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The pluralism in economics movement is a campaign to change the teaching and research in economics towards more openness in its approaches, topics and standpoints it considers. The goal of the movement is to "reinvigorate the discipline ... nd bringeconomics back into the service of society". Some have argued that economics had greater scientific pluralism in the past compared to the
monist Monism attributes oneness or singleness (Greek: μόνος) to a concept e.g., existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished: * Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., i ...
approach that is prevalent today. Pluralism encourages the inclusion of a wide variety of neoclassical and
heterodox In religion, heterodoxy (from Ancient Greek: , "other, another, different" + , "popular belief") means "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". Under this definition, heterodoxy is similar to unorthodoxy, w ...
economic theories—including classical,
Post-Keynesian Post-Keynesian economics is a school of economic thought with its origins in '' The General Theory'' of John Maynard Keynes, with subsequent development influenced to a large degree by Michał Kalecki, Joan Robinson, Nicholas Kaldor, Sidney ...
,
institutional Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
,
ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
,
evolutionary Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variati ...
,
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
, and
Austrian economics The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...
, stating that "each tradition of thought adds something unique and valuable to economic scholarship".


History

Critics of
mainstream economics Mainstream economics is the body of knowledge, theories, and models of economics, as taught by universities worldwide, that are generally accepted by economists as a basis for discussion. Also known as orthodox economics, it can be contrasted to ...
have called for a reform of the discipline in the past. The movement for pluralism can therefore be traced to wider movements for progressive change in the 1960s and 1970s, with economists like Frank Stilwell and
Steve Keen Steve Keen (born 28 March 1953) is an Australian economist and author. He considers himself a post-Keynesian, criticising neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific and empirically unsupported. The major influences on Keen's thinking ...
campaigning for pluralist and critical economics teaching at the
University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
in 1971. In 1992, a petition organised by Geoffrey Hodgson, Uskali Mäki, and Deirdre McCloskey was published as a paid advertisement in ''The American Economic Review''. The petition described itself as a "plea for a pluralistic and rigorous economics" and was preceded by a commission of the
American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...
entitled "Report by the Commission on Graduate Education". In 2000, students at the
École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...
protested and announced the creation of the post-autistic economics movement. Similarly, students at the University of Cambridge and University of Missouri-Kansas City organised petitions in 2001 and in 2011 the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism was formed to promote pluralist thinking and pushing for curriculum reform within the university. In 2009, the Foundation for European Economic Development (FEED) organised a plea for economic pluralism with over 2,000 signatures in the first month. In addition, the first Volume of the '' International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education'' was founded and published along with the ''Handbook for Pluralist Economics Education''. Economists
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was t ...
and
Richard Layard Peter Richard Grenville Layard, Baron Layard FBA (born 15 March 1934) is a British labour economist, currently working as programme director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Layard was Senior Research ...
organised a "Manifesto For Economic Sense" in 2012. The ''Post-Crash Economics Society Manchester'' published a petition in November 2013 and was involved in setting up Rethinking Economics. They also devised a course entitled "Bubbles, Panics and Crashes: an Introduction to Alternative Theories of Crisis", which the economic department rejected. Student groups in the United Kingdom published a draft manifesto in April 2014. On May 5, 2014, economics students from nineteen countries published an international student letter and formed the International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics. The students called for pluralism of theories and methods to provide economics students with an understanding of the broader social and moral implications of economic decisions.


See also

* Foundations of Real-World Economics * Foundation for European Economic Development *
Heterodox Economics Heterodox economics is any economic thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics.Frederic S. Lee, 2008. "heterodox economics," '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economic ...
*
History of economic thought History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
*
Humanistic economics Humanistic economics is a distinct pattern of economic thought with old historical roots that have been more recently invigorated by E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973). Proponents argue for "persons-fir ...
* International Student Initiative for Pluralist Economics * Post-autistic economics *
Real-world economics Real-world economics is a school of economics that uses an inductive method to understand economic processes. It approaches economics without making ''a priori'' assumptions about how ideal markets work, in contrast to what Nobel Prize-winning ec ...
* '' Real-world economics review'' * '' The Economics Anti-Textbook''


References

{{Reflist Philosophy of economics Economic methodology Schools of economic thought Pluralism (philosophy)