Podcasts about open syllabus project

Anthony Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages, issuing on average more than one book every year. In 2007, Giddens was listed as the fifth most-referenced author of books in the humanities. He has academic appointments in approximately twenty different universities throughout the world and has received numerous honorary degrees. Four notable stages can be identified in his academic life. The first one involved outlining a new vision of what sociology is, presenting a theoretical and methodological understanding of that field based on a critical reinterpretation of the classics. His major publications of that era include Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971) and The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies (1973). In the second stage, Giddens developed the theory of structuration, an analysis of agency and structure in which primacy is granted to neither. His works of that period, such as New Rules of Sociological Method (1976), Central Problems in Social Theory (1979) and The Constitution of Society (1984), brought him international fame on the sociological arena. The third stage of Giddens's academic work was concerned with modernity, globalization and politics, especially the impact of modernity on social and personal life. This stage is reflected by his critique of postmodernity and discussions of a new "utopian-realist" Third Way in politics which is visible in The Consequences of Modernity (1990), Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), The Transformation of Intimacy (1992), Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way (1998). Giddens' ambition was both to recast social theory and to re-examine our understanding of the development and trajectory of modernity. In the most recent stage, Giddens has turned his attention to a more concrete range of problems relevant to the evolution of world society, namely environmental issues, focusing especially upon debates about climate change, analyzed in successive editions of his book The Politics of Climate Change (2009); the role and nature of the European Union in Turbulent and Mighty Continent (2014); and in a series of lectures and speeches also the nature and consequences of the Digital Revolution. Giddens served as Director of the London School of Economics from 1997 to 2003, where he is now Emeritus Professor at the Department of Sociology. He is a life fellow of King's College, Cambridge. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Giddens is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for sociology courses. Original video ⁠here⁠⁠ Full Wikipedia entry ⁠here⁠ Anthony Giddens' books ⁠here --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunadulteratedintellect/support

In this episode I'm joined by my friend and cohost Lauren McCrimmon for part one of what will be a two-part series on the literary canon. The literary canon, of course, refers to those books or texts that are considered to have particular historical or social importance. In the vast scope of all that has been written, the canon is the texts we hold up as being key to understanding certain themes or time periods—the classics that educated people are expected to be familiar with. But the notion of a literary canon, or canons for a particular time or place, carries with it a lot of questions. What gets to be canon and what doesn't? Who gets to decide? And how do we update the canon to better reflect women, people of color, and other minorities who tend to be heavily underrepresented on these kinds of lists?To frame this conversation, we'll be using the Open Syllabus Project at opensyllabus.org, which aggregates millions of college syllabi from around the world and has lists of the most commonly taught books. We had a lot of fun looking through their list on what was taught in English classes, and so during this episode we'll be working our way through that list, sharing our thoughts on the selections. You'll hear our takes on what works we would want to see taught more or less often, what writers we felt were overrepresented or excluded, and what books we had to read over and over and over again when we were in school. (I don't know that anyone has ever been required to read a single book more often than Lauren has had to read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.) And since I'm sure listeners will have some thoughts on these books (and our takes on them) as well, we want to hear from you, too! In the next episode we'll go deeper into our more specific suggestions on what we'd add to the canon, and we'll want to include reader picks as well. So when you're done listening, share your thoughts with me at sean@seandouglass.com or tweet us @ThePlotPodcast or @_SeanDouglass_ and we may read your comment on our next episode.

What if you could map every book and article assigned in college courses around the world and see which authors are making the most impact? A project run out of Columbia University is working to do just that. It’s called the Open Syllabus Project, and this month its leaders released a new version of their tool that analyzes assignment lists from more than six million syllabi. But there could be unintended consequences.

