In November 2008, at the opening of a new building at the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked a simple question about the financial crisis: why did nobody see it coming?
Economics students around the world had been asking a version of that question too. Over the following years, many of them organized, wrote open letters, walked out of lectures, and started their own reading groups. Their demand was not that economics be thrown out, but that it be taught more broadly. They called it pluralism.
What Is Pluralist Economics?
Pluralist economics means teaching several schools of economic thought side by side, rather than presenting one framework as simply "economics." In a pluralist course, you'd learn the neoclassical model that dominates textbooks, and also Post-Keynesian, institutional, ecological, Austrian, Marxian, feminist, and other heterodox traditions, then compare how each one explains the same problem.
Pluralists usually ask for three things:
- Theoretical pluralism: more than one school of thought.
- Methodological pluralism: mathematical models, yes, but also history, case studies, interviews, and qualitative evidence.
- Interdisciplinary pluralism: connections to politics, sociology, history, philosophy, and the natural sciences.
A Short History of the Student Pluralism Movement
2000, Paris. French students published a petition against what they called "autistic economics," complaining that their courses were dominated by mathematical models disconnected from real economies. The petition sparked a movement and a journal, now called the Real-World Economics Review.
2011, Harvard. About 70 students walked out of Greg Mankiw's popular introductory economics course, arguing it presented a narrow perspective. Whatever you think of the protest, it made national news.
2013, Manchester. Students formed the Post-Crash Economics Society and published a report on their own curriculum, later expanded into the book The Econocracy. The same year, the international network Rethinking Economics was founded and soon had groups in dozens of countries.
2014, worldwide. Student groups from around 30 countries signed An International Student Call for Pluralism in Economics, published in newspapers and backed by hundreds of economists. It argued that "it is not only the world economy that is in crisis. The teaching of economics is in crisis too."
Why Pluralism Matters
Because the real economy keeps surprising single-model thinking
The 2008 crisis is the famous case, but not the only one. Inflation, inequality, climate change, and the effects of trade on manufacturing towns have each, at different times, exposed blind spots in whichever framework was dominant. Students taught several frameworks have more tools for making sense of surprises.
Because that's how economics actually advanced
Many of the field's most important ideas started outside the mainstream: Keynes's theory of effective demand, Hayek's insight about prices and knowledge, Ostrom's work on the commons, and Minsky's account of financial fragility. Pluralism isn't a rejection of rigor; it's how good ideas get a hearing.
Because employers need it
Central banks, finance ministries, think tanks, unions, and businesses all need people who can tell when the standard model fits a situation and when it doesn't. The Bank of England, for example, publicly explained in 2014 that most money is created by commercial banks when they lend, which is closer to the Post-Keynesian account than to the textbook "money multiplier." People who'd studied both were better prepared.
Because it's more interesting
Many students drop economics because the introductory courses feel abstract. Pluralist courses start from the questions people already care about, such as why rent keeps rising, who decides what a job pays, or how we pay for climate action, and show how different schools would answer.
Has Anything Changed?
Some. The CORE Econ project, launched in 2013, rewrote introductory economics around real-world data and problems, and is now used at universities around the world. A handful of universities offer explicitly pluralist degrees, and the list of places to study heterodox economics has grown. Most economics departments, though, still teach one framework, often with heterodox schools squeezed into a single lecture on the history of thought.
Where to Study Pluralist Economics Today
If you want a pluralist education, you can:
- Join or start a Rethinking Economics group at your university.
- Read widely. Ha-Joon Chang's Economics: The User's Guide is a friendly introduction to nine schools of thought.
- Choose a pluralist graduate program. Elton University's pluralist and heterodox economics master's lets you study any school of thought, heterodox or mainstream, 1-on-1 with professors who know each tradition well. You can focus on one school, compare several, or build your own synthesis, all online and while you keep your job.
The students who started this movement didn't want less economics. They wanted more of it. That's still a good thing to want.
Want to study economics the pluralist way? Talk to an admissions officer or explore Elton's economics program. Elton University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit university — EIN 86-2426898.
Sources
- International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics (2014). An international student call for pluralism in economics.
- Earle, J., Moran, C., & Ward-Perkins, Z. (2017). The Econocracy: The Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts. Manchester University Press.
- Fullbrook, E. (Ed.) (2003). The Crisis in Economics: The Post-Autistic Economics Movement. Routledge.