From the mid-twentieth century through the 1970s, social democrats and democratic socialists forged a transnational movement committed to justice and durable freedom in the decolonising world. What concrete proposals did they advance for redistributing wealth at a global scale—and why did these proposals fall by the wayside? Drawing on interviews and archival research across three continents, this talk moves from Caracas and New Delhi to Accra, Paris and New York City to recover the ambitions of socialist internationalists and the barriers they faced. In doing so, it reframes the emergence of financialisation as the outcome of political struggle, illuminating at once paths not travelled and the making of our fractured present.
The talk is hosted by Lucile Dreidemy (Department of Contemporary History) and Eva-Maria Muschik (Department of Development Studies) and sponsored in part by the ERC-project "Shockage".
