About

Economics is broken. The theory that’s taught in universities, practiced in governments and preached by newspapers hasn’t changed since the 1980s. But in the real world, those theories aren’t working. Inequality is off the charts; high streets are empty; democracies are in crisis; and the climate is collapsing. We want to build an economics discipline that’s fit for the 21st century – one which can hold an unflinching critique of the present, and find a path to a fairer future. 

WHAT DO WE DO?

We’re building an international movement of young people to rethink, reteach and rebuild economics. We do this in three ways. 

1. Organise

We help individuals who are interested to become members; then we organise our members into groups of Rethinkers. Bringing people together helps give us the collective power we need to change institutions and wider society. What’s more, our groups helps us root our activities in places like workplaces, universities and cities; and decentralise our work, to give members in Ecuador or India the autonomy and resources to define their own direction. 

2. Educate 

To change what’s taught, we first have to teach ourselves. We offer a radical economics education, through peer-learning, taught courses and self-education, to anyone who wants to learn. Our critique of economics helps to mobilise young people, by connecting the crises we see in the world around us to the single idea of economics that dominates our world. By teaching and sharing a new, wider understanding of economics, we can help more people explain what’s going wrong, and create a new economics that can build a fairer future.

3. Agitate 

Finally we use our power to apply pressure. Our campaigns change what universities teach; how governments act; and how people think of themselves. Our campaigns themselves are a form of education for our members, helping them understand the powers that maintain our unjust world – and the methods and media that can help us to overcome them. Crucially, we don’t do this alone. We work in coalition with social movements across the globe, mobilising young economic thinkers on a global scale. 

WHO ARE WE?

We are ‘Rethinkers’ – those working to change economics so that it’s fit for people and planet. In the process, we’re seeing redefining what it means to be an economist in the 21st century.

Anyone can be a Rethinker. Our members are activists, academics, writers, city traders, social media influencers – and ordinary people who just want to know why the world isn’t working.

WHY US?

Our generation is the first to be globally worse off than our parents. Mainstream economists tell us to save for the future when we can’t afford the present – yet that future is under threat from the climate collapse that their theories ignore and even exacerbate. In the face of this challenge, giving up is not an option. We know that the people who created this mess can’t use the same theories and tools to solve it. It’s up to us to find new ones. 

WHERE DID WE COME FROM?

A beginning. 

In 2011, economics students at Harvard University walked out of their class with Professor Gregory Mankiw. These students, inspired by Occupy Wall Street, couldn’t help but notice that outside the classroom, financial crises, climate change and corruption were all part of the economy – yet within the classroom, the economics theories of Mankiw and others predicted a world that was perfect. They refused to be part of this narrative. 

This event helped inspire economic students in other countries to demand changes to their own universities, like the Post Crash Economics Society based at the University of Manchester, UK.

A network. 

From these beginnings Rethinking Economics was formed. We held our first conference in London in 2012, and launched a network with other groups across the world that year, in the USA, Brazil, Uganda and others. By 2016, economics students from local groups at 65 universities in 30 countries had joined together to publish an open letter in newspapers across the world. The network called itself the International Student Initiative for Pluralisme in Economics (ISIPE).

In this time, our campaigns led to wholesale change at over 80 universities across the world, including a new curriculum at Goldsmith’s University in London in 2014; modules on environmental economics at the University of Lagos in 2020; and feminist economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2021. 

A movement. 

Since then, the world has changed beyond recognition. Covid showed us how vulnerable we are to global shocks, and how unprepared our economics was to provide solutions to the challenge. And climate collapse has become an imminent threat, far sooner than most economists, and even many climate scientists, dared to predict. Yet somehow, our governments and professors are still clinging to the same disproved idea: that the market alone will save us. 

In this context, we realised it was no longer enough to try to change what’s taught in universities. We needed to take our message into the real world: into governments, into social movements, and onto the streets. We set out to turn Rethinking Economics into a youth movement, a place for anyone who’s interested in a different way of doing economics to organise and join forces. 

Together, we’ll rethink, reteach and rebuild economics for the 21st century.