The combination of the ongoing technological revolution, globalisation and what are usually called 'neo-liberal' economic policies has generated a global system of rentier capitalism in which property rights have supplanted free market principles and in which a new global class structure has taken shape. The 20th century income distribution system has broken down irretrievably, and a new mass class, the precariat has been growing dramatically fast in every part of the world. What are the deeper reasons for these developments? How does an ecologically sustainable strategy look like? Is it possible to restore a balanced market economy in which inequalities and insecurities will lessen and in which the drift to populist and even neo-fascist politics will be reversed? This talk will try to provide answers.
Speakers: Guy Standing