Socialism 2025: Full Schedule

12:00pm CDT

How to Democratize Everything

Friday July 4, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

If you’re a socialist, what do you know about democratic planning? Socialism isn't bigger state bureaucracies, endless meetings, or even turning out votes. Instead, it is empowering ordinary people to have a greater say over the institutions that affect us all. Join social theorist Michael A. McCarthy to explore how the working class can be empowered by introducing new forms of democracy into our most important investment decisions.

Speakers

Michael A. McCarthy

Michael A. McCarthy is the Director of Community Studies and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of Dismantling Solidarity (Cornell) and The Master's Tools (Verso). He is also an editor of Critical Sociology and a member of... Read More →

Friday July 4, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Economics, Intro

3:00pm CDT

You Are Not a Loan: Debtors' Assembly

Friday July 4, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

Join Debt Collective, the nation’s first union of debtors, in an empowering debtor’s assembly where participants will share their lived experiences with debt, releasing the shame that we are taught to feel when in debt and instead finding solidarity with one another against the system denying us the means to live. Everyone is welcome - whether or not you are debt-burdened since debt impacts entire communities, not just individuals. The session will culminate in a call to join our movement to abolish student, medical, and rent debt and to fight for an economy that works for the many instead of the few.

Speakers

Emily Birnbaum

Emily Birnbaum is a family nurse practitioner who spent the first five years of her practice in primary care. She is now back in school studying psychiatry as she has found her greatest passion in medicine to be in mental health. She is currently organizing with the Debt Collective... Read More →

Richelle Brooks

Dr. Richelle Brooks is a momma, an educator, organizer with Debt Collective and the founder of ReThink It – an organization dedicated to providing resources to mitigate the harm of systemic racism. She is an author and speaker, with a specialized interest in the ways Black Women... Read More →

Sponsors

Debt Collective

Friday July 4, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Economics, Intro

1:00pm CDT

Fiscal Fascism: How to Make Sense of Chaotic Policy as Activists and Organizers

Saturday July 5, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT

TBA

How can leftists circumvent Trump and Musk’s attempts to hijack critical government departments like the Treasury, IRS and SSA, via DOGE along with unprecedented slashes to social services and federal funding? Join a panel discussion with Notes on the Crises publisher Nathan Tankus and co-conspirators, along with the Debt Collective, to discuss how the radical left can fight fiscal fascism through political education and policy-oriented coalition building.

Speakers

Noel Barrera

Noel Barrera is an MA graduate from NYU’s Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement (XE) Program, and an interdisciplinary artist, writer and researcher based in Brooklyn. Recently they have been the art director of a political education project in cooperation with Nathan Tankus... Read More →

Elizabeth Cooper

Elizabeth Cooper is a graduate student in economics at The New School for Social Research, and a longstanding organizer with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, and a wide range of socialist and anti-imperialist organizations. Recently she has been... Read More →

Nathan Tankus

Nathan Tankus is the Publisher of Notes on the Crises and Research Director of the Modern Money Network. He has written for the Financial Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, Jacobin Magazine, Monthly Review & many other outlets. Nathan got his start in the Alternative Banking working... Read More →

Sponsors

Notes on the Crises

Saturday July 5, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT
TBA

Economics

7:00pm CDT

The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: The Wonky Constitutional Crisis the Left Should Care About

Saturday July 5, 2025 7:00pm - 8:30pm CDT

TBA

Many on the left want to "burn the constitution," but it matters which corner you start from. Some unconstitutional actions could make our society more democratic, more just and could decentralize power. But the constitutional crisis that began almost as soon as Donald Trump was inaugurated as president for a second time has been focused on making our society less democratic, more unjust and has sought to centralize power in the hands of Trump and the coterie of executives backing him (especially Elon Musk). Nathan Tankus, President and publisher of Notes on the Crises, will guide attendees through what has been going on at the Bureau of Fiscal Service, something called the "Automatic Clearing House" (ACH) payments system and how the Trump administration is using its control of the payments system to rob people on social security, rob New York City government and generally cut off the forms of government spending that actually help people.

Speakers

Nathan Tankus

Saturday July 5, 2025 7:00pm - 8:30pm CDT
TBA

Economics, Intro

10:00am CDT

Fake Work: What a Fake Job Dedicated to Solving a Fake Crisis Can Teach Us About Financialized Capitalism

Sunday July 6, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

At the end of the last century, predictions about the destructive potential of the Y2K bug were everywhere. As the clocks ticked closer to the prophesied end-times, Capitalism—then in the rapturous throes of a global tech bubble—did what it does best: created a whole cottage industry of consultants dedicated not to preventing the apocalypse, but to ensuring the steady flow of profits. Join Leigh Claire La Berge as she dissects her time as one of these management consultants, offering an inside look at the absurd cultural and political economic consequences of Capitalism's singular focus on the bottom line.

Speakers

Leigh Claire La Berge

Leigh Claire La Berge is Professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and author of Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art , Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary, and, most recently, Fake Work... Read More →

Sunday July 6, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Economics