capitalism 25_0001_Monday_1920x8306

Events

Alternatives to capitalism

Hosted by LSE Festival: Visions for the Future

In-person and online public event (Marshall Building)

Speakers

Grace Blakeley

Grace Blakeley

Dr Abby Innes

Dr Abby Innes

Chair

Professor Richard Davies

Professor Richard Davies

There are frequent discussions (including at this year’s Festival) on how our current economic system should be reformed and improved to address global challenges. But, should we be thinking more radically about the problems with capitalism? Can we imagine an alternative way of organising our societies? 

Meet our speakers and chair

Grace Blakeley (@graceblakeley, @graceblakeley.substack.com) is an author, journalist, and political commentator. She attended University of Oxford where she graduated with a first-class honours degree in philosophy, economics, and politics. She has written for the GuardianTribune and the New Statesman among others, and appears regularly on television and radio, including on ITV Good Morning Britain, TalkTV and Jeremy Vine on Channel Five.

Abby Innes (@abbyinnes.bsky.social) is Associate Professor of Political Economy in the European Institute at LSE. She is the author of Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (Yale University Press, 2001) and Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail (Cambridge University Press, 2023). She has published widely on issues of party-state development and state capture in Central Europe, and, more recently, on the political economy of the neoliberal state in the UK. Her work has appeared in The Review of International Political EconomyComparative PoliticsThe Journal of Common Market StudiesEast European Politics and Societies and Current History, The London Review of Books and numerous LSE blogs.

Richard Davies (@richarddavies.bsky.social) is an economist and author. He teaches courses on economics and data science, both with a focus on policy, in the School of Public Policy at LSE. Richard is also the Director of the Growth Co-Lab at LSE, a research collaboration with Harvard University’s Growth Lab that provides advice to governments on inclusive growth practices, with recent projects covering Ukraine, the UK, Namibia, Tanzania and South Africa.

More about this event

This event is part of the LSE Festival: Visions for the Future running from Monday 16 to Saturday 21 June 2025, with a series of events exploring the threats and opportunities of the near and distant future, and what a better world could look like. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 19 May.  

Hashtag for this event: #LSEFestival   

LSE Blogs

Many speakers at LSE events also write for LSE Blogs, which present research and critical commentary accessibly for a public audience. Follow British Politics and Policy, the Business Review, the Impact BlogEuropean Politics and Policy and the LSE Review of Books to learn more about the debates our events series present.

Live captions

Automated live captions are available at this live event. Please note that this feature uses Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology, or machine generated transcription and is not 100% accurate.

Photography

Photographs taken on behalf of LSE are often used on our social media accounts, website and publications. At events, photographs could include broad shots of the audience and lecture theatre, of speakers during the talk, and of audience members as they participate in the Q&A.

If you are photographed participating in an event Q&A but would not like your photograph to be stored for future use, please contact events@lse.ac.uk.

Media queries

Please contact the Press Office if you would like to request a press seat or have a media query about this event, email LSE.Press.Events@lse.ac.uk. Please note that press seats are usually allocated at least 24 hours before each event.

Podcasts

We aim to make all LSE events available as a podcast subject to receiving permission from the speaker/s to do this, and subject to no technical problems with the recording of the event. Podcasts are normally available 1 week after the event. Podcasts and videos of past events can be found online

Social Media

Follow LSE public events on X for the latest updates on all our events and ticket releases. 

Livestreams and archive videos of past lectures are shared on our YouTube channel while event podcasts can be found on the LSE Player.

Event updates and other information about what’s happening at LSE can be found on our Facebook page and for live photos from events and around campus, follow us on Instagram

Attending our events in-person or online? Join the conversation using #LSEEvents.

Accessibility

If you are planning to attend this event and would like details on how to get here and what time to arrive, as well as on accessibility and special requirements, please refer to LSE Events FAQ.  LSE aims to ensure that people have equal access to these public events, but please contact the events organiser as far as possible in advance if you have any access requirements so that arrangements, where possible, can be made. If the event is ticketed, please ensure you get in touch in advance of the ticket release date. Access Guides to all our venues can be viewed online.

WIFI Access

LSE has now introduced wireless for guests and visitors in association with 'The Cloud', also in use at many other locations across the UK. If you are on campus visiting for the day or attending a conference or event, you can connect your device to wireless. See more information and create an account at Join the Cloud.
Visitors from other participating institutions are encouraged to use eduroam. If you are having trouble connecting to eduroam, please contact your home institution for assistance.
The Cloud is only intended for guest and visitor access to wifi. Existing LSE staff and students are encouraged to use eduroam instead.

LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of The London School of Economics and Political Science.

From time to time there are changes to event details so we strongly recommend that if you plan to attend this event you check back on this listing on the day of the event.