The Aftermath Project provides a social and cultural analysis of the crisis, to add to the prevailing economic and financial arguments. It develops the idea that the crisis was the result of the same sources that led to the rise of global financial capitalism (deregulation of financial markets, greed, consumerism). These root causes have not been tackled and saving the banks with public money has induced a budget crisis in most countries ultimately leading to a shrinking welfare state and a social crisis. As a result of growing insecurity and fear, people are reacting both with anger and with alternative projects of hope. The Aftermath Project provides a closer look at the social consequences of the crisis and wants to open up a space for dialogue and debate on life beyond the crisis.
The interviews and documentaries on this website are not about what happened after the crisis, but about the new economic and social landscape that is emerging from the ruins of global informational capitalism (not capitalism per se, but a particular form of capitalism) after its self-destruction. This is what we call Aftermath, not the end of the crisis, but the beginning of new forms of economy and culture that muddled through the crisis. This aftermath is being made of attempts to preserve financial capitalism under a new, more exclusionary form. It is also made of the desperate reactions of people left to their own devices. But it is also constructed by people, in different cultures, that seize the moment to reinvent their lives in ways that are both more rewarding and more sustainable.
Learning Change 