Rede des
Vorsitzenden der A.SK-Findungskommission, Werner Abelshauser, am 17. Februar 2009 im Roten Rathaus
Sehr geehrter Herr Bundespräsident,
Sehr geehrter Herr Bundestagsvizepräsident,
Sehr geehrter Herr Präsident des Berliner
Abgeordnetenhauses
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
Liebe Frau Nussbaum,
erlauben Sie mir, mit
Rücksicht auf anwesende Mitglieder des A.SK-Stiftungsrates und die Preisträgerin
ein paar Worte auf Englisch zu sagen.
At the ceremony
in December 2007, when Sir Tony Atkinson was awarded the first A.SK price, I
had the opportunity to explain the goals of the A.SK Social Science Award at some
length. One of the core statements of that adress has been that the A.SK
Foundation wants to promote academic work radically exploring the
possibilities “for more direct links of the financial sector to the
national production of goods and services in order to prevent monetary
instabilities and speculative deformations”. I am not sure whether or not the
majority of the audience in those light-minded Pre-Crises-Days did really
understand the urgency and the dynamite hidden behind the A.SK mission. However,
the monstrosity of the capital market is only one problem, the A.SK Foundation wants
to tackle.
The mission of the Social Science
Award is definitly broader. The goal is to encourage social system reform, to
facilitate and broaden people’s productive activities with fair wealth
distribution, as well as competently address current social issues. Society is
rapidly changing, and old systems have become incompatible with new realities.
New problems can only be solved with new solutions – or with old solutions in a
new perspective. I am afraid there is even more dynamite hidden. Therefore, the
A.SK Social Science Award honours new and radical ideas to solve these problems
with a price of 100.000 €.
Let me again quote Shu Kai Chan who - together with
his wife Angela - has donatet the price: “We have to make a wake up call, let
people know there can be a new social system to solve our so many troublesome
problems and create a new kind of society that could give all people to work
with fair wealth distribution and a competent government and a new check and
balance power system.”
Having this in mind, the Comitee for the A.SK Social
Science Award and hence the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung honor Martha
C. Nussbaum with the 2009 A.SK Social Science Award. We do recognize her work
addressing key issues of human rights, social justice, and rational political
decision-making that are at the core of what makes modern societies viable and
sustainable. With intellectual keenness and outspokeness she has advocated the need
to ackknowledge and continuously nourish human “capabilities”. By focusing on human
capabilities, such as those that enable actors to engage in economic
transactions and participate in political activities, Martha Nussbaum has provided
a framework within to tackle the major challenges of public policy: ending
economic and social exploitation, limiting the excessive use of power, and
promoting the well-being of all citizens.