Year
2021Credit points
10Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Prerequisites
NilTeaching organisation
This unit involves 150 hours of focused learning. The total includes formally structured learning activities such as lectures, tutorials, online learning, video-conferencing, or supervision. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of tasks for assessment.Unit rationale, description and aim
The modern capitalist economy is, in part, the result of the growth of technology and industrial power but also social change. Moreover, a capitalist economy could be seen as the solution to stubborn social problems: poverty, inequality, inefficient social organisation. The first half of the unit examines these arguments, and tests them against modern social reality. The second half addresses how capitalism must be re-evaluated in the light of the rapidly increasing globalisation of business: the loss of control of national governments, the absence of an effective international regulatory order; the development of trade blocs, and of e-commerce. Throughout, emphasis will be on the ethical issues raised rather than on technical or purely economic considerations - but some attention to economic theory will be necessary.