Last month, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, along with Omidyar Network, announced more than $40 million in grants to support the establishment of multidisciplinary academic centers dedicated to reimagining the relationships among markets, governments, and people. “At a time when conventional economic prescriptions are failing and democratic governance is threatened around the world, scholars at leading academic institutions will investigate how economies should work in the 21st century and the aims they should serve,” the Foundation stated in their announcement.
“Neoliberalism’s anti-government, free-market fundamentalism is simply not suited for today’s economy and society, but what comes next is still not fully developed,” said Larry Kramer, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which launched its Economy and Society Initiative in December 2020 to focus on identifying a successor to neoliberalism. “This joint effort reflects our shared interest in replacing outdated 20th-century thinking — individualistic versus collectivist, central control versus free markets, liberty versus equality, and the like — with new ideas that can lead to broader economic justice and prosperity for people around the world. This is a first step to support forward-thinking scholars, students, and thought leaders who can break out of a patently failing neoliberal paradigm, with its ossified left-right divides, and help shape a bold new vision for what people should expect from their governments and economies.”