WHY?
COVID has surfaced and emphasized the many failures of our current economic system in meeting the needs of people and the planet. It has also surfaced our ability to create structures of support and solidarity.
We have a responsibility as organizers and educators in US-based social movements to bring our people in, move slower and study together. Not because we stop fighting the bad, but because in studying we draw inspiration from ancestors who had similar fights over the centuries and learn from their experiences. We become more strategic thinkers and deepen our analysis of social problems and the possible routes to freedom.
OUR STORY
The current version of this course is the result of many years of work first led by the Center for Popular Economics (CPE) – a collective which was founded in 1979 by radical (or heterodox) economists out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They ran a yearly “Summer Institute” for union organizers in New England.
Since 2019, CPE has partnered with the Center for Economic Democracy (CED) to update and redesign its curriculum into “Economics for Emancipation” (E4E). During the 2020 COVID crisis, CPE and CED worked to adapt E4E for virtual learning geared towards regional cohorts of just transition and social justice organizers, and thus was born this offering.
ABOUT CENTER FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY
The Center for Economic Democracy (CED) is a US social movement building organization, growing capacity in our communities to transition from capitalism into a just, sustainable, and democratic economy. Based in Boston, CED supports local racial and economic justice initiatives like the Boston Ujima Project, Coalition for Worker Ownership and Power (COWOP), the Solidarity Economy Initiative and The Better Budget Alliance, while offering training and technical assistance for economic democracy efforts across the US.
ABOUT CENTER FOR POPULAR ECONOMICS
The Center for Popular Economics is a nonprofit collective of political economists based in Amherst, MA out of the University of Massachusetts (UMass). Since our founding in 1979, thousands of people have participated in our workshops and Institutes. Our programs and publications demystify the economy and put useful economic tools in the hands of people fighting for social and economic justice. We examine root causes of economic inequality and injustice including systems of oppression based on race, class, gender, nation and ethnicity.
