About the conference

Centre for Civil Society and the LeFrak Forum and the Symposium on Science, Reason, & Modern Democracy, a privately funded research center in the Political Science Department at Michigan State University in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foudantion are organizing this two day conference in New Delhi, India from 4-5 Jan 2014 to explore the complex relation between moral values and free market economics.

How does capitalism affect morality? What values does it elevate and empower? What values does it violate or undermine? Most importantly what values does it require in order to arise and flourish, and where are they to come from? These questions are not new. But neither are they stale or settled. They are kept alive by their complexity, by the continual shift of thought and of moral/economic circumstances, and by the inescapable importance that they have for our lives.

During the infancy of capitalism in the West, its philosophical proponents tried to identify the precise moral and religious conditions that were necessary for it to grow and flourish. Great emphasis was put on certain western ideas of individualism and liberty and especially on Protestant ideas of work and frugality. People wondered out loud if capitalism could ever really thrive in Catholic countries. But as time has gone on, events have rushed ahead of theory, demonstrating that capitalism is a plant that can thrive in many more soils than was formerly supposed. Shifting events include the continual spread of capitalism to new parts of the world, especially Asia. This is indeed a vast historical experiment that potentially has much to teach us. The experience of capitalism in Asia thus seems a very fruitful area for exploration. Our conference, staged in New Delhi, will aim to bring western scholars face to face with the facts and scholars of India for this purpose.

The objective of the conference is to produce a volume of high quality essays involving original research published by an academic press and designed to appeal to academics both for scholarly and classroom use. The publication of these essays will present essays representing competing sides of the issue.

For more information contact: Baishali; Email: baishali@ccs.in ; Tel: +91 85273 87708