Political Philosophy and Economic Theory

Catalog description

Political philosophy relates to economic theory in two ways. It takes primary texts of economic theory and draws out their philosophical, ethical, and political implications. It also begins from normative theory, like theories of justice, and brings these independently developed principles to bear on economic concerns. This class takes both approaches. The first half will attempt read foundational economic thinkers (e.g. Jevons, Keynes, Schumpeter, Hayek, Polanyi) as political philosophers. The second half will take an external approach, looking at how competing libertarian, socialist, post-socialist, classical liberal and high liberal traditions (e.g Smith, Friedman, Rawls, Cohen, Tomasi) think about economic freedom. Enrollment limited to 14.