Welcome to Finance and Fury! If you haven’t listened to last Friday’s episode go check it out, it’s a prelude to this episode. Today we are going to discuss the founder of Communism – Karl Marx, along with his ideas.   1848 – Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, brought the philosophy of Communism to the masses. We’ll start with a brief outline of his life. Whilst we could go on for a while about him, I’m more interested in looking at his ideas, which are more important. We will talk more about he and Engels’ character, too, to form a good understanding about their ideologies.   Why is this important to cover? The Communist Manifesto is one of the most read books – still today. Research conducted by the Open Syllabus Project - 15 years of over 1m course curricula in Colleges and Universities The Communist Manifesto is number 3 in most assigned, 2nd in History, Number 1 in Sociology The top 10 Economics books are written by New Keynesian Economics Assumes rationality and economic efficiencies – Wants to achieve macroeconomic stabilisation through; Fiscal policy – Taxation and redistribution – GPD from government spending Monetary policy – Printing money to stimulate economic growth This is a problem that there is only one way of economic thought being taught I know – I went through it. I didn’t learn anything about the Austrian school of economics which focuses more on individuals rather than the state as a solution Used to be more socialist and thought that printing money for economic stimulus was good Especially reading articles by Economic Writers We need to try to get the complete picture out there though There is no perfect theory or method, but only seeing one may lead people to think that   Who was Karl Marx? Either the saviour or the devil depending on what side of the political compass you lie.   Born 5 May 1818 – Trier, Germany – father was a la He lived a relatively wealthy existence, growing up in a 10-room property, with his family owning a number of vineyards. His mother was from a wealthy Jewish family of businessmen. They later founded Phillips Electric. His sister-in-law married Lion Philips, a Dutch tobacco industrialist Why is this important Karl wrote that the working class needs to revolt He never worked a day in a factory   Education years 1830 - Trier High School - police raided the school in 1832 - discovered that literature espousing political liberalism was being distributed and taught to the students. This is another important point. The authorities instituted reforms and replaced several staff during Marx's attendance. Early education revolved around one ideology of liberalism 1835 - at the age of 17 Karl attended the University of Bonn. He wanted to study philosophy and literature but his father insisted on law as a more practical field. Karl was excused from military duty when he turned 18, due to a condition referred to as ‘weak chest’. While at the University at Bonn, Marx joined; The Poets' Club, a group containing political radicals that were monitored by the police. The Trier Tavern Club drinking society In August 1836 he took part in a duel with a member of the University's Borussian Korps. His father forced him to transfer to the more serious and academic University of Berlin.   Marriage 1836 - Married Jenny von Westphalen – An educated Baroness of the Prussian ruling class Work 1837 – 1845 – Between Cologne and Paris writing for socialist newspapers by German and French radicals Engels 1844 – Met German Socialist Fredrich Engels whose father was the owner of a large textile factory. Do you see a trend here? 1848 – Co-authored Communist Manifesto The ideology Marx’s quote – ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’ The class you belong to is determined by; If you own the means of production and control labour power, or, if you are the labour power – the workers Sees everything as either “Oppressor” or “Oppressed” with all business owners exploiting workers Oppressors – The Bourgeoisie (capitalists) who are the owners of production and always working in self-interest, exploiting the working class. Oppressed – Proletariat – the working class. They are the ones selling their labour power – remember: voluntarily – awful conditions but thanks to the free market this improved. Class is solely determined by property ownership – not by income or status   What the Manifesto contained: Ten major points in total, almost like the “10 Commandments of Socialism” Abolishing ownership of all private property – i.e. the people now own everything collectively and nothing privately Businesses: Assumes that capital just appears. Marx theory is that the labourers are the one that produce everything, so they should own it as well But where did the factory come from? Someone took a risk to create these things. A Tragedy of the Commons situation – which turns into social loafing  Living: You are taken from your home and put in the lodgings assigned to you by the government. No private property