Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform

A course taught by Douglas Rae, the Richard S. Ely Professor of Management at Yale SOM, has been added to Open Yale Courses, the popular website run by Yale University. Rae’s course, titled Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform, seeks to interpret capitalism using ideas from biological evolution: firms pursuing varied strategies and facing extinction when those strategies fail are analogous to organisms struggling for survival in nature. Course sessions include discussions of Adam Smith, the advent of the joint stock corporation, mortgage-backed securities, microfinance in India, accountability and greed in investment banking, and the rise and eventual demise of Polaroid. 

Watch all the class sessions online and download course materials.

Rae’s course was one of 10 added to the Open Yale curriculum last month. "These 10 new Open Yale Courses allow us to offer a full college curriculum of 35 courses, reflecting the broad liberal arts education provided by Yale College to anyone with an internet connection," said Diana E. E. Kleiner, the Dunham Professor of the History of Art and Classics and the founding director of the project. "And there is evidence that many participants are 'taking' our complete courses, replicating the on-campus experience in a remarkable way."

Open Yale Courses is one of the most frequently visited Yale websites. It has received more than 3 million unique visits since its debut in December 2007 and has delivered 26 million page views since April 2009. In an effort to increase accessibility and to allow faster downloading of the materials, Open Yale Courses media content is also available through Yale's YouTube and Apple iTunes U channels. Open Yale Courses content has been accessed approximately 15 million times through these channels alone.