Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Leeds Beckett event explores the future of capitalism
The event, Post-Capitalism 2015: Rethinking Crisis, Culture, and Politics, was held at Leeds Beckett’s Rose Bowl building on Friday 6 November, and considered strategies, opportunities and innovations towards a sustainable and more equal post-capitalist society.
Channel 4 News Economics Editor, Paul Mason, delivered a public lecture, based on his groundbreaking new book Postcapitalism, where he explored how past societies, when confronted with periods of crisis, have collapsed or changed, and provide a powerful critique of why he believes our present system of financial capitalism has failed us.
Across the day, a number of talks and workshops were also held to investigate how, following the global financial crisis, we can emerge from this period as a fairer, more equal society.
Alex Nunn, Professor of Politics and Political Economy at Leeds Beckett, delivered a keynote entitled Crisis, Post-Neoliberalisation and the Idea of Post-Capitalism, whilst experts from the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester presented an Economics Bootcamp entitled Teaching Post-Capitalism.
Joseph Ibrahim, Andrew Lawson and Daryl Cunningham presented Supercrash: Narrative, Consequence and the Crunch, before Professor Nicky Marsh from the University of Southampton delivered a panel, Show Me the Money.
Dr Peter Knight from Manchester University then presented a further keynote, The Invisible Hand: Imagining the Conspiracy of Finance.
The event concluded with a film screening of Monty Python star, Terry Jones’ documentary Boom Bust Boom, followed by a Q&A with the film’s producer. The feature documentary targets the global financial system and uses puppetry and animation to get the message across -- as well as interviews with economist Paul Krugman, actor John Cusack, Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane and Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman, Robert J Shiller and Paul Krugman.
The event was supported by the Centre for Culture and the Arts at Leeds Beckett University alongside Penguin, Blackwells, OPEN-Economics Leeds and the Post-Crash Economics Society.