Radical Vocation

Founded at Ann Arbor, the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) was an offspring of the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) and of the politicization of university students inspired by the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s.The adjective radical in radical economics indicates a vocation to orient one’s professional life to progressive social change. To cast a light on the origins of this vocation the chapter reads the Port Huron Statement against the backdrop of debates in social science, notably the “end of ideology” debate, against Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement and the Free University movement that followed it. The radical economists at the University of Michigan were institutional entrepreneurs, having helped to grow SDS to national eminence, they were directly involved in the creation of SDS’s Radical Education Project and the New University Conference. Both of these organizations represented a commitment to intellectual tasks at a time when SDS leadership became a fierce advocate for direct and violent action.