HOW TO INTERPRET THE SCORES

Each of the questions was worth a maximum of 100 points.  Any score above 80 (= B/C) I consider to be satisfactory (to different degrees, obviously), while scores below 80 I consider unsatisfactory.   A score of 55 means that you misunderstood the question or were out of the ballpark entirely.  Generally speaking, 95 = A, 85 = B, 75 = C, 65 = D, and 55 = F.

There were thus a total of 400 possible points  Your total score is on the last page of your exam.

Note that I grade your answers blind, that is, without knowing whose exam I'm grading.  (Occasionally I'll recognize someone's handwriting — or think I do;  I'm rarely sure.)

Here are the letter grades corresponding to the various scores:  [Note that there is overlap between the ranges at their ends.  These overlaps represent borderline grades (e.g., 350 = A/B).  There will be no borderline grades for the course grade, however.  If your overall weighted average falls exactly on the border, you get the higher grade.]

• A:  350& above
• B:  320-350
• C:  290-320
• D:  260-290
• F:  260 & below

The numeric score, not the letter grade, will be averaged into the calculation of the overall course grade.

The median score was 345 (B+).  One student reached a score of 370.

Although I tried to write out my comments, I did use my system of editorial marks, accessible via the link.

ANSWERS

1. The LCRE text argues that the root of hunger lies in inequalities of power, i.e., from having powerless, vulnerable people. They critique several "solutions" to the problem of hunger as ignoring this root cause. For any one of the following "solutions", explain why/how LCRE believe that ignoring power inequalities and powerlessness prevents the solution from being a solution. Be sure to connect the myth/solution to issues of power inequalities.
a. Solution: Produce more food in the world (Myth 1).
b. Solution: Provide better disaster relief, nationally and/or internationally (Myth 2).
c. Solution: Create population control programs (Myth 3).
d. Solution: Implement reforms making the market (whether domestic or international) freer (Myths 7 and 8).
e. Solution: Have the countries of the North, and the United States in particular, provide more development aid (Myth 10).

• First consult the text and online notes for the answers.
• Most people did well on these questions.
• To the extent there was a common problem with the answers, it was a failure to connect the material with the issue of hunger.  In those answers people often said a lot of important stuff about the general issue but never got around to showing how it related to hunger.

2. Which "myth" in the LCRE text has the weakest argument, overall, in your personal view? Explain what you see as its problems. I will be looking both for an acute criticism of the text and for an accurate understanding of the text's argument. (In other words, you should understand the argument clearly before you criticize it.) "Your personal view" does not mean any old subjective dislike but rather a reasoned objection / criticism.

• The key here was being sure to recognize the LCRE argument before giving reasons for downgrading it.
• Few people answered this question.

3. LCRE apply their analysis primarily to the Third World, in particular, the problem of hunger there. What aspect of their analysis appears most meaningful and important when applied to the United States? In other words, now that you've read LCRE, what do you see with the most different eyes in U.S. society?

• The key here was an accurate recounting of the LCRE argument in one's application of it to the United States.
• Few people answered this question.

4. The Ayolé video showed that a technology can fail (or even be outright rejected) because it does not fit a culture.  Give an example, preferably a real one (other than Ayolé), where such a lack of fit prevented or hindered the adoption of a technology.  Be sure to explain clearly the nature of the lack of fit.

• There continues to be a severe problem with people's lack of understanding of what "culture" means.  Culture is about how people relate to each other.  It isn't about their technological level, their knowledge, their resources, or their wealth.  Even if the people in Ayolé had known how to fix the pump, they wouldn't have been able to because they were unable to coordinate sufficiently to raise the money.  True, they couldn't have fixed it if no one knew how to, but that's can be solved through the relatively simple solution of training one individual.  Coordinating people with each other, on the other hand — that is, creating a new culture —, is extremely difficult.
• Several answers named the Green Revolution as an example of a technology rejected for cultural reasons, but this is not correct.  First, the Green Revolution was adopted widely, but even where it was not, that failure arose from lack of wealth.  (Of course, some cultures could have refused to participate for reasons of cultural conservatism, and I gave some credit for such answers.)

5. The LCRE text says that hunger results from a lack of democracy at four different levels:  internationally, nationally, locally, and within the family.  Choose any one of these levels and give an example of how lack of democracy at that level creates hunger.  Do not use the myth/example you chose in question 1 above (if you did choose that question).

• The biggest problem with these answers was not being clear about how the inequality at a given level resulted in hunger.

6. Make the best case you can for the following hypothesis: "Braudel's ‘bell jar' exists not just in Third World countries but also in the United States."

