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Economics for Emancipation

Economics for Emancipation

A Course of Economics for All

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MODULE 1

What is the economy? In this module, we move away from the traditional definition of an economy and discuss our conceptions of an economy.

To understand the current U.S. economic system, we learn about how “value” and “profits” are created in our economic system. We also critically explore how care work and housework fit into that system. We then learn tools that help us analyze how our economies can be organized and create visions for how we want our economies to be organized. 

Learning Objectives:

  • Articulate our conceptions of an economy
  • Understand the source of “value” in the economy 
  • Explain the three “C’s” of exchange, or ways our economies can be organized
  • Understand how profits are created by the exploitation of workers
  • Analyze how care work and housework show up in our economy

Materials

For Groups:

  • Facilitator Guide
  • Facilitator Slidedeck
  • Participant Workbook
  • Big Idea Project Workbook

For Individuals:

  • Interactive Workbook

VIDEO LESSONS:

Takeaways

  • The economy is the “processes that provide for human life” – we are the economy. 
  • Everything has a use value, or the concrete function it serves for us, but only things made to be bought and sold have an exchange value. 
  • There are three basic ways our economies can be organizied, or forms of economic exchange: communal, command and commodity.
  • Surplus value, which is the souce of profit, is created by the exploitation of workers, or unpaid labor. 
  • Carework and housework are necessary for the social reproduction of our capitalist system, but are often unpaid, invisible, and fall onto the shoulders of women of color

NEXT

MODULE 2:

How Capitalism Works →

Readings

Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works--and How It Fails

Yanis Varoufakis

On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations: A Maussian Approach

David Graeber

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams

David Graeber

Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory

Duncan Foley

Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change 

Bowles, Edwards, Roosevelt, & Larudee

What is Social Reproduction?

Talk by Tithi Bhattacharya

What is Social Reproduction?

Tithi Bhattacharya

A People’s Guide to Capitalism

Hadas Thier

Videos

Reading Marx’s Capital Vol 1 Lecture Series

David Harvey

Marx and Feminism

Nancy Fraser (2018)

Labor Theory of Value

Richard Wolff (2017)

What is Social Reproduction Theory?

Tithi Bhattacharya (2017)

Surplus Labor and Value

(2019)

What is Work?

Nancy Folbre

What is Marxist Economics?

Hadas Thier (2020)

We are already communists

David Graeber (2009)

Labor Theory of Value

Playlist

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Economics for Emancipation is a project of the Center for Economic Democracy.

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  • MODULES
  • VIEW ALL MODULES
  • Introduction to the Economy & the Working Day
  • How Capitalism Works
  • Redistribution vs. Recognition
  • Alternative Economic Systems
  • The Evolution of U.S. Economic Systems
  • Fiscal and Monetary Policy
  • Building Alternatives: Solidarity Economy