By Tony Weekes on January 25, 2010
The first “Tilburg” meeting took place in 2008, and produced the Declaration of Tilburg, a set of demands from citizens of the Netherlands and Belgium to their respective governments concerning ‘the economy’ and how it should be shaped in the future. The text (in English) can be found at website www.economischegroei.net/index.php?topic=VvT. The tone is very much in keeping with the background to the Woodbrooke/QPSW ‘No-growth economy’ project, and the postings which have been made to the Quakernomics blog.
“Tilburg 2009” was actually in Antwerp – more can be found on other pages of the website quoted.
Kees Nieuwerth, a member of Netherlands YM, and I had the pleasure of attending and participating in the third “Tilburg” meeting which took place at the University of Tilburg (Netherlands) on 21 January. The theme was ‘A fair and green new deal’, with the American economist David Korten as the keynote speaker. David’s presentation was largely drawn from his recent book Agenda for a New Economy, and was followed by thoughtful contributions from a small panel of speakers whose contribution was to put David’s ideas into a European context, stressing (for example) the stronger sense of social solidarity which marks western European countries. All proceedings at this stage were – to my relief (and, no doubt, to David’s) – in English!
The afternoon sessions were diverse, and covered a range of topics – from the need to engage widely with citizens’ movements, the churches, peace groups and trade unions to the dangers of “military Keynesianism”.
A summary of the main points can be found at the webpage www.economischegroei.net/index.php?topic=til2010. Google Toolbar offers rough translations from Dutch. A few sound bites: never waste a good crisis; our system creates fake wealth; we need a transition from “… an economy which offers welfare for business” to “ … a society where the welfare of humankind and nature are the main goals”.
Daunting? Yes; encouraging? Yes, because we see we are not alone in what we seek. Around 300 people were present; more were with us in spirit.
We need something like the Tilburg meetings in the English speaking countries of Europe. How about it??