Capitalism & its Critics - PHI00114M

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Module summary

Capitalism as an economic system has faced a range of criticisms, grounded in a range of normative values. Among the criticisms to which capitalism has been subject include concerns regarding its generation of socioeconomic inequality, its tension with democracy, and its tendency to create relations of domination and alienation. In this module, we will engage with and critically assess a number of historical and contemporary lines of criticism of capitalism, exploring themes from a range of radical and socialist critics.

Professional requirements

N/A

Elective Pre-Requisites

These pre-requisites only apply to students taking this module as an elective.

This module is particularly suitable for students on the MA in Political Theory in the Department of Politics, as well as for students on the joint MA/LLM programme with the School of Law.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2026-27

Module aims

This module will examine a number of questions at the intersection of political philosophy and political economy, investigating various ways in which capitalist economic systems have been the subject of criticism from radical and socialist political thinkers (in both historical and contemporary discussions). This module will give students an advanced introduction to a range of debates that cross over disciplinary boundaries between philosophy, politics, economics, and law, and will equip them to assess the plausibility of various critiques of capitalism, and the prospects for non-capitalist economic arrangements, thereby giving students a foundation to make their own contribution to debates about capitalism and its alternatives.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module students should be able to:

· Engage with and interpret contemporary and historical texts in political philosophy, as well as related texts in politics, economics, and law;

· Apply philosophical thinking to real-world problems of institutional design and public policy;

· Understand the relationship between political philosophy and political economy in debates about capitalism and its alternatives.

Academic and graduate skills:

· be able to read and critically engage with a wide variety of complex and difficult material in recent and historical political philosophy and related disciplines;

· develop and defend a considered view on important institutional and policy questions.

Module content

Topics to be covered may include debates about socioeconomic inequality and its relation to economic systems; theories of alienation; views about the relationship between capitalism and democracy; approaches to understanding the relationship between freedom and economic production. Views of some significant historical radical and socialist thinkers (e.g. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Karl Marx, R. H. Tawney, and Karl Polanyi) and more recent critics of capitalism (e.g. G.A. Cohen, Nancy Fraser, and Erik Olin Wright).

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

N/A

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

All formative and summative feedback will be returned in accordance with University and Departmental policy.

Indicative reading

Contemporary:

G. A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? (Princeton University Press, 2009)

Nancy Fraser, Cannibal Capitalism, (Verso Books, 2022)

Pablo Gilabert and Martin O’Neill, “Socialism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, updated 2024. Online here: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2024/entries/socialism/

Erik Olin Wright, How to be An Anti-Capitalist in the Twenty-First Century (Verso Books, 2019)

Historical:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality

Frederick Neuhouser, Rousseau’s Critique of Inequality, (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy

Helen McCabe, John Stuart Mill, Socialist, (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021)

R. H. Tawney, Equality

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation