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.
Brazil – in preparation
Argentina – in preparation
5-7 June (TBC) / London, England
The Unspoken Mission of John Maynard Keynes / Towards a World Economy
How Rudolf Steiner’s idea of ‘world economy’ finds its reflection in the work of the English economist, John Maynard Keynes
The 1919 Treaty of Versailles grounded modern economic life on the idea of ‘self determination of peoples’. By this means, a contrary principle was introduced into human evolution. Instead of a single global economy (with its corresponding monetary arrangements), a rights life based on independent peoples, and a universally free spiritual life, the state came to dominate all three. Unscrambling this omelette is the key to resolving today’s increasingly chaotic conditions.
Although a threefold understanding of social life is woefully absent from modern discourse, it is still urgently needed. Perception of it is hindered by the development of economic life since 1918, but it can be discerned in the work of John Maynard Keynes. From the Treaty of Versailles onwards, through his contribution to modern monetary theory as equally to the design of today’s monetary institutions, Keynes’s approach to world economic affairs remains as relevant and as practicable as ever it was. By looking afresh at his work we can gain insights into today’s financial crises.
