States and/vs Markets in Capitalism

The past 15 years have challenged the Western dichotomy between states and markets embedded in the neoliberal ideology of “free markets” and a “minimal state”. With the resurgence of the state as a key economic player in recent years, via the importance of central banks as lender of last resort and extraordinary monetary policy, the state as an investor in green transitions, but also its reversal of the austerity ideology, we clearly need to reconsider what we think to know about this special couple. This task takes on relevance in the context of intellectual monopoly capitalism, in which the role of planning, traditionally played by the States – and denied by liberalism – is increasingly in the hands of giant companies, which in addition to planning the production of goods and services, do so with knowledge production.

Looking back into History, we learn that the relationship between ‘states’ and ‘markets’ its dynamic, not only in terms of its reciprocal dependence but also regarding the division of labour, risk, investment and profit sharing.

This workshop aims to bring together young scholars, thinkers, policy-makers, writers and professionals, to consider this changing nature of ‘states’ and ‘market’, contextualize myths about them and consider dangers as well as opportunities for redistributing power towards communities.

We invite contributions on a variety of facets to consider ‘states’ and/vs ‘markets’:

1. How the state/market dynamics materializes in social realities (feminist policies, spatial inequalities and residential segregation, industrial and innovation policy, and many more).
2. Legal foundations of markets, their protection and the state as a source of protection as well as violence of last resort. The State as guarantor of the continuity of colonial practices.
3. Macro theories of imperialism and states, the historic tango of market creation and imperial states, state authorized trading monopolies and many more.
4. Current developments of the two within our financialized and digitalized era of capitalism and the alternate closeness and distance between the two over the past 50 years.