Issue 171 November 03, 2014 web pdf Heterodox Economics Directory
Last week, I got the saddening message that Frederic S. Lee, a strong voice of economic heterodoxy as well as the founding editor of this Newsletter, passed away on October 23. His death came much too early given Fred's tremendous efforts and enthusiasm in promoting heterodox economics and economic pluralism. He will be deeply missed by the community of heterodox economists.
In reaction to Fred's untimely passing a number of old friends, colleagues, students, and even those who have never met Fred have sent statements of mourning and retrospection (see here). You may have a look at Fred's obituary (written by Tae-Hee Jo). Personally, I also found his autobiographical essay to be very inspiring.
In spite of his untimely passing, I should point out that Fred's intellectual heritage will continue to flower. He left behind an impressive academic oeuvre as well as a whole generation of dedicated and well-trained heterodox economists, to whose education he contributed. Moreover, Tae-Hee Jo and Zdravka Todorovka are currently preparing a Festschrift dedicated to Fred's various areas of academic interest (publication is planned for 2015).
One way to honor Fred's efforts is to have a look at his publications. Since Fred was a vivid, versatile, highly prolific and very active author of scholarly publications anyone interested in heterodox economics may find some inspiration in his workings. There are some archival materials he wanted to share with us on his website. Additionally, you will also find two events related to Fred's heritage - one at SOAS on 22 November as well as a special session on Fred's work at the meeting of the Eastern Economic Association - in this issue of the Newsletter.
Finally and most importantly, Fred also set up a fund for heterodox scholarships, dedicated to financing PhD-studentships in the area of heterodox economics. If you want to honor Fred's attitude and efforts posthumously you may donate to this fund here.
In mourning,
Jakob
© public domain
23-24 June, 2015 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canad
Social economics is the study of the ethical and social causes and consequences of economic behavior, institutions, organizations, theory, and policy. Social economists engage in many types of research, from explorations of the history and philosophy of economics to quantitative and qualitative examinations of contemporary economic life; and from historical studies of economic activity and institutions to recommendations for policy agendas. The practice and meaning of social economics is continuously defined and redefined by these diverse research agendas. The 15th World Congress in Social Economics will afford us the opportunity to take stock of who we are as social economists and how our work advances our values and principles.
We welcome proposals for individual papers and complete sessions-conceptual, applied, and empirical-related to the theme of the conference as well as all areas of social economics. Some topics for discussion might include:
The deadline for submission is Friday, February 20, 2015. You will be notified by March 20, 205.
Abstract Submissions
To submit a proposal, please visit the Association for Social Economics website and upload an abstract of approximately 400 words. The submission site will become available in November 2014. Please include the title of the session or paper, the authors' names and institutional affiliations, and contact information in the form of an email address for the corresponding author. At least one author of each paper presented at the World Congress must be a member of the Association for Social Economics. To join, please visit this link.
Summer School in Social Economics
The Association for Social Economics announces an exciting Summer School workshop for graduate students and recent Ph.D.s. to be held in conjunction with the World Congress of Social Economics. Between 12-18 fellows will be selected to attend the Summer School as guests of ASE. The Summer School begins the evening of June 21 and continues on June 22, 2015. Fellows accepted to the Summer School will receive complementary room and meals for the Summer School and the World Congress, complementary registration to the World Congress, plus all Summer School materials.
Fellow Obligations: Accepted fellows must become members of ASE and submit a Summer School refundable deposit of $100 (that will be returned upon completion of the World Congress). All fellows must commit to participating in all sessions of the Summer School and to staying for the entire World Congress.
Elba Brown-Collier Best Student Paper Award
This award, sponsored by the Association for Social Economics (ASE), is presented at the World Congress for Social Economics to the author of the best paper by a graduate student on a topic in social economics, also demonstrating strong promise for future scholarly contributions. Professors (or others who have completed their graduate degrees) cannot be coauthors.
To be eligible for the award, the student author must register for the conference and present his/her paper. Please submit your paper proposal through the regular submission process described above, indicating that you wish it to be considered for the prize. Following notification of acceptance in March, the full paper should be submitted for consideration by May 20, 2015. The status of each author must be clearly stipulated (MA student, PhD student, etc.) For consideration, the paper should be no longer than 8,000 words.
The Elba Brown-Collier Award Committee, composed of members of the Association for Social Economics, will adjudicate the submitted papers. The winner of the Elba Brown-Collier Best Student Paper Award for 2015 receives $400 USD + One year's membership in ASE which includes subscriptions to Review of Social Economy and Forum for Social Economics.
10-12 April 2015 | Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
The Society for Pluralistic Economics Vienna at the University of Economics and Business Vienna is pleased to announce:
Call for Papers for the 1st Vienna Conference on Pluralism in Economics
The scope of the conference is rooted in the increasing importance of theoretical and methodological pluralism in economics. As the complexity of real world issues regarding economics requires multiple perspectives – to avoid one-sidedness and intellectual stagnation – a renewed understanding of economics has to be pluralistic. Multiple claims towards pluralism, like the open-letter by the international student initiative ISIPE, have been launched to reinvigorate the debate within the discipline. The purpose of this conference is twofold: to contribute to this effort and further develop relevant concepts and approaches for economics.
The following topics will therefore be at the core at the conference:
Specific contributions may be in the fields of e.g. environment, wealth, power, distribution, labour, or financial markets. Further, we highly welcome inter- and transdisciplinary approaches; more than one approach in one contribution is possible but not necessary but not necessary. All theoretical assumptions should be explicitly reflected upon within the submissions. More information on the scientific sessions is provided online.
Advanced students are highly encouraged to participate. Submissions with a strong focus on the role of pluralism in economics will be invited to contribute to a publication.
Abstract for Application: 300-500 words. Final Submission: either extended abstract 4-6 pages, or full paper of max. 12 pages.
Submission deadline for abstracts: 11.01.15.
Questions to: conference@plurale-oekonomik.at
Registration is available here. More information is available on the conference website.
16-18 July, 2015 | Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany
Conference Theme: Gender Equality in Challenging Times
The 2015 IAFFE conference theme, “Gender Equality in Challenging Times” is intended to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue on how feminist economics contributes to the many challenges we face throughout the world. These challenges include economic crises, austerity policies in European countries, the transformation of the welfare state, care crisis, social challenges in emerging economies, and employment and migration around the world. Other important themes include comparative studies of social welfare policy, domestic violence, feminist ecology, the intersectional analysis of race, ethnicity and gender, and sex work. Panel proposals and individual paper submissions are invited on any aspect of feminist inquiry into economic issues. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome.
Submissions: Proposals must be submitted on-line via the IAFFE website beginning in January 2015. Submissions can be made for roundtables, panels or individual papers. Participants are limited to one paper presentation and one roundtable or appearance on a panel. Additional coauthored papers are allowed only if they are presented by the co-author. These limitations will allow maximum participation by all members wishing to participate.
Deadline for Submission: April 4, 2015. Notification of Acceptance will begin starting March 1, 2015.
Please see the IAFFE website for further information and detailed submission guidelines.
12-14 July, 2015 | Alphacrucis College in Parramatta, Sydney
The History of Economic Thought Society of Australia will hold its 28 conference in Sydney, at , 12-14 July 2015. The conference will begin with a late afternoon reception Sunday 12 July and will run until Tuesday 14 July, finishing with the conference dinner that evening.
The keynote speaker for our conference will be Margaret Schabas from University of British Columbia. She will participate in our panel on the future of the history of economics in Australia and give a keynote address on her recent work on the economics of David Hume. A number of other distinguished local and international speakers have already been secured, including Deirdre McCloskey and the new editor of JHET Stephen Meardon.
Further details are available on the conference website.
Call for Papers
Submission of sessions comprising three papers, or a single paper to be allocated to a session by the organiser, are welcome. The history of economics will be interpreted broadly, and historical papers on both mainstream and heterodox economics are welcome. Early submission of papers is encouraged and submissions of abstracts and/or full papers may be made at any time until May 2014. Submissions will be refereed on a rolling basis, with a view to decisions on papers as soon as possible after submission. Full papers have a greater probability of being accepted, especially from less established scholars. We do not generally have discussants, finding that open question time leads to more vigorous and fruitful exchanges.
This year we hope to have more scholars from related disciplines such as the history and philosophy of science, business history, sociology, and the history of ideas presenting papers.
Submissions from younger scholars and women are particularly welcome. Please email submissions to paul.oslington@ac.edu.au
Registration:
Organiser
Professor Paul Oslington, Alphacrucis College, Email: paul.oslington@ac.edu.au
10-13 September, 2015 | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
While economic development depends on investment and technology, it is now widely accepted that appropriate political, legal, economic and other social institutions have also to be in place. But there is less agreement on what those institutions (broadly defined as systems of established social rules) may be, especially at different stages of the process of economic development. There are also ongoing debates about whether globalization is leading to institutional convergence, or whether national institutional diversity can be maintained.
We invite you to participate in the Second WINIR Conference that will bring together scholars from multiple disciplines and theoretical approaches to help develop the ongoing conversation about these and other vital institutional issues.
The conference will be held in the Hotel Windsor Atlantica, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It will start on the afternoon of 10 September and end on the evening of 12 September with a gala dinner. There will be an optional tour on 13 September.
Abstract submissions from any discipline (300 words max.) are welcome. All submissions must be explicitly about institutions (or organisations) and/or institutional thought. Submissions should be made online at www.winir.org.
