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Capitalism vs. Socialism: Comparing Economic Systems cover art

Capitalism vs. Socialism: Comparing Economic Systems

Written by: The Great Courses
Narrated by: Professor Edward F. Stuart PhD
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Publisher's Summary

Ever since we produced our course Thinking About Capitalism, customers have expressed interest in a follow-up course that could help them understand socialism in the same way. After much consideration, we determined that it actually would be more beneficial to create a course that compares and contrasts the two major global economic theories, examining them in ways that move past the polemics many of us are used to and looking at these systems as they relate to one another and the world at large.

Politics and economics are inextricable, so it can be difficult to find the right person to tackle such a complex and often polarizing subject as objectively as possible. Luckily, we found Professor Edward Stuart, an economist and teacher who specializes in comparative economics. Professor Stuart brings not only economic expertise, but personal experience gleaned from teaching, traveling, and consulting all over the world, and it is this wide lens of experience that helps make Capitalism vs. Socialism such an engaging new entry in our library of courses.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 The Great Courses (P)2018 The Teaching Company, LLC

What listeners say about Capitalism vs. Socialism: Comparing Economic Systems

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  • Tom
  • 2021-04-14

Good quality, American bias

The presenter is American and it shows. Over all good quality if you adjust for the bias.

1 person found this helpful

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great summary

good potted summary of the out comes of different economic approaches. author very likable

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Great Presentation

Some people have the gift of being able to bring what could be considered a dry subject, to life. This guys makes it very interesting without becoming political.

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Useful and Absorbing

Something for everybody here. Educational and always easy to listen to. As an armchair economist I gained a refreshing update and insight into history.
Most of my TGC selections are video, however audio worked fine for me on this one.

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Awesome materials with incredible relevance today

Lots of great info and examples throughout the course! Well paced, well narrated and relatively neutral opinions on a topic that can be incredibly tempting to show bias. I truly enjoyed this course!

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The was truly a 5 out of 5 star rating.

Ed Stuart has natural ease in how he presented this course, super interesting, a real eye opening topic and fun to listen to.

Ed Mullens Calgary Alberta

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Engaging and enjoyable

Indeed a great course, rich with knowledge and insight. Dr. Stewart is consistently engaging and occasionally humorous. It's a down-to-earth, easy to comprehend analysis of over 100 years of historical events and their effects on economies and populations. It was my intro to economics and I hungrily listened all the way through. Sincerely recommended.

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Good lecture

Good collection of information, not really a good narrative if you're not already interested in the subject. Well read, not sure you expect a good performance in a lecture, but I found this to be pretty engaging. Would prefer if it dug in a little deeper to each of the topics, but it seems like good introductory material, maybe a good companion to an economics course.

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riveting

every lecture was not just full of information, historical reference, and backed by great analysis but I found the lecturer very entertaining. knowledgeable would be an understatement, and his on topic antidotes and personal stories kept a potentially dull subject a joy to listen. I'm listening a second time,

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Great course

Lot of facts that I was unaware of before listening to this book. It was very interesting to hear how country developers succeed or failed in their attempts to help their economy. Also how countries influences world economy. Only this book I hear author says democracy is not the only key to success. It's not one size fits all. I highly recommend it to those history and economy lovers.

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  • David S. Westby
  • 2019-09-03

A biased view of economics.

This is a very biased presentation toward socialism. I have listened to a portion of the book, and realized Dr. Stewart has biased views.
I do not recommend this book as an intellectual exploration of economic ideas.


121 people found this helpful

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  • neil
  • 2019-08-14

Smart guy but a bit one sided

Knows his history but he clearly is just making an argument for highly government regulated economic systems

98 people found this helpful

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  • Marc Mallette
  • 2018-07-06

Good course, misleading title

This is an interesting and well-presented course on modern economic history, not so much an actual comparison of economic systems.

