BÜRGERUNI "Economic solidarity instead of competition - a realistic alternative?"

Since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), competition has been regarded as the engine of prosperity. It ensures innovation, favourable prices and efficient use of resources - as long as equal rights apply and the state restrains itself. Today, this idea is experiencing new exacerbations, for example in the tech elite close to Donald Trump, where there is talk of the "survival of the richest".
However, the classic model has long been criticised - both socially and ecologically. In Germany in particular, this has led to concepts such as the social market economy or "third ways" between capitalism and socialism. An alternative concept was developed by Rudolf Steiner (1919): He called for co-operation and fraternity in associations of producers, traders and consumers.

The lecture highlights different economic models - from cooperatives to Japanese keiretsu (Japanese associations of companies) to sociocracy - and contrasts them with newer ideas from the tech elite. At the centre is the question: Which utopias are desirable, which are realistic?

Speaker Hermann van Boemmel is an economist specialising in international development and sustainable business.

The Citizens' University is a cooperation between Witten/Herdecke University (WittenLab. Zukunftslabor Studium fundamentale) and VHS Witten | Wetter | Herdecke.

Admission costs €7 / €5 (students). Tickets are available at the box office.