Sustainable Development: The Post-Capitalist Order (edX)

Our present system of global capitalism is flawed. While it has produced immense wealth and economic growth in nearly all regions of the world, it has also prioritized profits over people and harmful consumption practices over the needs of our planet. Sustainable development must bring about a new world order to replace the vices of global capitalism, ensuring development, human wellbeing, and environmental security. This course presents Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals as the necessary successor to laissez faire-style capitalism, and emphasizes the urgency of embracing sustainable development objectives to transform our economy into a more reactive, efficient, inclusive, and environmentally-conscious system.

This 8-week massive open online course (MOOC) provides an in-depth look at the shortcomings of our current and past global economies, and shows why and how sustainable development has become the universally-prioritized agenda for the future of our world. The topics covered range from market economics to education, gender equality, international trade, financing, and more.
This course is for:

• Policy professionals who want to understand frameworks for SDG planning
• Development practitioners seeking information on goals-based development
• Advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in economics, development, and other key concepts related to the SDGs

What you'll learn

• The benefits and pitfalls of global capitalism
• The history of economic growth, expansion of industries, and globalization
• The challenges of growth on a finite planet
• The main objectives of sustainable development and how they account for the shortcomings of the present capitalist system
• The world’s progress towards sustainable development and the road map forward

Syllabus

Module 1: What is Sustainable Development
Chapter 1: What is Sustainable Development?
Chapter 2: Why Sustainable Development is Important: Happiness & Wellbeing
Chapter 3: Global Capitalism is a Faustian Bargain: Greed in return for prosperity
Chapter 4: We are Not Achieving Sustainable Development
Chapter 5: Using Sustainable Development as Our Global Framework

Module 2: What Do Global Markets Do?
Chapter 1: The Traditional Economy
Chapter 2: The Market Economy: Specialization, Division of Labor, Entrepreneurship
Chapter 3: Production Possibility Frontier
Chapter 4: Fair or Unfair: Intragenerational and Intergenerational
Chapter 5: The Malthusian Specter

Module 3: A Brief History of our Faustian Bargain
Chapter 1: Traditional empires
Chapter 2: The Age of Discovery
Chapter 3: The Industrial Revolution: Population and Production
Chapter 4: The American Century
Chapter 5: The Age of Convergence

Module 4: Capitalism and Injustice
Chapter 1: Power (Colonialism and Slavery, Discrimination, Indigenous Rights)
Chapter 2: Gender
Chapter 3: Class and Inter-Generational Privileges
Chapter 4: Skills and Jobs
Chapter 5: The Social Democratic Idea

Module 5: The SDGs: Leaving No One Behind
Chapter 1: Ending Poverty: Skills, Infrastructure, Inclusion, Redistribution
Chapter 2: Universal Access to Education
Chapter 3: Universal Access to Health Care
Chapter 4: Universal Access to Infrastructure
Chapter 5: Innovation Economy

Module 6: The Tragedy of The Commons
Chapter 1: Growth on a Finite Planet: Is it Inherently Impossible?
Chapter 2: The Three Big Challenges: Climate Change, Biodiversity, Pollution
Chapter 3: The Three Big Transformations: Clean Energy and Industry, Land Use, Smart Cities
Chapter 4: Overcoming Obstacles: Technology, Vested Interests, Corruption, Foresight
Chapter 5: Malthus Revisited

Module 7: From Capitalism to Sustainable Development
Chapter 1: Six Sources of Wellbeing
Chapter 2: Public Provision of Human Needs
Chapter 3: Taming Corporate Greed
Chapter 4: Limiting Monopoly Power
Chapter 5: Subsidiarity
Chapter 6: Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship

Module 8: Achieving Sustainable Development
Chapter 1: The Two SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals and Social Democratic Governance
Chapter 2: Using Goals to Motivate Social Change
Chapter 3: Regional and Global Cooperation for Sustainable Development
Chapter 4: Engaging All Stakeholders
Chapter 5: Financing Sustainable Development
Chapter 6: The Ethics of Sustainable Development