The crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity for us to think again about Marx’s idea of human freedom. Emergency steps to get through the crisis also show us how we could build a different society that’s not beholden to capital.

Unless we address the root cause of those problems in the structure of our economic system, we’ll never be able to solve them.

This a moment where we can use this socialist imagination to construct an alternative society. This is not utopian. Our needs can only be taken care of through collective action.

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Speakers:

David Harvey is a distinguished professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His latest books are The Ways of the World and The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles.

Amna Akbar is a professor of law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. She writes about policing and social movements, with a focus on grassroots demands for social change.