism
began, expanded, changed themselves changed. The resulting form of capitalism
today is different from its form in the 18th century. In order to discuss a
concept such as capitalism we must establish what are the characteristics that
we are discussing. He discusses some characteristics commonly believed: 1 is
private property -2 is exchange between legally free individuals and 3 is that
it is a system in which the production and distribution of goods operate
primarily through the market mechanism. Yes, these are the standard
characteristics one finds in usual definitions.
But I happen to disagree, since I have a different view on what ideas resulted
in the decisions that created the essential nature of capitalism. Of course
everyone knows that the term ' capitalism' was not coined until in the 19th
century after it had existed for centuries and by dogmatic opponents who
created the term in order to denounce it. No matter, Dr. Muller explains and
evaluates the standard characteristics that define capitalism.
|
|
| |
Chapter Two - The Greek and Christian Traditions
|
|
| |
Chapter Three - Hobbes's Challenge to the Traditions
|
|
| |
Chapter Four - Dutch Commerce and National Power
|
|
| |
Chapter Five - Capitalism and Toleration - Voltaire
|
|
| |
Chapter Six - Abundance or Equality - Voltaire vs. Rousseau
|
|
| |
Chapter Seven - Seeing the Invisible hand - Adam Smith
|
|
| |
Chapter Eight - Smith on Merchants, Politicians, Workers
|
|
| |
Chapter Nine - Smith on the Problems of Commercial Society
|
|
| |
Chapter Ten - Smith on Moral and Immoral Capitalism
|
|
| |
Chapter Eleven - Conservatism and Advanced Capitalism - Burke
|
|
| |
Chapter Twelve - Conservatism and Periphery Capitalism - Moser
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirteen - Hegel on Capitalism and Individuality
|
|
| |
Chapter Fourteen - Hamilton, List and the Case for Protection
|
|
| |
Chapter Fifteen - De Tocqueville on Capitalism in America
|
|
| |
Chapter Sixteen - Marx and Engles - The Communist Manifesto
|
|
| |
Chapter Seventeen - Marx's Capital and the Degradation of Work
|
|
| |
Chapter Eighteen - Mathew Arnold on Capitalism and Culture
|
|
| |
Chapter Nineteen - Individual and Community - Tonnies vs. Simmel
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty - The German Debate over Rationalization
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty One - Cultural Sources of Capitalism - Max Weber
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Two - Schumpeter on Innovation and Resentment
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Three - Lenin's Critique - Imperialism and War
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Four - Fascists on Capitalism - Freyer and Schmitt
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Five - Mises and Hayek on Irrational Socialism
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Six - Schumpeter on Capitalism's Self- destruction
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Seven - The Rise of Welfare-Sate Capitalism
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Eight - Pluralism and Limit to Social Justice - Hayek
|
|
| |
Chapter Twenty Nine- Herbert Marcuse and the New Left Critique
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty - Contradictions of Postindustrial Society
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty One - The Family under Capitalism
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty Two - Tensions with Democracy - Buchanan and Olson
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty Three - End of Communism, new Era of Globalization
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty Four - Capitalism and Nationalism - Ernest Gelilner
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty Five - The Varieties of Capitalism
|
|
| |
Chapter Thirty Six - Intrinsic Tensions in Capitalism
|
|
