He added that a civilisation asking questions about authority could learn from the way in which the Rule of St Benedict both defended those in authority and provided a voice for those being governed:
"There is a clear and unambiguous assumption that there is such a thing as a common good and that therefore each distinct diverse perspective is open to challenge; that is what obedience is about. But there is an equally unambiguous refusal of any sort of competitive struggle for the dominance of one individual or group, and a set of checks and balances to offset any risk attaching to the strong emphasis on the abbot's authority."
He continued, saying that for the church to address the question of authority in the global economic context, it would require a change of approach:
"... it is hard to deny that economic powerlessness of the kind that rapidly and insensitively enforced globalisation breeds may be fertile ground for destructive behaviour - for the self-destructive spirals of collapsing or failing societies, brutalised and deprived of civil dignity, as well as for the frustration that feeds terrorism. These are not automatic processes, of course, and the role of plain political despotism and corruption in disadvantaged economies cannot be ignored. But when there is intense pressure to open up struggling markets and remove subsidies prematurely or pressure to comply with requirements by international financial bodies that strike at the availability of essential goods, this has its part in the crippling of emergent societies and can undermine advances towards accountable and just government."
Dr Williams further explained that a civilisation which took a more Benedictine approach to authority would develop the ability to deal more with distinct minorities within it and would not, for instance, be panicked by issues around immigration. He told how losing the fear of alien cultures would provide a proper basis for engagement and participation.
He said, "Good governance and government is always about an engagement with the other that is neither static confrontation nor competition but the production of some sort of common language and vision that could not have been defined in advance of the encounter."
In particular, Dr Williams explained that participation would be possible for minority communities without the fear of marginalisation.
"The migrant group that is prepared to work within the civic framework of a host society, that aspires simply to citizenship, is one whose voice in the community overall is of significance alongside those who have a longer history and a political or economic advantage. Once within the relationships of purposeful common life, the facts of coming from ethnically or religiously different backgrounds should not disenfranchise them," he is quoted as saying.
However, while it didn't provide a direct political blueprint for modern governance, the Rule of St Benedict posed serious and challenging questions about a society's need for self-examination, he said.
"... what we can reasonably ask, in the light of the Rule, is that political order should recognise that it cannot survive without space for some exploration of what human identity is. A modern or postmodern
society is unlikely, for good or ill, to be overtly committed to a single ideology; but this does not mean that it will not covertly promote this or that picture of human distinctiveness by the way it arranges its business and governance," the Archbishop stated.
In conclusion, Dr Williams said that religion could not therefore be sidelined: "A laisser-faire reduction to market principles is not neutral in regard to human self-understanding. And a programmatic insistence that religious conviction be relegated to the private sphere reduces the exploration of human identity and awareness to the level of a faintly embarrassing leisure pursuit best kept out of sight as far as possible."
