Abstract

This is an introductory macroeconomics course (typically a required ‘Econ 101’) that will work for most students that offers a genuinely alternative approach to formal economics at the introductory level that is more than just a set of critiques of the standard Neoclassical curriculum.  In addition to a review of ‘standard’ neoclassical macroeconomic topics, this course includes discussions of: a) Modes of production including capitalism and the roles of class, power, and democracy in economic, social, and political evolution within classical (Marxist) and modern (Marx-Habermas) historical materialist perspectives, b) Marx and Smith and classical political economic and Neoclassical (NC) methodologies and underlying value systems, c) A ‘Demand and Cost Model’ (DCM) that is more realistic for most of the production economy than the ‘Supply and Demand Model’ (SDM), d) Negative and positive applications of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) in expanding public money in recent decades, e)  Aggregate Demand (AD) and Aggregate Cost (AC) models that are more realistic than  the NC AD/AS formulation, f) Hudson and Keen Neo-Rentierist, more realistic, extensions of standard NC based NIPA (National Income and Product Accounts) accounting, g) A Kaleckian class-based macroeconomic model that is more realistic than the simple Keynesian model, and the relationship of class-based Post-Keynesain analysis to the Friedman-Romer debate over the 2016 Sanders economic program, h) Baiman proofs that the Ricardian model is overdetermined - demonstrating that managed trade is necessary for realizing comparative advantages and that the free trade doctrine is generally mathematically infeasible for any exchange-rate based trade model with n>2 countries demonstrating that the free trade doctrine is mathematically infeasible for any exchange rate based global trade model with n>2 countries regardless of other assumptions, and an outline of progressive trade principles ( topic 8),  and i) a discussion of climate change policy underlining the need for urgent direct climate cooling to give time to transition to and develop a global sustainable ‘industrial farmer cultivator’ civilization and regenerate nature (topic 8), and other radical economics topics.

Keywords

Radical Political Economy, Pedagogy, Principles of Economics

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