means not owning anything – no car, investments, telephone Establishing system of heavy taxation (Differs for Socialism and Communism) Communism: The People own everything - You don’t get paid, but you do have a quota to make (form of taxation) Socialism: The State owns everything – You get paid an income but it’s heavily taxed to the point where you don’t actually have much discretionary income left. This removes the want to work. So, when everyone stops working there is less tax to provide resources for everyone. Things work well to begin with by redistributing existing wealth, but then it’s just a race to the bottom. Abolishing the right to inherit When you die, The State takes all your stuff – because to begin with it owns everything anyway No incentive to save for retirement – you can’t anyway Centralizing credit and establishment of a State Bank Removes competition and creates a monopoly – a State-run bank who lends and controls all money Removes all financial freedom and will lead to bad behaviour (i.e. 1,000,000% inflation in Venezuela) Central Banks are meant to be independent from Governments or democratic influence Centralizing communication and transport Now they see and hear everything, and control what you see and hear. They can also control where you go. Confiscating all emergent and rebel property Start anything new? They now own it – and they punish you for doing it as well This is a race to the bottom – As soon as someone gets slightly ahead they have their stuff taken away Extending the means of production to The State Once all private property is taken, the state starts running these things. This is their power source – Income and control Hasn’t worked so well – Hard to measure efficiency in controlled economy Russia: Production quota by weight for nails – SO factories produce nails too big to use just because they were heavier. Equalizing liability to all levels of labour Brings an end to the parasitic situation existing under capitalism where the few who don’t work are supported by the many who do. Everyone works in communism. Those who don’t work, don’t eat (except those unable because of their age). Work is assigned to you Combining agriculture and manufacturing industries Labour intensive jobs to be spread around when needed. Farmers become factory workers, and vice versa This destroys specialisation   Establishing a free public education system Important to educate good ‘future-communists’  How do you think schools in North Korea, or under Mao’s China looked? Every one of these principles is designed to remove incentives – as it removes all freedoms! Why do we do anything? - There needs to be some incentive Everyone is incentivised by something different – we are all different. But when freedom and incentives are removed? What happens when these get taken away? There’s a difference between ‘being content’ in a modern ‘minimalistic’ sense, and not having a choice to have anything, or the hope of ever getting anything. I truly don’t know why people would want this. The only thing I could think of is that they haven’t been taught the other side, or they think that the simple ‘all needs are provided for’ promise is true. In a Democracy this system can actually be slowly be voted in policy by policy Has come from many a Democracy: very possible in a democratic and free market (wealthy) country Under the free market – Some rise, some don’t, but there is mobility of wealth There needs to be something in the first place to take and redistribute The greater the distributions of wealth, the more this can be weaponised Larger distributions in free market and large populations (Such as America) are outliers   How it plays out in the past and how it would play out here as well. The question to really ask yourself is ‘why’ – Every time this has been implemented, why does it end in genocide and mass starvation? If you can answer that you might have a good idea is wrong with this concept. REMEMBER: Small, homogenous free market societies, like Scandinavian countries, aren’t Socialist (Norway has a lower company tax rate than us at 24%) TIP: A Government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have   Next week to the first time these ideas were properly implemented…in Soviet Russia around the turn of the century   Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, or if you didn’t, let me know at https://financeandfury.com.au/contact/  

Sobre o "The Open Syllabus Project". Mais informações sobre o podcast: http://www.marcosramon.net/ano-bissexto

