ECO 372

Exam 2: Take-Home Component

Due: Friday, 24 October, in class, typed doubled-spaced

Grading Rubric: 80% on strict content; 20% on writing style and grammar

1. Malthus on Population (25 points)

In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus published the first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population, a work that made a lasting impression on social thinkers. I would like you to write an essay on the origins of Malthus’s interest in this subject, the model he constructed to analyze the problem, and the policy proposals that followed from his analysis. In particular, your essay should address the following:

What prompted Malthus to write? What viewpoint was he seeking to controvert?
Upon what basic assumptions did he build his model?
What subsidiary propositions were crucial to his argument?
Reconstruct Malthus’s model, and explain his main result.
Explain how the Malthusian process produces this result. Be specific. As part of your explanation clearly define “preventive and positive checks.”
Explain why Malthus’s model, even if its two primary assumptions are accepted, does not really predict what Malthus said it predicts.
Malthus drew some important, practical policy prescriptions from his model. List his policy proposals, and explain how his model substantiates them.
Malthus’s predictions turned out to be far off the mark. Why?

2. Marx and Engels on the Course of History (25 points)

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (M-E) published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. The Manifesto’s argument was based, to a significant extent, on an earlier work by Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). I would like you to write an essay outlining and evaluating the historical argument made in Section 1 of the Manifesto. Your essay should cover the following points:

Trace out the evolution of society from feudalism to capitalism to communism. Provide a detailed explanation of the forces that make such an evolution necessary.
In tracing out the argument, define all the technical terms used by M-E.
Assess the validity of the M-E view of the capitalist process and of the conditions of the working class. Use your knowledge of Engels’s earlier work to inform your critique.
Why didn’t the expected revolution occur? What events short-circuited it, and why didn’t M-E foresee those events?