Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform
Robert Shiller's Yale course treats capitalism through the lens of biological evolution, with firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail, much like organisms competing for survival. Rather than delivering a final verdict on capitalism, the course examines how markets can be shaped toward goals like environmental protection, public health, poverty reduction, and human development. Each assigned book serves as an argument, explicit or implicit, about capitalism's good and bad consequences. Recorded on campus in Fall 2009 for Open Yale Courses, the class met twice weekly for 50-minute sessions. Materials include full video lectures, a reading list, and course structure typical of Yale's open courseware, covering topics from financial crises to innovation and inequality. The course is free to audit, with no certificate offered, consistent with the Open Yale Courses model. It suits anyone wanting a rigorous, discussion-driven introduction to the economics and ethics of market systems.