Contributor(s): Dr Benjamin Braun, Professor Brett Christophers, Professor Daniela Gabor | As the climate emergency intensifies, the efficacy of market-based solutions is under growing scrutiny. Can capitalism solve a crisis of its own making?

Is "green growth" a path to transformative change, or will it solely legitimise and perpetuate systemic inequalities? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the opportunities and challenges of market-based solutions in bringing about a livable and fair future for all.

Contributor(s): Teresa Ribera | Join us for this special event at which European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera will take to the stage at LSE.

In an era of rising inequality and economic transformation, the question of how to achieve fair and inclusive prosperity is more pressing than ever. At the same time, the green transition is reshaping industries, labor markets, and policies worldwide. But can economic justice be realized without a strong environmental agenda? Is sustainability a prerequisite for long-term prosperity, or can alternative paths lead to fair growth? This exclusive dialogue with Teresa Ribera, invites participants to delve into these pressing questions. With a distinguished background in environmental law and policy, Ribera brings a wealth of experience in crafting strategies that bridge economic growth with environmental stewardship.

Contributor(s): Dr Onni Gust, Professor Susan Stryker | This thought-provoking conversation will bring together diverse expertise to critically examine and address the urgent socio-political challenges of our time. As gender-critical feminism and right-wing populist movements gain traction globally, it becomes increasingly critical to examine the deep historical and structural roots of these ideologies in colonialism, neoliberalism, and biopolitical regimes. These systems have long functioned to regulate bodies, identities, and communities, wielding power to sustain racialised, gendered, and class-based hierarchies.

Contributor(s): Professor Mark Pennington | What are the implications of Michel Foucault’s critical social theories for how we think about freedom, power, and justice?

Political economist Mark Pennington will address this question exploring themes from his forthcoming book Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge and Freedom. Pennington provides a unique engagement between Foucault’s account of power and knowledge and the most prominent theories of social justice in the liberal and social democratic traditions. He will suggest that the "positive" freedoms and rights favoured by contemporary liberal egalitarians, social democrats and standpoint theorists threaten to encase people in a web of bio-political surveillance "technologies" that narrow their scope to act as self-creating individuals. Building on this Foucauldian critique he will suggest that if we are to avoid the dangers of this species of "over-government" we may be best placed to re-explore the value of the "negative" freedoms and rights emphasised by the classical liberal tradition.

Contributor(s): Professor Anamik Saha, Dr Francesca Sobande | Racism and antiracism clash on a daily basis in media discourse. This joint talk reflects on current practices of "othering" in popular media and probes the nature and meaning of media diversity amidst far right appeals to media representation. These practices point to shifts in whom a plural media system can and ought to serve and why.

Contributor(s): Aditya Chakrabortty, Clare MacGillivray, Professor Mike Savage , Zarah Sultana MP | It is ten years since the seminal Social Class in the 21st Century was published. We will revisit the findings, ask if the trends have changed, why class seems to have fallen off the agenda, and what we can do to build solidarity in this new political era.

The research was undertaken by a team of sociologists from across the country over several years and reignited the conversation about the British class system amongst academics, the media, politicians and most importantly the great British public. It composed seven classes that reflected the unequal distribution of three kinds of capital: economic (inequalities in income and wealth); social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive).

Contributor(s): Professor Edward B Barbier | Drawing on his book, Scarcity and Frontiers, Edward Barbier argues that how economies choose to exploit natural resources is critical to both their sustainability and prosperity. In past eras, a critical driving force behind global economic development has been the response of society to the scarcity of key natural resources. By raising the cost of exploitation and use, scarcity creates incentives to innovate and substitute. However, economies also avoid scarcity by obtaining and developing new "frontiers" of vital resources. How these two responses play out often determines which economies emerge as leaders.

In the present era, rising ecological scarcity and global environmental risks are a defining turning point for all economies, but especially those that are vying to win the “green competitive race” for leading global sectors and markets. The outcome of this race will define how innovation and productivity unfolds over the coming decades as well as whether economies will become more environmentally sustainable.

Contributor(s): Craig Mundie, Mairéad Pratschke | As AI absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, it will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality.

But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen before.

Co-author Craig Mundie explains how his new book outlines a strategy for navigating the age of AI, charting a course between blind faith and unjustified fear. It is the final book of the late elder statesman Henry Kissinger written in collaboration with technologist Eric Schmidt.

Mundie touches on how the book attempts to answer some of the biggest questions of our generation: How will AI alter our perception of reality? How will humanity's role in the discovery of new knowledge evolve in the age of AI? What new forms of control will be required to address AI's autonomous capabilities? Could AI spur a new phase in human evolution?

Contributor(s): Dr Samuel Gregg, Dr Paola Romero | In this timely event, Samuel Gregg will delve into the origins of the term "neoliberalism," its contested usefulness in contemporary discourse, and whether intellectuals such as F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman fit the "neoliberal" label.

He will critically engage various contemporary criticisms of neoliberalism, which includes but is not exclusive to economist Joseph Stiglitz, who argues that neoliberalism has deepened inequality and undermined social cohesion in the West, and philosopher Francis Fukuyama, who links it to the erosion of community and the rise of populism.

Dr Gregg will also explore the intellectual foundations of classical liberalism as envisioned by thought leaders at the Mont Pelerin Society and Walter Lippmann Colloquium, emphasizing its grounding in families, communities, and other social institutions as essential components of a free society. He will connect these ideas to the current state of Western society, including the socio-political implications of the recent U.S. presidential election. This event provides an opportunity to reflect on the future of liberal democracy, the role of "neoliberalism" within it, and its broader impact on contemporary politics and society.

Contributor(s): Professor Barry Buzan, Dr Elizabeth Ingleson, Professor Vladislav Zubok | When Soviet power collapsed between 1989 and 1991, the overwhelming view in the West was that liberalism had triumphed.

The world could look forward to a period of peace and prosperity, underpinned by globalisation backed by American power. Today all of that early optimism has faded, to be replaced by a deep fear that the world is once again dividing into two camps very much like the Cold War of old.