This information is to accompany Activity One of the Unit Two Curriculum Guide.
Christianity
Karl Barth argued that humans are imperfect, sinful creatures whose minds and reasoning ability is flawed.
Existentialism
Existentialists such as Sartre and Camus argued that human beings simply exist and cannot depend on any outside force to help them.
Logical Empiricism
Wittgenstein argued that the great moral issues of truth, morality and beauty cannot be discussed because they cannot be tested scientifically or quantified by the logic of mathematics.
This information is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.
The latter-1920s was a period of general prosperity for both Europe and North America.
The major stock markets experienced a boom.
France in the 1920s
The mid-1920s were a period of general prosperity for France.
Britain in the 1920s
British social harmony was maintained by the trend towards social equality. The major problem facing the nation was unemployment created by the dislocations of the war.
The Labour Party replaced the Liberal Party as one of the two largest parties.
Political Consensus
The economic prosperity encouraged the development of moderate political policies which, while they did not make any one group completely satisfied, were able to satisfy enough people so a government could get the necessary support to govern.
Economic Management
Know that economic management which results in prosperity is for most people a far more important consideration than ideology.
Economic Equality
Know that when an economy is not prosperous, there is a great deal of pressure on the government to provide social programs which will ameliorate conditions for those who are being hurt.
Political Stability
The economic prosperity was matched by a developing sense of international cooperation as evident in the Locarno treaties. In these treaties, Germany and France agreed to recognize their mutual border.
Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was signed by fifteen nations and renounced the use of war to settle international disputes.
This information is to accompany Unit Two of the Curriculum Guide.
You are an economist (a person who studies the way societies make a living) who has been called in to help the government of a small imaginary country called Prosperity. They want you to do something about the sick economy.
Like a good doctor, you ask the Prime Minister to describe the economy's symptoms. The Prime Minister smiles sadly and says, "Look out the window."
Down on the street is a long line of people waiting for the employment bureau to open. The line reaches all the way around the block. "Most of those people have been there since 5:00 a.m. (It's now 9:30 a.m.) "If you watch long enough, you'll see someone faint from hunger."
"That scene is being repeated all over the country. There are over a million people, most with skills and education, hunting for jobs that don't exist."
The Prime Minister turns with an angry, frustrated look, "What can we do? If something is not done soon we could face riots and maybe even a revolution!"
He sits down at his desk and hands you a piece of paper market confidential. It is a memo from the P.M.'s security service. Apparently there has been an attempt on the P.M.'s life by a man who had lost his life savings when a bank failed. The bank did not have enough money on deposit to give all the depositors their money back. There were rumours all over the country that other banks were about to fail, but nobody know which ones they were. People were becoming panicky at not knowing where to turn or whom to trust with their money.
"You see" the P.M. says, "If we don't do something soon, this country will come unglued. What I need from you is a program that will get us out of this. Preferably it should have started yesterday."
"What have you done?" you say as your stomach starts to churn with nervousness, hoping that a neat, simple solution will offer itself. It doesn't!
The P.M. leans back in his chair, closes his eyes and begins to count off the points on his fingers: "Well, we did what economists and governments have been doing for years; we balanced the budget by laying off a bunch of unneeded government employees; we cut back on government spending wherever we could; we cancelled a number of projects such as building bridges, because we can't afford them, and we told everyone that we fully support maintaining our policy of backing our currency with gold." He stops frowns trying to remember, "Oh yeah, we are also going to raise tariffs. If the Europeans and the Americans think they are going to freeze us out of their markets and expect us to sit around and be a bunch of pansies and take it, they've got another thing coming!"
Now he is really angry, his faced is flushed and he leans forward drumming a finger into his desk: "It's so bloody unfair and stupid. They seem to think they can come into this country and steal jobs from our factories by selling their products here. Well, I'm not going to stand for that! Next week we are raising our tariffs, and we are going to blast our way into their markets. They'll soon learn not to fool with us!"
You have sinking feeling. Were to begin? It's all so wrong. And this guy really believes that what he is doing is going to fix things up. It's like throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out. The fire will be put out a lot sooner probably, but there won't be much left when it is done. A funny way to fight fire!
Then it strikes you that maybe he's not so certain after all. If he were certain, he wouldn't have called you in because you have a reputation for being an economist who is out of step with traditional economic beliefs. You wonder why he wants to hear from you if he's got it all figured out.