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At a time of profound transformation and growing instability, Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research is promoting – – in collaboration with Fondazione Feltrinelli – the international conference “Capitalism, Crisis and Global Reordering”, devoted to the critical analysis of the economic, political, and social changes reshaping the global order.

 The conference is the outcome of an international call launched by the journal, which serves as a dynamic and inclusive platform for interdisciplinary critical social research. Contributors were invited to submit proposals capable of challenging and expanding current interpretations of contemporary developments while helping shape the journal’s forthcoming issue.

The event will bring together 100 scholars from around the world in Milan for an intensive program featuring 20 panels. Discussions will address the transformations of contemporary capitalism, emerging forms of production and labour, the impact of artificial intelligence and platform economies, shifts in the global political order, dynamics of imperialism and protectionism, geopolitical conflicts, and new forms of popular resistance and social movements.

Welcome Address

By Carlo Fanelli

This conference brings together scholars from across North America, Europe and Asia
to examine how capitalism, technology, colonialism, labour and political crises
permeate the early twenty-first century. What makes the conference significant is not
only the breadth of its topics, but the way it situates emerging issues, especially
artificial intelligence, digital capitalism, ecological crisis and authoritarianism, within
longer histories of class struggle, imperialism and colonial domination. Conference
themes demonstrate how contemporary crises cannot be understood in isolation
from one another but are instead embedded in global systems of economic and
political inequality.
This conference centres the struggles of working class communities. Across nearly
every panel, there is a recognition that the defining conflicts of the twenty-first
century are fundamentally labour questions in the broadest possible terms: who
works, under what conditions, who benefits from technological change, and how
power is organized within capitalist societies. In a time when mainstream discourse
often assumes that class politics has disappeared or declined in relevance, this
conference seeks to reassert the importance of working-class analysis and politics.
The working class today, both paid and unpaid, includes but is not limited to
industrial workers, gig workers, care workers, informal labourers, migrants, digital
workers, academic workers and precarious service-sector employees, among others.
As Harry Braverman notes in Labor and Monopoly Capital, ‘classes, the class
structure, the social structure as a whole, are not fixed entities, but an ongoing
process, rich in change, transition and variation, and incapable of being encapsulated
in formulas, no matter how analytically proper such forms may be.’ In this context,
conference presentations demonstrate how capitalism continuously restructures
labour in order to extract profit while weakening collective organization and worker
bargaining power.
This emphasis is especially visible in panels such as “Labour, Class and Multipolar
Transitions,” “AI, Labour and Inequality,” “Precarity, Class and Work,” and “Labour
Movements and Radical Pedagogy.” These sessions highlight how economic insecurity
and labour fragmentation have become defining features of modern capitalism.
Presentations on wages for housework, peer-support worker unionization, informal
labour and precarious employment show how many forms of socially necessary work
remains undervalued, underpaid or invisible. These analyses are crucial because they
connect everyday experiences of economic instability to larger structural
transformations in capitalism.
The conference’s focus on labour is particularly important because it challenges
dominant narratives surrounding artificial intelligence and automation. Much
contemporary discussion about AI celebrates productivity gains and technological 4
Welcome Address:
innovation while ignoring the consequences for workers. By contrast, this conference
approaches AI through the lens of labour relations and class power, and explores how
AI technologies are being used to reorganize work, intensify surveillance, discipline
labour and increase profitability for corporations while deepening insecurity for
workers.
This perspective is crucial because technological change is never neutral. AI systems
are introduced within existing power structures and unequal class relations, often
allowing employers and governments to monitor workers more closely, automate jobs,
weaken collective bargaining institutions, and expand precarious employment
arrangements. The conference therefore frames AI not simply as a technological issue,
but as a labour issue. The future of AI becomes inseparable from questions about
democratic control, workplace rights, public ownership and economic justice.
The emphasis on working-class struggles also connects to broader discussions of
inequality and social reproduction. Several panels highlight how capitalism depends
not only on waged labour, but also on unpaid or underpaid forms of care work,
domestic labour and community support systems. Discussions surrounding sex work,
abolitionism and care economies point to the ways capitalism relies on gendered and
racialized forms of labour that are often excluded from mainstream economic
analysis. By foregrounding these issues, the conference expands the understanding of
class struggle beyond factories and industrial workplaces to include housing,
education, caregiving, migration and other spheres.
Presentations on settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance reveal how capitalist
development has historically depended upon dispossession, racial and ethnic
hierarchies, and unequal systems of global labour extraction. Working class politics
here is not treated narrowly as an economic issue, but as part of a broader struggle
against systems of domination that organize people differently according to race,
nationality, gender, colonial status, and other markers of identity. Rather than treating
colonialism as a historical phenomenon that has ended, many presenters argue that
colonial logics continue to shape land ownership, migration systems, resource
extraction and geopolitical conflict.
For example, papers examining migrant labour regimes in Europe and housing
arrangements demonstrate how labour precarity often intersects with borders,
policing and state violence. Migrant workers are frequently positioned as disposable
labour forces within global capitalism, while Indigenous communities continue to
resist resource extraction and land dispossession tied to capitalist accumulation. The
conference therefore presents local labour struggles as inherently internationalist and
anti-colonial. These discussions are significant in the current international context,
where many countries are experiencing democratic erosion, expanding surveillance
powers, political polarization and intensified border control regimes. In the context of
an ongoing global refugee crises, rising anti-immigrant politics and the securitization
of borders in Europe and North America, the conference positions migration not as an
isolated humanitarian issue, but as a core feature of capitalist globalization and
labour management.

