The World Economy & Buddhist Economics

Money is good but not when it's contaminated with greed and attachment: karma and merit, dana for mental purification (allmyanmar.com).

A man looks at a stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo 10/3/08. Japan's Nikkei average fell 1.9% to a three-year closing low on Friday for its worst week in more than a year, with growing fears about the global economy hitting high-tech firms, autos, and exporters (Reuters/Toru Hanai).

IMF: World economy to slow sharply, led by US
Jeannnine Aversa (AP Economics, 10/8/08)

WASHINGTON -- The world economy will slow sharply this year and next, with the United States likely sliding into recession reflecting mounting damage from the most dangerous financial jolt in more than a half-century. The International Monetary Fund, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the global economy and predicted the United States — the epicenter of the financial meltdown — will continue to lose traction. "The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the IMF said in its report. More>>

• Financial crisis deepens as Asian markets falter (AP)
• Economic Crisis Deepens And Spreads Worldwide (CBS 2 NY)
• Global Market Sell-Off (CNBC)
• Wall Street fluctuates after emergency interest rate cut

• Central banks, governments try to contain crisis
• Retailers report weak September sales
• Pending home sales up 7.4 percent in August
• Fed, central banks cut rates to aid world economy
• AIG execs' retreat after bailout angers...
• Stocks Down After Early Rally Despite...
• Original story: IMF: World economy to slow sharply, led by US

Buddhist Economics

Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism:

Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China, and Japan
Gregory K. Ornatowski (Boston University)

In the earliest Buddhism most kinds of economic behavior of monastics (e.g., labor, agricultural production, and possession or accumulation of wealth outside of one's robe and bowl)3 were proscribed, and ascetic (samana) economic ethics were mainly negative. With the passage of time, however, some disciplinary rules (Vinayas) were relaxed.

Individual ascetics were allowed to keep money, and monasteries were allowed to sell or use for profit goods donated to them, as well as lend out money and collect interest -- as long as the profits went to the benefit of the Three Treasures (Sangha, Buddha, and Dharma). Economic activities undertaken by individual monastics for personal profit, however, as well as monastic labor (whether it involved agriculture or commercial activities), continued to be proscribed.4

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Lay Buddhists

In contrast to these early monastic economic ethics, early economic ethics for the laity appeared clearly different since they allowed the laity to hold wealth and even praised the creation of wealth through diligent work following one's chosen or given occupation. However, lay economic ethics also stressed the avoidance of craving or attachment to such wealth and that it must be shared with the Sangha and with family and friends. In addition, early lay economic ethics praised the value of labor and devotion to most secular occupations (with some exceptions).

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Such a more lenient attitude toward lay accumulation of wealth and labor was not simply the result of monks trying to ensure their own material support from the laity. It was also the result of a clear and consistent logic in the early Buddhist view of reality that what had ultimate value for both monk and laity was the individual attainment of enlightenment. Although best pursued as a monk, such attainment of enlightenment was also possible for lay people.

As a result, economic ethics, whether for monk or for laity, ultimately were directed toward furthering this goal of enlightenment. For both, the key to achieving this goal was overcoming craving. As the laity needed to earn their living, accumulating wealth was allowed and even encouraged as long as too much craving was avoided. Since the monks were on a different point in the path toward nirvana and required stricter discipline, it was considered better for them not to accumulate or hold wealth at all.

This system required that the laity support the Sangha in order to allow individual monks to devote themselves to their own enlightenment, but also so that they could teach the Dharma to the laity and give knowledge and understanding which furthered the process of laity enlightenment. Through giving to the Sangha (dana), the laity earned merit which would help them receive better karma; by avoiding economic activities in favor of meditation and teaching, monks spread the Dharma and contributed to the overall supreme goal of maximum progress toward enlightenment for all.5

Lay economic ethics taught in early Buddhism thus focused upon three areas: (1) accumulating wealth through hard work, diligence and setting certain restrains on one's own consumption; (2) choosing and pursuing the right occupation (i.e., avoiding occupations such as killing animals, trade in weapons, and the like); and (3) sharing wealth honestly acquired with family, friends and the Sangha. Such merchant-type values in early Buddhist lay ethics contrasted sharply with the economic ethics of Brahmanism, which reflected the patriarchal clan-­based ethics of an agricultural society.6

Support for this influence of merchant-class values upon early Buddhist lay ethics can be found in early Buddhist sutras and stories which refer to lay wealth in a way which tends to assume a certain amount of wealth already being held, and in the strong emphasis upon giving and receiving rather than the high value put in Brahmin ethics upon sacrifices.7 The influence of merchant-class ethics is also apparent in the three main themes of such sutras and stories: (1) diligence and honesty in acquisition of wealth; (2) restrain of one's own consumption in order to accumulate wealth; and (3) reinvestment of this wealth to produce more wealth, merit and happiness for self and others.

The best-known early sutra which exhibits these themes was the Singalovada Sutra or "Admonition to a Householder" (Singala the householder was taught about Buddhist lay life by the Buddha), sometimes referred to as the Buddhist Layperson's Vinaya.

In it an ethic of diligent accumulation of wealth through hard work, restrained consumption, and reinvestment of profits into one's business is stressed, as in the following passage:

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The wise and moral man

Shines like a fire on a hilltop

Who does not hurt the flower.