Abstracts will be evaluated by the WINIR Scientific Quality Committee: Peter Boettke (George Mason, economics), Simon Deakin (Cambridge, law), Geoff Hodgson (Hertfordshire, economics), Timur Kuran (Duke, economics), Uskali Mäki (Helsinki, philosophy), Katharina Pistor (Columbia, law), Sven Steinmo (EUI, politics), Wolfgang Streeck (Max Planck Institute Cologne, sociology).
27-28 June, 2015 | University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
The abstract submission deadline has been extended to 21 November 2014.
In the current global and domestic economic crisis, the financial aspects of close personal and familial relationships have become more important and more strained than ever before.Many European countries and across the world are currently facing a time of financial crisis. This has supposedly brought with it a need for austerity in order to ride out the crisis. We have thus seen a reduction in public spending which in turn has led to a tightening of fiscal policies and an immediate impact upon the provision of welfare benefits and public service provision. The financial crisis has also led to other concerns such as unemployment, stagnation of incomes, access to credit, indebtedness, homelessness, etc.In such times of austerity, it is often the vulnerable in society, and particularly women, who bear the brunt of spending cuts. We aim to initiate a critical interdisciplinary dialogue to explore and interrogate the impact of austerity on households as well as the scope and effect of existing public policies and legal and regulatory measures on families and their financial circumstances. The plenary speakers include: Professor Mary Evans (LSE); Professor Suzanne Soederberg (Queen’s, Canada); and Professor Rebecca Tunstall (York).
Submissions from a broad range of disciplines including law, sociology, social policy, economics, psychology, geography and gender studies are welcome for any of the following four thematic streams:
Conference organisers: Simone Wong, Ruth Cain and Serena Natile (Kent Law School) and Julia Gumy (Bristol)
Submission of abstracts: Interested scholars are kindly asked to send an abstract of 200-300 words to: Kentausterityconference@kent.ac.uk
Detailed CfP is available here.
February 26 – March 1, 2015 | New York Sheraton Hotel at Times Square, NYC, US
AFEE/ASE/URPE are co-organizing special joint sessions at the 2015 Eastern Economic Association meetings in honor and memory of our friend and colleague Professor Frederic Lee. The meetings will be held in NYC, February 26-March 1, 2015. We invite individual papers and complete sessions for these sessions. Fred Lee’s contributions to heterodox economics was vast, spanning from price theory, heterodox microeconomics, heterodox microfoundations of macroeconomics, history of heterodox economics, production theory, critical realism, and grounded theory.
The deadline for proposal submissions for these special sessions has been extended to November 21, 2014. Please submit your paper or session proposal to Michael J. Murray (mmurray@bemidjistate.edu) and Robert Scott (rscott@monmouth.edu). Please indicate at time of submission that you would like your paper/session to be included in the Fred Lee special sessions.
11-13 September, 2015 | Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan
The fourth ESHET-JSHET Conference will take place in Otaru, Hokkaido (Japan) on 11-13 September 2015. Like the former conferences organized by ESHET and JSHET, it aims at bringing together researchers from Europe, Japan and other parts of the world in order to discuss new research and exchange ideas on the history of economic thought.
The main theme of the conference will be “War in the history of economic thought: the economists and the question of war”. At the very time when many countries in the world are reflecting on the lessons of the World Wars on the occasion of the 100 anniversary of the beginning of WWI in 1914 and the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in 1945, we are today once again witnessing a rapid deterioration of relations between countries and a worrying increase of conflict in several parts of the world. While in the past a reflection on war has not been a permanent or main theme of debates, economists did have to deal with all the questions raised by wars. They discussed whether the expansion of trade could prevent wars — the “doux commerce” thesis at the end of the XVIII century — or how to organize a war economy, or how return to peace. Keynes’ Economic Consequences of the Peace and How to pay for the war are among the most celebrated examples of this literature.
The present conference proposes to rediscover, analyse and discuss reflections of this kind. The main — but by no means exclusive — themes could be the following: (i) How to organize a war economy? (ii) How to pay for the war? (iii) War and the plundering of the enemy’s resources. (iv) War economy and economic planning. (v) War, employment and the labour force. (vi) The problems of a transition to peace. (vii) The economic consequences of the payment of reparations. (viii) The lessons from the war and the return to liberalism; (ix) the policies of the winners in occupied countries; (x) How to avoid wars?
Proposals (abstracts of a maximum of 450 words) should be sent simultaneously to Susumu Egashira (husserl4@gmail.com) and Gilbert Faccarello (gilbert.faccarello@u-paris2.fr).
Important deadlines
Organizing Committee
Steering Committee
26-27 April, 2015 | Vienna, Austria
Organised by the Institute for Human Sciences
In April 2014, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (www.iwm.at) launched a long-term comparative research project on the history of economic thought under communism, directed by Janos Matyas Kovacs. The project covers nine countries (Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) on which sizeable national monographs will be prepared.
We cordially invite junior researchers (up to 35 years of age) to submit research proposals to be presented at a project workshop that will take place in Vienna in April 2015. As our research project is not confined to the economic context of the evolution of economic ideas but also focuses on the political, social and cultural conditions of that evolution, we welcome submissions from young scholars working in various fields of economics and history-writing. The proposals may discuss both general (methodological) aspects of the history of economic thought under communism and selected authors, themes, countries or periods.
Deadline for Submissions: December 31, 2014
Date of the workshop: April 26-27, 2015 (Please note that this date is subject to confirmation.)
A jury consisting of principal researchers of the project will select the best proposals by January 31, 2015. Upon successful presentation at the workshop, the authors may be invited to join one of the national research teams.
Please send your proposals (no more than 2000 words) as well as your CV and list of publications to the project coordinator, Christina Pössel (poessel@iwm.at).
See the detailed call for proposals on the IWM's website.
26-29 June, 2015 | Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, US
The Annual History of Economics Society Conference for 2015 will be held in June at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. The conference will begin with an opening reception on Friday, June 26 and will end mid-day on Monday, June 29. Those wishing to present a paper should send the title, an abstract (not more than 200 words), and authors’ names and contact information to: hes2015@econ.msu.edu
Proposals for complete sessions are welcome, and should be sent to me at the same address. You may also contact me at this address if you have any questions about the conference.
For those coming to the conference from Europe, there are direct flights to Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) from a number of major European cities, and several connecting flights from Detroit to Lansing each day. There is also a reliable luxury coach bus service running throughout the day from Detroit Airport to the Michigan State campus. A conference web site will be opened in due course with more details on the conference schedule, travel options, and links through which to register for the conference and lodging. There will be a low cost dormitory housing option plus two hotels with which conference rates have been arranged.
Young Scholars Program
The HES provides special support for up to ten Warren J. and Sylvia J. Samuels Young Scholars to present papers at the conference, in the form of free registration, banquet and reception tickets, and a year's membership in the society. Five of the Young Scholars awardees will also receive funds to help cover travel and accommodation costs. If you wish to have your paper considered for the Young Scholars program, please provide details of the date of your last degree (or your current graduate student status) when submitting your paper proposal to hes2015@econ.msu.edu, and indicate that you wish to be considered for the Samuels Young Scholars program. A Young Scholar must currently be a PhD candidate, or have been awarded a PhD in the 2 years preceding the conference. The deadline for application is March 1.
More information is coming soon.
21-23 May, 2015 | Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany
Conference Theme: Good Life beyond Growth
The Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany, and the Max-Weber-Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies in Erfurt are jointly organizing a high-profile international conference on the Good Life beyond Growth from May 21-23, 2015 at the University of Jena. The conference seeks to connect current empirical research on the patterns of economic growth, social inequality, and the ecological crises, with normative questions of the good life raised by scholars from philosophy, sociology, economics and psychology. We bring together leading experts from different fields from all over the world to discuss the perspectives, requirements and contours of the "Good life beyond Growth". Among the confirmed speakers are Eva Illouz and Tim Jackson. It is the summit-conference of the first four years of the Research-consortium on the prospects and outlines of a Post-growth-society (see www.kolleg-postwachstum.de). In this call for papers we wish to encourage both junior and senior researchers to contribute to our discussion. The following research fields are in the focus of our interest:
a) Conceptual Foundations
In this research field we explore where our various "concepts of the good" are coming from. How are they legitimated, and in which way are they connected to ideas of economic growth or experiences of an ever-expanding lifestyle? Which alternative ideas or cultural traditions may contribute to a good life beyond economic growth, respectively? And how could these ideas be defended against charges of essentialism, paternalism, particularism or esotericism? Can we conceive of criteria for a good life that no longer measure it in the range of mere options and the availability of resources? How do these ideas fit together with ethical pluralism, especially from a global perspective?
b) Social Conditions
The end in view is more or less straightforward: we wish to diminish the consumption of resource-intense consumer goods and our reliance on wasteful and destructive technologies; we want to live as equals in peaceful and solidary societies; we would like to reduce the stress of our working lives and have more time for a meaningful and fulfilling life with friends and family; and finally we hope to achieve a greater harmony with nature. It is much more contested, however, which are the right political measures to be taken in order to get there. Therefore, this section of the conference aims to explore which political, economic and social conditions may contribute to a good life for all - beyond growth. For example: How can we overcome global problems of poverty, disease and injustice without relying on a paradigm of economic growth and 'development'? Can we conceive of alternative indicators which could be used to head in a different direction? Does the growing body of research on happiness teach us anything about that, or where else can we turn to gain valuable knowledge about these thorny issues?
c) Subjective Dimensions
Finally, it needs to be asked which experiences and practices could be called upon in order to argue for a good life beyond growth. In which way do the increasing complaints about burnouts and depressions refer to pressures resulting from the growth-imperative? How deep does the specific 'subjectivation' reach that goes along with the current regime of growth? What dissenting experiences, for example of a 'resonance' with art, nature, or self, could be named in order to confront claims of a vanity of individual resistance? Which existing practices do already work in such a direction, and how do we escape the ideological trap of endorsing a merely adaptive shift towards anti-emancipatory coping strategies and compensatory imaginaries?
