This website showcases the projects of Professor Julie Matthaei’s students at Wellesley College, in two classes: Econ 243, The Political Economy of Gender, Race and Class, and in Econ 343, Feminist Economics. Professor Matthaei conceptualizes this historical moment as a time in which social movements – feminist, anti-racist, ecological, and anti-classist – and the movement of movements which brings them together are shifting the paradigm of economic and social life from inequality to solidarity. Student projects strive to contribute to the paradigm shift in some way, either at Wellesley College or in the world at large.

A key aspect of the paradigm shift from inequality to solidarity is the emergence of a new economy, the solidarity economy, within markets, alongside of traditional capitalist economic practices and institutions. This new economy reflects the solidarity values which progressive social movements have been working for: equality and fairness in all dimensions; cooperation and solidarity; sustainability; economic and political democracy; and unity amidst diversity. Love for oneself AND for others – and the search to find mutually beneficial, “win-win” solutions — is at the center, rather than zero-sum (“I win/you lose”) thinking, and the will to dominate others or “nature”. People all over the world are finding a myriad of ways to inject solidarity values into economic life, substituting them for the oppressive, violent, and unsustainable inequality paradigm economic values of greed, competition, and “winning”. See the solidarity economy tab for more on this topic.

The website was originally created in 2012 as an Econ 243 project; it was overhauled in 2018 with the help of a student. Email Julie Matthaei with any comments or questions, jmatthaei@wellesley.edu.