Time: 6:00pmVenue: Fogg Lecture Theatre, Mile End Campus
‘The embrace of capitalism around the world by the beginning of the twenty-first century was generally attributed to the superiority of competitive markets. Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren’t straightforwardly opposing forces. Thus, and in contrast to much of the prevailing literature on globalisation, there is an intimate relationship between modern capitalism and states and the American state in particular, including its role as an ‘informal empire’ promoting free trade and capital movements. Historically, this can be seen through the way in which the Unites States has played a superintending role in co-ordinating the management of increasingly frequent financial crises and in its facilitation of the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets. Central to this argument is the need to re-emphasise the role of economic crises and social conflict within states – rather than between them – to expose the key fault lines that provide the possibility for the development of new political movements that can transform nation-states and transcend global markets.’