Researchers are invited to send an abstract (1 page/600 words max., as doc.file) per Email to Michael.Hofman@uni-jena.de and Christoph.Henning@uni-erfurt.de by Dezember 15th. Please specify your discipline and which research field (a, b, or c) you target.
You can download the detailed CfP as PDF here.
28-31 May, 2015 | Pittsburgh, USA
The LERA Program Committee has issued a call for session and paper proposals for stimulating, creative, and controversial symposia related to this theme as well as other proposals that deal with topics of current interest and the mission of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA).
We encourage submissions from the perspectives of multiple disciplines – including but not limited to economics, sociology, political science, labor and employment law, industrial relations, and human resource studies – and the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including investors, managers, workers and unions. Session proposals for only academic symposia will be considered.
Quicklinks:
Those wishing to submit single papers rather than sessions are welcome to submit those as well, and details can be found online at the page listed above.
Proposals must be submitted or reach the LERA Office no later than November 15, 2014.
Contact LERAoffice@illinois.edu if you have any questions.
LERA 67 Annual Meeting Program Committee:
Martin Mulloy, LERA President and Program Chair
Paul Clark, Pennsylvania State University
Jonathan Donehower, Kaiser Permanente
Lisa Ewing, United Auto Workers
Fred Foulkes, Boston University
Cyndi Furseth, Portland General Electric
Marlene Heyser, Workplace Law Strategies
Eileen Hoffman, Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service
Larry “Chip” Hunter, University of Wisconsin
Mingwei Liu, Rutgers University
Lisa Lynch, Brandeis University
Revea Moran, US Government Accountability Office
Chris Tilly, University of California, Los Angeles
Michael Wasser, Jobs With Justice
Marc Winters, Alternative Dispute Resolution Services
Series Editor: Carol M Connell
Editorial Board: Sheila Dow, Nicolai Foss, Marc Lavoie, Gary Mongiovi, Joseph Salerno& Ulrich Witt
Keynesian, evolutionary, Sraffian and Austrian economists offer different interpretations and solutions to the problems facing the world economy today. An active stream of research and publication exists in these camps, as well as a growing interest in relating macroeconomic issues to the growth of the firm and the respective roles of firms and governments. This series brings together historical and contemporary studies to address the problems facing the world economy from an interdisciplinary perspective.
We are pleased to announce that you can now read the introductions to our first published titles *free* on the series webpage, and download the eBooks: Money as Organization, Gustavo Del Vecchio's Theory by Gianfranco Tusset(2014) and Financial Crisis and the Failure of Economic Theory by Angel Rodriguez, Jorge Turmo and Oscar Vara(2014).
You can also find out about our forthcoming titles: "The Birth of Economics as a Social Science, The Invisible Hand of Power, and The Problem of Production".
We are always happy to discuss new monograph ideas. Please get in touch with the Series Editoror contact Sophie Rudland, Commissioning Assistant: srudland@pickeringchatto.co.uk. You can also follow Sophie on twitter @CommissioningSR
More information is available here.
8-10 July, 2015 | International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland
The Conference theme is: Developing and Implementing Policies for a Better Future at Work
The Conference is organized by the International Labour Office (ILO) in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), the University of Melbourne Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law (CELRL), the University of Manchester Fairness at Work Research Centre Research Centre (FaWRC) and the University of Duisburg-Essen Institut Arbeit und Qualifikation (IAQ).
The pre-crisis socio-economic model has failed. Unemployment -particularly youth unemployment -is destructively high,precarious work is expanding,growing numbers of workers are found among the working poor, andan evolving awareness ofinequalityhas galvanisedpolicy debates across the globe. Yet the reforms in policies and institutions that would counteract these trends have yet to materialise. This policy failurehastriggered a broader uneaseabout the future of work. To design policies that could transform this future,however,demands furtherinvestigation of complexand intersectingissues thatincludethe roleof labour regulation in development strategies;thedisproportionatepresence of vulnerable workers (e.g. youth, women, minorities, migrant workers) inunacceptable forms of work (UFW);the most effective strategies for protecting workersin fragmented labour markets,curbing income inequality and reducing informality;and the long-run impact of austerity policies.
The 4thRDW Conference will investigate key dimensions of the future of work. Papers are invited thatfocus on four thematic issues: (I) Worker protection:wages, hours, and the employment relationship; (II) Income security in the era of widening inequality –labour income, social protection, and well-being; (III) Labour market regulation and development –political economy of policy reforms and their outcomes;and(IV) Reaching out to vulnerable workers: voice, actions, and the role of collective labour relations
The deadline for abstract submission is 31 January 2015 (31 December 2014 for RDW Fellowship applicants).
Abstracts should be submitted to the conference website.
For further details see the entire Call for Abstracts.
The Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE) turns 50 in 2018. To celebrate this achievement, we are soliciting articles for a special issue on URPE and radical economics: its past, legacy and future. Such articles could address any of the following subjects; the list is not exhaustive, and we welcome papers that address other aspects of the topic.
Questions on this special issue may be sent to: Marlene Kim; email: Marlene.Kim@umb.edu.
Manuscript submission deadline: September 30, 2015
We encourage contacting her regarding your interest in submission to ensure covering the important areas and topics for this issue.
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Got photos, documents, videos, recordings, or other memorabilia around URPE’s founding or existence?
Please contact Hazel (email: Hg18@cornell.edu). We have an URPE archive and you can either donate this material or make it available for the 50 celebration in 2018.
Submissions may be sent via mail (in Microsoft Word for PC format) or via standard post to:
Submissions must conform to the Instructions to Contributors listed in each issues of the RRPE, on the RRPE section of the URPE website, or available from the Managing Editor. All submissions are subject to peer review procedures and must not be under review under any other publications.
Date TBA | University of Ottawa, US
Proposal/Call for Papers for a Session on: Long Waves of Marxist Political Economy?
Session Organizer: Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Innovations in Marxist Political Economy seem to loosely coincide with the long waves or phases of capital accumulation. About three decades after Marx analyzed the dialectic between accumulation, crisis and the making of industrial working classes in Western Europe, Hilferding, Luxemburg, and Lenin asked whether capitalist development was limited by the world’s conquest by capitalist powers and whether this would advance or hinder working class struggles in the capitalist centres. Another three to four decades later, Marxists from Amin to Mandel and Baran and Sweezy thought to understand the unexpected prosperity in the postwar West, the possibilities of anti-colonial revolutions in the South and the role of Soviet Communism in stabilizing or destabilizing the capitalist world-system. More recently, Harvey, Silver and Gindin and Panitch, among others, tried to assess the possibilities and limits of neoliberal globalization that followed the era of welfare capitalism, developmentalism and Soviet communism, respectively. Crises and stagnation of global capitalism from the US housing crisis through the Euro-Crisis and until today triggered renewed interest in Marxism in general and Marxist political economy in particular.
This session invites paper speaking to the following questions:
19-20 March, 2015 | University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
One and half day workshop for doctoral and early-career researchers hosted by the Centre for Global Political Economy & STEPS Centre.
Theme: Critical Perspectives on the Financialisation of Nature – Theory, Politics and Practice
Carbon markets in China, fishery bycatch offsetting in Canada, catastrophe bonds in the US, weather derivatives in Ethiopia, betting on species extinction such as Norwegian sharks...
These are just a few examples of the commodification, marketisation and financialisation of nature. In what ways can we best make sense of these developments? What practical, political and theoretical innovations will allow us to better understand them, engage with them and contest them?
We invite participants from any discipline to a 1.5 day intensive workshop bringing together doctoral and early career researchers to discuss, theorise and critically reflect on the practical and political implications of the commodification, marketisation and financialisation of nature. Papers should focus on questions including (but not limited to):
Participants will be required to submit full papers in advance of the workshop and are expected to read each other’s work beforehand to enable in-depth engagement with one another’s arguments. The sessions will be chaired by academics working in the field who will also provide feedback on papers. Moreover, the workshop will bring together activists and academics for a panel discussion, reflecting on the interlinkages between activism and research on the financialisation of nature.
Please send abstracts of up to 300 words to FoNconference2015@sussex.ac.uk by December 5th, 2014.
Successful applicants will be informed before December 31st. Full papers are expected by February 15th, 2015.
Registration is free and food will be provided. We have some funding for accommodation and travel for a limited number of doctoral researchers. Details about applying for this funding will be sent out once abstracts have been selected.
For further information about the event go the conference website.
Special issue of tripleC: "Communication, Capitalism & Critique"
Abstract submission deadline: January 15, 2015
Guest editors: Vasilis Kostakis, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia), P2P Lab (Greece); Andreas Roos, Human Ecology Division, Lund University (Sweden)
With an escalating environmental crisis and an unprecedented increase of ICT diversity and use, it is more crucial than ever to understand the underlying material aspects of the ICT infrastructure. This special issue therefore asks the question: What are the true material and socio-environmental costs of the global ICT infrastructure?
