American Heritage Final Exam- Dr. Sims

Michael Sandel's Three "Theories of Justice"

Maximizing welfare, promoting virtue, protecting freedom

Cooperation vs Defection

Humans are better off cooperating than defecting

The Prisoner's Dilemma

A particular "game" between two captured prisoners that illustrates why cooperation is difficult to maintain even when it is mutually beneficial

Solving Social Dilemmas

Selective incentives, political entrepreneurs, ideologies or beliefs, institutions, repeated games

The Human Predicament Cycle

most of the time humans are under a tyranny or anarchy (tyranny → revolution → revolution → anarchy → competing factions)

Greek Liberty

Liberty comes when you are allowed to participate fully in the community, to help it realize its purpose by fulfilling your own

Collective Action Problem

The larger amount of people we are working with, the more problematic it becomes

Thomas Hobbes

Believed peoples' state of nature would be anarchy because he believed in two fundamental parts of human nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Social Contract" he explained an ideal society where each community member would vote on issues and majority would become one law. Also believed that a person's state of nature would be Edenic (no war)

John Locke

- Human nature is optimistic but less utopian than Rousseau

- Argued for life, liberty, and property as natural rights

- Legitimacy depends on consent

- Two Treatises of Government

- Common Sense

John Smith

Established centralized leadership (martial law), addressed the work issues (work or starve), and helped make peace with the Natives

Generality

Laws must apply to everyone, for the creation of laws, can only be violated by policymakers (violation of this would be Order 9066 w/ Japanese internment camps)

Publicity

Laws cannot be kept secret and then enforced

Prospectivity

Laws must apply to future action and not past action

Due Process

Laws must be administered impartially, fair procedures that do not prejudice the process for or against anything justice should be blind, can only be violated by the people enforcing the laws

Consent

Laws should be broadly accepted to the people living under them

Adam Smith

Division of Labor: we should each specialize in our own thing

Comparative Advantage

The ability of an individual, a firm, or a country to produce a good or service at a lower opportunity cost than competitors (remember other goes over when doing the chart, then divide)

American in 1763

- America wants freedom from Britain

- Bunch of protests

- The Intolerable Acts

- America calls a Continental Congress

Revolutionary War

- Britain vs. America

- Led by George Washington (charismatic, good leader, inspirational)

- George Washington convinces his troops to stay after a pay raise does not convince them to stay

Post Revolution

- Articles of Confederation

- Shay's Rebellion

- Constitutional Convention

- U.S. Constitution

Filters of Consent

People's desires should be filtered or refined by layers of structure

Natural Rights

These are rights that we have simply because we're a human being. Something that the government does not give you, but they can protect (i.e. life, liberty, property)

Civil Liberties

Protections against government action (applies to just the govt)

Civil Rights

Protection against unequal treatment or discrimination, not necessarily by the government (applies to everyone)

Bill of Rights

The first TEN amendments of the Constitution

First Amendment

Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition

Second Amendment

Right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain a well regulated militia

Third Amendment

No quartering soldiers

Fourth Amendment

Right to refuse unreasonable searches and seizures

Fifth Amendment (Miranda Rights)

Right to remain silent, due process, double jeopardy, grand jury, eminent domain

Sixth Amendment

Rights of an accused person (speedy and public trial...and jury)

Seventh Amendment

Right of trial by jury

Eighth Amendment

Freedom from excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishments

Ninth Amendment

People have other rights that are not written down

Tenth Amendment

Power Reserved to the States

Eleventh Amendment

A citizen of one state cannot sue another state in federal court, a non-citizen cannot sue the American govt

Twelfth Amendment

Each elector must cast 1 vote for a president and 1 vote for a vice president

Thirteenth Amendment

Slavery is abolished, involuntary servitude is only permitted as a punishment for crime

Fourteenth Amendment

All persons born in the United States are citizens and no state can take that away

Fifteenth Amendment

A state cannot prohibit someone from voting based on their race, color, or previous position of involuntary servitude

Sixteenth Amendment

Congress can collect income tax, but it doesn't have to be the same in each state

Seventeenth Amendment

Senators are elected by popular vote

Eighteenth Amendment

Prohibition, no drinking, making, or selling of alcohol

Nineteenth Amendment

Women's right to vote

Twentieth Amendment

President's and VP's terms end on January 20 at noon

Twenty-First Amendment

It's okay to drink, sell, and manufacture alcohol. Repealed eighteenth amendment

Judicial Review

The power of the judiciary to declare laws or other acts of government unconstitutional (came from Marbury v Madison)

Democratic-Republicans

Led by Thomas Jefferson, espoused liberalism

Federalists

Espoused republicanism (i.e. Alexander Hamilton)

American Frontier

Encouraged and rewarded qualities that supported democracy

Andrew Jackson

- The seventh President of the United States

- First modern-day president

- Normalizes a spoils system

Resurgence of Slavery

1793 Eli Whitney and the cotton gin

Negative Liberty

"freedom from" (i.e. 1st Amendment)

Positive Liberty

"freedom to" (i.e. 13 amendment)

Market Economies

Individuals make their own decisions about what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it.

