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Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Methods of Social Reform. Course description, enrollment, final exam. Carver, 1910-1911

Seeds of Socialism

In this post you find the final exam, course description, and enrollment figures for the eighth iteration of Thomas Nixon Carver’s course that dealt with schemes of social reform, socialism/communism/single-tax. The economics of socialism was offered in some form or other throughout the first half of the twentieth century. 1910-11 was still a long-way from the great debates about the desirability/feasibility of central planning. 

Links to earlier and selected later versions of the course.

Brief bibliography by Carver for serious students on the economics of socialism (1910)

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Course Announcement and Description
1910-11

14b 2hf. Methods of Social Reform. — Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Carver.

A study of those plans of social amelioration which involve either a reorganization of society, or a considerable extension of the functions of the state. The course begins with a critical examination of the theories of the leading socialistic writers, with a view to getting a clear understanding of the reasoning which lies back of socialistic movements, and of the economic conditions which tend to make this reasoning acceptable. A similar study will be made of the Single Tax Movement, of State Socialism and the public ownership of monopolistic enterprises, and of Christian Socialism, so called.

This course is open only to those who have passed satisfactorily in Course 14a.

Source: History and Political Science, Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1910-11. Published in the Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. VII No. 23 (June 21, 1910), pp. 53-54.

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Course Enrollment
1910-11

Economics 14b 2hf. Professor Carver. — Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 73: 6 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 32 Juniors, 7 Sophomore, 1 Freshman, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1910-1911, p. 49.

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ECONOMICS 14b
Year-End Examination, 1910-11

Give as full and complete answers
as possible in the time allowed.
Allow about thirty minutes to each question.
  1. In what respects are socialism and anarchism alike and in what respects are they unlike?
  2. Comment briefly upon the leading points in the creed of “orthodox socialism.”
  3. Compare the views of the socialist and the economist as to the source of interest.
  4. Compare economic competition with political competition as a means of selecting men to manage the productive resources of a country.
  5. Discuss the question: Is it better that the income derived from the rent of land should go to private individuals to be expended by them, or that it should go into the public treasury to be expended by public officials?
  6. Discuss the question: Would the single tax eliminate poverty?

Source: Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, …, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College. June 1911, p. 44. In Harvard University Archives, Examination papers, 1873-1915 (HUC 7000.25). Box 9. Examination Papers, 1910-11, p. 51.

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Earlier Course Materials

Pre-Carver
Carver’s courses
Post-Carver:

 

Image Source:  Udo J. Keppler, “The Seeds of Socialism” from Puck (12 February 1908). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

A gigantic boar wearing a crown with “$” and a shawl labeled “Plutocratic Greed” and holding the U.S. Capitol dome labeled “Special Privilege”, inverted to form a bucket from which it is sowing seeds labeled “Abuse of Power, Arrogance, [and] Contempt of Law”onto a field sprouting “Socialist votes”. It is stepping on an American flag and a Liberty cap.