Labour’s International Social Forum (13 – 14 July) featured NGO workers, activists, academics, politicians and an ex head of state, Dilma Rouseff, the victim of Brazil’s judicial coup d’etat.

Over two days the forum confronted the assembled audience with the scale of the world’s economic problems, giving voice in particular to speakers from the Global South, who made clear that developing countries were now showing the developed world an image of their own future.

Acclaimed Indian economics professor Jayati Ghosh described the present phase of capitalism in terms similar to those articulated by German academic Wolfgang Streeck: a dead system no longer productive yet surviving through a kind of rentier muscle memory fed by concentrated wealth and property. A zombie phase of capitalism animated by racism and quickly becoming incompatible with democracy.

“The present phase of capitalism is dead,” argued Ghosh, “We just can’t work out how to remove the body.”

But in surveying a deeply troubling international moment, from her native India, to Brazil under Jair Bolsanaro, Trump’s racism and Brexit, Ghosh remained optimistic about our ability to dig ourselves out of the current mess.

She was at pains to double down on her optimism after hearing Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, speak: “I have never heard a political party from the Global North talking the way that the current British Labour Party is. To hear a major political party talk in the terms I heard in London, well it’s just never happened before.”

Having signalled that a future Labour government would disrupt the“gentlemen’s agreement” of appointing Europeans and North Americans to head institutions like the World Bank, a fiasco culminating in the “bizarre spectacle” of George Osborne’s recent candidacy for the IMF, John McDonnell set out a programme of reform.

A Labour government would seek the abolition of the G20 and argue for replacing it with a new and representative Global Economic Council on an equal footing with the UN Security Council and General Assembly.

He promised to fight to end imbalances of power and governance and to correct international institutions’ tendency to tilt “against the Global South.” He acknowledged that this would probably mean the UK (a permanent Security Council member in its own right) surrendering some power of its own. McDonnell also repeated the commitment to ditch the World Bank’s climate investment funds in favour of the UN’s green climate fund, a move welcomed by NGOs.

Significantly, he also chose to locate the problems with the international system in capitalism itself and asserted that “climate change is a class issue.” McDonnell’s speech was welcomed both by the audience and in the break-out sessions and seminars taking place afterward on campus at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

“There are chinks in the defences of the current neoliberal order,” Ghosh later said. But “the empire always finds a way to strike back.”

In Brazil, that reaction began with an assault on the truth itself, according to former president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff. In an hour-long address, she explained how mistruths in the media mutated into “lawfare,” a politically-motivated campaign of aggression by the judiciary that undermined democracy itself.

A scandal has erupted in Brazil after text messages allegedly belonging to Sergio Moro, the powerful justice minister appointed by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, were leaked. The texts lay bare what appears to be interference by Brazilian prosecutors and judges in last year’s presidential election campaign.

Having won a succession of elections, the aim of the ‘lawfare’ waged by Brazil’s judges was to deliver a coup against Lula, Dilma and the PT or Workers’ Party. This, she argued, was a prerequisite to enforcing neoliberal reform in the country.

“The main aim was to put Brazil in its place,” she said, “from 2003 we had three elections when neoliberalism was defeated. We had a successful policy for combatting hunger. We created jobs, we grew salaries, farmers were given social protections.”

So why go after the government? Rousseff was at pains to point out the “atypical” nature of the situation in Brazil.

“Neoliberalism could only become viable in Brazil through a far-right government. That required a coup and the destruction of the centre-right party which has now been consumed by the far-right. All that was left was us, the PT.”

The difference between Europe and Brazil, Rousseff argued, was that neoliberalism came to Europe under a veneer of democracy and the rule of law. But she warned that rising inequality in Europe will make it increasingly difficult to maintain a democratic framework that’s not fatally compromised.

“If the left does not act we will see the growth of the far-right here too. It is important to understand not just the effects of neoliberalism but the effects of austerity which has contributed to the discord and the disillusionment in democracy that comes with it.”

McDonnell’s reforms, while welcome, will mean little if they are not accompanied by material change. A point made forcefully by the youthful Naledi Chirwa, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) representative in the South African National Assembly.

At the forum she made clear that the party’s demand, first and foremost, was for a return of the land. More than two decades after the end of apartheid, black South Africans own just 13% of the country.

“It happens a lot when we come to conversations like these,” said Chirwa, “people expect us to move on and forgive and forget. They say ‘oh my god, but you have a black party in power, right?’

“But the trenches of colonialism did not just impose themselves in segregation or in people not liking each other, it was a brutality that still trickles down, that still has a manifestation even today in how we see ourselves as black people in different spaces.

“Imposter syndrome has a very violent effect on how you present and exist. You don’t feel entitled to security, you don’t feel entitled to safety, and you feel like you are asking for too much when you are simply asking for your land back.”

The point wasn’t lost on the assembled audience sat in an auditorium a stone’s throw from Fitzrovia, the elegant London district synonymous with England’s slave-owning dynasties and, in the distance, the City of London itself.

“Some of your friends here in London own our mines,” Chirwa continued, “you must talk to them. You must talk to them, before you want to talk to us. You must tell them to give us our mines back. If we are talking about international solidarity that also means holding people accountable even here in your country. We can run our own mines. So tell your friends to give us our land back.”