The 1999 Kuyper Lecture

Second Quarter 1999

Dr. Bob Goudzwaard will deliver the 1999 Kuyper Lecture at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, on October 28, 1999. Goudzwaard, who retired this year as professor of economics at the Free University of Amsterdam, once served as member of the Dutch Parliament and has consulted with organizations around the world on economic development. This will be the fifth Kuyper Lecture sponsored by the Center for Public Justice. Dordt College is this year's cosponsor.

Upon his retirement from the Free University, Goudzwaard was presented with a book of essays honoring his achievements. Below are excerpts from two of those essays: one by Gerald Vandezande and Mark Vander Vennen, both associated with Citizens for Public Justice in Canada, and the second by Julio de Santa Ana, from Uruguay, now a professor at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland.

Bob Goudzwaard is an integrative thinker and teacher. He moves transparently, and seemingly without effort, from striking Scriptural insight to cultural analysis, to complex economic arguments and to policy directions. This is no small achievement. Integration gives him the ability to fill out, with compelling economic and social arguments, the understanding that many Christians possess intuitively of what God requires, namely to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Here too his work is driven not by academic concerns only but always by a constant interest in the plight of the poor, the environment and the vulnerable.

—Mark Vander Vennen and Gerald Vandezande

Over against mainstream political-economic thought, Goudzwaard proposes an economy of care and an economy of enough. The two are closely connected. An economy of care means an economy of enough, enough not only for the rich, but also for the poor.... It is also means care for future generations. This care for the poor as well as for those who will follow us combines a praxis of responsibility with sustainability. To care for those who will come to live in our world in the future requires respect for the environment.

An economy of care looks to achieve fair relations between workers, irrespective of gender or race. An economy of care looks for the well-being of children, aiming at the creation of more and better opportunities for their education, civic formation and health. The challenge that we face is how to make it more substantial.

—Julio de Santa Ana