1. Enduring Understandings of the Class
Individuals Act (Self)
All Individuals have self-worth and natural rights.
An Individual’s experiences and perspective establishes their preferences and allows them to develop their own definition of subjective terms such as fairness, equality, morality, and value.
The Individual is the basic unit of decision-making whether it is economic, social, or political.
Individual decision-making involves making trade-offs, thinking on the margin, and responding to incentives. (All resources are scarce, there is nothing without costs, there is no “right or wrong” – only trade-offs, and people respond to incentives). People act to improve their current situations.
Societies and governments are comprised of individuals. Only individuals have the ability to think, feel, believe, make decisions, act, and have subjective values or preferences.
Individuals Interact with others (Others)
Individuals interact. Individual’s pursing their self-interest both compete and cooperate with others.
Division of labor and specialization combine with free associations (trade) results in higher productivity and improved standards of living. This also applies to interactions between individuals living in different nations.
Voluntary exchanges are made between individuals because they believe that they will be mutually benefited. By definition they cannot be zero sum outcomes.
When there is a “repeating game”, free choice, and more perfect information an individual can only promote their own interest, if they are in tune with the interest and reactions of others Selfishness = self destruction, +, + outcomes survive, zero sum die in free societies. People are simultaneously self regarding and others regarding.
A Systems is a collection of individual actions and interactions
The manner in which individuals are coordinated and how collective decisions are made defines the economic and political systems.
The concentration of power is the biggest threat to liberty and free choice and the absence of liberty and free choice will result in selfish actions
Collective decisions are restricted by the same parameters that apply to individual decisions.
All decisions result in both private and social impacts, nothing occurs in isolation. What is unseen is just as important as what is seen.
Social systems are organic not mechanical. There is an interdependence of similar and diverse parts that mature, learn, and adapt. Additionally, social systems are open systems which allows for interaction with its environment. Feedback loops results in evolution and growth.
Barriers restrict evolution and growth
In the absence of evolution, inferior actions survive. Selfish actions which would normally go extinct are provided an environment to flourish.
The true measure of any system or action is how well it improves the standards of living for all people. Activity that results in zero sum outcomes cannot improve standards for all.

2. Essential Questions of the Class/Unit 1 Intro.
The Individual (Self)
Do all people have natural rights? To what extent are all people equal?
How do different individual perspectives on fairness, equality, and value impact society and public policy? How does our morality emerge, what implications does it have on economic and Political life? How do individual’s preferences impact their decisions?
To what extent should the individual adhere to the group?
To what extent can the basic concepts of decision-making be applied to all aspects of life? How does the scarcity of resources impact all decisions? Is anything ever “free?”
To what degree do individuals voluntarily form society? How is harmony best enforced? What are the acceptable trade-offs between liberty and authority, freedom and equality, and Efficiency and Equity?
How Individuals interact (Others)
How might interaction both help and hinder the advancement of mankind? To what extent do individuals who pursue their own-interest benefit or hurt society? Does forced cooperation
Why do we divide labor and specialize? On net Free trade improves standards of living, Yes or no?
To what extent do free exchanges (econ., socially, pol.) between individuals benefit both parties and society as a whole?
Do selfish behaviors result in self-destruction?
Systems
10. Why do we coordinate? What is the best method to coordinate individuals in order to promote individual rights and improved standards of living for everybody? What is the proper role and purpose of government? How much of themselves should an individual give up to society?
11. How can we prevent power from being concentrated economically and politically?
12. To what extent does scarcity of resources impact collective decisions? To what extent do you agree with the quote, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
13. Are we all connected? Why is it important to recognize the seen and unseen outcomes of decisions? To what extent should cost and benefits be equally shared amongst individuals in society?
How much does the structure of a system impact its function? To what extent do we have open or closed system? How do we use feedback loops and how much have we evolved?
What are natural and man made barriers?
What type of systems best promote free choice, accurate information, and responses to feedback? What types of systems reward selfish behavior and what types of systems punish selfishness?
17. How do we measure standards of living? How do we improve standards of living?