Economics Social Problems

Now that we have seriously considered the conservative, radical and liberal schools of thought, your job in this essay is to select the perspective(s) that you think provides the most powerful approach to the following serious economic and social problems that our society now faces: 1) An economy which continues to produce far too many low wage jobs with very few benefits for workers without a college degree, and significant levels of underemployment for college grads who are now struggling with an average of $30,000 worth of debt 2) Unprecedented levels of inequality in both annual income and accumulated wealth. 3) Accelerating global climate change 4) An extremely expensive health care system which continues to leave millions of Americans without access to health insurance. Before you discuss your solutions to the above problems, you should begin your essay with an analysis of how we arrived at our current situation in the first place. For example, was President Reagan correct when he argued that our economy had far too much government regulation and that taxes on corporations and the wealthy were far too high? Or were the Keynesians and/or the Radicals more on target? And what were the overall effects of moving towards a less regulated and highly globalized economy for the past thirty-five years? Have the majority of working people benefitted from these policies? Are people of color and women now achieving the same levels of income and job opportunities as other working people? You take it from here. As you develop your own argument for a particular set of government policies, be sure to present solid evidence (statistics and concrete historical examples) for why your school of thought is superior to the others. How does it provide us with a more accurate picture of the real world, and why are its proposed solutions more effective in addressing these problems? Use relevant statistics (with citations) to back up your arguments whenever possible, and give several important reasons why you have decided that the other schools of thought are not as convincing. For example, what are some of the critical realities within our capitalist economy that these other perspectives may be refusing to recognize? How do they tend to be less scientific and more ideological? (Be careful not to set up “straw men” when criticizing these other schools of thought – you don’t have to distort or over simplify their arguments in order to effectively critique them.) EXAM INSTRUCTIONS: Exams must be typed, double spaced, and range from 7-10 pages in length. All concrete examples, statistics, etc., from readings should be cited in text: i.e., (Carson, p. 35) or (SOWA, p. 6). If you are only citing readings from our class, you do not need a separate works cited page, or bibliography. However, if you use information from outside class, be sure that you are using legitimate sources and websites, and provide a complete bibliography for all of these sources. If you use information that clearly contradicts info in your course handouts, explain why your sources are more trustworthy and your information is more accurate. Do not simply blow off the course readings because they don’t seem to support your own particular viewpoint