In a recent paper (Fuchs 2013) as well as in the book Digital Labour and Karl Marx (Fuchs 2014), Christian Fuchs examined the complex web of production relations and the new division of digital labour that makes possible the vast and cheap ICT infrastructure as we know it. The analysis partly revealed that ICT products and infrastructure can be said to embody slave-like and other extremely harsh conditions that perpetually force mine and assembly workers into conditions of dependency. Expanding this argument, the WWF reported (Reed and Miranda 2007) that mining in the Congo basin poses considerable threats to the local environment in the form of pollution, the loss of biodiversity, and an increased presence of business-as-usual made possible by roads and railways. Thus ICTs can be said to be not at all immaterial because the ICT infrastructure under the given economic conditions can be said to embody as its material foundations slave-like working conditions, various class relations and undesirable environmental consequences.
At the same time, the emerging digital commons provide a new and promising platform for social developments, arguably enabled by the progressive dynamics of ICT development. These are predominantly manifested as commons-based peer production, i.e., a new mode of collaborative, social production (Benkler 2006); and grassroots digital fabrication or community-driven makerspaces, i.e., forms of bottom-up, distributed manufacturing. The most well known examples of commons-based peer production are the free/open source software projects and the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia. While these new forms of social organisation are immanent in capitalism, they also have the features to challenge these conditions in a way that might in turn transcend the dominant system (Kostakis and Bauwens 2014).
Following this dialectical framing, we would like to call for papers for a special issue of tripleC that will investigate how we can understand and balance the perils and promises of ICTs in order to make way for a just and sustainable paradigm. We seek scholarly articles and commentaries that address any of the following themes and beyond. We also welcome experimental formats, especially photo essays, which address the special issue's theme.
Suggested themes
References
Benkler, Yochai. 2006. The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fuchs, Christian. 2014. Digital labour and Karl Marx. New York: Routledge. Fuchs, Christian. 2013. Theorising and analysing digital labour: From global value chains to modes of production. The Political Economy of Communication 1 (2): 3-27. http://www.polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/view/19. Kostakis, Vasilis and Michel Bauwens. 2014. Network society and future scenarios for a collaborative economy. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Reed, Erik and Marta Miranda. 2007. Assessment of the mining sector and infrastructure development in the congo basin region. Washington DC: World Wildlife Fund, Macroeconomics for Sustainable Development Program Office, 27. http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/congobasinmining.pdf
Schedule
More information is available here.
26.07. - 02.08, 2015 | Berlin, IG Metall Bildungszentrum Berlin Pichelssee
Organised by the Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FMM), IMK in der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung
The summer school aims at providing an introduction to post-Keynesian economics and to the problems of European economic policies as well as presenting some ongoing research to interested graduate students (MA and PhD) and junior researchers. It will consist of overview lectures, a panel discussion, student study groups and academic papers. The summer school will feature leading international researchers in the area, like Thomas I. Palley (US), Marc Lavoie (Canada), Eckhard Hein (Germany), Engelbert Stockhammer (UK), Steve Fazzari (US), Gennaro Zezza (Italy), and Özlem Onaran (UK), covering the following areas:
Language is English. There is a fee of EUR 100,- for each participant for accommodation and meals. Travelling costs cannot be covered. Accepted participants will be asked to pay the fee ahead of the summer school.
Application: Please proceed with your application through the application form is available here.
Deadline for applications:
The application form will be active beginning 30 October 2014 and deadline for applications is 15 March, 2015.
Applicants will be informed by mid-April and accepted participants will be provided with a reading package for the summer school.
More information on the research network and the summer school is available here.
Contact:
A detailed call for applications is available here.
12 November, 2014 | St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, UK
Rushmore Room: Robert Skidelsky: The Myth of Austerity's Success.
Seminars take place on Wednesdays from 6 pm - 7.30 pm at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.
ROBERT SKIDELSKY is emeritus professor of political economy at Warwick University. His three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes 1983,1992, 2000) won five prizes and his book on the financial crisis. "Keynes: The Return of the Master" was published in September 2010. He was made a member of the House of Lords in 1991 (he sits on the cross-benches) and elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1994. 'How Much is Enough? The Love of Money and the Case for the Good Life', co-written with his son Edward, was published in July 2012.
CONTENT: In this seminar, Robert Skidelsky will point out that the current political debate between 'unfair' Tory cuts and 'fair' Labour cuts completely misses the macroeconomic point. Cutting public spending in a depression is wrong in theory and has delayed the recovery in practice. Skidelsky will explain why George Osborne's 2010 promise to balance the budget in 5 years will leave a deficit of over 70bn; and will argue that the only way to bring the government's accounts back into balance is through a programme of public investment.
A listing of previous speakers and their topics can be found here.
Saturday 22 November 2014 | Khalili Lecture Theatre, Main Building, SOAS, Russell Square, London
Organised by the Department of Economics of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in the honour of Professor Frederic S. Lee.
Professor Frederic Lee has been an active promoter of heterodox economics movements over the past 30 years with a major institutional contribution towards the development of heterodox economics in United Kingdom. He played a major role in establishing the Association for Heterodox Economics, founded and edited the Heterodox Economics Newsletter, edited the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, has been actively involved in heterodox associations such as AFEE, AFIT, AHE, ASE, EAEPE, HES, ICAPE, URPE, and so on.
This event will celebrate his activities towards establishing a truly heterodox and pluralist community of economists and not least his theoretical contributions towards developing foundations for heterodox economics.
Fred and his wife, Ruth, have recently established the Heterodox Economics Scholarship Fund, which is designed to financially support doctoral heterodox economics students. The Scholarship is open to all doctoral students studying in a heterodox economics program, although currently preference is given to UMKC doctoral students due to the limited amount of funds.
To make a contribution to the Frederic S. Lee Heterodox Economics Scholarship Fund, visit here (minimum donation of £16).
To learn more about the Fund, visit here.
You can also make a contribution to the Fund by purchasing Fred’s books and journals. For more information, visit here.
If you wish to attend the event, please complete the registration form form by Wednesday 12 of November 2014.
Program
Including messages from Ben Fine, Tae Hee- Jo and Zdravka Todorova, Erik Olsen and Steve Keen
Reception
7 November, 2014 | University of Bath (UK), Department of Social and Policy Science, UK
Theme: The Transformation of Latin American Social Policy: Dynamics, Institutions and Outcomes
The Transformation of Latin American Social Policy: Dynamics, Institutions and Outcomes hosted by the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy (CASP) at the University of Bath. Our conference brings together leading scholars to discuss social and politico-economic dynamics, reform models, institutional architectures and major outcomes of Latin American social policy, and to discern the policy tools that appear to offer the stronger potential of combating poverty and inequality. Papers selected for presentation cover a wide range of policy areas, comparative and country case studies and diverse methodological approaches.
The call for papers in now closed but registration is open for a limited number of places, on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Please e-mail the IPR to register your place in the following address: ipr@bath.ac.uk
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Conference organizers Dr. Theo Papadopoulos and Mr. Ricardo Velazquez Leyer (Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath)
For further queries, please contact Ricardo Velazquez Leyer at r.velazquez.leyer@bath.ac.uk or visit the conference website.
10-11 November, 2014 | Amsterdam, Netherlands
The global financial system has evolved into a vastly complex architecture over the past decades. Our understanding of its inner workings are limited, and often incoherent, and the policy responses inadequate.
The global financial crisis has exposed a dangerous overreliance on a narrow set of tools and views on the financial sector (i.e. DSGE models in economics, risk assessment models in finance), leading to crucialblind spots and misconceptions in our understanding of global financial architecture and its fault lines.
The major central banks around the world have since been in uncharted territory in their attempt to reinstitute financial stability andhelp the overall economy recover. The road ahead is unclear, and new economic thinking for the evolving global financial system is needed. This conference intends to bring young scholars, central bankers and researchers together in exploring promising new frameworks for conceptualizing the financial system and better reflect today’s realities.
This conference is kindly hosted by the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and generously supported by the University of Groningen’s faculty of Economics and Business.
Organizers: Young Scholars Initiative, INET Financial Stability Research Program, JongDNB
Location: De Nederlandsche Bank, Westeinde 1, Amsterdam
Click here to view the program.
To participate in the conference, please register here.
Accommodation: If you are looking for reasonably priced place to stay, we recommend Stayokay Vondelpark. Since the organizing committee will be staying here this will be the meeting spot for any social gatherings in the evenings.
More information is available on the conference website.
You are warmly invited to this year’s London Latin America Seminar Series (LLASS). Under the guiding theme of "Crisis and Ideologies of Domination”, the seminar provides a space for the exploration of up and coming interdisciplinary research in the region, including work from advanced doctoral students and early career scholars. The seminar series is organised by postgraduate students from anthropology departments at UCL, LSE, and Goldsmiths in conjunction with ILAS. It is open to the public and we encourage anyone with an interest in Latin America to attend.
When? Fortnightly.
Venue: All seminars take place at ILAS, room 246 (second floor of Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU)
Upcoming seminars for the first semester of academic year 2014-2015:
Contact details
Convenors:
ILAS Coordinador:
Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/london-latin-american-seminar-series-llass
The online conference organised by the World Economics Association on ‘Greece and austerity policies - Where next for its economy and society?’ is now open for comments and discussion.
The Discussion Forum is on line and text based. Comments from economists, economic historians, sociologists and political scientists are welcome. All papers and comments will be attributed and can be referenced. It is hoped that this will encourage commentators to make novel points leading to possible development of the research topic. The editors of the WEA journals may offer publication to some conference papers on the basis of their own judgement. They may also consider – in consultation with the conference leaders – a special issue of their journal based on selected papers from the conference.
