3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course will explore the ways in which human progress, societal prosperity, economic growth, and development have been understood in the modern era. It will do so by investigating the political processes that surround decisions about the measurement of these concepts, the underlying worldviews that support them, and their normative implications. The first part of the course is historically oriented. Students will study the processes of emergence, consolidation, and globalization of the prevailing, or “hegemonic”, view of progress: economic growth measured by GDP. They will learn the causes that led to this choice and the problems that resulted from it. The second part of the course explores alternatives to this mainstream conceptualization and teaches students how some socio-economic indicators of prosperity are created. Student are then asked to apply the historical and practical knowledge to build their own vision and measurement of human progress.