Abstract

In this book on responsibility for the future in the market economy, authors from different scientific fields and personal experience deal with questions whose relevance is undisputed, but to which satisfactory answers have so far only been partially recognisable. What is the ethical situation of mankind in a high-tech, market and monetary globalised civilisation of danger? Will future generations still find the multifaceted interwoven natural, cultural and technological context of the world worth living in? For the first time in history, humanity has it in its hands whether future generations will still be able to live and be collectively morally capable of taking responsibility for their descendants.
The title Responsibility for the Future in the Market Economy indicates that it is not about a total redesign of the social system in the direction of an undefined utopia, but about the design of real, decentralised market economy conditions for action. The basic consensus of all the authors is the moral impetus to harmonise the interests of the present with responsibility for the future, efficiency and social justice. It is not for enthusiasts, but for realists and all those who are open to realistic commitment.
The volume was produced as part of the Hans Jonas Centre at the Free University of Berlin and its circle of friends, especially in the research group EWD - Ethics and Economics in Dialogue, which endeavours to build bridges between ethical postulates and economic reality. Among the academically and politically prominent authors are Hans Jonas, Johannes Rau, Wilfried Erbguth, Reinhard Loske, Gerhard Schröder and Peter Ulrich.