Greece’s economic and digital transformation: in conversation with Kyriakos Pierrakakis

Contributor(s): Professor Deborah James FBA, Dr Miranda Sheild Johansson, Dr Johanna Mugler, Dr Robin Smith | In this panel discussion, anthropologists working on redistribution and tax will present the findings of—and interrogate each other on—two recent books: Clawing Back: redistribution in precarious times, and Anthropology and Tax: ethnographies of fiscal relations. Anthropologists view redistribution in unusual ways. In exploring how people pay for what they need and want, we consider how allocative processes operate beyond those tried and tested in the heyday of the welfare state. Typically, incomes are earned through wage work, or people revert to benefits. Yet austerity has reduced welfare systems in the North, while those in the South are under-developed. To make ends meet, people use both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ resources, payments and economic relationships, creating larger networks of redistribution. They seek new ways to supplement meagre incomes, combining work, welfare and debt. But, as Deborah James shows, combining these three income sources is not straightforward: it requires canny intervention by local advisers on the one hand and householders on the other. Meanwhile, contributions, tributes and tithes, as shown by Miranda Sheild Johansson, Robin Mugler and Robin Smith, enable taxation beyond the exchequer. Their focus on fiscal systems looks at how the sharing, extraction, and flow of resources not only produce economic realities but also shape relations of belonging, dependence, and exclusion, as well as social and philosophical categories regarding work, and value.

Contributor(s): Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter | America is undergoing rapid demographic change. By the mid-21st century, European Americans, long the country’s largest demographic group, will be roughly equal in numbers to Hispanic, African, and Asian Americans. Join us as Anne-Marie Slaughter considers the possibilities and challenges this shift poses for the Atlantic Hemisphere and the future of transatlantic relations.

Contributor(s): Dr Iris Berger, Dr Luke Hecht, Dr Karen Kovaka, Matt Phelps | Britain's wildlife has been under pressure for centuries. Many of the large mammals that once inhabited these islands were driven to extinction long ago. In the twenty-first century, insect populations have collapsed by around three quarters. Is there any way back? Join us to hear stories from the frontline of the fight to restore wild Britain. We'll discuss the ethics of conservation in the real world. When should we intervene and when should we leave "wild nature" alone? When conflicts between economic and environmental interests emerge, how should they be handled? How can scientists involve local communities in conservation to avoid tensions and build coalitions? Does a focus on large animals lead to undervaluing tiny animals, like insects, or can we help both at once? And since wild nature involves a lot of suffering, do we have to choose between prioritizing animal welfare and prioritizing biodiversity? These questions will be brought to life with vivid examples.

Contributor(s): Professor Helen Milner | In this lecture, Helen Milner addresses why vulnerability, lived experience, and material self-interest will drive the next phase of climate politics, and what that means for diplomacy, democracy and development. In Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World, Alexander F Gazmararian and Helen V Milner show how rising temperatures carve a stark divide around the 35th parallel, separating “damage zones” that stand to lose livelihoods and growth from regions that may even gain. This emerging “climate fault line” is already reshaping public opinion, business lobbying and state strategy, forging new coalitions below the line while stiffening resistance above it. This distributive clash—within countries and across borders—will decide whether decarbonisation accelerates or stalls.

Contributor(s): Professor Branko Milanovic | Join us for this talk by Branko Milanovic about his new book, The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World. Global neoliberalism is on its last legs, while a new international economic order is taking hold. Trade blocs, tariff wars, economic sanctions, and national champions are in; nationalism, anti-immigration movements and the far-right are on the rise. Liberalism is being rejected by the civic realm, as the status quo of the past fifty years crumbles. What remains in its wake? Drawing on original research, economist Branko Milanovic reveals the seismic shifts that are shaping our world. He details the facts: how the rising economic power of Asia is creating a new global ‘middle class’ in the greatest reshuffle of incomes since the Industrial Revolution. He explores our fears: why are we becoming increasingly unhappy, when the world is becoming richer and more equal? And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving malcontent to breaking point.