15th Annual E.L. ‘Ted’ Wheelwright Memorial Lecture. Hosted by the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, together with the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) and the Political Economy Student Society (ECOPSoc).
Jessica Whyte, ‘Economic Coercion and Financial War’
Date: Wednesday 19 October 2022
Time: 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm AEDT (drinks from 5.30pm)
Location: Lecture Theatre 200, Social Sciences Building, The University of Sydney
Free registrations: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/2022-wheelwright-lecture-economic-coercion-and-financial-war-tickets-415091258127
About the talk
The end of the Cold War and the widespread imposition of neoliberal economic policies generated utopian projections that the globalisation of the world economy would bring about peace and goodwill among nations. The rise of neoliberalism, according to its central protagonists, was supposed to depoliticize the economy, foster frictionless trade across borders, and pacify social and international relations. This lecture examines those new techniques of warfare that have confounded such utopian aspirations by weaponizing the economic and financial ties that were supposed to generate what the nineteenth-century liberal Richard Cobden called “amicable bonds”. Wars may still be fought with conventional weapons but growing interdependence has created new avenues for economic coercion and conflict. This lecture analyses new geopolitical conflicts that are increasingly fought on the economic battlefield.
About the speaker
Jessica Whyte is Scientia Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales with a cross-appointment in the Faculty of Law. She is a political theorist whose work integrates political philosophy, intellectual history and political economy to analyse contemporary forms of sovereignty, human rights, humanitarianism and militarism. Her work has been published in a range of fora including Contemporary Political Theory; Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development; Law and Critique; Political Theory; South Atlantic Quarterly, and Theory and Event. She is author of Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben, (SUNY 2013) and The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism (Verso, 2019). She is an editor of the journal Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development. More of her research is available here: https://unsw.academia.edu/JessicaWhyte
About the Wheelwright Lecture
Ted Wheelwright (1921-2007) was one of the great contributors to Australian political economy. He was a strong critic of orthodox economics, the concentration of corporate power and the failure of Australian economic policy to confront the challenges facing the nation in an increasingly globalised context. He was involved in the struggle to develop political economy courses at the University of Sydney. He supported the establishment of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) and published an article in its very first issue in 1977.
The annual E.L. ‘Ted’ Wheelwright Memorial Lecture is held to commemorate the pioneering role that Ted Wheelwright played in developing studies in Political Economy in Australia.
Established in 2008, previous distinguished lecturers include Kim Stanley Robinson (2021), Adam Tooze, Jayati Ghosh, Susan Ferguson (2020), Susanne Soederberg (2019), Alfredo Saad-Filho (2018), Katherine Gibson (2017), David Ruccio (2016), Erik Olin Wright (2015), Leo Panitch (2014), Susan George (2013), Diane Elson (2012), Sheila Dow (2011), Fred Block (2010), Jim Stanford (2009) and Walden Bello (2008).
Image: Gas pipelines for Nord Stream. fotowunsch/Adobe Stock.
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