A two-day conference for thinking about how to achieve a more sustainable and resilient economy. The practices, institutions and system logics of today’s economy are not suitable for appropriately addressing fundamental human needs. The climate crisis, in particular, requires radically rethinking of our economic system and its global value chains.
Exploring Economics is proud to launch a two day conference entitled Which Pluralism? on Friday, October 22 and Saturday, October 23. We welcome the general public to attend the online sessions, which will feature panel presentations, debates and keynote addresses by Professors Anwar Shaikh of the New School, Steve Keen, Honorary Professor at UCL, and David Ellerman of Lublijana University. We will also offer student panels and opportunities for networking and dialogue. We are pleased to have received many excellent proposals from all over the world and are excited to provide a forum to promote new pathways for inter- and transdisciplinary, pluralist approaches to studying economic issues.
Attendees may register for the conference here
The problem: an outdated and one-sided economic science – Economic policies have for long been, and partly still are, dominated by an economic paradigm that is one-sided and monistic in its approach, producing the same simple answers to the complex realities of the present. Positive developments in the field of research or economic policy notwithstanding, mostly market-oriented thinking still prevails in economic teaching, while forms of economic activity based on shared institutions, cooperation, public spending, macroeconomic coordination and democratic planning are hardly mentioned, if at all.
The solution: future-oriented, pluralist economics – As the international curriculum change movement, we came together after the outbreak of the previous major crisis in 2007/2008 to radically renew economics. Since then, we have built long-term institutions that provide the basis for new economic thinking and fostered the paradigm of “pluralism”. Pluralist economics means to include approaches that focus on institutions, power structures and socioeconomic system dynamics – such as complexity, ecological, feminist, Keynesian or critical political economics. These approaches are the basis for thinking about and creating more equitable and sustainable economic systems.
The challenge: (how) can pluralist economics become the new normal? While the curriculum change movement and with it the claim for pluralism have made remarkable progress in the last years, mainstream economics is still dominating the teaching of economics. A number of key scientific and strategic questions around the claim for pluralism are still not resolved. Together with a number of other organizations we plan on hosting a two-day conference in October. Selected submissions will be published in a special edition of the Review of Economics and Economics Methodologies, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to heterodox economics issues.
Webpage with Conference program here
Mario Cedrini