Richard Turnbull

  Optimist or pessimist? We stand on the edge of a technological revolution which is proceeding at an exponential pace and which will impact and alter our work and indeed our way of life in ways we can hardly imagine. The paradox of technological advance and of artificial intelligence is well recognized. Do these developments enhance human well-being and welfare to the benefit of all or is the threat posed to employment so dramatic that the traditional responses of education, reskilling and training will be insufficient to protect us? Some…

  I want to think about the future. As we emerge from this Covid-19 crisis we will not be short of pundits advising us of the absolute necessity of things that are on their agenda but don’t really have anything to do with our economic, moral or other response to the pandemic. The sound of the hooves of the hobby horses cantering out of the stables and clattering over the cobbles is deafening! I have some questions of policy all of which carry a moral dimension. These are matters for…

It is bound to raise eyebrows from analysts and investors when a long-term value investor like Warren Buffet unloads Berkshire Hathaway’s entire stake in the five largest US airlines (Delta, Southwest, United, and American Airlines). It signals an all but total loss of confidence in the airline industry. Airbus chief executive, Guillaume Faury, said that “We are now in the midst of the gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known” and estimates that it will take at least 3-5 years for passenger travel to return to pre-crisis levels. There…

Our final review relates to a collection of essays in economic anthropology: The Politics and Ethics of the Just Price edited by Peter Luetchford and Giovanni Orlando (published 2019). The approach of the authors is academic and some of the language is unnecessarily turgid but the book is fascinating and the essays include real insights, extraordinary contexts, complex history and genuine engagements with the relationship of social and economic considerations in markets and pricing.

For the more libertarian among us, not least economic libertarians, the lifting of the lockdown cannot come quickly enough. Others are either fearful of the consequences of moving too rapidly or perhaps enjoying the restrictions rather too much. Yet again there are those fearful of the economic consequences of the state’s intervention and others suggesting it offers a model for the future. How are we to makes sense of these differing perspectives and can we bring a moral voice to the discussion? Even if individuals have differing perspectives are there…

  Lord Adonis has called for the chief executive of Tesco to resign. He argues that Tesco is using £585m of state aid in business rates relief to pay its shareholders a dividend of £635m. This is exactly the sort of false linkage that damages the case for ethical business. There is an absolute moral obligation on Tesco to pay a reasonable and responsible dividend to its shareholders. There is a similar moral obligation on the company to protect its workforce, ensure its supply chain is in robust shape, to…

This is a transcript of a lecture given at Hope College (MI. USA) in March 2020. Introduction Well, good evening and thank you very much indeed for the invitation to speak this evening at Hope College. It is a privilege to do so. I come to you with a varied background and training, including economics and theology. I have both worked in the City of London and been the President of a Christian seminary at Oxford University. I have also written a biography of a leading Christian social reformer, Lord…

  What constitutes a good business and what is the purpose of business are longer-term questions of interest that generate a great deal of debate and observation and upon which CEME will be publishing a fuller reflection later in the year. The COVID-19 crisis has brought to the fore multiple examples of business acting responsibly and for the common good as well as numerous cases of what seems to be unseemly, unhelpful or perhaps even immoral behaviour. I am not in this piece going to ‘name names’ though it has…

Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians by Gertrude Himmelfarb is now quite old (published 1991) and it is not an easy read but it is worth reading. It considers how the Victorian era understood the moral ideas and concepts of poverty and compassion and responded to them both practically and intellectually. The Victorians are not presented as a solution to today’s problems but those who wish to participate in the debate about the possible solutions would do well to consider the ideas and concepts that Himmelfarb analyses.

The Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics (CEME) is pleased to announce the publication of Work as Enterprise: Recovering a Theology of Work by Richard Turnbull. A PDF copy can be found here. Alternatively, the hardcopy version of the publication can be purchased by contacting CEME’s offices via email at: office@theceme.org                            

As its name suggests, Social Entrepreneurship: New Models of Sustainable Social Change edited by Alex Nicholls (published 2006) relates specifically to social entrepreneurship. It is not an easy read. In particular, some of the academic chapters are somewhat turgid and repetitive. However, it is a first class reference book that brings together in one place, and for the first time, the exciting stories of social entrepreneurship, analysis of issues and the academic research agenda.