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Economic Systems from a Historical-Sociological Perspective

Class at Faculty of Humanities |
YMH505

Syllabus

This semester, due to COVID pandemy the cource will be toughts in online form. The first class will take place online in MS teams. The other classes will combine on-line and pre-recorded modes. The sudents will have to submit weekly homeworks that probe the information presented in the pre-recorded lectures and monitore the timing of the seminar paper. Out of 10 weekly homeworks the students will have to submit 8. Otherwise the grade for the course will be lowered by 1 grade.

Link to the course in MS Teams https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZjAzYjY5YjctMWIyNS00NzRhLThkNTctNzc3YTFiOTIyMzI4%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22e09276da-f934-4086-bf08-8816a20414a2%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22494a9a9c-aab9-4ba4-bbee-c79e75087692%22%7d  

Structure of the course  

Class 1. Lecture 1. Introduction. The structure of the course, organization of the course, lectures, seminars and readings, papers, requirements.  

Part I The current economic systems.  

Class 2. Lecture 2. The market system versus the command system. Main mechanisms and players. The circular flow. Economic cycles. The zero milestone for the final paper – the topic.

Class 3. Lecture 3. The role of money and financial markets in the current economic system. The history of money

The first milestone for the final paper – the topic and the aim of the paper  

Class 4. Seminar 1. Group work and student presentations

·         Inequality

·         Social systems

Class 5. Seminar 2. Group work and student presentations

·         Political systems

·         Civil society  

Part II Medieval economic systems

Class 6. Lecture. The second milestone for the final paper – the aim of the paper and the literature survey

Class 7. Seminar

Class 8 Seminar  

Part III Ancient economic systems

Class 9. Lecture

Class 10. Seminar. The third milestone for the final paper – the main part, arguments, and discussion.  

Part IV World economic system according to Immanuel Wallerstein

Class 11. Lecture. World economic system according to Immanuel Wallerstein

Class 12. Seminar. States or corporations as the governing force. History and the current state

Class 13. Exam. The fourth milestone for the final paper – the whole paper submission date.    

Annotation

The aim of the course is

1) to provide an overview of the historical development of economic systems on the macro level of analysis on lectures;

2) to discuss particular aspects of economic and social processes in the historical-sociological context in student presentation and group discussions;

3) analyze the particular factors that were associated with particular historical phases of socioeconomic development and interrelations of these factors in student papers;

4) improve students’ presentation and writing skills. Lectures will draw on selected texts from the history of economic theories as well as sociological texts concerning modernization processes. We will also use existing high-quality video content. The course will combine lectures with student presentations and discussions. Link to the course in Moodle https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=7660#section-0