Collapse Finance – e-flux Education

On June 10–11, 2025, The New Institute’s Futures of Capitalism Program, led by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, convenes Collapse Finance, the inaugural workshop of the Global Consortium for Re-thinking Capitalism (GCRC).

Against the backdrop of deepening ecological, political, and economic breakdown, this gathering brings together leading scholars, journalists, and activists to rethink the role of finance in shaping our collective futures. Rather than treating collapse as a moment of failure, the workshop explores it as a space of possibility, where new alliances, practices, and ways of valuing can emerge. Through conversations spanning climate, democracy, digital infrastructures, and grassroots innovation, we will ask: What comes after collapse? And what kind of financial imagination do we need to build it?

Featuring keynote reflections by Gillian Tett (Financial Times), Collapse Finance marks the launch of an urgent global inquiry into the futures of capitalism.
 
Session one: Finance & Climate Collapse  
Jens Beckert, Natascha van der Zwan and Adrienne Buller

Session two: Opening Finance’s Black Boxes  
Carola Westermeier, Kristian Bondo Hansen and Gerhard Schick

Session three: Finance & Democratic Collapse  
Robert Meister, Melinda Cooper and Giulia Dal Maso

Session four: Re-imagining the Homo Economicus  
Michel Feher, Emily Rosamond and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

Session five: Finance from Below?  
Brett Scott, Rachel O’Dwyer and Hendrik Wagenaar

Closing roundtable: What Comes After Collapse?

Keynote Address: Re-imagining Collapse Through an Anthropologist’s Lens
Gillian Tett

Full list of participants: Jens Beckert, Kristian Bondo Hansen, Adrienne Buller, Melinda Cooper, Giulia Dal Maso, Michel Feher, Maja Groff, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Robert Meister, Rachel O’Dwyer, Felix Rohrbeck, Emily Rosamond, Brett Scott, Gerhard Schick, Gillian Tett, Hendrik Wagenaar, Carola Westermeier, Till Wittwer, and Natascha van der Zwan

Media inquiries: <a href="https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/662660/collapse-finance/#" onclick="location.href='znvygb:[email protected]?fhowrpg=Pbyyncfr%20Svanapr%20r-syhk'.replace(/[a-zA-Z]/g,function(c){return String.fromCharCode((c=(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false”>Alice Gustson (The New Institute)

Collapse Finance is produced by The New Institute Hamburg in collaboration with the UCL Centre for Capitalism Studies, and organised by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Giulia Dal Maso, and Till Wittwer.