Questions and Answers of Economics An Introduction To Traditional

How did the lords control the serfs?
How did religion play a role in inhibiting the technological and scientific advancement?
What is the impact of the church and religion in feudal society?
Discuss the status of women in feudal society.
Discuss the role of the church as a landowner in feudalism.
How does a system of Christian paternalism compare to the pattern of a typical family? Who fills each role?
What are the duties and obligations of the wealthy?
In the movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas proclaims “greed is good.” What would be the response to this statement by people who adhere to the idea of Christian paternalism?
What role does tradition play in feudal society? How did this affect development of trade and commercial interests?
What is a “just price?” What role does the idea of a just price play in the context of feudalism and Christian paternalism?
What is usury? How is usury related to the idea of a just price?
Does being poor necessarily mean you are righteous person?
What is the role of merchants in the early Middle Ages?
Why did towns become increasingly important in this period? How did this impact trade?
What were some problems for early merchants trying to conduct trade?
Discuss the reasons for technological stagnation in feudal society.
What role did the plagues that swept Europe play in changing the relationship of serfs and lords?
Why did feudal lords slowly lose power over the peasant class?
What is the commons and why was it important to the peasants? Why did the lords enclose the commons? What was the effect of enclosure of the commons on the peasants?
Describe the emergence of a market in land to lease. What impact does this have on farming?
How does the change to farming for the market (commercial farming) change the productivity or farming?
Discuss how changes in the productivity of farming impact the growth of cities.
Who made up the peasant class in the cities?
What are the remnants of feudalism present in the seventeenth century? Why is this a problem?
Who are the three groups of people important to the English Revolution? Why?
How did the change in relative power of different classes lead to struggle between the classes?
Discuss each of the distinguishing features of capitalism in the four institutions.
Compare and contrast the features of prehistoric communal society, slavery, feudalism and capitalism. How are they similar and how are they different?
What was the first major industry in England? What factors enabled the development of this industry?
How did the institutions of capitalism facilitate the Industrial Revolution?
What are some of the social costs of the Industrial Revolution?
Why did workers attempt to organize unions?
Compare and contrast life in England before the Industrial Revolution (c. 1750) to life in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
What is bullionism? Why is it not possible for every country to achieve its main goal?
Why is exporting so important for countries in the bullionist period? What did countries do to protect their exports?
What is the motivation for creating trade monopolies?
How did the restrictions on trade and production impact the new middle class of merchants and industrial capitalists? What was their response?
What are the two themes underlying the development of English mercantilism? What does this mean for the role of the church and the role of the state in protecting the social welfare of its citizens?
As the state begins to take over the role of the church in interpreting and enforcing the Christian paternalistic ethic, what are some early mercantilist policies?
Mercantilists advocate for full employment policies. What problems is unemployment causing in the late 1500s and early 1600s? What is the cause of widespread unemployment in this period?
In 1563 a maximum wage is set. Why? Who is this designed to protect? Why?
As the state assumes more and more responsibility for the general welfare of society, it creates the Poor Laws. What are the Poor Laws? What are they designed to do?
What is classical liberalism? Why did it end up prevailing over the older paternalistic view of the world?
What is considered to be the dominant motive needed to function successfully in a capitalist market economy? How is this justified by classical liberalism?
Compare and contrast “human justification by works” and “human justification by faith.” Why does individual interpretation of God’s will appeal to the new middle class of capitalists?
Using individual self-interest as a foundation, what arguments are put forward supporting removal of restrictions on trade and production? Be sure to give specific examples as part of your answer.
What was the nature of trade between the United States and England when the United States was still a colony? Why?
Describe the living and working conditions for most slaves.
Why did the U.S. economy stay undeveloped for so long?
What social norms and laws were in place that perpetuated slavery?
Describe how the United States remains a neocolonial country after the Revolutionary War.
What was the role of religion and underground churches for the slaves?
Was the United States really independent from England after 1776? Explain.
What is the difference in assets for capitalist enterprises in the North and the plantations of the South? How might this affect innovations and productivity?
How did monopolies in farm equipment and railroads impact early farmers?
What invention improved the productivity of Southern plantation? How did this affect the attitude of the slave owners?
How is a corporation different from a business that is not organized as a corporation?
Compare and contrast the distribution of agricultural output and wealth in the North and the South.
Why did the building of the railroad have such a huge impact on the economic development of the United States? How was the building of the railroads financed?
What problems for economic development did slavery cause in the South? Explain and give examples.
How were the workers who actually built the railroads treated in general? Give examples. How were ethnic minorities treated? Why?
Discuss how slavery was a factor in the Civil War. Was the war only about the institution of slavery itself or are there other factors?
How did the idea of “rugged individualism” support capitalism? Why did the ideology of the United States so easily support capitalism?
Unregulated capitalism was the predominate ideology of the era. In what ways is this ideology a good thing? In which ways is it bad?
How did unbridled capitalism affect the distribution of wealth in the United States?
In which ways did the law try and preserve social institutions? When was law used as a tool to change them?
Discuss revisions to property rights laws and contract laws. What happened to the notion of “just prices?”
What was the legal status of women in the early history of the United States?
Why did women on the frontier have a higher status than women on the East Coast?
What was the first right won by women in the 1850s?
How did the work of women in the abolitionist movement lead to a separate women’s movement?
List and explain the four assumptions made by classical liberals about human nature.
What did this doctrine imply about the motivations of workers and how they should be treated? What did it imply about the motivations of higher ranks of individuals?
Compare and contrast the ideology of the classical liberals with that of those supporting Christian paternalism.
How did classical liberals bridge the gap between egotistic humans who would only harm society if not for government and the need for an unfettered capitalist system?
How do Smith and Hobbes differ in their views of the outcome of human competitiveness?
What is the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith and how does it work?
What does Adam Smith mean by division of labor? Why is this concept important?
What three functions did classical liberals, and Adam Smith in particular, think that government should be responsible for? How did these three functions provide an additional advantage to the
Malthus is often credited with giving economics the reputation of being the “dismal science.” Why?
Compare the rates of growth for the population and the rate of grown for food. What is the outcome of this difference?
According to Malthus there are preventative checks and positive checks to population growth. Compare and contrast the two “checks.” What is the implication for aiding the poor?
According to Malthus, whose fault is poverty and why? Do you see any parallels in today’s society? Give examples.
Explain how socialists claimed that the existence of private property affected society.
What are two early divisions of socialist thought?
According to Hodgskin, what is the real source of productivity in capitalism? Explain.
According to Thompson, what are the inherent evils created by any competitive market system? What alternative to capitalism did he suggest?
List the major socialist thinkers before Karl Marx, and briefly explain their contributions to socialist thought.
What methods are used to control neocolonies?
Explain how Marxist scholars argue that Marxism and Soviet Marxism are different.
What is cited as the key driver of the boom of the 1990s? What happened?
Describe social movements of the late twentieth century and their impact on the United States.
What happened to real wages in the three periods? As part of your answer, define the term real wages and explain why it is such an important measure. Describe the emergence of global capitalism.
What is generally meant by globalization? Is it something new? Explain.
Discuss some of the reasons for the rapid increase in globalization in the last part of the twentieth century.
What is some evidence of the increase in globalization?
What is a trade deficit? A trade surplus? What is the explanation for the United States going from a trade surplus to a trade deficit?
Explain the relationship of the trade deficit or surplus to whether a country is a net borrower or lender.
What are some of the effects of the United States being a net debtor nation? Some people argue we should worry and others argue we should not worry about the United States being a net debtor. What do
Governments are also players in the economy. What is the main source of funds for the U.S. government? What happens if the government spends more than it takes in?

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