Buddhist Economics From an article by the economist E.F.Schumacher in Resurgence magazine 1968 "The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego- centeredness 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 organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerveracking 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. More Schumacher While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is "The Middle Way" and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well-being. It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them. The keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and non-violence. From an economist's point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern- amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfactory results. For the modern economist this is very difficult to understand. He is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational; since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. Thus, if the purpose of clothing is a certain amount of temperature comfort and an attractive appearance, the task is to attain this purpose with the smallest possible effort, that is, with the smallest annual destruction of cloth and with the help of designs that involve the smallest possible input of toil. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. It would be highly uneconomic, for instance, to go in for complicated tailoring, like the modern West, when a much more beautiful effect can be achieved by the skillful draping of uncut material. It would be the height of folly to make material so that it should wear out quickly and the height of barbarity to make anything ugly, shabby, or mean. What has just been said about clothing applies equally to all other human requirements. The ownership and the consumption of goods is a means to an end, and Buddhist economics is the systematic study of how to attain given ends with the minimum means. A Famous Religion and the Environment Quote "We don't need to worry about saving the forests, Jesus is coming any day now." Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt In his End of Nature, McKibben explores the theological and philosophical implications of our meddling with God-created nature, a meddling which has produced a new "nature," unpredictable, unreliable, and out of control. Bill McKibben Quotes from Schumacher's Small is Beautiful "[A modern economist] is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' that a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well- being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity." "The most striking about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed." "It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man's work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products." "Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non- violent, the elegant and beautiful." "[N]o system or machinery or economic doctrine or theory stands on its own feet: it is invariably built on a metaphysical foundation, that is to say, upon man's basic outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose. I have talked about the religion of economics, the idol worship of material possessions, of consumption and the so-called standard of living, and the fateful propensity that rejoices in the fact that 'what were luxuries to our fathers have become necessities for us." "Systems are never more no less than incarnations of man's most basic attitudes. . . . General evidence of material progress would suggest that the modern private enterprise system is--or has been--the most perfect instrument for the pursuit of personal enrichment. The modern private enterprise system ingeniously employs the human urges of greed and envy as its motive power, but manages to overcome the most blatant deficiencies of laissez-faire by means of Keynesian economic management, a bit of redistributive taxation, and the 'countervailing power' of the trade unions. "Can such a system conceivably deal with the problems we are now having to face? The answer is self-evident: greed and envy demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, and this type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment. We must therefore study the essential nature of the private enterprise system and the possibilities of evolving an alternative system which might fit the new situation." Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Rev. Dr. Herbert Chilstrom, Bishop The adoption of statements on the environment by church councils is important. But unless every local congregation actually carries out sound environmental practices in its buildings and in the homes of the members, these statements are worthless. Care of the earth -- our mandate from the Creator -- is the responsibility of us all. ""Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice"" A Policy statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Adopted, August 28, 1993, Kansas City, Missouri The idea of the earth as a boundless warehouse has proven false and dangerous. Damage to the environment eventually will affect most people through increased conflict over scarce resources, decline in food security, and greater vulnerability to disease. ... Action to counter degradation, especially within this decade, is essential to the future of our children and our children''s children. Islam and the Environment Stewardship of creation is a clearly defined theological responsibility. It exists under the doctrine of the person as a "" khalifah,"" or divinely appointed representative, on behalf of Allah. As the Koran says of Allah, "I am going to place my khalifah' (deputy or steward) in the earth...and He taught Adam..." As God's khalifah,' devout Muslims believe that the human person is entrusted with the care of the earth. The individual is God's deputy who exercises "dominion" over the material, that he or she may also be the servant (" abd" ) of the divine law. Man is thus understood as a servant-ruler, and is not rightly thought of as either servant or ruler separately, but as being both. For a Muslim to rule, he (or she) must also consecrate himself or herself to Allah and serve, and the devout Muslim only does either in proper Islam by doing both. Tied to the concept of khalifah in the Koran is the Islamic concept of "ayat," or signs. This is an aspect of stewardship in which the world is understood as a sphere of hints, intimations, meanings, disclosures and divine mercy. Implied in this assessment of the world is that there is a ""cosmic Islam."" By definition, Islam means prayerful adoration of God. In the idea of a cosmic Islam, every feature of creation is always at prayer. When one enters into a sufficiently prayerful state, and thereby attains some upliftment of consciousness, then the world opens up as a series of lessons about Allah and his nature. JUDAISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT The premise that "you and what you possess are God's" ( Avot 3:7) underlies most of Talmudic thinking, both about the environment and about the nature of mitzvot in general. The doing of mitzvot acknowledges that we live in a God-centered and not a human-centered universe, that because of God's ownership, we have a variety of obligations to the Divine Will. The rabbis further believed that many mitzvot, such as the Sabbatical year, had as their central purpose the reaffirmation of God's ownership of the land ( Sanhedrin 39a). The particular and compelling gift of these sages is that they made their concerns concrete, translated into codes of action. Rabbi Daniel Swartz