Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science

166 Pages·2017·1.79 MB·English

by  Clair Brown

Buddhist Economics
To my family and friends for their love and caring,
To Mother Earth for nurturing life through the ages.

CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: Why We Need a Holistic Economic Model
Chapter 2: What Is Buddhist Economics?
Chapter 3: Interdependent with One Another
Chapter 4: Interdependent with Our Environment
Chapter 5: Prosperity for Both Rich and Poor
Chapter 6: Measuring Quality of Life
Chapter 7: Leap to Buddhist Economics
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
A Note on the Author
INTRODUCTION
Economics affects how we live and how happy we are. Yet most people ignore
economics even though it has a powerful impact on our lives and our future.
Take our two biggest worldwide challenges: global warming and income
inequality. United Nations climate scientists warn that time is running out if we
are to avoid destroying our planet and our way of life. Income inequality rivals
that of the Gilded Age, with economists predicting that inequality will continue
to grow, along with political turmoil.
Both of these challenges are profoundly influenced by economics.
Overcoming them will require a complete rethinking of our economic system,
our lives, and what matters to us. We must learn to live in harmony with Nature
and with one another.
I have been an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, for a
lifetime and a Buddhist for a decade. As a professor of economics and a student
of Buddhism, I have been grappling for some time now with the troubling
disconnect between free market economics and the issues of the real world. In an
era marked by vast economic disparities and the threat of environmental
collapse, with opulent living for a few, comfortable living for many, and
deprivation with suffering for most, something is clearly wrong.
Free market economics assumes that markets produce optimal outcomes and
people have the resources to create satisfying lives. In measuring national well-
being, economics focuses only on income and consumption, and excludes many
of the pressing issues that define our modern life.
What would a Buddhist approach to economics, in which people are regarded
as more important than output and a meaningful life is prized above a lavish
lifestyle, look like? I began to wonder.
My thinking about how to reframe economics from a Buddhist perspective
was inspired initially by studying Buddhism with compassionate, knowledgeable
teachers at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. Then a Tibetan Buddhist
meditation hall opened not far from our house. My husband and I stopped by and
heard a talk given by Anam Thubten Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, and
began practicing with him. As I embraced the core Buddhist concepts of
interdependence, compassion, and right livelihood, I wondered, “How would
Buddha teach Introductory Economics?”
Four years ago, I put my musings into action by teaching a sophomore
seminar on Buddhist economics at Berkeley, in part to develop my own thinking
on the subject. The students energetically engaged in addressing questions about
inequality, happiness, and sustainability, teaching me what I already suspected:
you don’t have to be an economics major or practice Buddhism to join in the
conversation about how Buddhism can connect the human spirit and the
economy to create well-being and happiness for all people.
As a Buddhist and an economics professor, I join the chorus of economists
asking whether there is an alternative to an economy ruled by desire and ill
equipped to address the challenges of environmental deterioration, inequality,
and personal suffering.
BECOMING HAPPY
What makes people happy? This question takes us to the heart of the difference
between free market economics and Buddhist economics: our human nature.
According to Buddhist economics, human nature is generous and altruistic, even
as it also cares about itself. Buddha taught that all people suffer from their own
mental states, with feelings of discontent that come from desiring more and
more. The Dalai Lama tells us that the feeling of not having enough and wanting
more does not arise from the inherent desirability of the objects we are seeking,
but from our own mental illusions. Buddha taught us how to end suffering by
changing our states of mind, which translates into finding happiness through
living a meaningful life.
Free market economics holds that human nature is self-centered and that
people care only about themselves as they push ahead to maximize their incomes
and fancy lifestyles. According to this approach, buying and consuming—
shopping for new shoes or playing a new video game—will make you happy.
Forget that soon you will grow tired of the shoes, become disappointed with the
game, and be off shopping again. In this endless cycle of desire, we are
continuously left wanting more without ever finding lasting satisfaction. Free
market economics is not guiding us toward living meaningful lives in a healthy
world, nor is it offering solutions to our concerns about global wars, income
