Religious Futures Network

Religious Futures Network is the title chosen by ourselves at the William Temple Foundation to our web-based resource on the global financial crisis, which will be available at www.wtf.org.uk
We share a concern that current political responses in the UK to the above are in danger of being complacent and inadequate and hope to stimulate further debate about how the future of market capitalism might be re-shaped building upon the initial article by Robert Peston, the BBC Business Editor. Issues not being addressed include: how ethical positions should be introduced into the debate; the need to reform the banking system in ways that create greater transparency and deconstruct banks that are "too big to fail"; the impact of environmental issues and policies; the need to reformulate the discipline of economics itself along the lines of the work of Steve Keen from Australia; how to link micro, macro and global levels of response. A critical question now is how the UK is to continue to fund "the good life" that people have taken for granted in recent years, and of course the possibilities of social unrest if unemployment and the impact of cuts in public spending and tax cuts last longer than anticipated. Also the role of China and ways in which this could change in the future create a huge uncertainty about the shape of the global economy. We invite others to engage with this debate.