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Nieuws vervolg:

Conferentie: 'Universele Waarden en Economie'

Op zaterdag 14 maart vond in ontmoetingscentrum ‘De Paraplu’ in Utrecht een eendaagse conferentie plaats met het thema ‘Universele Waarden en Economie’. De organisatie was in handen van UPF Nederland en tot de sprekers behoorden drs. Willem A. Koetsier, die vanuit de UPF-visie een inleiding gaf over ‘Economie en Vrede’ en aangaf dat Adam Smith, algemeen beschouwd als de vader van de moderne economie, op de eerste plaats een moreel filosoof was. Jhr. dr. P. Beelaerts van Blokland hield zijn betoog over: ‘Een verkenning naar Vrede’ en Hans Campman, voorzittter van de ‘Familiefederatie voor Wereldvrede en Eenwording’ sprak over: ‘Universele Waarden en Economische Ontwikkelingen’.

Vervolg:

Hans Campman examined the major and often contrasting, sometimes even opposing, impulses for change and development (mainly social or moral, secular or spiritual) in the second part of the last millennium: the Renaissance and Reformation, the French and American revolutions, Marxism/Communism and the quieter Christian socialism championed by William Wilberforce and Robert Owen in 19th Century Britain, which is leading today into a spiritually based-desire to work for mutual prosperity. He agreed with Dr. Beelaerts that the free market economy was preferable, provided that there was a moral base, and the current financial crisis was a signal that we need clearer moral values and spirituality.

After lunch, the discussion became more pragmatic, with Dr. W.F. van Eekelen speaking on the European Union as an Answer to Difficult Economic Times, and Prof. Marcel Canoy, economist, publicist and adviser to the European Commission, speaking on the Way to a New and Just Economy. They came to similar conclusions as the earlier speakers, commenting that gross domestic product (GDP) was a very limited indication of a nation's true prosperity and stressing that non-economic factors needed more attention in order to more correctly assess a nation's well-being. With reference to Robert Kennedy, who said that GDP measured everything except that which made life worthwhile, it was suggested that the Human Development Index is a better indicator because it combines normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP.

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