Pluralism in economics

The pluralism in economics movement is a campaign to 'enrich teaching and research and reinvigorate the discipline... [and bring] economics back into the service of society'. Dalen writes that economics had greater scientific pluralism in the past compared to the monist approach that is prevalent today. Pluralism encourages the inclusion of a wide variety of neoclassical and heterodox economic theories - including classical, Post-Keynesian, institutional, ecological, evolutionary economics, feminist, Marxist and Austrian, stating that "each tradition of thought adds something unique and valuable to economic scholarship."

The movement for pluralism can be traced to wider movements for progressive change in the 1960s and 1970s, with economists like Frank Stilwell and Steve Keen campaigning for pluralist and critical economics teaching at the University of Sydney 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. This petition described itself as a "plea for a pluralistic and rigorous economics" and was preceded by a commission of the American Economics Association, called ‘Report by the Commission on Graduate Education’. Many critics of mainstream economics began to describe themselves as proponents of pluralism; they formed groups or organizations such as The International Confederation of Associations for Reform in Economics (ICARE). Later, French students announced a "post-autistic economics" movement; a "rebellion" of students at the École Normale Supérieure happened in 2000; Cambridge University students organised a petition in 2001, and in 2011 the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism was formed, promoting pluralist thinking and pushing for curriculum reform within the university; FEED organised a plea in 2009 with over 2,000 signatures in the first month; In 2011 Harvard students organized a walkout from their Economic Principles class thereby objecting to the one-sided presentations of their professor Gregory Mankiw.Paul Krugman and Richard Layard organised a 'Manifesto For Economic Sense' in 2012; Post-Crash Economics Society Manchester published a petition in November 2013; UK student groups published a draft manifesto in April 2014; and at Manchester in April 2014, the economics department rejected a course devised by the Post-Crash Economics Society called 'Bubbles, Panics and Crashes: an Introduction to Alternative Theories of Crisis'. On May 5th 2014, economics students from 19 countries published an 'international student letter' and formed ISIPE, calling for 'a pluralism of theories and methods' so that economics students 'understand the broader social impacts and moral implications of economic decisions'.

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