Introduction

The year 2005 was the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World Radical economics and the labor movement, the most radical union in North America. To commemorate the anniversary, a conference on radical economics and the labor movement in the twentieth century was hosted by Fred Lee and Jon Bekken (both members of the IWW) and held at University of Missouri-Kansas City from September 15–17, 2005. The conference theme was the role of radical economics in the labor movement in the United States and around the world. For some, radical economics refers to one of many theoretical approaches that constitute heterodox economics. However, a closer look reveals that radical modifies a number of them. Therefore for the purpose of the conference, radical economics included but was not restricted to anarchism, Marxism, syndicalism, radical institutionalism, left-wing Keynesianism, and plain old-fashioned radical economics. Hence, in this broader context radical economics is “heterodox” in that it draws together different radical approaches and promotes theoretical engagement between them. Over fifty conference participants listen to twenty presentations ranging from the birth of syndicalist political economy, Sraffa and organized labor, to struggles for economic democracy and union organizing on commission. The ten papers included in this volume were selected from those presentations to illustrate how the different approaches of radical economics can contribute in many ways to the labor movement in general (not just to the IWW), and in turn to suggest ways in which that engagement can contribute to radical economic analysis and thus to the advancement of heterodox economics.