Citizens' university: solidarity-based economy 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 taken even further, 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 - from a social and ecological perspective. In Germany in particular, this has led to concepts such as the social market economy or "third ways" between capitalism and socialism.

The lecture at the Witten Citizens' University will examine different economic models - from cooperatives to keiretsu (Japanese associations of companies) to sociocracy - and contrast them with newer ideas from the tech elite. The central question is: Which utopias are desirable, which solutions are realistic?

Speaker Hermann van Boemmel is an economist specialising in international development and sustainable management and lecturer in the Studium fundamentale at Witten/Herdecke University.

The event will take place on Tuesday, 9 December, from 8 pm at Haus Witten, Ruhrstraße 86. Admission costs 7 euros at the box office (5 euros reduced, e.g. for students). The Citizens' University is a joint format of the vhs Witten | Wetter | Herdecke and the WittenLab. Zukunftslabor Studium fundamentale of the Witten/Herdecke University.