[CFP] Conference 2020 – Moving Beyond Capitalism Working Group

“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” (Generally misattributed to Mark Twain, who properly quoted it from Charles Dudley Warner.)

That is definitely too strong a statement for both capitalism and its particular current neoliberal form. Lots of people have lots of ideas about changes that would promote human well-being, deep reforms to the capitalist system or creating new human-centered political economic alternatives that would move beyond capitalism. Lots of people are out there actually trying to implement such chnages, locally or on whatever larger scale they can get the power to try to do so.

The Moving Beyond Capitalism Working Group would like to invite proposals for individual papers (which will be grouped into panels) and already-formed panels related to either the theory or the practice (consideration of both the successes and failures of both past and present concrete experiments) of Moving Beyond Capitalism. From the home page of IIPPE (www.iippe.org) select “Submit a Proposal,” and then follow the instructions on the Electronic Proposal Form for proposing a paper or panel, including checking the “Moving Beyond Capitalism” Working Group in the proposal process. Note the deadline for submitting a proposal is March 15, 2020, and there one also finds all other relevant instructions and information concerning participating in this year’s IIPPE Annual Conference, Beyond Neoliberalism and Populism: On the Political Economy of our Societies and Economies, September 9-11, 2020, in Ferrara, Italy.

For more information on the Moving Beyond Capitalism Working Group go to http://iippe.org/working-groups/moving-beyond-capitalism-working-group/ . But be aware that the description there written over 5 years ago is now somewhat dated, and a new description will be posted in May. The old description already stressed the openness of the group to discussions from any perspective on Moving Beyond Capitalism, and the new description will stress that still more. In addition, some new questions will be highlighted that are more discussed today than they were back then. To give two examples: What is the nature of and the potential contribution of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) to moving beyond capitalism, and what is the potential of cooperatives, linked together in different possible ways, to the process of moving beyond capitalism? But again, the MBC WG is interested in any work directed at considering how to replace capitalism with a more human-centered political economy, how to move beyond capitalism.