Capital, Labour and Extraction

Aided by rapid globalisation and technological advancement, capitalism has become the predominant and taken for granted mode of economic organisation around the world. While it has produced progress and prosperity for some people and places, this has been achieved through the exploitation and impoverishment of others.

We explore the key challenges produced by contemporary capitalism: stagnant economic growth; rising debt; geographical inequalities; housing, labour, and resource scarcity; and climate crisis.

In this Master’s specialisation, we tackle some key questions that get to the heart of these challenges: are rising debts, geographical inequalities, housing, labour, and resource shortages, or climate change endemic to capitalism? How do these challenges have uneven impacts, especially on racialised and colonised peoples and the places they inhabit? And finally, how can we tackle these challenges – both on a local and global scale – through radical policy interventions, promoting forms of sustainable, ethical enterprise, grassroots initiatives and resistance, and re-imagining dramatically different ways of organising society.