Economic System Change or Climate Change?

Location Queen’s University Belfast 27 University Square room 1/003 Belfast BT7 1NN and this event also takes place online.

Admission is free.

Join us for this free and open event to listen to Robin Hahnel, veteran activist and scholar on how we should think about and respond to ecocidal and climate destroying neoliberal capitalism.

(1) Is neoliberal capitalism on track to trigger catastrophic and irreversible climate change?

(2) Is there an alternative economic system which would no longer do so, but instead, prevent climate change, adequately protect the natural environment forever, and still allow economic wellbeing to increase indefinitely?

(3) Does this mean that the solution to “climate change” is “economic system change,” i.e. to replace capitalism with an appropriate version of “eco-socialism?”

Robin Hahnel will explain his answer to all three questions.

Robin is an American economist and professor emeritus of economics at American University. He was a professor at American University for many years and travelled extensively advising on economic matters all over the world.

His books incldue

Looking Forward – Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century with M. Albert (1991)

The Political Economy of Participatory Economics with M. Albert (1991)

Panic Rules (1999)

ABC’s of Political Economy (2003)

Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation (2005)

Green Economics (2011)

Of the people, By the people – The Case for a Participatory Economy (2012)

Radical Political Economy: Sraffa versus Marx (2017)

Democratic Economic Planning (2021)

Politically, Hahnel considers himself a product of the New Left and is sympathetic to libertarian socialism. He has been active in many social movements and organizations for forty years, notably as a participant in student movements opposed to the American invasion of South Vietnam, more recently with the Southern Maryland Greens, a local chapter of the Maryland Green Party, and the Green Party of the United States. Hahnel’s work in economic theory and analysis is informed by the work of Marx, Keynes, Piero Sraffa, Michał Kalecki, and Joan Robinson, among others. He has served as a visiting professor or economist in Cuba, Peru, and England.