The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for an ethical economy rooted in stability and seeking the common good.

Dr Rowan Williams said the principles of a healthy economy were similar to those of a “working household” in that it should provide an environment in which people could “grow up or wind down” and “work to reinforce the security of the household”.

“Good housekeeping seeks common wellbeing so that all these things can happen and we should note that the one thing required in a background of wellbeing is stability,” he said.

“A theory that wanders too far from these basics is a recipe for damage to the vulnerable, to the regularity and usefulness of labour and to the possibilities human beings have for renewing (and challenging) themselves through leisure and creativity.”

The Archbishop said the economic downturn was the result of trying to structure economic life “independently of intelligent choice about long-term goals for human beings”, those goals being “mutuality” and the common good, he explained.

“The Christian Scriptures describe the union of those who are identified with Jesus Christ as having an organic quality, a common identity shaped by the fact that each depends on all others for their life,” he said.

“The model of human existence that is taken for granted is one in which each person is both needy and needed, both dependent on others and endowed with gifts for others. And while this is not on the whole presented as a general social programme, it is manifestly what the biblical writers see as the optimal shape of human life, life in which the purposes of God are made plain.”

“Helpless alone and gifted in relationship: this is where we start in addressing the world of economics from a Christian standpoint."

He challenged work practices that “regularly reward behaviour that is undermining of family live, driven, relentlessly competitive and adversarial”.

The Archbishop was speaking at a conference hosted by the Trinity Institute, an educational ministry of Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York. The three-day conference explored what an ethical economy might look like and the link between theology and the marketplace.

Also speaking at the conference was University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Kathryn Tanner who said the goals of individuals in a free market system did not have to be selfish or greedy ones.

She said: “Self-interested action becomes equivalent to selfishness only if the only thing one cares about is oneself; but human beings typically pursue, often in part for moral reasons, goals that include the wellbeing of others - the wellbeing at least of the family and friends they love-and the market in that case becomes a way of achieving those ends.”