Lesson 6: Capital and Capitalism

Readings covered in this lesson: From Wasteland to Promised Land, Chapter 7,
Essay #2, "Value" and Essay #3, "Capitalism".

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1. In Marxist terms, the "proletariat" is the class of industrial wage workers. What is the status of the proletariat, thus defined, in Latin America?

b) What is the precise definition of land used in this course, and by Henry George?

                  

2. What was Marx's opinion of the peasantry and the "lumpenproletariat", the classes which include the vast majority of the poor in Latin America?

3. What are some important unanswered questions about how the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would actually work?

4. What is the relationship between "economic value" and "personal value" in the way markets work?

5. Why do economists tend not to be concerned with personal or spiritual values?

6. What are the two different definitions of "capital" that lead to confusion about the nature of "capitalism"?

7. Has your understanding of the nature of capital changed? How?

8. If a capitalist economy is made vibrant by competition, to everyone's benefit, why do individual entrepreneurs wish to limit competition?

9.

Describe some ways that life would be different, under an economic order in which none were unable to find gainful work.