Friday, October 22, 2010

October 22


I went through a PowerPoint presentation called "Preparing for the Written Response Assignment I" today in class. I will be sending this presentation to you along with a handout that goes over a mental checklist of elements that should appear in these writing assignments. You will be doing your Unit 2 WRA I on Thursday, October 28th. I also gave you three handouts today and I started to walk you through one of them. I gave you a handout on "Democratic Systems" (this will be important for Unit 3 as well) and "Non-Democratic Systems" and "Types of Dictatorships". We'll continue looking at these on Monday. Please remember that your Economic Planning in the USSR booklet is due on Monday as well. You have your Economic Systems Exam on Wednesday, please see the study guide below.

  • Economic Planning in the USSR booklet is due on Monday, October 25th
  • Economic Systems Exam is on Wednesday, October 27th
  • Unit 2 WRA I is on Thursday, October 28th

This is a comprehensive exam that covers all of the major economic systems: market economy, mixed economy, and command economy. It is 70 multiple choice questions. This exam will be administered on Wednesday, October 27th.

  • Chapters 3-6 in Perspectives on Ideology
  • study the applicable PowerPoint presentations that I have sent you for Unit 2
  • In Chapter 5, just focus on the Soviet Union, and left-wing of economic spectrum (command economy), we haven't covered aspects of dictatorships or Nazism yet (the techniques of dictatorship and fascism will be on a Chapter 5 Test)
  • please see the summary notes from the Ideologies textbook: Chapter 7 Private Enterprise
  • supply-side economics
  • boom and bust cycle/business cycle
  • laws of supply and demand, Adam Smith, invisible hand, market forces
    self-interest, consumer sovereignty, competition, private ownership, profit motive
  • basic economic problems/questions
  • advantages/disadvantages of the market economy
  • causes of the Great Depression
  • FDR and the New Deal
  • please see summary notes from the Ideologies textbook on the Mixed Economy Case Studies #14 (Sweden) and #15 (Canada), #16 (Japan), #17 (Fascism and Nazism)
  • also see the Democratic Socialism booklet on Sweden (indicative planning, "cradle to the grave" economics or "womb to tomb" economics)
  • characteristics of a mixed economy
  • nationalization
  • privatization
  • democratic socialism
  • welfare capitalism
  • Keynesian economics
  • the business cycle and fiscal and monetary policies (study all of the notes I gave you and the booklet that I gave you)
  • demand-side economics
  • neo-conservatives
  • monetarism
  • trickle down economics
  • supply-side economics
  • Thatcherism and Reaganomics
  • Milton Friedman
  • Friedrich Hayek
  • how Keynesian economics deals with a recession (remember "the percolator": increase circulation of money reducing taxes, increase government spending on "make work" projects, and reduce interest rates, which according to Keynesian economics is going increase demand for goods and services and lead to more money circulating in the economy)
  • how supply-side economics deals with a recession (remember "trickle down coffee maker": government should stimulate the goods and services sector of the economy by reducing corporate and personal taxes, eventually benefits will "trickle down" to the middle class and working class, make connections between supply-side economics and laissez faire economics/classical liberalism)
  • advantages and disadvantages of a mixed economy
  • neo-conservative criticism of government intervention
  • characteristics of a centrally planned economy
  • advantages and disadvantages of a centrally planned economy
  • Marx notes
  • Lenin notes
  • establishment of the Soviet Union
  • Soviet economic system (top-down decision-making process)
  • Lenin's War Communism and the New Economic Policy
  • "Stalin and the Modernization of Russia" (see film notes)
  • Stalin notes
  • "Changes to Soviet Society After Stalin" notes (this bridges the gap between Stalin and Gorbachev)
  • Gorbachev to Collapse Notes (you got these notes on Wednesday, October 20th)
  • Economic Planning in the USSR (again, you got these notes on Wednesday, October 20th)


You wrote your Unit 2 WRA I today, and it took the entire 65 minutes to write it. I also did a homework check on your Chapter 6 Key Terms and Questions today. Please remember that your Chapter 5-6 Test is on Wednesday, October 27th. Please see the study guide here for this test (scroll down to find it).

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