The Industrial Revolution, and the two thinkers who explained it: Adam Smith’s case for markets and its critiques, Marx’s theory of history, surplus value and crisis and its critiques, the labor theory of value done fairly, how Marx thought socialism and communism would arrive, and how capitalism changed in response.
The problems every economy has to solve, the two dials that separate capitalism from socialism, what owning a firm actually means, and how owner-run businesses, corporations, cooperatives and state firms trade off incentives, investment and risk. Then why capitalism is the most common system, what goes wrong with it, and how mixed economies try to fix it.