The economy as a political choice: how to transform capitalism

We take for granted that economics is a technical matter, made of neutral laws and inevitable constraints: markets know, the books must be balanced, there are no alternatives. But the categories through which we read it — growth, debt, unemployment — are not objective descriptions of the world; they contain choices about what counts, and for whom. Recognising them as political, rather than as destiny, changes what we are able to imagine.

If capitalism is a historical construction and not a natural order, then it too can be transformed — and culture is no stranger to this possibility. Cultural institutions, networks, and commons are not marginal spaces with respect to the market: they are places where mutualist and cooperative economic models can be practised, not only theorised. The question this talk leaves open is where the line runs between declaring an alternative and sustaining it over time: what conditions make it truly inhabitable, and not merely thinkable.