Wednesday, August 24, 2005

From the Sept/Oct issue of World Watch. “Hungry for More: Re-engaging Religious Teahings on Consumption,” by Gary Gardner:

“Consider, for example, the power of ‘Buddhist economics’ to turn western notions of consumption on their heads. From its starting position – the purpose of an economy –the Buddhist approach is distinctive. As explained in E.F. Schumacher’s classic, Small Is Beautiful, whereas market economies are designed to produce the highest possible levels of production and consumption, Buddhist economics supports a different aim: to achieve enlightenment. This spiritual goal, in turn, requires freedom from desire, the source of all suffering, according to the Buddha. This is a tall order in societies of mass consumption, where advertisers conflate needs and desires and where acquisitiveness is a cultural norm.


Indeed, from the perspective of Buddhist economics, having and consuming makes sense only as a means to a well-rounded sense of well-being, in which material needs are met in moderation, and in which cultural, psychological, and spiritual needs are also addressed. Consumption as an end – chasing the most prestigious house or the latest cell phone – is irrational. …

The consumption ethic of Buddhist economics appears to have taken strong root in Sri Lanka in a village-based development movement known as Sarvodaya Shramadana, now present in more than half of the country’s 24,000 villages. Consumption in the Sarvodayan experience is shaped by the Sarvodayan vision of development, which is summarized in a list of 10 major human needs:

· A clean and beautiful environment
· A clean and adequate supply of water
· Basic clothing
· A balanced diet
· A simple house to live in
· Basic health care
· Simple communications facilities
· Basic energy requirements
· Well-rounded education
· Cultural and spiritual sustenance”

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting reference and excerpt. I'll have to chase the article down and read it sometime.

Innate individual greed and scarcity are the unshakable assumptions of Western economics. And because people believe them to be true, people act on them as true - which makes them "true" in a very circular delusion.

It's always refreshing to hear those basic assumptions challenged using a different value system to define what life is all about.

8:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, if we keep things simple, life will be neat and adequate. Better economics is that which is economical. When desires proliferate, economics become complex and less spiritually fruitful, even if somewhat more materially satisfying.

11:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm confused by this. Is Schumaker a Buddhist? Or is he using/coopting the Dharma to sell his economic conceits?

jeb is quite right greed and scarcity are the basis of our current economics. And conceptual fantasies about remaking economics like Schumaker's have been the basis of wholesale misery in Tibet, Cambodia and China.

Big beautiful, small beautiful, all are illusionary conceptualizations.

7:49 PM  
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10:59 PM  

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