The Discussion Forum may be accessed through this link and ends on 21 December, 2014.
The Conference Leaders
Dear All,
Castleton State College, in Vermont, is very much in need of someone with at least a Masters' degree in Economics to teach two sections of introductory micro this coming spring semester, starting in January.
Castleton is a small state college located about 10 miles west of Rutland, VT, near the New York state border. It is accessible by bus or train. Admittedly it is a long distance from major population centers , but if necessary we could arrange to schedule the classes once a week back to back on the same day.
Economics here is taught as part of a multi-discipline department, comprising History, Geography, Environmental Studies, and Political Science along with Economics. We are particularly interested in someone coming from a “heterodox” perspective, but still able to teach the standard course, albeit more broadly and critically. Currently we are using the Goodwin, et all. text, Microeconomics in Context, but our instructors do have the freedom to select their own textbooks. The atmosphere here is friendly, collegial, and politically congenial. This adjunct position potentially could continue part-time for as long as the person wishes, certainly in the spring, and very possibly also in the fall.
I would ask anyone who decides to apply to also let me know, and of course I can answer any questions anyone might have.
Here is the notice from our website:
"Castleton College seeks qualified part-time faculty for Spring 2015 to teach two sections of a microeconomics principles course. Heterodox approaches to economic theory are very welcome.
Minimum requirements: Master’s degree in Economics. (PhD or ABD is preferred.) Additionally, college-level teaching experience in Economics is strongly preferred. Castleton places a special value on the teaching roles of its faculty, and candidates for this position will be evaluated principally on the basis of their potential to be outstanding teachers and colleagues. Questions about the position may be directed to Judy Robinson, Economics Coordinator.
Interviews will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. The spring semester begins January 12, 2015 and end May 8. To apply, please send a letter of application, CV, unofficial transcripts, and a completed Castleton employment application (available online at www.castleton.edu)
Please feel free to share or forward this announcement, and/or contact me if you have any questions.
Thanks, Judy Robinson
Job Title: Assistant Professor in Political Economy
JEL Classifications: B4 -- Economic Methodology; B5 -- Current Heterodox Approaches
Keywords: B41 Economic Methodology; B5 Current Heterodox Approaches; B51 Socialist, Marxian, Sraffian economics
Hobart and William Smith Colleges have an anticipated Assistant Professor (tenure track) position for Fall 2015. Ph.D. preferred. We require a specialization in political economy (emphasis in comparative theory and method in economics, especially Marxian economics). Teaching responsibilities are five courses annually: typically 1-2 sections of principles, a political economy core course, radical political economy, and possible elective course(s) in the candidate’s field. One of the five courses could be in the Colleges’ interdisciplinary programs or general education areas.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges are committed to attracting and supporting a faculty of women and men that fully represent the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the nation and actively seek applications from under-represented groups. The Colleges do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation or any other protected status.
Applicants should send a cover letter, C.V., statement of teaching philosophy, teaching evaluations, graduate transcripts, and three letters of recommendation.
Applications must be received by December 1, 2014 to be guaranteed full consideration but will be accepted until the position is filled. Interviews will be conducted at the Allied Social Science Associations meetings in Boston, January, 2015.
Detailed information and application form is available here.
Job Title: Assistant Professor in Economics
In the Economics Department at the University of Denver we emphasize the understanding of the workings of the social apparatus which governs the production and distribution of goods and services and of how economic theories have developed over time to address the topic covered in economics. Our faculty have a somewhat broader view of what economics is about than is found in the average economics program in the U.S. We present alternative perspectives on the historical and present-day relevance of our material. We encourage students not to take in received knowledge as the truth but to examine it and question it. Our approach lends itself quite readily to emphasizing the importance of writing and critical thinking as well as of quantitative skills. We emphasize the use of more primary sources and larger reading assignments than one finds in the typical U.S. economics curriculum.
The Assistant Professor position is a full time, tenure track position in the Department of Economics. The right candidate will demonstrate the following:
At the introductory level we expect this new person to be teaching sections of one of our two introductory courses, described above. At the upper-division and/or the graduate level, the desired primary teaching areas for this new hire would be either in Public Economics or in Urban and Regional Economics. If the candidate is qualified to do so and is interested in doing so, teaching a course on U.S. Economic History could also be desirable. Any other teaching would be likely be in an area in which the candidate has sufficient familiarity and which would assist or extend our current faculty strengths. The Assistant Professor may also teach a course for the University's general education curriculum. The teaching load is two 4-hour courses per quarter.
The Assistant Professor will also conduct economic research, some of the results of which have to be publishable in journals, or in the forms of books or monographs. The primary research area should be in the fields of Public Economics, with an emphasis on the role of the state in the economy, or Urban and Regional Economics.
The Assistant Professor will also participate in advising undergraduate and graduate students and in supervising some students in their research. The incumbent will also provide service on departmental or University committees, and possibly on community panels or forums.
Instructions for candidates:
Candidates must apply online through www.dujobs.org (or through the link below) to be considered. Only applications submitted online will be accepted. Once within the job description online, please click New Resume/CV at the bottom of the page to begin application.
A cover letter, a curriculum vitae, a research statement, a recent research paper, and a teaching statement are required and must be uploaded as attachments to your application. If available, provide evidence of teaching ability. Please consider combining documents to avoid the 5 document upload limit. 3 letters of recommendation are also required to be sent to the email address below.
Review of applications begins December 4, 2014, applications received before this date will be given first consideration. Please visit www.du.edu/ahss/schools/economics for more information about the Department.
If you have questions regarding this position please contact: econ04@du.edu
Detailed information and application form is available here.
The editors of the Journal of Australian Political Economy offer an annual award to a student or recent graduate wishing to undertake a short period of research in political economy.
Applicants may be of any age but must be in at least their third year of undergraduate study in political economy or a related social science subject. They may have already completed their degree. Students who are completing an honours thesis and would like the experience of doing further research during part of the following year (or the year after) would be particularly welcome to apply. Developing part of a thesis into a publishable article [e.g. for the Journal of Australian Political Economy] would be a suitable project for the purpose of this Award, although other forms of research/writing proposals are also welcome.
A period of at least a month full-time or two months part-time would be spent in a University undertaking the proposed project. This could be the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, for example, but other places could be possible if the conditions below are met. The person receiving the Award would not have any employment relationship with the university.
Would you like to apply?
If so, you should supply: [1] your curriculum vita, including your academic record; [2] an indication of the research topic or writing project on which you propose to work, supported by an explanatory statement of 300-500 words; [3] an indication of proposed time and place where the project would be undertaken; and [4] a brief statement from an academic indicating her/his willingness to provide some guidance or supervision during the period of research.
Applications should be submitted to Frank Stilwell (email: frank.stilwell@sydney.edu.au) by the last day of November.
A committee, comprising members of the JAPE editorial committee, will then select the successful applicant. The criteria for selection will include: [1] evidence of the applicant’s capacity to undertake high quality work in political economy; [2] the nature of the proposed project, including its political economic significance; and [3] an assessment of the likelihood of the project’s successful completion.
Closing date 30.11.2014. The successful applicant will be notified by mid-December.
We would like to invite you to participate in the oikos Case Writing Competition. Please feel free to also spread the call on social media and in your personal network.
The oikos Case Writing Competition promotes the writing of high quality teaching cases on Corporate Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Finance. The competition welcomes entries from all parts of the world. Submitted case studies should be suitable for use in management, entrepreneurship and finance education and should be related to issues faced by organisations and individuals.
