Geopolitics, Ecology, and the International Economy

From the 2024 Postliberalism Conference

In the following video, we present plenary session 4, entitled “Geopolitics, Ecology, and the International Economy,” from day 1 of Political Economy and the Good Life: The 2024 Postliberalism Conference. This session was moderated by the Very Reverend Dr. Frances Ward, Honorary fellow at St. Chad’s College, Durham. The panel featured presentations from the following three speakers:

• Richard Beardsworth, Professor of International Politics; Head of the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds;

• Maurice (Lord) Glasman, Labour Life Peer, founder of Blue Labour and of the Common Good Foundation, and author of Blue Labour: The Politics of the Common Good (2022); and

• Aris Roussinos, UnHerd columnist and former war reporter.

The 2024 Postliberalism Conference took place on December 13–14, 2024, in the McCrum Lecture Theatre, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, UK. Co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute, the Centre for Social Renewal, Energeia, and Plough, the conference brought together leading academics, politicians, policymakers, and journalists to explore the errors and excesses of liberalism and to conceptualize constructive alternatives to its worldview and to the dominant theoretical models that underpin it.

On day 1, our focus was on political economy, in particular the nature of the crisis of liberalism, the contradictions of capitalism, and a shift from globalization, the “knowledge economy,” debt and speculation toward national resilience, vocations and crafts, investment and production. The discussion also included new ideas about foreign policy and ecology with an emphasis on realist approaches to interests and the exercise of power.

Day 2 expanded our conversation to new thinking about politics, including virtue politics and left conservatism, but also how to combat the machine by re-humanizing technology, how to purse the good life in relation to our demographic and ecological crises, as well as how to renew the West in the face of Western self-hatred and hostile foreign powers.

Would you like to contribute to the conversation? Write to us to propose a response to any of the conference presentations.

Topics: Beyond State and Market • The 2024 Postliberalism Conference