Power and Global Capital (fall 2012)

Schedule

All readings with full bibliographical citations can be downloaded as PDFs from Moodle unless otherwise hyperlinked or noted.

September October November December

STUDYING HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Tuesday, September 4

Introduction.

METHODS OF CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Thursday, September 6

C. Wright Mills, "The Promise." Pp. 3-24 in The Sociological Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1959).

Claude Fischer, "How to be Poor" (2012).

WHERE YOU FIT INTO INEQUALITY TODAY

Tuesday, September 11

Jeffrey Dowd, "Class Struggle in the USA," Contexts 11 (Spring 2012): 5.

U.S. household income brackets in 2008: two estimates.

Timothy Noah, "The Great Divergence in Pictures: A Visual Guide to Income Inequality," Slate, September 3, 2010.

Timothy Noah, "The United States of Inequality, Entry 8: The Stinking Rich and the Great Divergence."

Stephen Marche, "The War Against Youth," Esquire, April 2012.

Recommended:

Index Mundi's income distribution statistics for different nations (try comparing multiple nations' statistics).

Canada Income Inequality: An Infographic (The Huffington Post Canada, May 27, 2012). Look at other articles in this series: "Mind the Gap: Chronicling Canada's Growing Rich-Poor Divide".

Facts about China: Rich, Poor & Inequality (China Mike [blog]). Look at the sources for these statistics for further information.

Spain: Inequality Soars to Record Levels (World Socialist Web Site, November 23, 2011).

Thursday, September 13

First draft due for Essay 1: Where do you fit into the 1% vs. the 99%?

CORPORATE POWER AND CLASS DOMINANCE AND

Tuesday, September 18

Revised Essay 1 due.

Domhoff, Who Rules America? chaps. 1-2

Thursday, September 20

Domhoff, Who Rules America? chap. 3.

Recommended:

David Brooks, "Thurston Howell Romney" (New York Times, September 17, 2012).

David Frum, "Here's Why Mitt's 100% Wrong on the 47%" (part 1 and part 2), (Daily Beast, September 18, 2012).

Domhoff, Who Rules America?, pp. 229-233: "Will the Obama Administration Challenge Class Domination?"

Tuesday, September 25

First draft due for Essay 2: What's at stake in Election 2012?

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE 20th-CENTURY FIRM

Thursday, September 27

Library visit.

Davis, Managed by the Markets, chap. 3.

REVENGE OF THE CORPORATION

Tuesday, October 2

Revised Essay 2 due.

Clements, Corporations Are Not People, through and including chap. 3.

Horizontal integration.

Vertical integration.

Thursday, October 4

First draft due for Essay 3: Proposal for term-paper case study.

WHO IS A SPECIAL INTEREST?

Tuesday, October 9

Revised Essay 3 due.

Clements, Corporations Are Not People, chaps. 4, 7.

Domhoff, Who Rules America? chap. 4.

"Much of Romney's View on Taxes Conflicts With Longtime G.O.P. Stand" (New York Times, September 18, 2012).

SHAPING POLITICAL CONSENSUS

Thursday, October 11

Domhoff, Who Rules America? chaps. 5-6.

"Why Has Wall Street Abandoned President Obama for Mitt Romney?" ("Money Talking, WNYC, August 17, 2012). [read article; podcast is optional]

FALL BREAK: October 13-21

CORPORATE POWERLESSNESS?

Tuesday, October 23

Domhoff, Who Rules America? chaps. 7-9

Thursday, October 25

First draft due for Essay 4: Who bought this election?

CORPORATE LEADERSHIP: COMMAND AND SYMBOLISM

Tuesday, October 30: CLASS CANCELLED

Revised Essay 4 due.

Jack Welch, Straight from the Gut, chaps. 1-2, 6-9, 11, 15, 17-18.

Thursday, November 1

Jack Welch, Straight from the Gut, chaps. 19-21, 24-26.

THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY

Tuesday, November 6: ELECTION DAY!!!

Jacob Hacker, "Risking it All." Pp. 35-60 in The Great Risk Shift (Oxford University Press, 2006).

Davis, Managed by the Markets, pp. 201-22.

MARKET, STATE, AND CORPORATION

Thursday, November 8

Colin Crouch, "The Market and its Limitations" and "The Corporate Takeover of the Market." Chaps. 2-3 in The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism (Polity, 2011).

Tuesday, November 13

First draft due for Essay 5: How do corporations "lead"?

FINANCIAL CAPITALISM

Thursday, November 15