Australian tour of Christopher Houghton Budd
Finance at the Threshold
Exploring Rudolf Steiner’s contribution to the transformation of economic life
with Christopher Houghton Budd, PhD.
Last here in 2009 and now emeritus, economic and monetary historian, Christopher Houghton Budd is visiting Australia for the first time since 2009. During his absence, he has continued to explore and elaborate Rudolf Steiner’s contribution to our understanding of modern economic life, especially as regards macro-financial issues, school financing, financial literacy and such concerns as farm succession and farming economics generally. His many workshops continue to involve installations and the use of pastel-illustrated black panels – an important medium well-known for its use by Steiner and Josef Beuys in their own expositions on economics.
Entrepreneur, academic and long-time student of Rudolf Steiner’s economic ideas, especially as they relate to the English-speaking world, Christopher Houghton Budd has a PhD in Finance and Banking from London’s City University. As well as his own academic publications, he has edited many books by himself and colleagues in the Economics Conference of the Goetheanum, which explore in depth the socio-economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner.
Here is the program for the Christopher Houghton Budd tour
Finance at the Threshold
Exploring Rudolf Steiner’s contribution to the transformation of economic life
Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, Nov 15-20, 2024
In 2008, economics met its Waterloo. The efficient markets hypothesis was found wanting, as also the basing of economics on abstract modelling of life. The next step had to be to link economics to accounting, not accounting as used to deal with taxation, but as an instrument of perception. And as something taught from a very young age. Only this would enable the financial and real economies to overcome their separation, enabling young people especially to ground their hopes and initiatives on concrete, self-managed financing. Though this might take us all to the edge of our normal understanding of economic life, what other avenues are open to us if we value human agency?
Beyond Gold
Ever since World War I, the world has needed to find a way to live without gold. That means finding a way to reconcile markets and the state and overcome the divisiveness caused by having to choose between one or the other…
Economics, Finance and Business
It does not matter what size or type one’s activity or enterprise is, in our times we all need the grounding that clear finances can bring. Whether a for-profit or not-for-profit organisation, Rudolf Steiner’s idea that money is bookkeeping gives to both a common ground…
Financing Education
In any healthy society education plays a key part. The more so if it is based on teachers’ autonomy and clear and effective financing. How can today’s education taxes be recycled to achieve this?…
Youth Bonds
To avoid another global financial crisis, after 2008 governments the world over resolved to introduce financial literacy into schools. There are many such programmes, but none use accounting as a guide to life and a navigation tool to achieving one’s aims and ideals, at the same time as being a financially sound and sovereign citizen
For more information, contact: Matthew Bond
Seed Corn / The Economics of Farming
Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 26 and 27 November 2024
There is, as ever, a need to protect farmers from the intrusions of abstract finance. Whether it be young people wanting to farm but not belonging to a farming family, or those in a farming family wanting to take over from their parents but their siblings do not, how do they acquire the land and capital they need in terms faithful to the economics of farming, not the fickleness and vagaries of financial markets?
How, likewise, is succession for those needing to retire not to result in cashing in on the very land they have spent their lives caring for and not, force majeure, treating it as a commodity? And how can those in cities with excess capital but wanting to befriend farming do so in ways that do not treat the farm as a cash cow or a mere asset in play?
For more information, contact: Hamish Mackay
Residency program
Recommended readings
After a long and varied career, it is not easy to shortlist material pertinent to every occasion. Here are some items linked to this visit.
Books by Christopher Houghton Budd
Seed Corn – the Economics of Farming (2018)
Beyond Gold – Hayek, Keynes and Steiner in Concert (2024)
Curriculum-Neutral Capitation (2018)
Freeing the Circling Stars (2005)
Auditorial Central Banking – Monetary Themes for the 21st Century (PhD Thesis 2001)
Articles by Christopher Houghton Budd
Money is Bookkeeping – The key to effective financial literacy (2018) with Fionn Meier
‘Deep Accounting’ (2004) in Economics Revisited
Workshops/Seminars with Christopher Houghton Budd
The Future of Finance, Oxford Business School, May 2013
Feature image: courtesy of Goetheanum
Photo image: courtesy of Christopher Houghton Budd