ISC 205-01 (A Minerva Course)
Inequality:  Economic and Social Perspectives

Teresa Meade and Eshragh Motahar/Fall 2015

       

Final Examination Guidelines

Monday, November 23, 2015, 6:00-7:15 PM, Karp 005

For each lecture/class session we will give you a list of up to 5 study questions.  For the final exam we will pick 2 questions from each lecture's set of study questions.  You choose one question from each of those 2 questions per lecture and answer it in 3-4 sentences.  Thus, you will answer a total of [TBA] questions, one corresponding to each lecture.  Your answers must demonstrate that:  (a) you have attended all classes, and (b) you have read the required readings.  In addition, you need to make sure that your answers address at least one of the fundamental overarching questions of this course.  That is, (a) how is inequality constructed?  (b) how is it perpetuated? and (c) what are its effects?

Please note that all required readings, and PowerPoint presentations (when available) have been, and will continue to be posted to the course's website.

Here are the study questions as of this date.  Please check this site frequently.  It will be updated as new study questions become available.  Make sure to give specific, to-the-point examples in each answer.

Steve Fraser (Lecture on October 12)

  1. Why was the first Gilded Age (the period from the end of the Civil War until Great Depression) viewed as undemocratic and even un-American by working people and social critics such as Mark Twain?
     
  2. Contrast the two divergent political economies of the First and the Second Gilded Ages. What accounts for the "Great Noise" of the first, with the "Great Silence" of the second in terms of accepted economic practices, responses, behaviors, and morals?
     
  3. Describe at least three of the major conflicts that broke out in 1877 and in the subsequent years. Over what were social classes and groups fighting in various parts of the country?
     
  4. Henry George in the 19th century warned that poverty and progress were irreconcilable contradictions in a society. What did he say and are his warnings still relevant today?
     
  5. Civil Rights, rights of labor, the right to social services (Social Security, minimum wage, regulation of industry, and high taxes to provide for the common good) were incorporated into basic American rights during the New Deal and the years following World War II. What happened, according to Fraser, to limit these rights? Why did labor unions, social welfare services, and civil rights come under attack in the late 20th and early 21st centuries?

Melinda Lawson (Lecture on October 14)

  1. What were some of the rules of the Jim Crow system and how were they enforced?
     
  2. Explain how nonviolence as a strategy worked to undermine the Jim Crow system.
     
  3. In what ways did the federal government contribute to the perpetuation of the Jim Crow system?
     
  4. In what ways did the participation of white activists in the movement pose a problem for black Civil Rights activists?
     
  5. What led many youth in the movement to abandon nonviolence as a strategy?

Brian Jones (Lecture on October 19)

  1. According to Marc Rose, the majority of students intend to complete community college when they enroll, but only 30 per cent complete the degree or transfer to a 4-year college. What are the reasons for this?

  2. Several of the readings in Divided: The Perils of our Growing Inequality, as well as Brian Jones, point to the problem of politicians and administrators evaluating pupil success purely on the basis of test scores and other arbitrary numbers. Explain what they mean.

  3. Explain the criticism and defense of charter schools. While some are for-profit and others are not, some are quite good and others are substandard, Brian Jones criticizes the entire charter school movement. Why? What does he point to as problems with the movement?

  4. How are neoliberal policies shaping k-12 public education today?

  5. What, did Jones argue, were the three goals of the privatization of k-12 education? Explain.

Jeff Corbin (Lecture on October 21)

  1. Define environmental justice. Give an example of how city services may be organized in a way that violates the principles of environmental justice.

  2. Explain why it could be called hypocritical when an advocate of clean energy such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. protests a particular wind-energy project that could affect his own property.

  3. Define an externality, including one example. Explain why externalities are considered "market failures" by economists.

  4. Name the "10 words to remember about Climate Change," including a brief explanation of each of the five phrases.

  5. Explain how climate change relates to the topic of inequality.

Erin Delman (Lecture on October 26)

  1. If every country that has submitted an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) follows their proposed action perfectly, what range of warming can be expected?

