Looking back and out to build forward — designing Economy’s new strategy

We want you to get involved.

Our darkest hour

As Economy embarks on designing our new strategy, I have been thinking back to March 2016, when we first registered as a charity to advance education in economics for the public benefit. It feels like looking into another world.

The last five and a half years have been a whirlwind. During the EU referendum and two general elections we had to make big collective decisions about what economic path we want to take as a country.

The Covid pandemic and climate crisis are existential challenges which are fundamentally reshaping our economies. We are living through economic shifts and shocks which are shaping all our lives for better and for worse.

These events have made it increasingly difficult to ignore that many people have long struggled to survive in the UK economy, which is characterised by deep systemic and historically embedded inequalities along lines of race, gender, socioeconomic status and geography.

Recent polling has found that two in three people believe that ‘in the UK, the system is rigged to serve the rich and influential’. Meanwhile a global survey found that three in five young people feel very or extremely worried about climate change and over half feel that humanity is doomed.

Last week, the prime minister highlighted his desire to move away from ‘a broken model of the UK economy that relied on low wages and low skill, and chronic low productivity’ in which ‘pay for the majority of people has been flat, whereas pay for executives has seen big increases.’

While the prime minister’s statement reflects a growing consensus about the need for big changes to our economy, there is much less agreement about how to achieve them, and there is still a big disconnect with the scale of the challenge we are facing.

It is not an understatement to say that transitioning to economies that operate within planetary boundaries in a way that reduces rather than increases deep pre-existing inequalities, is the greatest task ever faced by humanity.

Building power

Through these turbulent times, Economy has worked with communities — particularly those further from power — to build the confidence, knowledge and power to understand, navigate and ultimately shape the economy to achieve what matters to them.

We’ve imagined how a transformed media ecosystem could diversify who has a public voice on the economy. We pioneered engaging, accessible and relevant economic news at ecnmy.org; partnered with the Manchester Evening News to showcase the economic views and experiences of local people; and started developing a framework for empowering approaches to media co-production with marginalised communities, working with them to share their stories and ideas for change.

We’ve run community workshops, courses and training for adults and young people in Wales, Birmingham, Manchester, Scotland, Plymouth and London (and online since the pandemic). Explored everything from why housing is so expensive to how economics can help us address the climate crisis, aiming to help people move from a sense of alienation and powerlessness to a position of confidence and connection. Along the way we’ve created over three hundred free Learn articles to help more people make sense of the economy around them (which two of our team have developed into a new book that is about to be published!).

We’ve worked with the Bank of England to help them engage with communities, and supported the Welsh Government to consider how it communicates on the economy. We’ve worked with groups campaigning for Universal Basic Income and audit reform to help demystify complex economic arguments, so that a larger and more diverse range of people participate in and lead them.

Make or break

We know that our work so far has only scratched the surface when it comes to our vision of a democratic economy in which everyone has the power to influence how it is organised.

A democratic economy can unlock the dynamism and creativity which exists in society, build consensus, and ensure outcomes are just, all of which are necessary to find effective and legitimate solutions to the twin challenges of inequality and the climate crisis.

The next decade is make or break. The longer we fail to do this, the greater the strains on society, and the less likely we will be able to build a democratic economy.

Stepping up

This is the context in which we’re starting to think about Economy’s next 3–5 year strategy. Over the next six months we want to work with old and new partners to consider how we can collectively step up our work to achieve the change we need in the time we have.

We know that part of the answer is scale, but we believe that will come through increased coordination and collaboration with a whole range of individuals and organisations across civil society rather than Economy doing more on its own.

Change starts within

We’re aware of how easy it can be to focus on the successes and brush over the things that haven’t gone so well. The last five years have been a real struggle at times — from working out a sustainable funding model, to effectively supporting our staff through the pandemic — and we’ve made lots of mistakes along the way.

Over the last year we’ve put a lot of energy into ensuring that the foundations of the organisation are healthy. We’ve realised that unless we really focus on diversity, inclusion and anti-oppression, we will unintentionally reproduce the status quo in which economics is dominated by men, white people, and those from relatively privileged backgrounds.

We’re also aware that as an organisation which is advocating more meaningful participation in economic decision-making, we need to walk the walk and cannot just rely on old school charity governance. We’ve just recruited a paid Community Ambassador Board who we will work with over the next year to develop our new strategy and then review how we can make our governance more participatory.

Get involved

We need your help to shape our new strategy. Over the next six months we’ll be opening up ways for you to participate.

We’ve just launched our new website and community newsletter, which will provide regular updates about all the exciting things that Economy is up to, including how our you can contribute to the new strategy we are developing. If you’d like to sign up to our newsletter you can do here.

Whatever that looks like for you, we hope you’ll stay involved with Economy as we grow into this new and exciting phase. We look forward to seeing you there!