BUS 3232 - The American 20th Century: The Rise of Corporation, Speculative Risk, and the Citizen-Consumer

This course follows evolving connections in the 20th century U.S. economy between growth, affluence, competing concepts of governance, and the changing desires of individual Americans. Subtopics include: the consolidation of the corporation as the dominant form of business organization, legal and cultural impediments to long-term countervailing labor organization, the emergence of a highly speculative financial sector, the transformation of the American citizen into a "consuming subject," the long debate over the proper role of the federal government in the economy, the difficulty of providing security to individuals in a market society, and the mix of opportunities and vulnerabilities that emerged during the late 20th century "globalization."