Fforestfach Colloquia Series

Exploring a Christian perspective on contemporary issues of political economy

There are growing concerns that capitalism and democracy are in crisis. Despite the success of free markets in creating global prosperity over two centuries, the recent slowdown in growth in Western economies, the persistence of inflation, increasing economic inequality, financial instability and the explosion in debt have called into question the value of market capitalism. Moreover, trust has been eroded in liberal democracies because of dysfunctional governments, a perceived lack of commitment to truth and political leaders playing the game to the edge of legality. Added to these concerns are the growth of a post-modernist culture with steadily increasing social fragmentation, divisiveness and the lack of a unifying and accepted source of appeal.

We are living in the 21st century in Western societies in which religion has not just been replaced by secularism, but the one God of the Christian religion, with its deep roots in Judaism, has been replaced by the pluralism of the many gods of modernity. As a society we require those in leadership and authority in business and politics to have a moral compass and as Adam Smith set out regarding the virtue of prudence and Burke regarding the role of religion, our fellow citizens need values of honesty and sympathy if we are to seek the common good.

Against this background and under the auspices of the Centre we have decided to launch a series of colloquia in which to explore a Christian perspective on contemporary issues of political economy. On each occasion a small panel of experts will present their thoughts on the chosen topic, and other participants will then have the opportunity to make their own contributions to a free-flowing discussion. Participants will be invited from across the political spectrum and the number kept to around twenty. Following the links below you will find the contributions made to each meeting. We hope you find the papers stimulating.

Our fourth Fforestfach Colloquium focused on the subject of ‘Covenant’. It was held in Committee Room G in the House of Lords on the morning of Thursday, 26 June.

Our two principal speakers came from opposite sides of the political spectrum, both of whom have studied and written about the concept of covenant: Danny Kruger, MP, the Conservative member for East Wiltshire, and Lord (Maurice) Glasman, who founded the Blue Labour movement.

Danny Kruger published in 2023, Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood and Nation. In the book, he describes the key difference between the ‘social contract’ of Hobbes and Locke, and the ‘social covenant’ that he conceives: covenant, he writes, is a set of relationships built on love rather than on reason, an ‘artificial brotherhood’, expressing unconditional love between unrelated individuals, the foundational example of which is the covenant of marriage, ‘the union of two unrelated people that forms the nucleus of a new blood relationship, a family.’ Covenants also underly communities and nations.

Maurice Glasman, in his 2022 book, Blue Labour, points out that ‘…covenant requires that human beings are not treated as commodities, and that there is an inter-generational commitment to the common good between classes and regions based on the renewal of place… Neither the state nor the market is sufficient to generate a good society: it requires the renewal of society…’

Before the meeting, we had circulated a set of four questions on the topic for attendees to consider for themselves. We were delighted to be presented with some deeply thoughtful responses to those questions by our third contributor, Rabbi Benjy Morgan, who is the Chief Executive of the Jewish Learning Exchange in Golders Green. His reflections on our questions provided us with a number of very helpful Old Testament insights regarding the biblical concept of covenant.

As in our previous Fforestfach Colloquia, the invited audience of about 20 guests engaged enthusiastically with the presentations and the ensuing discussion, responding to points made by the speakers and also developing new lines of thought over the course of the morning.

Our third Fforestfach Colloquium took place in the House of Lords on the morning of Thursday, 30th January 2025, on the topic of Postliberal Political Economy, and brought together three speakers from academic, political, economic and media backgrounds.

Liberalism enjoyed a renaissance in the second half of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the 1960s, we saw the development of a socio-cultural liberalism on the left of UK politics, while in the 1980s, we experienced a growing economic liberalism from the right. Both those trends have given rise in the present century to the growth of post-liberalism, as explored in publications such as The Politics of Virtue (2016) by Adrian Pabst and John Milbank and Postliberal Politics (2021) by Adrian Pabst.

These publications, among others, provide a blueprint for a national, communitarian renewal, emerging from both the centre-left and centre-right. Importantly, postliberalism recognises the importance of the Christian heritage and Judeo-Christian ethics in providing a foundation for the renewal of a civic covenant, in the form of a partnership between generations and regions, and with nature.

At our Colloquium, we were addressed first by Professor Adrian Pabst of the University of Kent, who is also the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Social Research. His contribution pointed to the recurring crises experienced in advanced capitalist economies such as the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan, which have struggled with low growth, high inflation and stagnant real wages ever since the 2008-09 financial crisis. Professor Pabst argued for a shift towards a social market economy, anchored in a greater sense of purpose and virtue.

He was followed by two distinguished speakers, his co-author, Dr John Milbank, Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham, and Miriam Cates, the former Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in Yorkshire. They discussed alternative approaches to the postliberal economic challenges of our time, with Dr Milbank exploring the historical relationship between Christianity and Political Economy, suggesting that a truly Christian approach would seek to marry up what is practical and useful in modern economics with a more ancient humanism that does not surrender its ethical values. Miriam Cates, on the other hand, argued that many of the socio-economic crises we have experienced arise from the breakdown of Christian family values in the postliberal era, and called for a political economy based on a foundation of pro-family policies and a welfare state that encourages and supports families as a building block for a modern human society.

The second Fforestfach Colloquium took place in the House of Lords on Monday 29th April. We were privileged to welcome as our lead speaker an eminent professor from Harvard University, Professor Benjamin M. Friedman, who is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy and the former Chairman of the Department of Economics. Professor Friedman’s newest book, published in January 2021, is Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, and we invited Mr Friedman to speak to our invited audience about the theme of his book, to be followed by two highly-respected commentators, Professor Emeritus Forrest Capie of the Bayes Business School, and Lord (Mervyn) King of Lothbury, former Governor of the Bank of England.

Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics