On Feb. 24, Burnside 1B16 was filled with students eating falafels and discussing neoliberalism. This wasn’t a class—it was a workshop put on by Working Alternatives McGill (WAM). The student group aims to foster a community that explores sustainable futures amid late-stage capitalism and the climate crisis. WAM’s most recent workshop was the second installment in a series called “Economics for Everyone.” By focusing on neoliberalism as the current dominant form of economic policy and thought, WAM built upon its first workshop, which traced the evolution of economic systems in Europe and North America over the last 500 years. Content particularly analyzed neoliberal capitalism as a root of many current issues, including the housing crisis, ecological crisis, and market concentration in the grocery sector.

Organizer Basil Dogra, a PhD student in the Faculty of Education, majored in Economics during his undergraduate degree. He says students may internalize economic myths from “advocates of the capitalist economy” through economic courses or general media, and explained that one goal of all of WAM’s activities—and particularly the Economics for Everyone workshops—is to examine these underlying assumptions.

“For example, [there is] the idea that capitalism is the best system because it allocates resources efficiently. This is something which […] is in fact not the case,” Dogra said in an interview with The Tribune.

Another common claim he addressed is that capitalism uniquely enables innovation.

“Innovation is a direct product of people’s public investment first, and then certainly it’s often a labour of love,” said Dogra.

He pointed to open-source software as an example. Much of the world’s digital infrastructure relies on software developed collaboratively and shared freely rather than produced for profit. Dogra also spoke about rational choice theory as a foundational assumption of traditional economic thinking. Rational choice theory is a model for human thinking used in microeconomics, theorizing that individuals will make decisions that maximize their personal benefit and satisfaction. The discipline itself is increasingly recognizing the limits of rational choice theory, particularly following Richard Thaler’s 2017 Nobel Prize win.

While some advanced economics courses cover similar debates, Dogra says that, in his experience, a single core assumption often remains.

“[It is assumed] that you cannot think about any kind of economic activity without a profit motive.”

By studying economic structures such as worker cooperatives, the group hopes to challenge what many commentators identify as a central feature of contemporary capitalism: the belief that the current economic system is the only possible one.

In addition to the Economics for Everyone series, WAM is running two other projects this semester. One is a series of discussion circles about different practices for economic change, including union organizing and mutual aid.

Organizer Harlan Porfiri, U3 Science, explained the format of these sessions.

“[They] are less directly educational and more about having nuanced conversations,” Porfiri said.

The third project is a career fair featuring organizations within Solidstate, a “cooperative of cooperatives, bound together by a commitment to friendship and mutual aid” based in British Columbia. Planned for the end of March, organizers aim to showcase organizations that provide alternative employment options for STEM students who are typically recruited by fossil fuel companies and defence contractors.

What, exactly, is a ‘solidarity economy’? Dogra describes it as an economic model in which “the economy is run by firms and organizations that have community welfare and broader prosperity as their priority rather than profits.” SEIZE, a Montreal group and cooperative incubator from Concordia University working to build solidarity-economy practices, also collaborates with WAM.

 Dorga sees WAM’s environment as an essential complement to other forms of political organizing.

“There is one aspect to leftist organizing where you organize protests, picket, or call out the McGill administration. That is an absolutely important dimension,” he says. “But an equally important dimension is building popular education, the intellectual orientation to the leftist enterprise.”

Students interested in attending events or getting involved are encouraged to explore WAM’s Instagram page, @workingalternativesmcgill.