James Boyce, UMass Amherst economics professor, is interviewed by the Valley Advocate about Econ4, a new initiative focused on economics for people, for the planet, and for the future. The organization supports the Occupy Wall Street movement and opposes what it calls “the ideological cleansing of the economics profession” and the “political cleansing in the vital debate over the causes and consequences of our current economic crisis.” (Valley Advocate, 12/22/11)
“We can’t just write on our computers,” Boyce says. “We need a strategy for communicating ideas. We aim to do an end run around the corporate-controlled media and its talking heads by using new information technologies.”
By contributing Internet-friendly teaching materials and creating a collaborative space for an online community of dissident economists—their Network for Innovative Economics Teaching—Econ4 hopes to change the study and implementation of economics.
“Part of the problem is economics itself, in the research being done and the economics being taught,” Boyce continues. “We want to change the public understanding of how the economy works, and, more importantly, how it should work.”
