Capitalism After the Crash: The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism

The global financial meltdown of 2008 brought the world economy to its knees and destroyed three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. The aftermath is still being felt today with the coalition government’s Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October ushering in the “longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services since World War II”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

But is the cuts agenda simply propping up a terminally listing economic model? Should the crash prompt us to reassess the viability of free market capitalism in tackling the complex dilemmas of the 21st century? And if so, what does a more equitable and sustainable economic system look like in the age of globalisation?

Paul Mason, Newsnight economics editor and author of Meltdown, is joined by writer and activist Jeremy Gilbert, Tony Greenham from The New Economic Foundation, Aditya Chakrabortty economics leader writer for the Guardian and journalist Daniel Ben-Ami, author of Ferraris for All, to debate the future of free market economics.