Critical Analysis of Essay Topics MN7406 Module

Topic 1: 'Green' capitalism and the limits of endless growth

In this assignment, you are required to write a 3000-word essay on a topic of your choice from those listed below, drawing upon the lectures, seminars and reading material for the module MN7406. You should complete an essay on ONE of the following three questions:

‘Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth’ (Bookchin, 1990). Do you agree with Bookchin’s assessment? Drawing on relevant studies and examples critically explain why.

Discuss the importance of central banks in the global economy, with reference to cases such as that the European Central Bank, amongst others. Do central banks have too much political power, or is their power essential to avert future economic crises?

‘With the value of bitcoin having fallen by around 70% since its peak late last year, the mother of all bubbles has now gone bust. More generally, cryptocurrencies have entered a not-so-cryptic apocalypse’ (Roubini, 2018). We are now three years on from Roubini’s statement and Bitcoin’s high market value has lasted longer than he anticipated. Do you think this disproves his arguments? Why or why not?

Assignment Reading

Please see the Course Reading and Seminar Outline Reading for relevant reading. A collection of relevant reading for each essay question will also be provided separately, on Blackboard on the 15 February.

So for our pretend China question above you would say something like: ‘China’s economic performance since the 1990s has often been described as an export miracle (see for example Gilboy, 2004). It is now by most estimates the second largest economy in the world (Barboza, 2010). Yet this has led to increasing feelings of resentment amongst the previously dominant economies, most notably of course the US where President Trump is threatening to launch a trade war with China (Monaghan, 2019). Thus critically examining the question of whether China’s export performance is the result of some kind of ‘cheating’ or of somehow breaking the rules of the global economy warrants further critical interrogation.’

The above is an example of setting the context for your essay, in a sense it is about explaining why the question is important.

- Define and briefly explain the key terms and concepts After doing this you would also briefly explain the key terms in the question: Such as the idea of ‘green’ capitalism’, what bitcoin is, or why central banks are so important in the global economy.

- Present your argument

In the introduction you also need to give a sense of what your overall argument is, as I have done above in the case of the question on China. Here is that passage again to give you an idea of what presenting your argument in the introduction might look like:

So the introduction should be one long paragraph – no longer. And what you are doing is: setting the context; defining your terms; summarizing your argument; and outlining what you will do in the different sections

‘What the case of China highlights, rather than being an instance of cheating, is the importance of the state as a key actor in enabling effective market functioning and development. Indeed, the successes of the Chinese economy potentially provide lessons for other country governments to follow.’

This is also a question of writing style because if you just say ‘I think its wrong to say China is cheating and is bad, it is too simplistic’ your style of writing is too anecdotal and it does not have sufficient supporting evidence. In a high level answer, you would say:

‘While there is a perception that China is somehow ‘cheating’ and this has risen to prominence through some of Trump’s pronouncements in recent months (Werner, 2018), we can question this analysis because historically advanced economies have often adopted protectionist measures when it was in their economic interests to do so (see Chang, 2011). For example, when the US left the gold standard in 1971 Roosevelt placed a 10% charge on imports (Irwin, 2011). This was an extremely protectionist measure but it was central to maintaining the dominant position of the US economy in the early 70s.’

A couple of other dangers to be aware of regarding referencing and writing style:

1. Don’t become too reliant on one or two sources in good essays we expect a broad range of sources to be cited. We don’t want to see one source repeatedly used throughout a paragraph, it suggests that you have not done a broad enough range of reading.
2. Overly long paragraphs can damage your presentation: you should not generally have paragraphs that are longer than a page. I would say generally at most a paragraph should be three quarters of a page. Each time you change topic, start a new paragraph.