Archbishop says deregulation and spending also caused financial crisis | UK news | The Guardian

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Blaming the greed of individual bankers for the financial crisis was too easy and people should instead be asking profound questions about how poorly regulated economies obsessed with ever-growing consumer choice have skewed the judgments of entire countries, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

The Right Rev Rowan Williams used a lecture in Cardiff at the weekend to deliver a wide-ranging attack on a globalised economic system which had been "spectacularly successful in generating purchasing power" but which had also led us to "the most radical insecurity imaginable".

As economists struggle to find technical solutions to the recession, which has brought interests rates to their lowest level in 300 years and forced the government to cut VAT in an effort to get shoppers back into the high street, he said ordinary people had to ask themselves difficult questions about their own lives.

"To use one of the more obvious examples, it has become clear that lifestyles dependent on high levels of fossil fuel consumption reduce the long-term opportunities of basic human flourishing for many people because of their environmental cost - not to mention the various political traps associated with the production and marketing of oil in some parts of the world, with the consequent risks to peace and regional stability.

Archbishop says deregulation and spending also caused financial crisis | UK news | The Guardian

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