The Case of Mister Balram Halwai
By Rae Yale - Yale
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400
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Lecture Description
Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform (PLSC 270) Professor Rae discusses Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger. The novel reveals the difficulties developing countries face dismantling entrenched inequalities. Corruption and chronic rent-seeking behavior can be major obstacles. Other aspects of the novel, including India's religious history, the role of caste structure, and entrepreneurialism, are also explored. Links are made between themes from the novel and previous class discussions on the nature of capitalism. 00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction 04:35 - Chapter 2. White Tiger: Darkness 07:11 - Chapter 3. White Tiger: The Stork, the Raven, the Wild Boar and the Buffalo 14:17 - Chapter 4. White Tiger: Is Corruption a Fairly Major Issue in Indian Society? 24:02 - Chapter 5. White Tiger: The Caste System in India 40:09 - Chapter 6. White Tiger: Balram's Economic Weaknesses 43:43 - Chapter 7. Video: India Background and SELCO Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses This course was recorded in Fall 2009.
Course Description
In this course, we will seek to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution: firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail are analogous to organisms struggling for survival in nature. For this reason, it is less concerned with ultimate judgment of capitalism than with the ways it can be shaped to fit our more specific objectives – for the natural environment, public health, alleviation of poverty, and development of human potential in every child. Each book we read will be explicitly or implicitly an argument about good and bad consequences of capitalism. This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was videotaped for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009. We apologize, but Lecture 10 in the course, "Guest Lecture by Richard Medley: Entrepreneurship in Business Information" is not currently available through Open Courseware.