Another important dimension of the conference is its attention to unionization and
collective organization. In an era marked by declining union density and collective
bargaining coverage in many countries, growing gig work and fractured workplaces,
the conference repeatedly returns to the question of how workers can organize under
these conditions. Discussions of unionizing peer-support workers, radical worker
education and anti-fascist worker mobilization highlight the continuing importance of
collective action. These presentations emphasize that labour movements remain one
of the few organized forces capable of challenging corporations and governments,
austerity and authoritarian politics.
This connection between labour struggle and democracy is central to the
conference’s broader political significance. Many presenters argue that rising
authoritarianism, populism and far-right politics are linked to economic insecurity,
weakened labour regimes and growing inequality. As workers lose economic stability
and political representation, social frustration can be redirected into nationalism,
xenophobia or authoritarian movements – easy scapegoats in times of social
polarization. The rise of far-right politics is not simply a “cultural backlash,” but rooted
in economic crises, austerity, declining public trust and intensified social inequality.
Rebuilding democratic capacities therefore requires rebuilding working-class power
through unions, public institutions and collective political movements.
The conference’s emphasis on class also challenges the idea that globalization has
made national labour politics obsolete. On the contrary, panels on state capitalism,
multipolar transitions and global reordering demonstrate that international
competition between states remains deeply connected to labour markets, production
systems and resource extraction. The question of state power is, therefore, just as
important today as ever. Whether discussing China’s digital expansion, US imperialism,
European austerity or Canadian state-Indigenous relations, the presentations reveal
that underpinning labour exploitation and unequal economic relations are active and
interventionist states which, as Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin note, ‘superintend’ The
Making of Global Capitalism.
Importantly, the conference does not present labour struggles only in terms of
paid-employment, suffering or defeat. Many papers also explore possibilities for
resistance, democratic transformation and alternative futures. Presentations on
democratic AI development, sustainability-oriented technologies, radical pedagogy,
decolonial environmental care, and public service delivery point toward efforts to
reimagine economic systems organized around human need rather than profit. These
discussions reflect a belief that working-class movements remain central to any
meaningful response to the climate crisis, technological disruption and democratic
decline that have become a hallmark of our time.

One of the conference’s most significant contributions lies in its interdisciplinary and
international character. Scholars from sociology, political economy, philosophy,
geography, labour studies, anthropology, education, cultural studies and others are
brought into dialogue around shared questions of capitalism, crisis and resistance.
This breadth reflects a growing recognition that contemporary global problems cannot
be adequately understood within narrow disciplinary boundaries.
Ultimately, the conference reflects a broader intellectual and political moment
marked by uncertainty about the future of democracy, work, technology and
globalization itself. Across its panels, a central question emerges: how can societies
respond to deepening inequalities, ecological breakdown, technological
transformation, and authoritarian tendencies while imagining more democratic and
emancipatory alternatives?

Despite narratives claiming that class has faded in importance, the conference
demonstrates that struggles over wages, housing, technology, migration, care work,
education, and wider systems of political and economic power are all fundamental
struggles over labour and the distribution of social wealth. By connecting
contemporary crises to histories of capitalism, colonialism and resistance, the
conference provides a space not only for critique, but also for the development of
new political and theoretical frameworks capable of addressing the challenges of the
present era. By centering working-class experiences and labour politics, the
conference provides a powerful critique of contemporary capitalism while also
highlighting the enduring importance of collective resistance in shaping the possibility
for more democratic and equitable futures.

Finally, a key strength of the conference is the social and collaborative atmosphere it
fosters. Shared meals, receptions and informal gatherings create opportunities for
participants to connect beyond their presentations and professional profiles. These
moments encourage meaningful conversations, new friendships and lasting networks
that often extend well beyond the conference itself. By bringing people together in a
collegial and welcoming environment, the conference helps cultivate a sense of
intellectual community grounded not only in academic exchange, but also in mutual
support, shared engagement and solidarity. These commitments are at the heart of
the conference and reflect the broader mission of Alternate Routes: A Journal of
Critical Social Research, which is now in its 49th year as a forum for critical
interdisciplinary scholarship and intellectual exchange.

* Forthcoming in Eutopia, a newsletter of the Feltrinelli Foundation available here.

Carlo Fanelli is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Social Science at York University (Toronto, Canada) and co-editor of Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research.