We need your support to promote economic pluralism

We have created a remarkably sophisticated economic system. It delivers an extraordinary array of goods and serves across the globe coordinating activities of total strangers. It is an amazing achievement.

However it is also clear that on a number of dimensions it is deeply flawed and not serving humanity: A new debt crisis is around the corner, inequality continues to rise and we are driving towards (are already in) an ecological crisis.

You would expect therefore economists were developing innovative ways of thinking about our economies and how to design them afresh to remove these deep flaws.  But economics is caught in what the Institute of New Economic Thinking has dubbed ‘a crisis of conformity’.

Economists, if they want to succeed in the mainstream, need to keep to a framework developed in the late 19^th century. Such thinking limits the public conversation and policy initiatives through their research and the students they teach. It constrains our ability to innovate just when it is essential that we do.

Those academics, who do think differently and innovate, are excluded and marginalised. The mainstream doesn’t recognise them as ‘real’ economists.

In spite of major campaigning efforts by students, this has not changed since the Crash in 2007/8 which revealed the inadequacies of mainstream economic thinking.

There are loads of innovators trying to find better ways of understanding and designing our economies but they are dispersed across departments in academia and struggle to be heard and get funding for their research. They are often an invisible diaspora although there are some high-profile individual exceptions.

These are economists who support pluralism i.e. are open to new ideas and diverse perspectives in a quest to understand and design economic systems that work for the many.

We want to link together this diaspora of economic innovators who embrace pluralism as an important value so they can be more visible and influential.

So far we have held events involving 1,000s of people; created a magazine for fresh economic thinking, The Mint; have over a 100 public supporters who have set out why they support economic pluralism, and are establishing a shared set of standards for economic teaching that takes a pluralist approach. But…

We need your support to continue and increase our impact

Our current tranche of funding is about to run out and to ensure we get the next one, we need matching funding.

If we can raise £5,000 including about £450 per month regular payments (=£10,000 pa), this could help us make sure we get £70,000 of grant funding. This will ensure we can:

• Launch an accreditation scheme for masters programmes that take a pluralist approach to economics teaching in 2020.
• Increase our impact by paying for the time, space and media we need to:
• Identify potential sympathetic employers of economics graduates and engage with them on the benefits of economic pluralism through speaking at employer events and holding our own; and
• Hold an event in early October streamed around the world to showcase top pluralist economics thinkers selected by the people for recognition. This will be designed to stand in stark contrast to the elitist, mainstream Nobel Economics Prize which has its 50th anniversary this year.

…And we will recognise you as a valued sponsor of this community.  All contributors will be mentioned by name (unless you don’t want to be) as a sponsor on our website.  All those who give £20 or more per month will receive special recognition on our website as foundation sponsors as this type of regular, predictable, significant donation gives us the foundation to allow us to achieve long-term success.

Find out more, watch our video featuring Kate Raworth, Ann Pettifor and Steve Keen and contribute to the campaign.