  2. How is the climate problem one of inequity?

  3. To calculate the benefit a country accrues from climate change, scholars used to simply look at in-country emissions. Why is this incorrect, and what is a way to resolve it?

Mark Dallas (Lecture on October 28)

  1. What is distinctive about the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) that have joined the small ‘club’ of rich, advanced countries over the past half century?

  2. What are some characteristics of the new “Fragmentation of International Production” and how does it differ from earlier forms of 20th century industrialization?

  3. We talked a lot about structural constraints on China’s growth, but are there also reasons to believe that China IS successfully rising through the international division of labor?

  4. Given what you learned about China, what are the prospects for other developing countries in rising through the international division of labor?

  5. Is the international division of labor a form of global inequality?  If so, how?  If not, why?  (In this question, you may wish to apply what you learned from other lectures in terms of what inequality is and is not). 

Michael Klare (Lecture on November 2)

  1. Food scarcity and the unequal distribution of food will be one of the major effects of climate change. State how food scarcity will come about and give examples of how it is already occurring.

  2. Human migration is a major result of climate change. What has precipitated the mass migrations? Who migrates, from where and to where? How does migration exemplify the inequitable effect of climate change?

  3. Klare argues that adaptability will be key to surviving the effects of climate change. What are some of the ways that societies have and will continue to adapt? Give examples of what happens (or will happen) when a society does not adapt.

  4. What are the principal effects on human security (or insecurity) from climate change?

Chris Chabris (Lecture on November 4)

  1. What was the most important conclusion of the study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely? Do you see any problems or caveats with interpreting their results the way they want to?

  2. The economist David Autor has an explanation for why inequality of income (i.e., wages and salaries) has increased over the past 50+ years. What is it? Be sure to mention at least two pieces of empirical evidence that relate to his argument.

  3. According to the experimental study we discussed that used social networks, what factor contributes to the maintenance of wealth inequality? Why might this be relevant to current social conditions?

  4. Professor Chabris argued that concern with reducing inequality might be better replaced by concern for reducing poverty. What arguments can you make in favor of this suggestion?

Kristian Braekkan (Lecture on November 9)

  1. Explain the relationship and distinction between "labor" and "labor power" as explained by Professor Braekkan, and its relationship to "exploitation".  How is this concept connected to "surplus value" in capitalist modes of production?

  2. What are some key elements of the Scandinavian welfare model?  How did Professor Braekkan use the word "welfare" differently from the way it is commonly used in the United States?

  3. Professor Braekkan pointed to an apparent paradox under capitalism:  specifically, he argued that there is an incentive to utilize more constant capital (e.g., machines) and less variable capital (e.g., labor) for each individual producer which yields a high organic composition of capital.  However, his data illustrated that profit rates in the U.S move in inverse proportion to this composition. What explains this paradox?

  4. Whereas news media in Europe and the United States have attributed the Greek crisis to either domestic economic policy failures or problems with the European Monetary Union, Professor Braekkan offered alternative explanations. Present two of these possible explanations (e.g., falling rates of profits, etc).

  5. Why do you think it is possible for Norway to have higher economic growth than the United States and still experience a lower rate of exploitation? Make sure to connect your answers to the arguments made by Professor Braekkan.

Bhaskar Sunkara (Lecture on November 11)

  1. Bhaskar Sunkara rejected the idea that the socialism rested on a trade-off between freedom and equality, posing instead that the question was freedom for the majority versus freedom for the minority. Explain the distinction, with an example.

  2. What is the key difference between social democracy, which most socialists support but think doesn't go far enough, and the vision of socialism that Sunkara laid out?

  3. Sunkara discussed human nature and its relationship to socialist politics. Did he think that there were constants in human nature, or was it all culturally determined? What implications does that have for socialist politics?

  4. In what ways does taking some things (such as education) out of the "sphere of the market" address the problem of inequality?

  

 

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Last revised:  Saturday, November 21, 2015