Business ethics debate with Archbishop of Canterbury

Crisis and Recovery; Ethics, Economics and Justice

28 Sep 2010

Why Now?

The core social claim of economics of whatever school, Robert Skidelsky reminds us, is that we should make sure everyone is decently off, and only then become virtuous, green and wise. Two recent debates examine the proposition in detail: in London, Archbishop Rowan Williams and his co-author Larry Elliott talk about the need to re-moralise economic choice and in Sydney, a panel of eminent and straight-talking Aussies pit capitalism against the survival of the human project.

How do you like criticism delivered: the earnest tones of the Archbishop – a sort of patient school teacher delivery? Or biting sarcasm from Down Under, like Paul Gilding praising capitalism for being so brilliant as to create its own remedies: it makes us depressed and invents Prozac? But maybe it also creates other cures, for example in the form of another Zac, Zac Goldsmith. The ecologist turned Tory MP argues for a renewal of local self-government as the way to return the economy to the role of servant, not master.

Event information:

Intelligence Squared were media partners for this Palgrave Macmillan event, which took place at the British Library on the evening of September 28th 2010.

Highlights of the event will be available on this page soon, and full video will follow shortly afterwards. An accompanying article by Rowan Williams is available on the Guardian's Comment is free website.

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Event info:

During the ongoing global financial crisis, the values on which our society and economic structures are based have been called into question. In a new book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of The Guardian, have brought together a collection of leading commentators to examine the role of morality and ethics in business. At this event, both discuss these fundamental themes together with Zac Goldsmith MP, Editor of The Ecologist, and Robert Skidelsky, professor of political economy, politician and historian.