1. Applicants
2. Prizes & Incentives
3. Evaluation criteria
4. Important Dates
5. Further Information
For additional information, requirements and details please consult our website, download the entire call for application (pdf) or contact case@oikos-international.org
Mini-Symposium: NAFTA AFTER TWENTY YEARS
Mario Seccareccia: Were the Original Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) and the North American Free Trade Accord (NAFTA) Significant Policy Turning Points? Understanding the Evolution of Macroeconomic Policy from the Pre- to the Post-NAFTA Era in North America
Robert Scott: The Effects of NAFTA on US Trade, Jobs and Investment, 1993-201
Gregorio Vidal: The Mexican and U.S. Economies in the NAFTA Era
John Smithin: Economic Growth: Trade, Public Finance, and the Paradox of Thrift
Enrico Sergio Levrero: Garegnani’s ‘Theoretical Enterprise” and the theory of distribution
Lance Taylor: Paul Krugman’s “Liquidity Trap” and Other Misadventures with Keynes
Jesus Felipe and Utsav Kumar: Unit Labor Costs in the Eurozone: The Competitiveness Debate Again
Steve Pressman: Keynes, family allowances and Keynesian economic policy
Naphon Phumma: The rate of profit and balance-of-payments-constrained economic growth: the dynamic model for a small and open economy
Wendy Harcourt: The future of capitalism: a consideration of alternatives
K. Vela Velupillai: Towards a political economy of the theory of economic policy
Alexander Dow and Sheila Dow: Economic history and economic theory: the staples approach to economic development
Thomas I. Palley: A neo-Kaleckian–Goodwin model of capitalist economic growth: monopoly power, managerial pay and labour market conflict
Fiona Tregenna: A new theoretical analysis of deindustrialisation
Antonio Andreoni and Roberto Scazzieri: Triggers of change: structural trajectories and production dynamics
Ugo Pagano: The crisis of intellectual monopoly capitalism
Massimo Amato and Luca Fantacci: Back to which Bretton Woods? Liquidity and clearing as alternative principles for reforming international money
J. W. Nevile and Peter Kriesler: A bright future can be ours! Macroeconomic policy for non-eurozone Western countries
Philip Arestis, Aurelie Charles, and Giuseppe Fontana: Identity economics meets financialisation: gender, race and occupational stratification in the US labour market
Avi J. Cohen: Veblen Contra Clark and Fisher: Veblen-Robinson-Harcourt lineages in capital controversies and beyond
Constantinos Repapis: The scholar as reader: the last 50 years of economic theory seen through G.C. Harcourt’s book reviews
Mark P. Dallas: Cloth without a weaver: power, emergence and institutions across global value chains
Ignacio Farías: Improvising a market, making a model: social housing policy in Chile
Steven Hutchinson: Intelligence, reason of state and the art of governing risk and opportunity in early modern Europe
James W. Williams: Feeding finance: a critical account of the shifting relationships between finance, food and farming
Pía Riggirozzi: Regionalism through social policy: collective action and health diplomacy in South America
Kean Fan Lim: Spatial egalitarianism as a social ‘counter-movement’: on socio-economic reforms in Chongqing
Hugo Radice: The European Union After the Crisis
In Memoriam Uwe Becker, 1951-2014
Bob Jessop: Variegated Capitalism, das Modell Deutschland, and the Eurozone Crisis
Uwe Becker: The Heterogeneity of Capitalism in Crisis-Ridden Europe
Brigitte Young: German Ordo-Liberalism as Agenda Setter for the Euro Crisis: Myth Trumps Reality
Femke Van Esch: Exploring the Keynesian-Ordoliberal Divide: Flexibility and Convergence in French and German Leaders’ Economic Ideas During the Euro-Crisis
Arie Krampf: From the Maastricht Treaty to Post-Crisis EMU: The ECB and Germany as Drivers of Change
Hugo Radice: Enforcing Austerity in Europe: The Structural Deficit as a Policy Target
Charles Dannreuther: The European Social Model After the Crisis: The End of a Functionalisr Fantasy?
Susan Christopherson, Ron Martin, Peter Sunley, and Peter Tyler: Reindustrialising regions: rebuilding the manufacturing economy?
Tod D. Rutherford and John Holmes: Manufacturing resiliency: economic restructuring and automotive manufacturing in the Great Lakes region
David Bailey and Lisa De Propris: Manufacturing reshoring and its limits: the UK automotive case
Philip Amison and David Bailey: Phoenix industries and open innovation? The Midlands advanced automotive manufacturing and engineering industry
Lidia Greco and Mariadele Di Fabbio: Path-dependence and change in an old industrial area: the case of Taranto, Italy
Jennifer Clark: Manufacturing by design: the rise of regional intermediaries and the re-emergence of collective action
Teis Hansen and Lars Winther: Competitive low-tech manufacturing and challenges for regional policy in the European context—lessons from the Danish experience
John R. Bryson and Megan Ronayne: Manufacturing carpets and technical textiles: routines, resources, capabilities, adaptation, innovation and the evolution of the British textile industry
Philip R. Tomlinson and J. Robert Branston: Turning the tide: prospects for an industrial renaissance in the North Staffordshire ceramics industrial district
Sally Weller and Phillip O’Neill: De-industrialisation, financialisation and Australia’s macro-economic trap
Jonathan B. Wight: Economics within a Pluralist Ethical Tradition
Marianne Johnson, Denise Robson & Sarinda Taengnoi: A Meta-analysis of the Gender Gap in Performance in Collegiate Economics Courses
Ai-Thu Dang: Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: A Framework for Well-Being Evaluation and Policy Analysis?
Berhanu Nega & Geoffrey Schneider: NGOs, the State, and Development in Africa
Stefano Solari & Francesca Gambarotto: Territorial Rooting as an Element of Well-Being
Matthias Opfinger: Two Sides of a Medal: the Changing Relationship between Religious Diversity and Religiosity
Ana C Dinerstein, Gregory Schwartz and Graham Taylor: Sociological Imagination as Social Critique: Interrogating the ‘Global Economic Crisis’
Emma Dowling and David Harvie: Harnessing the Social: State, Crisis and (Big) Society
Dick Bryan and Michael Rafferty: Financial Derivatives as Social Policy beyond Crisis
Edward Granter and Daniel Tischer: Teaching the Crisis: A Primer
Micheal O’Flynn, Lee F Monaghan and Martin J Power: Scapegoating During a Time of Crisis: A Critique of Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland
Andrew Brown and David A Spencer: Understanding the Global Financial Crisis: Sociology, Political Economy and Heterodox Economics
Laurence Cox: Movements Making Knowledge: A New Wave of Inspiration for Sociology?
Simon Lilley and Dimitris Papadopoulos: Material Returns: Cultures of Valuation, Biofinancialisation and the Autonomy of Politics
Daniel Ozarow and Richard Croucher: Workers’ Self-management, Recovered Companies and the Sociology of Work
Denise L Spitzer and Nicola Piper: Retrenched and Returned: Filipino Migrant Workers during Times of Crisis
Alberto Toscano: Reformism and Melancholia: Economic Crisis and the Limits of Sociology
By Christoph Hermann | 2014, Routledge
John Maynard Keynes expected that around the year 2030 people would only work 15 hours a week. In the mid-1960s, Jean Fourastié still anticipated the introduction of the 30-hour week in the year 2000, when productivity would continue to grow at an established pace. Productivity growth slowed down somewhat in the 1970s and 1980s, but rebounded in the 1990s with the spread of new information and communication technologies. The knowledge economy, however, did not bring about a jobless future or a world without work, as some scholars had predicted. With few exceptions, work hours of full-time employees have hardly fallen in the advanced capitalist countries in the last three decades, while in a number of countries they have actually increased since the 1980s.
This book takes the persistence of long work hours as starting point to investigate the relationship between capitalism and work time. It does so by discussing major theoretical schools and their explanations for the length and distribution of work hours, as well as tracing major changes in production and reproduction systems, and analyzing their consequences for work hours.
Furthermore, this volume explores the struggle for shorter work hours, starting from the introduction of the ten-hour work day in the nineteenth century to the introduction of the 35-hour week in France and Germany at the end of the twentieth century. However, the book also shows how neoliberalism has eroded collective work time regulations and resulted in an increase and polarization of work hours since the 1980s. Finally, the book argues that shorter work hours not only means more free time for workers, but also reduces inequality and improves human and ecological sustainability.
Link to the book is available here.
By Jan A. Kregel; Edited by Rainer Kattel; Foreword by G. C. Harcourt | 2014, Anthem Press
Jan A. Kregel is considered to be “the best all-round general economist alive” (G. C. Harcourt). This is the first collection of his essays dealing with a wide range of topics reflecting the incredible depth and breadth of Kregel’s work. These essays focus on the role of finance in development and growth. Kregel has expanded Minsky’s original postulate that in capitalist economies stability engenders instability in international economy, and this volume collect’s Kregel’s key works devoted to financial instability, its causes and effects. The volume also contains Kregel’s most recent discussions of the Great Recession beginning in 2008.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Sonja Novkovic and Tom Webb | 2014, Zed Books
For the past three decades, economic theory and policy has been dominated by neoclassical doctrine. Driven by private interests unprecedented damage has been done to the environment and society. More austerity and less government continues to be posited as the answer to oncoming waves of crisis.
It doesn't have to be this way, however. Featuring a remarkable roster of internationally renowned critical thinkers, Co-operatives in a Post-Growth Era presents a feasible alternative for a more environmentally sustainable and equitable economic system based on the co-operative business model. With more than 100 million people working in co-operatives and more than a billion members around the world, the time has never been better for cooperatives everywhere to recognize their own potential and own ability to change the economic landscape.
An essential book for students, policymakers and concerned citizens looking for a practical way to change the current stagnant economic paradigm.
Link to the book is available here.
By Eckhard Hein | 2014, Edward Elgar
This book offers an assessment of theories of distribution and growth after Keynes. It presents an overview of the main contributions with a particular focus on the development of post-Keynesian/Kaleckian models.
In the first part of the book, Eckhard Hein presents a comprehensive overview of the main approaches towards distribution and growth including the contributions of Harrod and Domar, old and new neoclassical theories including the fundamental capital controversy critique, the post-Keynesian contributions of Kaldor, Pasinetti, Thirlwall and Robinson, and finally the approaches by Kalecki and Steindl. In the second part of the book, neo- and post-Kaleckian models are gradually developed, introducing saving from wages, international trade, technological progress, interest and credit. Issues of ‘financialisation’ are also explored and empirical results related to the different models are presented.
This unique book is designed for courses in distribution and growth in graduate programmes or at the advanced undergraduate level. It can also be used as supplementary reading for classes in macroeconomics. The book should also be of value for researchers interested in issues of distribution and growth.
Link to the book is available here.
By Patrick Bond | 2014, Pluto Press
Released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the end of apartheid, this is an updated edition of a best-selling work of political analysis. Patrick Bond, a former adviser to the ANC, investigates how groups such as the ANC went from being a force of liberation to a vehicle now perceived as serving the economic interests of an elite few.
This edition includes new analysis looking at the 2008 internal coup against Thabo Mbeki, the subsequent economic crisis and the massacre of miners at Marikana in 2012. Bond also assesses the historiography of the transition written since 2000 from nationalist, liberal and radical perspectives, and replies to critics of his work, both from liberal and nationalist perspectives.
