NEWS FLASH!! • According to our very young Danny Yagan… • We are #1 in upward mobility >est share of people from <20%ile —> >99%ile • UCLA is #2 • America used to be a place of exceptional upward mobility • Not the case for those born > 1955 or so…
Economics 113 Slides J. Bradford Delong http://bradford-delong.com brad.delong@gmail.com @delong 2017-01-18 KNT: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/ 0LdLCURat7wHXwlQpuyTENh1Q#2017-01-18_Econ_113_Slides
Outline • News Flash: Berkeley and Opportunity • Lecture: The Story of American Economic History • Lecture: Big Ideas • Course Mechanics • Who Are You? • Assignment: Letter to Lecturer
A Story from American Economic History • Born on the prairie • Young man on the make • But in Russia—not America • Lev Bronstein • Leon Trotsky • Lenin’s right hand in the Bolshevik Revolution • People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs
“The Foundry Where the Future Will Be Forged” • Trotsky left New York in March 1917 for St. Petersburg, Russia • Left with some regret • The history of the United States is of more than parochial interest • It is not the case that the U.S. shows the rest of the world the image of its own future • Nevertheless…
BIG IDEA #1: Narrative • We like stories. • It is how we think. • We are jumped-up East African Plains Apes, only 3000 generations removed from those who first developed language, trying to understand the world as monkeys with, as Winnie-the-Pooh would say, "very little brain".
BIG IDEA #1: Narrative II • To place ideas and lessons in the context of a story is a mighty aid to our thinking. And history and its narratives are how we do that. • That is the first BIG IDEA of this course: historical narrative is a mental force multiplier for your brain… • Disciplines that do not take a historical approach and ideas that do not admit of a narrative historical presentation are crippling themselves…
BIG IDEAS • We are animals that live by narrative—hence by history… • There are three American nationalisms: • The City Upon a Hill: “Let it be as it was in New- England…” • A place where we can live freely… • “But here was Old Kentucky!” • The American project has been astonishingly successful —in Trotsky’s words: “the furnace where the future is being forged…” • But the American project has been much worse than shadowed by plantation slavery and its echoes down the centuries…
BIG IDEAS II • One big contributor to the success of the American project has been immigration… • American society has generated a large—in comparative context—but unevenly distributed quantum of liberty… • American society used to deliver an unusually large quantum of opportunity—but not any more… • American society has delivered an unprecedented and unequalled quantum of prosperity • The story of industrialization requires focusing on growth-oriented industrial policy…
BIG IDEAS III • The story of industrialization requires focusing on societal well being-oriented industrial policy… • The story of opportunity and prosperity is the story of our two Gilded Ages: their rise, fall, and rise • The apogee of American success is the mid twentieth century era of social democracy • Society has moved from agriculture to industry to post-industrial services, and is now moving on to ?… • Much of what has gone wrong with America can be traced to regional geography—and to the cultures that entrenched themselves in that geography…
Learn More About Trotsky? • Want to? • IMHO, the best places to start are with two books: • The relevant sections of Edmund Wilson (1940): To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 0374533458) http://amzn.to/2jc1t88 z • Leon Trotsky (1930): My Life: An Attempt at Autobiography (New York: Scribner: 0873481445) http://amzn.to/2jbLh6M https:// www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/
We Have a Lot to Do! Let’s Get Started! • Comments? • Questions?
Course Mechanics • Grades : • in-class final (30%) Fr May 12 3-6pm • two in-class midterms (15% each) • Midterm 1: Feb 15 • Midterm 2: Mar 22 • in-lecture iClicker questions (10%) • section-based writing and calculation assignments on the readings (15%) • section participation (10%) • lecture participation (5%). • We anticipate that the class will work hard enough to make the median a B+. • T hat is in your collective control.
