The disturbances in Athens started months ago, after the painful recognition that Greece’s ongoing financial crisis might ultimately stifle the Greek people’s future opportunities for economic advancement. Spanish youth have been demonstrating against the political and economic elite since this past May. The bloody demonstrations in the Arab world began last winter, effectively re-creating the political landscape of the Middle East. Youth in these countries, fed up with decades of oppression and hopelessness, went to the streets to demand their rights and the hope of a freer life.
In New York the demonstrations started a few weeks ago in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The protests were originally directed against the political influence of big business, the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, and the impunity with which the American government treated those responsible for the monetary crisis. They advertised their demonstration on the 17th of September – the anniversary of the signature of the American Constitution with the slogan ‘Occupy Wall Street!’ The demonstration grew quickly into what appears to be an anti-capitalist mass movement. Among others issues, protesters are demanding a response to the alleged crimes of Wall Street, workplace discrimination, animal testing, disdain for employee rights, illegal campaign financing, and the seeming continuation of flawed economic policy. The demonstrators believe that big companies have an inordinate amount of influence over world governments, and that they are ultimately responsible for the current state of the environment. For these companies, profit is more important than human well-being and environmental sustainability.
Meanwhile, China’s state-controlled media has been working hard to keep Chinese youth from knowing the magnitude of what’s happening with other young people around the world. As we can see from the recent uprisings in Tibet and other areas around China, however, this effort is failing. The Chinese government may fear that its youth might soon form movements of their own, and unite with others around the world to stand up against the injustices of their government’s recent efforts to promote economic development.
“Buddhist Economics”
This article does not give generalized answers, but merely attempts to acquaint the reader with a new economic approach one which may possibly help our society to weather new economic crises in the future.
Ecological overconsumption, the avidity of the consumer, and eternal discontentment make viable the concept of the Buddhist economy. The idea of Buddhist economics a theory founded on the basic principles of Buddhism was first introduced in the West in 1973 by E. F. Schumacher, an English economist, in his book Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. Many of Schumacher’s theories were prescient, and inspire respect for small-scale solutions that enhance the triple-bottom-line: people, planet and profit. Buddhist economics does not promote asceticism, but instead a minimal consumer level that still provides the individual with a sense of achievement and well-being. However, the individual’s happiness is dependent on the happiness of the rest of the society’s members, as well as on the overall condition of the environment. The small-scale usage of ecological resources is regarded as good, and it is considered important to differentiate at the time of their usage between renewable and non-renewable energy sources. This theory considers the usage of non-renewable power sources as robbing the environment. Humans should not be the lords of nature, but because of their special situation should be vigilant in their protection of it.
But this does not fit into today’s dominant economic notions, which surmise that contentment can be reached only through satisfying all of our desires.
Western economic society recognizes that commerce will never end if the fulfillment of all desires is the ultimate aim of commerce. Because we may never be totally satisfied, our desires are endless. The teachings of Buddhism idealize a correct quantity, moderation, and balance. The dominant economic ideology in the West motivates us to maximum consumption, while Buddhist economics holds the view that less consumption is also able to generate a good general societal condition. It admits that the satisfaction of certain needs is essential, and therefore does not reject these needs. But consumption supporting human vanity should be inferior to physiological needs. Then, consumption is only a means to an end and not the aim itself. The question then, is how we can make choices in such a way that it furthers our own development?
Choices have a crucial significance from a Buddhist viewpoint. Making decisions between opportunities demands qualitative assessment of each opportunity. The intention, or karma, behind a choice comes from one of the central teachings of Buddhism. Karma has an effect not merely on the economy, but in all of the areas of our lives, including our social and natural environment. Those economic decisions from which ethical thinking is missing do not derive a desirable result. Good economic decisions those which examine equally the costs on the individual, as well as on the social and natural environment are not solely focused on the level of production and consumption. On all occasions, when an economic decision happens one’s karma changes, and the process sets in motion a subsequent series of events which impacts, for better or for worse, the individual, nature and society as a whole. Because the impacts of our choices are so wide-reaching, we must recognize the qualitative difference between different actions, and then make the wise decision.
The global movement we are seeing today seems to show that people have started to understand that the process we call “economic development” is driving us in an unsustainable direction. Buddhist economics is just one of the possible solutions, and is one which proclaims that humans and nature are more important than profit in the long-run. Every act of our life, whether verbal or physical, should follow ethical and moral principles in order to avoid the harmful effect of our actions not only for ourselves but also for others and for the natural environment. We need to understand that the measurement of economic performance does not demonstrate one of the most important human values happiness. We must recognize that happiness and satisfaction are not determined purely by economic development, and that quantity and size should not be the most important considerations in our consumption.
Further reading on Buddhist economics:
– E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. (1973).
– Ven. P.A. Payutto, Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market Place. 2nd Edition (1994).
Laszlo Zsolnay (ed.), Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation: A Buddhist Approach. (2011).
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