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 the University of Oxford where she graduated with a first-class honours degree in philosophy, economics, and politics. She has written for the Guardian, Tribune 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 Economy, Comparative Politics, The Journal of Common Market Studies, East European Politics and Societies and Current History, The London Review of Books and numerous LSE blogs.

Ryan Shorthouse (@RyanShorthouse) is the Founder and Executive Chair of Bright Blue. He was Chief Executive from 2014-2023. Under his leadership, Bright Blue has grown significantly in size, reputation and impact. The organisation was shortlisted for the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 UK social policy think tank of the year and UK environment and energy think tank of the year in the prestigious annual Prospect Magazine awards. Ryan was appointed a Commissioner of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Bath.

Richard Davies is an economist and author. He teaches courses on economics and data science in the School of Public Policy at LSE. Richard is the Director of the UK’s Economics Observatory and the LSE’s Growth Co-Lab, a joint project with Harvard University providing advice to governments on inclusive growth. He is the author of Extreme Economies, and Making Sense of the Modern Economy.

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