• This turned out to be a surprisingly difficult question, because there are two aspects to the Bell Jar idea, not just one:
  • The most obvious aspect of a Bell Jar is the presence of inequality of various indicators of social status:  wealth, power, and so on — the haves and the have-nots, so to speak.  And almost everyone noted, correctly, that U.S. society had great inequalities.  Several people noted that Hurricane Katrina showed the existence of such inequalities.  A couple of people also noted, correctly, that the gap between the rich and the poor has been increasing here.
  • However, there is a second aspect to the Bell Jar, which is that it is impermeable.  If you're on the outside, it's extremely difficult to get in (legally, anyway).  Few people addressed this aspect of the concept.  The fact that poor people have a relatively harder time than rich people (to get higher education, for example) shows inequality and injustice, I believe, but it is a long way from impermeability.
  • One example of people outside the Bell Jar are illegal immigrants.  Their situation is almost exactly parallel to that of the informals described by de Soto.  One might object, "Yeah, but they aren't U.S. citizens!"  But that's precisely the point:  they're here, but they aren't legal.
  • Areas where illegal activity is the (or a) major source of income show the presence of a Bell Jar.  They show where people have simply given up allegiance to the existing society.

7. Would de Soto agree or disagree with the following proposition: "Capitalism is more about the free exchange of goods than the legal possession of goods"?  Explain your answer.

• The important thing in this question was that both sides be acknowledged with some understanding.
• Answers that only discussed the importance of capital got a grade of around B.  Certainly I agree, with almost all of those that answered this question, that if de Soto had to choose one side or the other, he would choose legal possession of goods as more important.
• To get a grade of A, you had to go on to talk about something else de Soto pointed out, which was that capitalism operated through the exchange of goods.  He discusses at some length how the West is able to speed up and lubricate this exchange process not just by having clear title to goods but also have centralized, clear representation of those goods.  (I discussed this in class, using as an example all that you can learn about a piece of property just by going down to one office in the government center downtown.)

8. We have two contrasting views of capitalism as an engine of development in the Third World. De Soto seems to believe that capitalism is the key to development, the problem being only that Third World countries don't understand what capitalism really means. The LCRE text, on the other hand, vigorously criticizes as "a myth" the proposition that "the free market will end hunger".  Try to mediate between these two perspectives. Is de Soto always right? — capitalism is always a solution to the problems of development in the Third World? Is the LCRE text always right? — capitalism is always a disease masquerading as a solution? Or is there some middle position, where capitalism is sometimes good and sometimes bad as an engine of development (and if so, how do we decide when/where to use it)? Argue for one of these positions.

• It's pretty obvious that neither of the two polar positions can be right.  Nothing as complex as an entire economic system will be right (or wrong) in all circumstances.  So the question really devolves to the question raised in the final phrase:  how do we decide when/where to use capitalism?
• Generally speaking, I was pleased with the answers.
• The major problem were the more-or-less tautological answers, the ones that went something like, "Use capitalism when it's good, but don't use it if it's bad" — without any further specification of how we were to determine when it's good and when it's bad.

9. In class I defined externalities as "costs of production borne by someone other than the producer". Give an example of an externality other than those given in class. (Recall that we discussed the problem of polllution, particularly that of the sulfuric acid caused by copper refining in Jearez.)  I would particularly appreciate (but do not require) your discussing examples with which you're personally familiar.  Answering this question fully will require you to deal with the following questions:
a. What is being produced?
b. By whom it is being produced?
c. What are the costs or consequences that are the externalities? (Note: A production might have costs that are borne unknowingly by others, but for those costs to be externalities they need to be known to the producer. "Externalities" means more than "unanticipated and unintended consequences".)
d. Who bears these costs or consequences, if not the producers?
e. What are the costs to the producer that the producer avoids by dumping h/her costs of production on others?  (In the Juarez air pollution example, it would be the cost of installing smokestack scrubbers to remove the sulfur waste products.)

• The best answers were those that followed the a-b-c-d-e format given in the question.
• There were a number of interesting examples, though it would serve no purpose to go through them here.
• The question was intended to say that you should have given examples other than pollution, but apparently this was no clear, since about 90% of the answers involved pollution, so I let it go.
• Speaking of pollution, a number of answers said that one of the costs to the producer might be the cost of shutting down entirely, which would be impossible.  That's incorrect;  it is possible.  We as a society may choose to say to such polluters that they simply can't do business.
• One common error — if I may call it that — was the belief that bad working conditions were an externality.  I gave some credit to such answers, but one should note that the producer bears the cost of those working conditions in that s/he has to pay workers enough to incent them to assume the risk.  It is true that some people are in poor bargaining conditions and feel compelled to take such work even at low wages, but that's a separate question.  A very important one, but separate.
• The same is true of the belief that competitive failure was an externality.  This came up repeatedly in examples complaining about companies hiring Third World workers at low wages, putting U.S. workers out of work.  Since when are companies responsible for what happens to the people they don't hire?  There may be good reasons to object to the hiring of Third World workers, but the fact that they will work for less than Americans is not one of them.  To take another example, if I shop at Cub Foods instead of Piggly-Wiggly, are Piggly-Wiggly's lowered profits an externality?
• One interesting and subtle problem arose from the example of a tavern's presence lowering local property values.  Those lowered property values are only an externality when we consider the original owners of the local property when the bar was constructed.  Later owners did not suffer from an externality because they were compensated in that they were able to buy the property more cheaply.