Is a democratic economy possible? Lessons from history, horizons for the future

Fifty years after powerful labour movements launched radical plans to democratise the economy and gain control of large businesses, what is the legacy of these efforts and what are the prospects for economic democracy today?

Join us to discuss the anniversary of the "Meidner plan", a famous moment in the history of socialism when Swedish unions tried to take ownership of all large companies there. What can we learn from the ambitions and failures of projects like this? What should plans for economic democracy look like today? And what is the best way to pursue projects for economic democracy in practice?

Meet our speakers and chair

Isabelle Ferreras is a Research Director (Directrice de recherches) of the Belgian National Science Foundation (F.N.R.S., Brussels). She is professor of sociology at the University of Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) where she teaches at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, at the Institut des sciences du travail and at the Economics School of Louvain. Isabelle is involved as a permanent researcher of the CriDIS (Centre de recherches interdisciplinaires Democracy, Institutions, Subjectivity).

Mathew Lawrence is Common Wealth’s Founder and Director. Prior to founding Common Wealth, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, working on their Commission on Economic Justice. He is the co-author of Owning the Future and Planet on Fire.

Neil Warner is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the European Institute. He is political economist and historical sociologist with particular interests in socialist and social democratic parties, labour movements, the politics of the ‘long 1970s, and alternatives to capitalist control over workplaces and investment. He is currently working on a project that brings attention to proposals for the socialisation of investment as an alternative to neoliberalism in Western Europe the 1970s and 1980s.

Robin Archer teaches political sociology at LSE, and is the director of the postgraduate programme in that subject. His first degree was in physics, mathematics and philosophy at Sydney University where he received the University Medal. A Commonwealth Scholarship enabled him to come to England to do a DPhil in politics at Balliol College, Oxford.

More about this event

The Ralph Miliband (@RMilibandLSE) programme is one of the LSE's most prestigious public lecture series, receiving attention not only at the LSE but across London, the UK, and globally. The programme was set up in 1996 thanks to a generous anonymous benefaction from a former PhD student inspired by 'Ralph Miliband's contribution to social thought'. He specified that the funds be used in memory of his friend and mentor 'to advance his spirit of free social inquiry' and the diversity of thought that has always been the hallmark of LSE.

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