This is an essential text on post-Apartheid South Africa, which will be vital reading for all who study or have an interest in this part of the continent, and in social change and neoliberal public policy more generally.
Link to the book is available here.
By Linda C. Farthing and Benjamin H. Kohl | 2014, University of Texas Press
In this compelling and comprehensive look at the rise of Evo Morales and Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl offer a thoughtful evaluation of the transformations ushered in by the western hemisphere’s first contemporary indigenous president. Accessible to all readers, Evo’s Bolivia not only charts Evo’s rise to power but also offers a history of and context for the MAS revolution’s place in the rising “pink tide” of the political left. Farthing and Kohl examine the many social movements whose agendas have set the political climate in Bolivia and describe the difficult conditions the administration inherited. They evaluate the results of Evo’s policies by examining a variety of measures, including poverty; health care and education reform; natural resources and development; and women’s, indigenous, and minority rights. Weighing the positive with the negative, the authors offer a balanced assessment of the results and shortcomings of the first six years of the Morales administration.
At the heart of this book are the voices of Bolivians themselves. Farthing and Kohl interviewed women and men in government, in social movements, and on the streets throughout the country, and their diverse backgrounds and experiences offer a multidimensional view of the administration and its progress so far. Ultimately the “process of change” Evo promised is exactly that: an ongoing and complicated process, yet an important example of development in a globalized world.
Link to the book is available here.
By Steven Kates | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
In this thoroughly updated second edition of Free Market Economics, Steven Kates assesses economic principles based on classical economic theory before Keynesian theory became dominant in macroeconomics and equilibrium analysis became standard in microeconomics. He looks at economics from the perspective of an entrepreneur making decisions in a world where the future is unknown, innovation is a continuous process and the future is being created before it can be understood.
Key Features include:
The aim of this book is to redirect the attention of economists and policy makers towards the economic theories that prevailed in earlier times. Their problems were little different from ours but their way of understanding the operation of an economy and dealing with those problems was completely different. Free Market Economics, Second Edition will help students and general readers understand the economics of that earlier time, written by someone who believes that this now-discarded approach to economic thought was superior to what is found in most of our textbooks today.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Andreas Bieler, Bruno Ciccaglione, John Hilary, Ingemar Lindberg | 2014, Routledge
‘Free trade’ strategies have increasingly become a problem for the international labour movement. While trade unions in the North especially in manufacturing have supported free trade agreements to secure export markets for their companies, trade unions in the Global South oppose these agreements, since they often imply deindustrialisation. Especially the expansion of the free trade agenda into services, public procurement, investment, intellectual property rights as well as investor to state dispute settlement provisions are considered to be problematic.
The purpose of this volume is to understand better these dynamics underlying ‘free trade’ policy-making in order to explore possibilities for transnational labour solidarity. Bringing together labour academics with trade union researchers and social movement activists, this volume moves from conceptual reflections about the impact of ‘free trade’ via the analysis of struggles around free trade agreements to considerations of concrete alternatives.
Link to the book is available here.
By Hugo Radice | 2014, Routledge
The essays in this volume were published across the 1984-2011 period, and range across a variety of topics and approaches to investigate the changing nature of global capitalism as a social order. As such, they are a valuable and instructive account of the evolution of global capitalism and of the debates which sought to make sense of this; moreover, they enable us to understand more clearly how capitalism may change and evolve in the coming years and decades.
The introduction provides a brief historical account of how global capitalism has changed since the 1960s, before summarising each of the essays, situating them more immediately in the context in which they were written. After sketching the evolution of his views over the period, the author concludes by discussing some important dimensions of global capitalism that need further study. The twelve essays are presented in four sections, dealing with the overarching theme of globalisation; the case of Britain; the developing regions of the global South and the former Soviet bloc; and the crisis that has gripped global capitalism since 2008.
Presenting an interdisciplinary approach that corresponds with the emergence of international political economy as a distinct field of scholarship, this book will prove to be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of international political economy, politics, economics, international relations, development studies, human geography, critical sociology and business studies.
Link to the book is available here.
By Anna Grandori | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
This comprehensive and groundbreaking Handbook integrates economic and organization theories to help elucidate the design and evolution of economic organization.
Economic organization is regarded both as a subject of inquiry and as an emerging disciplinary field in its own right, integrating insights from economics, organization theory, strategy and management, economic sociology and cognitive psychology. The contributors, who share this integrated approach, are distinguished scholars at the productive peak in their fields. Each original, state-of-the art chapter not only addresses foundational issues, but also identifies key issues for future research.
This original and wide-ranging Handbook will be a useful and thought-provoking read for academics, students and researchers in the fields of organization, management and economics.
Link to the book is available here.
By Jasmin Hristov | 2014, Pluto Press
The people of Colombia have, for the last fifty years, been subject to a specific form of violence: paramilitarism. An embodiment of the underbelly of global capitalist accumulation, this form of pervasive violence expresses the exacerbation of social inequalities and class formation under capitalism. In Paramilitarism and Neoliberalism, Jasmin Hristov theorises this extreme expression in light of forced displacement, labour repression, subjugation of social movements, decentralisation of violence, drug trafficking and the emergence of a variety of para-institutional armed actors across Latin America.
The activities of paramilitary groups in the postdemobilisation era, their involvement in human rights violations, and their multilevel support networks inside major state institutions are documented, with a particular emphasis on violent dispossession and illegal land appropriation that has benefited agroindustries and mining enterprises. Hristov engages in a Marxist political economy approach, combined with a global sociological perspective, allowing for an expansive and deep-reaching understanding of paramilitarism as a phenomenon with many faces, ultimately illustrating how it is increasingly becoming the coercive counterpart of global capital.
Link to the book is available here.
By Jeff Madrick | 2014, Knopf Doubleday Publishing
A bold indictment of some of our most accepted mainstream economic theories—why they’re wrong, and how they’ve been harming America and the world.
Budget deficits are bad. A strong dollar is good. Controlling inflation is paramount. Pay reflects greater worker skills. A deregulated free market is fair and effective. Theories like these have become mantras among American economists both liberal and conservative over recent decades. Validated originally by patron saints like Milton Friedman, they’ve assumed the status of self-evident truths across much of the mainstream. Jeff Madrick, former columnist for The New York Times and Harper’s, argues compellingly that a reconsideration is long overdue.
Since the financial turmoil of the 1970s made stagnating wages and relatively high unemployment the norm, Madrick argues, many leading economists have retrenched to the classical (and outdated) bulwarks of theory, drawing their ideas more from purist principles than from the real-world behavior of governments and markets—while, ironically, deeply affecting those governments and markets by their counsel. Madrick atomizes seven of the greatest false idols of modern economic theory, illustrating how these ideas have been damaging markets, infrastructure, and individual livelihoods for years, causing hundreds of billions of dollars of wasted investment, financial crisis after financial crisis, poor and unequal public education, primitive public transportation, gross inequality of income and wealth and stagnating wages, and uncontrolled military spending.
Using the Great Recession as his foremost case study, Madrick shows how the decisions America should have made before, during, and after the financial crisis were suppressed by wrongheaded but popular theory, and how the consequences are still disadvantaging working America and undermining the foundations of global commerce. Madrick spares no sinners as he reveals how the “Friedman doctrine” has undermined the meaning of citizenship and community, how the “Great Moderation” became a great jobs emergency, and how economists were so concerned with getting the incentives right for Wall Street that they got financial regulation all wrong. He in turn examines the too-often-marginalized good ideas of modern economics and convincingly argues just how beneficial they could be—if they can gain traction among policy makers.
Trenchant, sweeping, and empirical, Seven Bad Ideas resoundingly disrupts the status quo of modern economic theory.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited By Terence McDonough, David M. Kotz and Michael Reich | 2014, Edward Elgar Publishing
In this two-volume set, the editors present seminal articles by leading SSA scholars describing the development of SSA Theory and its wider application. The first volume offers an introduction to SSA theory and covers the historical context, the founding documents of the approach, subsequent theoretical and empirical developments, the relationship between SSA theory and related approaches, and an introduction to the work of Bowles, Gordon and Weisskopf on the rise and demise of the postwar SSA. The second volume examines extensions to the SSA literature: applying SSA analysis to countries outside the United States, placing the history of a wider range of institutions within an SSA framework and current use of SSA analysis.
The editors’ comprehensive original introduction illuminates the state of SSA Theory up to the present and considers its future applications. These volumes will be a major reference work for SSA theory for many years to come.
Link to the book is available here.
Edited by Benjamin Stephan and Richard Lane | 2014, Routledge
The carbon markets are in the middle of a fundamental crisis - a crisis marked by collapsing prices, fleeing actors, and ever increasing greenhouse gas levels. Yet carbon trading remains at the heart of global attempts to respond to climate change. Not only this, but markets continue to proliferate - particularly in the Global South.
The Politics of Carbon Markets helps to make sense of this paradox and brings two urgently needed insights to the analysis of carbon markets. First, the markets must be understood in relation to the politics involved in their development, maintenance and opposition. Second, this politics is multiform and pervasive. Implementation of new techniques and measuring tools, policy development and contestation, and the structuring context of institutional settings and macro-social forces all involve a variety of political actors and create new forms of political agency. The contributions study the total extent of the carbon markets, from their prehistory to their contemporary expansion and wider impacts.
This wide-ranging political perspective on the carbon markets is invaluable to those studying and interested in ecological markets, climate change governance and environmental politics.
Link to the book is available here. To get a a 20% discount, enter "FLR40" @ checkout.