Market Failures

- Externality

- Monopoly

- Public Goods

- Imperfect Information

Market Weaknesses

- Recession

- Economic Inequality

Externality

A third party not directly involved in an economic transaction nevertheless receives benefits or costs from that transaction

Monopoly

When one firm or group captures enough of the market to control or manipulate prices; this is a result of law of competition within a market

Public Goods

A commodity or service that is available to all members of people → can create a free rider problem

Imperfect Information

When markets are dishonest or withhold information about the transaction so the transaction is not mutually beneficial → doesn't reflect their true cost or value

Recessions

The actual level of output in the economy falls significantly below the output that the economy can produce with full employment of resources

Economic Inequality

The unequal distribution of income and wealth as a result of competition in the market economy, which can lead to demands for govt intervention to provide economic justice

Social Reform

- Get rid of child labor laws

- Private foundations (Red Cross)

- Local Family Assistance Programs

- Forest/National Parks Service

- 18th Amendment

Jane Adams

Social reformer who worked to improve the lives of the working class. In 1889 she founded Hull House in Chicago, the first private social welfare agency in the U.S., to assist the poor, combat juvenile delinquency and help immigrants learn to speak English.

Grassroots Efforts

- Carrie Nation (would take a hatchet to bars and destroy all their liquor)

- Henry Ford → spoke for abstinence, soberness, etc just to make sure that his workers were good (a new kind of prohibitionist)

Women's Suffrage

- Seneca Falls

- Turning point is Wilson's Administration

What causes recessions?

1. During Good Times

- Employers reluctant to fire

- People delay change

2. A Shock

- Causes some businesses to fail

- People become unemployed

3. Propagations

- Institutional Problems

- Expectations create self fulfilling prophecy

Shocks of the Great Depression

1. Stock Market Crash

2. Bank Run (everyone tried to withdraw their deposits)

3. Weather (the dust bowl)

Moral Crises of the GD

- Suicide

- Abandonment

- Alcoholism

Political Crisis of the GD

- Severe hardship and misery strain the political system

- Many countries see violent conflict

- Loss of faith in traditional understanding of politics

- People fled to the Soviet Union to help build up communism

- More people were leaving than coming to the U.S.

New Deal (FDR)

- Save democracy and capitalism

- A political revolution

- Many new programs (i.e. Social Security)

- Restore confidence (fireside chats)

- Fed Min Wage

Keynesianism

If a recession is caused by too little demand, maybe the government can act in recessions to boost demand and make recession less harmful

Fiscal Policy

Spend in deficit to provide jobs and income, boost demand in bad times, and pay it back in good times (i.e. Civilian Conservation Corps)

Monetary Policy

Government policy that attempts to manage the economy by controlling the money supply and thus interest rates. Controlled by the Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve

Controls interest rates, prices, inflation, money in the economy, etc.

Roosevelt's Four Freedoms

Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

- Aka Second Bill of Rights

- Positive liberties

Jim Crow Laws

- Laws designed to enforce segregation of blacks from whites

- Physical Violence

Brown v. Board of Education

- Separate but equal is inherently unequal

- Gets rid of segregation

- Eisenhower sends federal troops to school to enforce it

Martin Luther King Jr.

- Political Entrepreneur → immediate action, aggressive but not violent

- Combines Gandhi and the New Testament to encourage a change in virtues

- Civil disobedience and accept the consequences

- "I Have A Dream"

Letter from Birmingham Jail

A letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. after he had been arrested when he took part in a nonviolent march against segregation. He was disappointed more Christians didn't speak out against racism.

- People have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws

- Civil disobedience will lead to negotiation

Rosa Parks

In 1955 Rosa Parks refuses to sit in the back of the bus which then leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott

When were there sit-ins at segregationist businesses?

1960

When was there a march of 200,000 people to Washington D.C.?

1963

Civil Rights Act

1964; banned discrimination in public acomodations, prohibited discrimination in any federally assisted program, outlawed discrimination in most employment; enlarged federal powers to protect voting rights and to speed school desegregation; this and the voting rights act helped to give African-Americans equality on paper, and more federally-protected power so that social equality was a more realistic goal

Voting Rights Act

1965; invalidated the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal examiners to register voters in states that had disenfranchised blacks; as more blacks became politically active and elected black representatives, it rboguth jobs, contracts, and facilities and services for the black community, encouraging greater social equality and decreasing the wealth and education gap

Fair Housing Act

1968; The federal law that prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, and national origin

Elementary and Secondary Education Act

1965; Provided federal funding for primary and secondary education and was meant to improve the education of poor people. This was the first federal program to fund education.

Civil Rights Amendments

13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

Steps to a nonviolent activism campaign (MLK)

- Collect the facts to determine whether injustice exists

- Negotiation

- Self purification (ready to accept the blows without retaliating)

- Direct action (occurs after attempts of negotiation)

Why the immediacy of self action? (MLK)

- Never a good time to do this, so why not now

- Had been waiting for a long time

- For the oppressed, it has to happen now

- Justice denied long enough is just justice denied

- They've tried to negotiate, but they haven't listened, so direct action will eventually lead to negotiation

When is it justifiable to break a law?

- Unjust laws: man made code that is out of harmony with the moral law. Degrade humans

- Just laws: man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God

- One has a legal and moral responsibility to obey just laws but one also has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws

Progressive Era Imperialism

1890-1917

- Taking colonies that are not intended to become states

Woodrow Wilson

28th President of the United States

- Idealist

- Interest in how to make a better society

- Humans in a state of nature there will be some insecurity/bad people, so we make institutions to help control those people

Wilson's Idealism

- League of Nations

- Rules against war and other bad actions

- Collective action to punish violators

WWI

- U.S initially was neutral, entered to "make the world safe for democracy"

- 1914 to 1918

FDR's Mission during WWII

- To help against tyrants

- To stay neutral

- Help monetarily to those fighting against tyranny

Pearl Harbor

December 7, forces U.S. to break neutrality