Course Mechanics II • Lecturer Office Hours : DeLong 691a Evans Hall by appointment, plus drop-in hours still in flux. Email delong@econ berkeley.edu to make an appointment. • GSI Office Hours: TBA… • Admission : Out of our hands… • iClickers : still an experiment…
To Your iClickers Where should I have my office hours? A. Evans Hall 691a B. Blum Center C. Student Learning Center D. Don’t Care…
To Your iClickers When should I have my office hours? A. Monday lunch B. Early Tuesday morning C. Late Tuesday afternoon D. Wednesday morning E. Thursday mid-day
Course Mechanics III • Lecture : MW 5:10-6:30pm 160 Kroeber Brad DeLong delong@econ.berkeley.edu • Sections : 101 M 8:00am Dwinelle 242. 102 M 4:00pm Evans 3. 103 Tu 8:00am Dwinelle 228. 104 Tu 9:00am Dwinelle 205. GSIs: Abby Sara Ridley-Kerr aridleykerr@berkeley.edu ; Philip Verma philip_verma@berkeley.edu • Course Website : https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1456905 • Syllabus: https://www.icloud.com/pages/ 08knt3VtO9bpTIKHf6ibWHB7g#2017-01-11_Econ_113_S2017_Syllabus • Announcements: https://bcourses.berkeley.edu/courses/1456905/announcements • Readings : Paul Boyer: American History: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/ 2gQw7QE . Alan Taylor: Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/ 2hlru41 . David A. Gerber: American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction http:// amzn.to/2gskihT . Walter Nugent: Progressivism: A Very Short Introduction http:// amzn.to/2gwhchF . Eric Rauchway: The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/2hvpCGf . David Garland: The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction http://amzn.to/2gDQMci . Martha L. Olney: Microeconomics as a Second Language http://amzn.to/2hvDCj8 . Plus about 2 articles a week…
Catch Our Breath… • Comments? • Questions? • On to “deep economic history”
Who Are You? To Your iClickers…: Some Questions What year are you? Are you or do you want to A. First be an Econ major? B. Second A. Yes C. Third B. No D. Fourth C. Maybe E. Fifth & up… D. What’s an Econ major? Has Econ 1 been your only Are you or do you want to previous econ class? be a History/PE major? A. Yes A. Yes B. No B. No C. Maybe C. Maybe D. What’s Econ 1?
To Your iClickers…: Some Math Questions Suppose some quantity is Suppose that we have a quantity x that follows the growing at a geometric equation: rate of 3%/year. About how long will it take to grow by dx(t)/dt = -(0.08)x(t) + 0.32 a factor of eight? What is the long-run steady- A. 267 years state asymptote to which x(t) will converge? B. None of the other answers A. None of the other answers C. 24 years B. 4 D. 75 years C. 24 E. There is not enough D. 40 information to give an answer E. There is not enough information to give an answer
To Your iClickers…: Another Math Question Suppose that the daily demand for lattes by the 30,000 students of Euphoric State University in the town of Avicenna is given by: P = 10 - Q/12,000 where P is the price of lattes in dollars and Q is the number of lattes consumed everyday by the students. Suppose further the supply of lattes is given by: P = 4 that is, as many lattes are demanded will be produced and sold by cafes at a price of $4/latte. What is the equilibrium quantity of lattes? A. 7,500 lattes/day B. 48,000 lattes/day C. There is not enough information D. None of the other answers E. 72,000 lattes/day
To Your iClickers…: Moral Philosophy Questions Keynes: Twentieth-century thinker John Marx: Nineteenth-century thinker Maynard Keynes believed… Karl Marx believed… A. social peace and expanding production A. that eventually growing pressures could be maintained by clever for democracy would overthrow macroeconomic policy, requiring an active capitalism central bank and the somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment B. that capitalism and democracy B. a market capitalism that turned the stuff of would smoothly advance together people's lives--their communities, their C. that developing capitalism would occupations, and their incomes--into market playthings by making land, labor, eventually suppress democracy and finance into "commodities" was and cause a return to oligarchy playing with fire. D. that bureaucratic centralism would C. human beings were too violent to avoid eventually eliminate both large-scale destructive industrial wars for very long democracy and capitalism D. ultimately capitalism was inconsistent with E. that the capitalist mode of democracy, and capitalism would win production was the end state of E. ultimately capitalism was inconsistent with history, and was compatible with democracy, and democracy would win either democracy or oligarchy
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