equality, and environmental threats.
Buddhist economics, in contrast, provides guidance for restructuring both our
individual lives and the economy to create a better world. “Practice compassion
to be happy” replaces “More is better.” “Everyone’s well-being is connected”
replaces “Maximize your own position.” “The welfare of humans and Nature is
interdependent” replaces “Pollution is a social cost that the individual can
ignore.”
NO TIME TO LOSE
Climate scientists warn that we don’t have much time left to make the switch
from an income-driven world with little concern for environmental harm to an
economy that dramatically reduces our carbon footprint. Scientists around the
world release a steady flow of reports on how human activity is causing global
warming and how it harms our lives now and will into the future. Yet most
people seem too busy to listen and take action.
On the same weekend in January 2015, two very different articles appeared:
one, in the highly respected journal Science, reported that threats to our
environment endanger our way of life; the other, in the New York Times,
described the servicing of private superyachts that require professional crews
and cost millions of dollars. The Science article reported that an international
team of eighteen scientists has found that four of the nine earth biophysical
processes crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become
dangerously compromised by human activity: the systems of biosphere integrity
(extinction rate), biogeochemical flows (phosphorus-nitrogen cycle), land
system change (deforestation for crops and cities), and climate change
(atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration). The New York Times article
reported that more than one fifth of the estimated five thousand superyachts in
the world were purchased in the last five years, during the Great Recession. I
suspect that many more people paid attention to the New York Times article than
the Science article; despite our knowledge about the disastrous damage that we
are inflicting on the earth, consumption continues to fascinate and accelerate.
Materialistic drives are pushing us toward the “sixth extinction,” as many are
now referring to today’s ongoing extinction of species.
Inequality is equally relentless. In many economies, inequality has
dramatically increased as the surge in income and wealth since the mid-1970s
has been captured by the top 1 percent and done little to benefit the majority of
families. Economists have warned us that inequality can slow economic growth
and reduce people’s sense of well-being. But during the Great Recession
following the global financial crisis of 2008, ordinary people paid the price of a
crisis that was caused by the powerful financial sector, which recovered just fine
as a result of government bailouts. In the United States, the bailout cost
taxpayers $21 billion, plus billions in lost wages.
Income inequality is not uniform across nations. Some countries (the United
States, the United Kingdom, India, and China) have created much more
inequality than others (including many European nations and Japan). Such
inequality is not inevitable; it is a national choice that results from government
policies. For example, Denmark and Sweden have a progressive tax structure
and social programs that provide everyone with health care, child care, and
education along with a safety net for hard times. In contrast, the United States
has a much less progressive tax structure and a flimsy safety net, and private
companies are in charge of much of health care and child care.
Similarly, climate scientists have demonstrated that burning fossil fuels,
causing carbon dioxide emissions that heat the planet, is the result of many
choices that governments make. The United States has aggravated both global
warming and inequality by allowing big business, especially the fossil fuel and
finance industries, to be big political players. Countries choose to institute
policies that result in global warming and inequality, and they can reverse them
if they so desire.

The term “Buddhist economics” was first coined by E. F. Schumacher in his
1973 book Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. Schumacher
foresaw the problems that come about with excessive reliance on the growth of
income, especially overwork and dwindling resources. He argued for a system
that valued individual character development and human liberation over an
attachment to material goods. In Schumacher’s view, the goal of Buddhist
economics is “the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.”
My approach expands on Schumacher’s notion of Buddhist economics to
accommodate a world that couldn’t have been envisioned in 1973, and to
advocate an approach to organizing the economy so that a meaningful life
reflects our caring for one another and global sharing of the world’s resources in
a sustainable system. Buddha taught that true happiness does not come from the
external world, not from fame or consumption or friends or power. True
happiness comes from within ourselves as we surrender to the great unknown,
develop love and compassion for everyone, and become aware of every precious