Professor James Otteson - Capitalism

1 BEM 381: WHY BUSINESS? Wake Forest School of Business Spring 2014 COURSE SYLLABUS Professor James Otteson Office: Farrell 235 Phone: Email: Spring 2014 Time: MW 2:00 pm 3:15 pm Location: Farrell A27 Office hours: MW 4 5 pm Course Description What is the proper role of business in a humane and just society? Many of you are about to dedicate your lives to business, and the rest of you will work, in one way or another, with business. Yet many people believe that business is an inherently suspicious activity. That suspicion is evident in the common belief that businesspeople need to give back to society.

2 Is business an activity for which people must atone? Why exactly are people suspicious of it? Are they right to be suspicious? On the other side, why do people go into business because they are greedy or heartless? Why are you going into business? In this course we will explore the nature of business, as well as the nature of the market economy of which it forms an integral part. We will investigate not only how business and the market economy function, both in theory and in practice, but also what the purpose is they are supposed to serve.

3 We will also look at the moral implications of some specific issues and cases that arise in a market economy, in an effort to understand what limits, if any, there should be on markets. As part of the School of Business s institutional commitment to placing business in its proper moral context, our goals will be to become familiar with the central understandings and defenses of business within a market economy, as well as some of the central objections and challenges that have been raised to them. We want to develop informed and reasoned positions of our own on the relative morality of markets and business.

4 Course Requirements This course will have a lecture/discussion format. For this to be productive and worth our while, several prerequisites must be met: 1. You must read all assigned materials in advance. Please bring the readings with you to each class, and be prepared to discuss them critically. 2 2. At the beginning of most of our Wednesday class meetings (see schedule below), there will be a short in-class quiz based on the assigned readings. 3. You must write two short papers. Details to follow. 4. You must take either a final, comprehensive examination or write a final paper (your choice).

5 Details to follow. Required Readings 1. Cohen, G. A. Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 2. Course reader. 3. Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. 4. Sunstein, Cass R. Free Markets and Social Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Course Grading Your grade in this course will be based on your score out of a total possible 100 points, drawn from the following distribution: 1. Your average (mean) quiz score, worth 20 points.

6 Note: Your lowest quiz score will be automatically dropped. Also, every approved extracurricular event that you attend adds one point to your overall quiz point total. Details about approved events will be forthcoming. 2. Your grade on your two short papers, each worth 20 points. 3. Your grade on your final examination or final paper, worth 30 points. 4. Your participation in and contribution to class discussions, worth 10 points. This part of your grade will be determined by your fellow students. They will grade your contributions on a scale of 0 10, but the average (mean) score of the grades you submit cannot be higher than When you turn in your evaluations, if your mean score is higher than , they will still count toward those students grades, but you will be penalized 2 points.

7 Learning Assistance If you have a disability that may require an accommodation for taking this course, please contact the Learning Assistance Center ( ) within the first two weeks of the semester. 3 Class Rules 1. Laptops are allowed in class, but you may use them only to work on this class s materials during class time. You are on your honor, but the instructor reserves the right to ask you to leave if you are working on other anything other than this class s materials. Cell phones and other devices must be turned off. 2. Attendance is up to you.

8 Past experience shows that final grades are highly correlated with class attendance. 3. You are required to show your classmates (and your instructor) respect, even when they disagree with you. All discussions must be conducted with professionalism, mutual civility, and charity. 4 TENTATIVE COURSE SCHEDULE Date Author or Topic Assigned Readings Jan. 15, 2014 Introduction to the class. Policies and challenges. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, chap. 2, paras. 50 58 and 93 97, and Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality (reader).

9 Jan. 20 MLK Day: No class. Jan. 22 Classical foundations: John Locke. Locke s Second Treatise of Government, chaps. 2 ( 4 8), 4, and 5 (reader). Quiz 1. Jan. 27 Locke, cont d. Locke, cont d. Jan. 29 David Hume. Hume s Of Commerce (reader). Quiz 2. Feb. 3, 2014 Adam Smith. Smith s Wealth of Nations, bk. 1, chaps. 1 3 (reader). Feb. 5 A modern restatement: Friedrich Hayek. Hayek s The Use of Knowledge in Society (reader). Quiz 3. Feb. 10 Fr d ric Bastiat: The Broken Window Fallacy. Bastiat, That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen, 1 5 (reader).

10 Feb. 12 Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Property, commerce, and inequality. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, part 2 (reader). Quiz 4. Feb. 17 Rousseau, cont d. Rousseau, cont d. Feb. 19 Immiseration, deception, and alienation: Smith and karl marx . Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. 5, chap. 1, pt. 3, art. 2, paras. 46 61 (reader). First short paper due. Feb. 24 Smith and marx , cont d. marx , excerpt from his commentary on Mill and Estranged Labour (reader). Feb. 26 Individualism, self-help, and Capitalism . Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, chap.