Project:
Purpose
For this writing project we will return to focusing on invention, generating original ideas about interesting and relevant topics in order to articulate appropriate questions. Before long, however, we will focus most of our energy on revision, on perfecting our use of the tools of writing, on setting down the most elegant, reasonable, sophisticated, persuasive argument we possibly can.
So far, with regard to economic issues, we have considered some of the conflicting values that motivate both our individual economic decisions and our national policies, and we have practiced critical reasoning in conversation with authoritative voices as we continue to discern what People should do with Stuff.
Now we apply these practices to specialized economics conversations of our own choosing, asking both, What, then, should be done? and What truly warrants this action?
Premise
Listen:
“I give you the toast of the Royal Economic Society, of economics and economists, who are the trustees not of civilization, but of the possibility of civilization.”
—John Maynard Keynes, Royal Economic Society Toast, 1945
“Anytime you want to understand something: Why is such and such happening? Why is there a biodiversity crisis? Why are we drilling for more oil when it’s polluting the atmosphere and causing more oils spills? Why? And you ask Why, and down a couple levels of Why you always get to money.”
—Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics
Many—most—perhaps every social issue has an economic element. This writing project invites you to explore the economic element of a social issue of your choosing, perhaps even a social issue whose economic elements are often overlooked, mischaracterized, over- or underemphasized. So go hog wild.
Discover an argument out there, an authoritative argument that, in some form or another, responds to, What, then, should be done? That is, the argument you find must respond to a practical problem a social issue presents. You will demonstrate how the practical problem changes—perhaps its call to action, or its warrants—when some critical aspect of it is reimagined as a problem of understanding.
Writing Task:
Research a social issue whose economic element is currently under debate. Develop a perspective about the practical problem(s) created by this issue. In conversation with at least one authoritative source that aims to address a practical problem created by this social issue, in an argument-driven essay of at least 1,500 words, address the following prompt:
In order to arrive at right action, how ought Americans understand, conceive of, approach, and/or reimagine the economic problem your social issue presents?