Borrowed from Sartre scholar Ronald Aronson (of Wayne State), writing in recognition of the anniversary of Sartre's death. This highlights that the great questions of philosophy are also the great questions of Buddhism:

"As he deepened his extravagant claims, Sartre embarked on a great adventure of the human spirit, aiming at solving one of our greatest perplexities: Do we make ourselves, or are we determined by conditions beyond our control, including those within our own psyche?

"One response, often associated with the political right, claims that we are completely responsible for virtually everything that befalls us. Another, the most conventional of left-wing replies, is that social conditions shape and determine who we become. After beginning by contributing the strongest argument of the 20th century to the side of the dilemma stressing total human freedom, Sartre went on to explore the social, economic and psychic conditions under which we exercise our freedom. Yes, he would say, we do make ourselves - but the situation within which we do, and even the terms in which we do so, are imposed on us and generally remain beyond our control.

"Sartre made clear that the whole truth lies with both sides taken together. And then, in works like his biography of Gustave Flaubert, he went on to demonstrate precisely how an individual creates himself from what his social class and family situation have made him to be. Like no one else, he gave their due both to freedom and to determinism. Like no one else, he sought to understand exactly what it means to be responsible."

Buddhism seems to argue for total human freedom: we are solely responsible for our actions and thus our fate. We banish the interference of Gods and deities. But we are not all born equal, and much is determined by the our family circumstances and the health of our society? We are born into an environment, and a station in life, which certainly shapes how we develop and how we grow, but this beginning point was not an accident but a product of our past actions? I hope I got this right.

Protestantism has its work-ethic. Buddhism has something less?

Interesting bit from Philip Short's "Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare" (at p.295), explaining how the Khmer Rouge (and all proceeding rulers) had difficulty getting the peasantry to produce:

"But that was only part of the truth. Even Khieu Samphan estimated that on average Khmer peasants worked only six months of the year, and sometimes much less. Theravada Buddhism has never placed much value on the acquistion and consumption of wealth. ... a Khmer businessman seeking a regular supply of palm suger for sweetmeat manufacture, encounted exactly the same problem. Once the peasant farmers he employed had earned enough for the year, they stopped work, and neither blandishments, nor the promise of more money could make them start again. 'From their point of view it was logical,' he acknowledged. 'Once they had paid their family's expenses - seed for the next planting; fertiliser; clothes; offerings to the monks; school fees for the children - what would they spend it on? There was nothing more they wanted.'

To some, that may be indolence; to others, it is wisdom. But in either case it flies in the face of the way the modern world runs."

That was 30 years ago. Wonder if the reality of globalization and creeping materialism has changed all that?