This week's episode of Economics Detective Radio deals with the economic thought and continuing popularity of Marx. No, not Groucho! The other Marx! My guest on the podcast is Phil Magness, a historian who teaches at George Mason University. Phil recently wrote a piece entitled, "Commie Chic and Quantifying Marx on the Syllabus." Recently, the Open Syllabus Project released a data set including thousands of college syllabi. To many people's surprise, Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto enjoys massive popularity! Phil took a closer look at the numbers and reached some startling conclusions: 1. Accounting for different versions of its title, Marx’s Communist Manifesto appears on a total of 3856 syllabi in the Open Syllabus Project database. That makes it the second most used text in academia after the popular writing style manual by Strunk and White (3934 syllabi) – a book that’s usually assigned to help college students with their composition habits for writing term papers. 2. Of those 3856 Communist Manifesto hits, only 103 – or 2.67% – are on syllabi in Marx’s own primary academic discipline, economics. The rest are in fields that venture far astray from economics, with the highest concentrations coming from the humanities. 3. Marx’s Communist Manifesto far exceeds the syllabus frequency of virtually *any* other author or work in all of human history with the possible exception of Plato. Here are the rankings for Marx and the most cited work of several major philosophical figures on the list (note: I intentionally excluded works that are textbooks or primarily literary and paired down the tail end of the list to give a rough sample): Marx (Communist Manifesto) – 3856 Plato (Republic) – 3573 Aristotle (Ethics) – 2709 Hobbes (Leviathan) – 2671 Machiavelli (The Prince) – 2652 King (Letter from the Birmingham Jail) – 1985 Mill (On Liberty) – 1969 Foucault (Power) – 1774 Darwin (Origin of Species) – 1701 Augustine (Confessions) – 1694 Tocqueville (Democracy in America) – 1650 Smith (Wealth of Nations) – 1587 Rousseau (Social Contract) – 1427 Rawls (Theory of Justice) – 1248 Sartre (Existentialism) – 1224 Paine (Common Sense) – 1128 Locke (Second Treatise) – 1045 What could account for the popularity of The Communist Manifesto? Phil identifies two hypotheses: First, it could be the case that Marx simply is the most important thinker who has ever lived, beating out all but Plato by a wide margin. Second, Marx could be enjoying outsized popularity because university faculty outside of economics are overly enamoured with his thought. The latter seems like the truth. While Marxian thought does dominate some corners of philosophy, history, literary criticism, and many other subfields, we would expect classes in those areas not to focus on The Communist Manifesto but on Marx's other works. Das Kapital is in 1447 syllabi, right around Rousseau's Social Contract. The Communist Manifesto is a political leaflet, not a work of deep scholarship. The fact that it dominates not only the works of other thinkers but also Marx's other works indicates that it is assigned primarily for its political conclusions. How has Marx Avoided the Dustbin of History? Marx' economic thought was rejected by economists even within his own lifetime. All of his economic analysis shared a fatal flaw: the labour theory of value. Marx observed that capitalists earn profits above the wages paid to workers. In his framework, this would only be possible if the capitalists exploited the workers. This was met with an empirical challenge: If profits are the result of exploitation, how come profit rates aren't highest in capital-intensive industries? Instead they are relatively consistent across the entire economy. Engels claimed that Marx would resolve this issue in the later volumes of Kapital. He even held a Prize Essay Competition to see if anyone could anticipate Marx' solution to this seemingly intractable problem. But the later volumes didn't offer a satisfactory solution. Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk wrote the definitive critique of Marx, Karl Marx and the Close of His System. The marginal revolution of the 1870s, which laid the groundwork for all of modern economics, offered a simple solution to the problem that has stood the test of time: interest. As Böhm-Bawerk points out, workers are paid when the work is performed. But capitalists only earn revenue once the final product is sold. So if production takes time, we must account for interest. A unit of currency today (gold, silver, dollars, pounds, etc.) is not worth the same as that same unit tomorrow or next year. Leaving aside inflation, people subjectively value money today over money in the future. When you adjust future revenues accordingly, profits are actually very close to zero throughout the economy. This is the explanation that any modern economist will give you. So when a modern economist assigns Marx, it's to teach about his role in the history of economic thought, not to teach his ideas on their own merits. That's why so few economists are assigning Marx at all! Marx the scientist may have fallen out of favour, but Marx the political theorist survived and thrived. Marx inspired the political left, and through a twist of fate his adherents came to power in Russia and spread his influence around the world. Other links: Venezuela, El Caracazo, and Chavism with Francisco Toro Colonization After Emancipation, Phil's book on slavery