Blackfriars Hall

E. F. Schumacher: Small is Beautiful
2023-01-18 17:00 - 18:00, 2023-01-25 17:00 - 18:00 (Europe/London)
Small is Beautiful, first published in 1973, has become a classic text for critics of the massive scale and environmental depredations of the modern industrial economy. The author was the Chief Economic Advisor to the British National Coal Board, a founder of the Intermediate Technology Development Group, and an enthusiast for Catholic Social Teaching. Many of the ideas presented in Small is Beautiful remain both relevant and controversial. We will discuss selected chapters of this short and easy-to-read book, their current implications, and the broader economic, ecological, and political questions that they raise.

The meetings will be online. All are welcome. Register here.
The group will be led by Edward Hadas, a Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University. He is the author of Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking through Catholic Social Teaching, published by Catholic University of America Press in 2021, and Money, Finance, Reality, Morality, published by Ethics International Press in 2022.
For further information, contact Edward at edward.hadas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk

Week One (January 18): “The problem of production” (Chapter 1) – the illusion of unlimited powers
Week Two (January 25): “The role of economics” (Chapter 3) – is “growth” good?
Week Three (February 1:) “A question of size” (Chapter 5) – small and large cities and countries
Week Four (February 8): “The greatest resource – education (Chapter 6) – human “capital”
Week Five (February 15): “The proper use of land” (Chapter 7) – in favour of farmers
Week Six (February 22): “Technology with a human face” (Chapter 10) – Appropriate tools
Week Seven (March 1): “The problem of unemployment in India (Chapter 14) – a theory of development
Week Eight (March 8): Organisation, socialism, and property (Chapters 16-18) – small is often beautiful

Money, Finance, Reality, Morality - Book launch
2023-01-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Blackfriars Hall, St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LY, United Kingdom
A book launch for Edward Hadas’ new book, Money, Finance, Reality, Morality: A New Way to Address Old Problems. The author, a Research Fellow with the Las Casas Institute at Blackfriars Hall, will present the book, which offers a philosophical, practical, technically knowledgeable, and readily comprehensible analysis of the role and arrangements of money and finance in the modern economy. John Thanassoulis, Professor of Financial Economics at Warwick Business School, will respond.
Money, Finance, Reality, Morality attempts to explain – in plain words and with simple concepts – the “financial exception”: why money-finance systems are uniquely prone to economy-damaging failures. The ultimate answer is “morality”: greed is half-heartedly fought against in the rest of the economy, but enthusiastically promoted in finance. The book’s journey to that conclusion starts with a gift-centred and non-numerical description of the economy and moves through a social understanding of money, a critical presentation of finance, and a lament over the unnecessary reality-distance of so much of the current monetary-financial system.

Edward Hadas is a Research Follow at Las Casas Institute, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He has written books on economics (from a philosophical perspective) and Catholic Social Teaching (from a historical and critical perspective), and articles on war and liberalism. He toiled away in the financial world, as an analyst and then a journalist, for many decades.
John Thanassoulis is Professor of Financial Economics at the Warwick Business School and a Panel Member for the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
All are welcome. To register please email lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk
