ESSAY PROMPT
Preface:
Within the last forty years, the U.S. economy has experienced reduced rates of growth, deindustrialization, declining wages, and increased levels of economic inequality. Joseph Stiglitz attributes the transformation of the U.S. economy to globalization and neoliberalism, and proposes a return to Keynesian-style economic policies and reforms to globalization, which he argues would produce increased economic growth, full employment, and reduced inequality. Yet Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster as well as Andreas Malm argue that given environmental degradation and the crisis of climate change, an ecological revolution is necessary to sustain human life, which requires a sustainable form of human and economic development that overcomes the destructive aspects of capitalism.

Prompt:
Write an essay that critically examines Stiglitz’s proposals for increased economic growth in light of Magdoff and Foster’s and Malm’s critique of capitalist growth and the prospects for the creation of a sustainable form of economic development that will produce human wellbeing and flourishing.