Radical Expectations: How the New Left Changed Economics

In the 1970s radical economists campaigned to reform their discipline and their universities. They became journalists and activists, moving beyond academia, to forge new models of public engagement and collaborative knowledge in economic life. Radical Expectations tells the story of how these economists set out to make economics more democratic. It traces their campaign to bring protest movements to the campuses, triggering the emergence of an alternative understanding of expertise directed at validating and empowering the perspectives and voices of women, Black Americans, labor activists, and the urban poor. It shows how a radical identity formed and how radicals helped reform disciplinary institutions. Furthermore, it argues that the radical economics' legacy was the development of a language and models of expert–lay collaboration that empowers direct action in economic affairs. The book is about the community of radical economists who championed the promise of change and what came of it.