On September 20-22, Kyiv hosted the International Conference “AFTER CAPITALISM: ECONOMY, VALUES AND STABLE SOCIETY”, organized by the Foundation for Support of Democratic Initiatives in cooperation with the Sallux Foundation.
The event was attended by 46 participants in total. The guests of the conference from abroad were:
- Christian Meinen, representative of the Sallux Foundation, security expert (Netherlands);
- David John Lee, one of the co-authors of the concept of relativism, representative of the relationism.org portal (UK);
- Gabriela Urbanova, Board Member of the Sallux Foundation, PhD (Slovakia).
After the presentation of the participants and introductory remarks, Vice President of the of the Foundation for Support of Democratic Initiatives Yuriy Goncharenko, Vice President of the Foundation for Support of Democratic Initiatives, made a presentation on “Relational economy. What elements can be implemented in Ukraine”in which he presented the book “Post-Capitalism: Rethinking the Economy”by Paul Mills and Michael Schlueter.
The book was published jointly by by the Foundation for Support of Democratic Initiatives and the Sallux Foundation. In the near future, presentations of this book will be held in Kyiv and other cities of the country, which describes a different vision of economic development from the prevailing discourse between liberalism and social populism. In particular, it is about the real implementation of Christian values in economic models.
The next speaker, Roman Sklyarov (Center for Economic Democracy), made an interesting presentation on“The Future of Capitalism: Economic Democracy and the Creative Class,” in which he shared his vision and forecast for the post-capitalist future, where the cooperative movement may be a real alternative.
The next speaker, Andriy Hnidets, head of a department at the National Health Service and a member of the Association of Christian Lawyers, spoke about his vision of“The Role of Christian Democracy in the Formation of Value-Based Public Policy.” This report, like the previous one, also provoked a lively discussion among the participants.
The next day, the conference began with a presentation on“Economic Growth and Social Responsibility” by Volodymyr Panchenko, PhD in History, Director of the Institute for Social Studies. He, as one of the reviewers of the book “Postcapitalism: Rethinking the Economy” he spoke about his vision of this issue.
The conference was followed by an unscheduled speech by the guest of the conference, a well-known Ukrainian politician, economist and public figure, President of the Association of Ukrainian Banks Oleksandr Sugonyako. He shared his thoughts on the causes of the current economic crises and methods of dealing with them, and also spoke about the fact that humanity has no alternative to changing the current economic model to another, primarily a more moral one.
Next, Christian Meinen, a representative of the Sallux Foundation and a security expert, spoke on“Stable Society, Security and Prosperity as an Idea of Christian Democracy.”
Another representative of the Sallux Foundation, Gabriela Urbanova, told the audience about her vision as an experienced economist ofthe “Relational Model of the State and Economy as an Engine of Change for the Future of Ukraine.”
Next, the concept of relationalism as a philosophical and economic model was presented by one of its co-authors, David John Lee, who is a representative of the relationism.org portal (UK).
Then the participants divided into working groups and completed test exercises from an expert on religious studiesto demonstrate the effectiveness of this theory in practice.
The results were organized in the form of short presentations.
This was followed by a presentation by Oksana Horkusha, PhD in Philosophy, Senior Researcher at the Department of Religious Studies, Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, on “Problems and Prospects of Christian Values in the Time of Populism and Irresponsibility – the Modern Ukrainian Context.”
The last speech of the second day of the conference was a presentation by Bohdan Pankevych, a well-known public figure, diplomat, and member of the board of the Ukrainian Galician Party, on the topic “What should we do in Ukraine with the current political landscape?“
The next day, the conference participants attended a morning service, after which they discussed practical steps to implement Christian values in Ukrainian politics and the fight against pro-Russian and populist revenge.
