TALK: "The Ends of Capitalism and the Ends of the Earth. Ethics Economy and Ecology in Crisis"

Date of Event: 
Thursday, 26 March, 2009
Venue: 
Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh
Time : 
7.30pm - 9.00pm
Speaker: Michael Northcott, Professor of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh.  Synopsis:
 
The public in Britain through the money creating powers of the Banks of England and Scotland, and through credit controls on clearing banks and building societies, used to control the money supply. As the money supply was deregulated and privatized its exponential growth in the last 40 years fueled an explosion of consumption of goods and services that have put capitalism and the earth system on a collision course. These years have also seen the implosion of a functioning public moral ecology. As any trip down Lothian Road late on a Friday night will confirm the common good and civil order are no longer seen as constraints on individual liberties to drink too much or drive too fast.

We are now in a new situation. The public own the clearing banks and their toxic debts and consequently we also in effect own all the PFI infrastructure and much of the corporate sector as well. However the Labour government, and its Tory opponents, are so committed to the neoliberal orthodoxy of privacy, and neglect of the common good, that they continue to pour public money into the old structures in an effort to fuel a credit and consumption led recovery. This disastrous strategy completely fails to see the connections between the moral and ecological breakdown of the UK and the neoliberal project. It also misses a once in a life time opportunity to use government power over money - seigneurage - to recreate a functioning local and renewable economy of exchange and production.

Michael Northcott is Professor of Ethics in the University of Edinburgh and author of A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming (Darton Longman and Todd, 2007).

 

Cost : 
FREE
Contact details: 

Friends of the Earth Edinburgh

Write: c/o Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre, St John's Centre Princes Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ, Scotland

Tel: 0131 553 6869