[Ecodharma] Buddhist Economics

[Kokuu]

Dear all

This is an interesting essay written by E F Schumacher in 1966 which still, to my eye, contains a lot of wisdom, although I don't necessarily agree it is entirely Buddhist. Schumacher is, as probably most people know, best known for his book 'Small is Beautiful: economics as if people mattered'

Buddhist Economics

Here is an excerpt:

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Hosui]

Thanks for sharing this, Kokuu - it’s been a while since I read his magnum opus, but his overall argument from 1973 is still encouraging. This, in spite of that text not directly addressing what Clair Brown - in her 2017 book Buddhist Economics building on Schumacher’s - rightly regards as the two biggest contemporary worldwide challenges: the climate crisis (she uses the older phrase ‘global warming’) and income inequality. This isn’t a completely fair criticism of Schumacher’s dated thesis, which was I believe motivated in addressing the previous decade’s issues related to the war in Vietnam, the anti-war protests, and civil rights issues at home: but then Brown doesn’t address head on the delusion of neoliberalism. It’s difficult to step out of one’s temporal backyard, even if Dogen would imply that it's not impossible (see below).

What Clair Brown does help us with, building on Schumacher’s message of the economics of peace, are eight steps towards a Buddhist economics, namely:

1. Tax and transfer.
2. Sustainable agriculture.
3. Viable economic measurements.
4. Peace and prosperity.
5. Green production and green products.
6. Living wages and balanced lives.
7. Live mindfully with love, compassion, and wisdom, and
8. Working together to take action (p.132).

Adding to that, I’d suggest an education in all of the above as helpful. As Master Dogen alludes to in the 'Uji' chapter of the Shobogenzo, “The way the self arrays itself is the form of the entire world” (Tanahashi translation, p.105), which, after Shinshu Roberts (Being-Time, 2018), I understand to mean how we see that our true nature is the interpenetrating activity of all being and time. As Shinshu Roberts says, “Actualising bodhisattva precepts becomes the enactment of setting oneself out in array and making the world” (ibid. p.64). In the same way we don't have to wait for enlightenment, we don't have to wait to "take action" in Buddhist economics if we're willing to reintegrate ourselves with everything/everyone all of the time.

Ecodharma and being-time - a heady combo!

Gassho
Hosui
sat/lah today