Initiated by Laszlo Zsolnai and the European SPES Forum the Von Hügel Institute of the St. Edmund College, University of Cambridge organized an international workshop on „The Economic and Financial Crisis and the Human Person” on June 8-9, 2013 in Cambridge.

The workshop aimed at addressing issues of rebalancing material and spiritual values in economic policy and business functioning. The current economic and financial crisis reveals the inadequateness of the anthropological assumptions of mainstream economic and business models. The conventional features of the Economic Man require serious reconsideration and the non-material, spiritual aspect of human functioning should be rehabilitated in economic and social life. Issues included (1) The relevance of Homo spiritualis for renewing organizational and managerial ethics. (2) The consequences of material and non-material welfare economic policies. (3) The implications of frugality for global sustainability and intergenerational justice.