By Andrew Sayer | 2014, Policy Press
As inequalities widen and austerity bites, in many countries the wealth of the rich has soared. Why we can’t afford the rich exposes the unjust and dysfunctional mechanisms that allow the top 1% to siphon off wealth produced by others, through the control of property and money. Developing the established but often overlooked distinction between earned and unearned income, Andrew Sayer shows how over the last three decades the rich worldwide have increased their ability to extract wealth and hide it, create indebtedness and expand their political influence. He shows how both academic and everyday explanations of economic inequalities rest on myths about intelligence, markets and economic contributions and rewards. The book tracks the role of the rich in the build up to and aftermath of the crisis, their growing domination of politics, and the way in which their spending distorts economies, diverting resources away from meeting more pressing needs. Furthermore, as the risk of runaway climate change grows, it shows how the rich are threatening the planet by banking on unsustainable growth.
Written accessibly for a wide readership, but comprehensively referenced, the book uses simple distinctions to burst the myth of the rich as specially talented wealth creators. The author forcefully argues that the crises of economy and climate can only be resolved by radical change to make economies sustainable, fair and conducive to well-being for all.
Link to the book is available here.
Each year the Center brings together a mix of scholars working on research in the history of political economy. The Center provides the following sorts of fellowships:
TERMS OF FELLOWSHIPS:
Research Fellows may come to the Center for either a semester, a full academic year (which runs from the end of August to the beginning of May), or a twelve month period. (Those who wish to come for shorter stays may wish to consult the "Academic Visits" section.) Though the principal responsibility of all Fellows is simply to pursue their research, it is also expected that Fellows will participate in the other programs (e.g., Workshops, HOPE lunches, and conferences) that the Center offers. More junior scholars may also wish to sit in on classes during term and to participate in the “Summer in the Archives” program.
STIPENDS:
The Center has funding available for support of Fellows. When possible, Fellows should attempt to bring their own funding through some combination of support from their own university (e.g., fellowships or sabbatical funds) and from outside foundations. We recognize that more junior scholars may not have ready access to such support, and typically we fully fund their stays. Sometimes our acceptance of an applicant’s proposal will be contingent on either the applicant or the Center being able to secure outside funds.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE:
All applicants should submit the following materials:
You may submit your materials by e-mail (which is preferred) or regular mail. If by e-mail, please direct them to az28@duke.edu
If by regular mail, please send them to:
Applications are welcome at any time, but for full consideration those applying for the 2015-2016 academic year should have their applications in by January 10, 2015.
The Master’s Program in Economic Development, National University of San Martin, Argentina announces that registration for its third edition is now open. Coursework begins in April, 1 2015.
The Program seeks to provide economics students with an alternative curriculum while covering—and seeking for students to master—standard mainstream literature and themes, including advanced quantitative skills, as middle step in the development of an academic career or public service.
Many Latin American students lack this type of approach and opportunity. Policy discussion has to some extent shifted in recent times in Latin America due to the progressive turn the region has taken at the political level. But despite this shift in debate, policy making remains to a large extent permeated by the orthodox vision and so too, with a few notable exceptions, curriculum design and teaching in the field of Economics.
While providing wide-ranging courses on development, macroeconomics, microeconomics, econometrics and history of economic ideas, the Program offers students the possibility of picking between two alternative concentrations —the first, on “Macroeconomics and finance for development”, coordinated by Matías Vernengo (Ph.D., New School University); the second, on “Industrial organization and technical change”, coordinated by Pablo Lavarello (Ph.D., University of Paris XIII). Martin Abeles (Ph.D., New School University) is the Program Director, backed by a host of prominent academics.
Period for registration: October, 1 until December 19 2014. The third edition of the Program will begin in April 2015.
For registration and more information please visit the Master’s website. If you have any questions, please write to: mde@unsam.edu.ar
Timothy A. Wise and Kristin Sundell: To Feed the World in 2050 We Have to Change Course
Anastasia Nesvetailova: The Epoch of Market Based Funding: Shadow Banking
Vasco Pedrina & Zoltan Doka: Switzerland-China Free Trade Agreement and Labour Rights
Link to the full newsletter is available here.
Link to the Newsletter.
Dear Officers of Heterodox Economics Associations, Journal Editors, and Publishers,
The Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) Annual Meetings will take place in Boston, USA, on January 3-5, 2015. Over 10,000 economists, either heterodox or otherwise, from all over the world get together and engage in scholarly and social activities during the meetings.
One of the important activities is organizing a display booth. Following a successful “Heterodox Economics Exhibition Booth” in the past year, we are again organizing the booth in order to visibly show that there is an alternative to mainstream-neoclassical economics and to improve the publicity of heterodox economics (the report of 2014 is available here).
The exhibition booth is located in the John B. Hynes Convention Center which is connected to the Sheraton hotel. We would like to share this space with heterodox economics associations/institutes, heterodox economics journals, heterodox economics programs, and publishers. Various materials, such as association/journal information, membership/subscription forms, sample journal issues, books/flyers, newsletters, and the like can be displayed at the booth.
This is an expensive activity (the total cost of the 2014 booth was $3,508). So there will be a shared fee, which is not fixed until we know the number of participating associations, journals, and publishers. We also gladly accept kind donations.
If you (or your organization) want to participate in the booth or support this activity, contact organizers by email.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Tae-Hee Jo, SUNY Buffalo State, email: taeheejo@gmail.com, and
Zdravka Todorova, Wright State University , email: zdravka.todorova@wright.edu
Dear All,
I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to Progress in Political Economy. This is a new blog venue for thought about political economy in and beyond the academy. It is linked to faculty members, students, alumni, journalists, and others associated with the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. At Sydney, ‘political economy’ means studying the economic within its social and political context, and therefore treating economics as a social science. ‘Political economy’ is a term with some pedigree, shared by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx and Max Weber, before the fragmentation of the social sciences into economics, sociology and politics.
At Sydney, the Department of Political Economy developed out of Economics, as documented in the book "Political Economy Now!", which traces the struggle for alternative economics at the University since the introduction of new courses in political economy in 1974, including the history of economic thought and the political economy of development and underdevelopment.
Much has changed since then but much has remained the same. Political Economy is a home for many kinds of economic thinking that no longer fit easily in economics departments, including Marxian, post-Keynesian, Polanyian, institutionalist approaches, feminist and postcolonial perspectives, development studies, economic history and sociology, and the history of economic thought. In general we are critical of the neoclassical core that remains the dominant paradigm within economics: the primacy of the individual as the basic unit of analysis, the view of the individual as a rational calculating machine in pursuit of maximum material gain, and an assumed decision-making environment that comprises an economic sphere separate from a political sphere.
Recently, the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis has triggered a widespread reaction, with many people asking who benefits from the reproduction of economic orthodoxy and looking for alternatives, as shown in developments such as the Post-Crash Economics Society, the phenomenon of best-selling books such as David Harvey’s various contributions ever since The Limits to Capital or Thomas Piketty’s voguish success with Capital in the 21st Century. Attempts to rebuild political economy are evident around the world, such as the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE), the Society of Heterodox Economists (SHE), theRethinking Marxismtradition linked to the Association for Economic and Social Analysis (AESA), and initiatives linked to the journal and annual conferences of Historical Materialism, the magazine Jacobin, and the long heritage of New Left Review and Verso Books.
There is clearly now a wide audience for work in the Political Economy tradition. This blog is intended to connect with this audience and engage in the vibrant discussions taking off everywhere.
Contributions to the blog will be made by colleagues linked to the Department of Political Economy whether that be faculty members, undergraduate and postgraduate students, visiting research fellows, or alumni. Guest contributions will also be made by figures linked throughout the wider institution of the University of Sydney in cognate departments, as part of our multidisciplinary appeal. Similarly, involvement is sought from anybody wanting to suggest features and blog posts to enhance the collective focus on, and struggle for, progress in political economy.
Best regards,
Adam David Morton
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
London, UK- 16 October 2014 - The CORE Curriculum is not an answer to our demands for reform. CORE is more engaging in its teaching style, but falls short of creating broader content.
Rethinking Economics does not currently endorse any curriculum; instead, we have written our vision of a pluralistic curriculum (can be found here) and we support the ISIPE open letter, which we contributed to along with 65 student groups. We encourage educators and curriculum writers to sign up to publically support these visions.
What we are looking for is curricula that embody the three pluralisms: pluralism in methodology, pluralism in schools of thought, and pluralism in disciplines. This means at least a key role for the history of economic thought in a way that encourages debate over different schools of thought.
We believe it is important to introduce students to a critical approach to social science in general, meaning that students can engage in debate over schools of thought, rather than be introduced to one narrative. CORE does not supply this in its present state.
Rethinking Economics welcomes progress in economics education, a small part of which CORE has achieved, but we believe firmly there is still much more to be done in economics education reform.
ABOUT: Rethinking Economics is an international network of student groups, academics and professionals that are calling for change in the way economics is taught in higher education. Through a mixture of campaigning, events and engaging projects, Rethinking Economics connects people globally to discuss and enact the change needed for the future of economics, and to propel the vital debate on what economics is today.
Contact:
Joe Richards (Press Officer), Rethinking Economics, email: press@rethinkeconomics.org
Filmmaker and producer James Schamus (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) has made two short educational films about money and banking, featuring radical economists Rick Wolff and Suresh Naidu, playwright Barbara Garson, and others.
Part one deconstructs the idea of money, and part two explains in relatable terms how the banking system enforces inequality.
These two films are part of a series of 20 short films called "We the Economy" sponsored by the New York Times and other sources.