70 people found this helpful

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  • Naji R. Constantine
  • 2018-12-20

Disappointing

You can use statistics to tell any story you want to tell. The relationship between government regulations and levels of opportunity is completely ignored. Just because the professor spent a great deal of time abroad, doesn’t mean that he is the best qualified. While he has clearly stated that communism is a failed endeavor, he fails to see that socialism will suffer the same fate, it will just take longer to get there. This course is full of half truths insinuations and wrong conclusions. I’ve come to expect more from the teaching company and I hope my Next selection will be presented by a more fair minded Professor

57 people found this helpful

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  • Mariann
  • 2018-07-24

Two thirds Great

The teacher is really good. It seems like he has personal experience in every single nation he mentioned. A huge chunk of the beginning was basic economic theory (Adams, Cain and Marks) and the economics of Soviet Russia and present day United States. I dearly wish he had spent a little more time on the European Union. He said it was a success AND a failure, then didn’t fully say why. Another topic which I wish he had elaborated more on was the three Asian tigers. Why are these places so different from the rest of the world? I know this was generalized course and there are doubtless a lot of books on the topic but there was a lot of time spent reiterating stuff on Russia. If the Soviet system was the same in all the Russian satellite countries, then I don’t need a new general background on communism for every country that was communist.
Still, was really solid. I had no idea how different France and Germany were compared to the US economically. Most people will probably learn a lot.

53 people found this helpful

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  • Trebla
  • 2018-05-15

More History than Econ

I am neither historian nor economist, but I did expect more explanation of the ideas and workings of economics and especially the differences between capitalism and socialism. While there was some talk of economic functions it was almost lost under the verbose repetition of European and some world history- but with little in the way of building an overview of the two systems

46 people found this helpful

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  • R. Beise-Zee
  • 2018-07-20

Too much history, not enough theory

I was looking forward to the counterpoint to Thinking about capitalism, but was somewhat disappointed. I was expecting a bit more about the ideological or theoretical system of socialism and marxism and less an historical overview of countries. There too much about Keynesian economics and some of the historical vignettes seemed superficial. Overall a superficial treatise of socialism.

36 people found this helpful

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  • Mateusz Canova
  • 2018-05-11

History of application of both economic systems

I was searching for a book that would answer a question that I constantly stumble upon in internet: which system is better? After reading I can confirm that neither is good, but a combination of both works best.

The author compares both systems, by looking at how they were applied in life. Some of the examples he uses are China, England or the Soviet Block countries. While this is an absolutely valid and correct approach, I thought I would get something different. I imagined the book will be more theoretical and will tackle more the feasibility of ideas presented by both systems. Truth be told, we get this in the first chapters of the book, but it was not enough for me. I would also like to see/hear more analysis of the economies of the other soviet block countries.

Overall, while I had some objections, I that this is a really great book with nice performance. It is my first book from the Great Courses, I think it raises the bar pretty high. I will definitely keep it in my library.

30 people found this helpful

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  • Douglas Morton
  • 2019-01-09

Awful, One-sided

As someone who passionately studies economics as a hobby, I'm very disappointed in this course. There were about 100 times where the professor committed a basic economics fallacy, almost always neglecting hidden "opportunity costs" in his analysis, which is something you're supposed to learn in the first chapter of any econ textbook. And, sometimes he even neglected the application of Comparative Advantage, only one of the most central teachings of economics. There were so many times when he made an argument which I've heard other prominent free market economists handily and clearly refute, but this professor didn't even mention the opposing arguments. It's like he was purposefully trying to neglect the best arguments that free market economists use. Plus, the whole course was more of a broad superficial summary of history of economic thought and practices; it didn't include any of the argumentative tools necessary to actually evaluate whether the ideas and practices implemented were beneficial ON NET. He doesn't dive into the types of arguments which economists use to actually evaluate the two systems. It was definitely one-sided by a govt-intervention-loving economist. They need to have multiple economists arguing in this lecture so people can see what competing views are, including an economist who actually understands the free market arguments which this professor didn't even mention. Yes, I'll admit that I'm an advocate of free markets and so I'm biased (everyone is biased; it's better to admit bias openly than pretend we're neutral), but I can honestly tell you that this course does not show you the best arguments that free market economists have.

23 people found this helpful

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  • Scott Hansen
  • 2018-08-05

The Great Courses are appropriately named

This was the best, non political, explanation of economics I have heard in a long time.

16 people found this helpful