CORE081 Cooperation and competition

Faculty of Economics and Administration
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
doc. Ing. Vladimír Hyánek, Ph.D. (lecturer)
doc. Ing. František Svoboda, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. Ing. Vladimír Hyánek, Ph.D.
Department of Public Economics – Faculty of Economics and Administration
Contact Person: Ing. Marie Hladká, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Public Economics – Faculty of Economics and Administration
Prerequisites (in Czech)
((! MPV_KDVS Lectures on the History of PS )&& !FORMA(K))
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
The capacity limit for the course is 100 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/100, only registered: 6/100, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/100
Course objectives
The life and development of any society is based on two distinct but complementary principles - cooperation and competition. The newly developed course will introduce students to the relationship between these two principles through different social science perspectives. The meaning of cooperation will be explained through the Prisoner's Dilemma problem, game theory and the reflection of cooperation in economic theories. Different approaches to the role of cooperation in society will be considered and different answers to the questions of whether, why and when is cooperation rational and beneficial? The different approaches will be illustrated in parallel with specific chapters from economic history.
The competitive principle will be expounded through selected chapters of economic theories aimed at explaining the principle of competition as a basic tool for the efficiency of economic processes and social dynamics. Different approaches to competitive systems will be laid out and different answers to the questions of whether, why and when is competition rational and beneficial? The approaches will also be illustrated with specific chapters from economic history.
Designed in this way, the course will give students a basic overview of the various answers to the question of what order is best for human society. In conjunction with specific chapters in economic and political history, it presents a concise summary of the various strands of political economy that will facilitate students' understanding of the role of economic mechanism in society as well as the importance of the way in which social structure is ordered.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
- define and list the various forms of cooperation and the derived institutions of the market, government and charity
- define and analyze the benefits of competition and cooperation in different areas of human and social life
- analyse the contemporary institutions of the state in a historical context and distinguish between period and basal institutions
- explain and justify the potential of competitive and cooperative strategies in addressing various social and economic issues
Syllabus
  • 1) Cooperation. Evolutionary roots of cooperation, reciprocal altruism in animals and humans, gift economy. Principles of successful and unsuccessful strategies in the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Positive and negative reciprocity. Man as a calculator of social contracts. The benefits of cooperation in human society.
  • 2) The gift. Historical institutions of social assistance, from voluntary charity to state obligation. The emergence of the welfare state, three models of the welfare state. Concepts of justice from Thomas Aquinas to J. Rawls. Persistence of inequality - issues of social and economic inequality. The Samaritan's dilemma. Failures of social policy and their criticism.
  • 3) Labour. "Work feeds me, work punishes me." Changes in attitudes to work - Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages. Economic turmoil of the 16th century and changes in attitudes to the poor. Emergence of workhouses and houses of correction. The workhouse movement in England and on the Continent. The effects of the public policies of mercantilism. From labour duty to active employment policy.
  • 4) Interest. The prohibition of interest and the permissibility of interest in ancient societies - Assyria, Israel, Greece, Rome. Medieval changes in the attitude to interest. Emergence of charitable lending institutions. Monte di Pietà, the ghosts, foundations. Micro-credit and its role in the development of developing countries. What is interest in today's economic theory?
  • 5) What is capitalism? Lorenzo Machiavelli's ruler, commerce and the state in the Renaissance. The concept of human passions. The emergence and development of new organizational forms of commerce related to rapid technological development and social change. The first institutions of finance capitalism in Florence, San Giorgio in Genoa. Fernand Braudel - dynamics of capitalism, critique of Weberian theory of the emergence of capitalism.
  • 6) What is capitalism? The role of joint stock companies in economic history. The firm in the role of the state, the state in the role of the firm. East India Companies - French, British, Dutch - and Hudson's Bay Companies.. their military, justice, administration, infrastructure, taxation issues. The luxury estate as a relic of mercantilism in economic theory. Monopoly as a prerequisite for government.
  • 7) Utopia. Why do utopias (not) work? T. Campanella and the Sunshine State, Thomes More's Utopia. Utopias made real - Jesuit reductions and the Indian state in South America. The institution of the commune and its survival, the tragedy of the communal pasture in practice. Elinor Ostrom, rationality and self-interest in economic theory.
  • 8) Competition and cooperation in Adam Smith. Collective action in Adam Smith (negative definition within the profit sector vs. positive in the public sector), commercial humanism, le doux commerce. How to decide whether to choose public or private solutions to problems?
  • 9) Freedom. The 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics and the rehabilitation of economic history. Exploring the evolution of institutions and preferences. The dynamics of cultural change, evolutionary economics, the role of the public sector. Example - the slave system in the US as a market conforming social order. Possibilities and limits of normative and positive economics.
  • 10) Investment. Role of the state in infrastructure development. Major infrastructure projects of the 19th century railways (USA, Russia, England) and canals (Suez, Panama) - market failure, concept of state intervention. Rent-seeking, Principal agent problem.
  • 11) Plan as cooperation. Totalitarian regimes of the 20th century - theory and practice. Keynes, Schumpeter, W. Eucken. The Russian Revolution and the economic experiment. Nazism and the markets of the Third Reich. Differences and correspondences between two planned economies. F. A. Hayek and the investigation of the viability of different economic systems.
  • 12) Plan II. The great spending programs of the 20th century. Compelle intrare - coercion in economic theory and political practice. The stowaway problem and possible solutions - Olson, Hirschman, Axelrod, Etzioni, Robinson &Schmidt
  • . 13) Lotteries as a source of revenue for public budgets - history of lotteries, lotteries and economic theory, state lotteries today. Ethical dilemma in economics - what to ban and what to tax?
Literature
    required literature
  • SVOBODA, František. Tři archetypy evropské sociální politiky (Three Archetypes of European social policy). 1st ed. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2012, 158 pp. Edice Hic sunt leones. ISBN 978-80-210-5990-0. info
  • SVOBODA, František. Machiavelli kontra Samuelson a jiné texty k dějinám veřejné ekonomie (Machiavelli contra Samuelson and other essays from a history of a public economics). 1st ed. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2009, 162 pp. Edice Hic sunt leones. Svazek 1. ISBN 978-80-210-5091-4. info
  • ARISTOTELÉS. Politika: řecko-česky. Knihovna antické tradice. Praha: Oikoymenh, 2019. ISBN 80-7298-125-0.
    recommended literature
  • RIDLEY, Matt. Původ ctnosti. Edited by Jan Zrzavý, Translated by Martin Konvička. [Brno: Masarykova univerzita. Středisko pro pomoc studentům se specifickými nároky, 2004, 1 online. URL info
  • The new Palgrave dictionary of economics. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf - Lawrence Blume. 2nd ed. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, xxv, 896. ISBN 9780333786765. info
  • BOCHEŃSKI, Józef Maria. Cesta k filozofickému myšlení. Vyd. 3., V nakl. Academia 1. Praha: Academia, 2001, 94 s. ISBN 8020008535. info
Teaching methods
Lectures, readings, discussions.
Assessment methods
The assessment of the course will be in the form of a colloquium, i.e. a group expert debate on the assigned topics. In case the student enrols in the course during his/her trip abroad, he/she must demonstrate knowledge of the topics discussed. Any copying, recording or taking out tests, use of unauthorised aids and communication devices or any other interference with the objectivity of the examination (credit) will be considered as a failure. Termination of the course and as a gross violation of course regulations. As a result, the instructor will close the examination (credit) with a grade of "F" in the IS and the dean will initiate disciplinary proceedings, which may result in termination of studies.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every week.
General note: Předmět je dostupný pro studenty ESF. Kredity C.
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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