Theme of the Year: 
Overcoming the separation of the money market from the goods market

In a talk given on 15.9.1920, Rudolf Steiner characterised modern financial conditions as the result of “the emancipation of the money-market from the goods-market, dating roughly from the period 1810–1815.” This process has arguably reached its zenith in today’s ongoing global financial crisis, making it a matter of urgency to consider how this emancipation, which has now become a separation, can be overcome. The focus of the Economics Conference this year is on ways in which this problem can be understood and addressed, both conceptually and practically.

Reconnecting the Money Market and the Goods Market 
21-24 September / L’Aubier, Neuchatel, Switzerland

What stands in the way of humanity cohering its will forces? How do individuals meet the challenge of not doing what they want but what is needed?

Economic life cannot be based on serving oneself, but on meeting the needs of others and of the world economy as such. Clearly, the outer challenge of our times is to overcome the separation of the money market from the goods market, but this entails a disciplining of the will. Instead of free will alone, we need to develop free and responsible will. Indeed, can a will that is not responsible be truly free? This meeting will consider the inner aspect of this problem and ask how participants experience it in connection with their practical economic lives.

For registration details please contact:

Marc Desaules, L’Aubier, Les Murailles 5, CH-2037 Montezillon, Neuchatel, Switzerland.

Email: contact@aubier.ch    Tel: +41 32 732 22 12   Fax: +41 32 732 22 00  

Previous Annual Meetings:

September 2002 / September 2003 / June 2004 / June-July 2005 / September 2006 / September 2007 / August 2008 / September 2009 / September 2010 / September 2011

24-25 February / Goetheanum, Basel, Switzerland
Friday evening lecture and Saturday follow-on seminar

Finance at the Threshold
The global financial crisis seen through the lens of Rudolf Steiner’s contribution to economics

Despite serious faults, modern finance has a deeply spiritual aspect, to which Rudolf Steiner points. The seminar will explore whether, at this crucial stage in financial history, it is possible to give ‘western’ finance an associative basis.

 

25-26 May / Goetheanum, Basel, Switzerland
Friday evening lecture and Saturday follow-on seminar

Steiner and Keynes – Brothers in World Economy
How Rudolf Steiner’s idea of ‘world economy’ finds its reflection in the work of the English economist, John Maynard Keynes

The seminar will explore the thesis that, while Steiner brought the 'theory’ of a single global economy, Keynes sought to give it practical expression, especially through his work regarding money, the International Clearing Union and two of today’s main monetary institutions, the World Bank and the IMF.

9 March / Sao Paulo, Brazil
Steiner and Keynes – Brothers in World Economy
(See details above)

16/17 March / Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Karma of Britain and Argentina
A conversation between folk souls
 

2 June / London, England
Steiner and Keynes – Brothers in World Economy
(See details above)

For details, please contact economics(AT)goetheanum.org