Since the 2008 financial crash there has been a veritable explosion of publishing in the area of political economy, with writers from various disciplinary backgrounds contributing to an ongoing discourse that seeks to reframe our present beyond the capitalist realism of a neoliberal age; an age defined by a “disenchantment of the political by the economic”. With the second Trump victory in 2024, the post-crash zombified murmuring of progressive neoliberalism has finally ceased. In this new multi-polar, populist and authoritarian world, what comes after neoliberal capitalism? It has perhaps never been more central to the work of critique to question rentier and extractivist forms of economic exploitation, not least since economist thinking threatens the university itself as an institution, but also that such thinking has never been more central to the ethnonationalist projects that are a hallmark of the postliberal era of the 2020s. This group will explore contemporary theoretical takes on this question, investigating the various labels posed as alternatives for refiguring the present, some of which include: Technofeudalism, Neofeudalism, Cybernetic Capitalism, Postcapitalism, Vulture Capitalism, Too Late Capitalism, Technocapitalism, New Capitalism, Platform Capitalism. This group will also explore classical texts to open up the background to these recent regroupings and reformulations, for example Marx, but also the work of neoclassical economists and self-styled neoliberals (Hayek, Friedman).

We aim to meet around once a month. The first meeting will take place at 16.00-18.00 on Tuesday 6 October, focusing on the opening chapters of Slobodian and Tarnoff’s Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2026) and Nathan Sperber’s recent article ‘Beyond Neoliberalism?’ (NLR 158). The meeting location will be confirmed closer to the time. To obtain the readings and join the mailing list, please write to b.p.moore@uva.nl and m.w.farrant@uva.nl.