The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks in support of Karl Marx

From Times Online
September 24, 2008
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has spoken up in support of Karl Marx, defending key aspects of his critique of capitalism.

Dr Williams warns that in the face of the credit crisis, the financial world needs new regulation and says that our society is running the risk of idolatry in its relationship with wealth.

In an article in Friday's Spectator, Dr Williams compares today's debtors and financiers to the feckless young clerics and landowners described in the novels of Anthony Trollope. He writes: "Individuals find that their own personal financial decisions and calculations have nothing to do with what is happening to their resources, in a process for which a debt is simply someone else's wholly disposable asset."

Criticising the practices which involve financial institutions selling debts onto each other, Dr Williams says: "It is no use pretending that the financial world can maintain indefinitely the degree of exemption from scrutiny and regulation that it has got used to." the rest

Ruth Gledhill's blog: Karl Marx 'right' to condemn capitalism, says Rowan

ACNS: Archbishop of Canterbury calls for greater co-operation to meet Millennium Development Goals
September 24, 2008-On the eve of the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Millennium Development Goals in New York, the Archbishop of Canterbury has underlined the commitment of the Anglican Church to continue to work for the eradication of poverty.

In a video message the Archbishop has backed calls for a renewal of the pledges made by the international community in 2000, and spoke of the need for the Anglican Church to work in harmony with governments and NGOs around the world in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.