Such a man makes his pile

As an anthill, gradually.

Grown wealthy, he thus

Can help his family

And firmly bind his friends

To himself. He should divide

His money in four parts;

On one he should live,

With two expand his trade,

And the fourth he should save

Against a rainy day.8

What is particularly interesting about this passage is that it urges that only a fourth of all one's wealth should be consumed for daily living while the other three-fourths should be saved, most of it to be reinvested in one's trade. This reflects a merchant­based mentality which while perhaps not ascetic in the same sense as the so­called Protestant ethic, does put a strong emphasis on saving and reinvestment. The sutra goes on to give specific advice on how to avoid squandering this accumulated wealth by avoiding such things as idleness, bad friends, addiction to intoxicants, roaming the streets at odd hours, frequenting shows, and indulging in gambling.9

Other early sutras emphasize strongly the virtue of non-attachment to wealth as the foundation of all morals in society. This can be seen in both the Cakkavatti­ Sihanada and Kutadanta sutras, in which the generosity of a righteous king for the destitute becomes the basis for the establishment of virtue and prosperity in lay society. At the same time, a lack of such generosity was presented as the beginning of a steady expansion of vice and evil and a steady decay of society.10 Sutras such as the Maha ­Sudassana Sutra, moreover, by stressing the impermanence of all wealth and worldly possessions, no matter how great their extent, reinforced the value of non-attachment to wealth.11

With the passage of time, the lay virtue of generosity and giving only became more and more predominant. This was reflected in the many stories in the sutras of unbridled generosity leading to good karma and spiritual advancement.12 At the same time, while sutras pointed out the dangers of wealth in terms of creating craving, poverty was never advocated for the laity, but was viewed as a "suffering in the world for a layman."13

Dana & Karma

Yet even though giving became the supreme lay virtue, there was a subtle difference between the earlier sutras, in which giving to both the poor and the Sangha was urged, and later sutras, in which giving to the Sangha was the main theme. In this way dana (giving to the Sangha) became the central concept of lay economic ethics. By giving to the Sangha, the individual not only furthered his own quest for enlightenment and karma, but benefited society and contributed to the betterment of others' karma through supporting the educational act of spreading the Dharma.14

The concept of dana along with the concept of karma also contribute to a certain set of ideas about economic justice in Theravada Buddhist economic ethics. On the one hand, the notion of karma has been used to argue in favor of an idea of justice existing in Theravada Buddhist economic ethics, as follows:

Such equality before the law of karma resembles the West's notion of procedural justice...there is equality of opportunity in the sense that the law of karma treats all evenhandedly in rewarding virtue and punishing vice, and the determining essence of virtue (the attitude of non-attachment) is presumably an equal possibility for all.15

Economic inequalities existing in society thus can be viewed as the result of past karmic acts and do not violate a sense of justice but in fact confirm it.

On the other hand, the concept of karma can also be used to argue against an idea of justice in Theravada Buddhism. This is possible through emphasizing an interpretation of karma which implies that the way to nirvana is through a slow accumulation of individual merit effected by religious giving and individual acts of compassion rather than an interest in effecting social justice in the Western sense of an equitable distribution of wealth:

...The law of karma, with its all encompassing explanation of existing inequalities, tends to do away with Buddhist perplexity over the plight of the poor. Buddhist emphasis on the virtue of charity tends to outweigh interest in justice and so ethical reflection is shifted away from evaluation of the existing distribution of wealth.16

What both of the above arguments share is a tendency to regard the issue of economic justice as one involving the need for greater economic equality and redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. This of course is only one interpretation of justice. If accepted, however, there is little clear evidence in Theravada Buddhism supporting redistribution of wealth, except for the idea of dana, which implied redistribution of wealth to the Sangha and not necessarily to the poor, and the idea of karuna, which implied more individually-based acts of compassion toward one's fellow sentient beings rather than an overall program for social change.

Support for an idea of economic or social equality in the form of an economically or socially classless society also never seems to have been envisioned in early Theravada Buddhism, at least for the laity. Instead, clear differences in social, economic, and political levels seem to be assumed, a fact reflected in the lack of a clear prohibition against ownership or use of slaves either by layman or temple (though slave trading was proscribed).17 In addition while within the early Sangha a large degree of economic and to some degree political equality existed, this equality was never extended beyond the Sangha to a prescription for society as a whole.

Moreover even within the Sangha, there was a class structure in the sense of different levels of spiritual development and seniority which were acknowledged and affected how different monks were treated.18 Thus equality in early Theravada Buddhism seems to have been primarily a spiritual ideal viewed in terms of equal potential for all to achieve spiritual enlightenment. This conclusion is supported by the fact that in contrast to Brahminism, almost all classes of people could and did enter the early Buddhist order of monks.19

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World Ruler

Early Theravada Buddhist economic ethics and ideas regarding social and economic inequality were also strongly affected by various viewpoints of the proper relationship between the Sangha and the state or king. Although the earliest Buddhism tended to view contact with the king as something to be avoided like a poisonous snake, and kings were labeled among other disasters that might occur to a person,20 by the time of King Asoka and afterward, Buddhism began to develop a close relationship with the state in most places where it existed, including India and Ceylon, and later Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and Tibet. This relationship was based upon the idea of the Cakravartin king 21, or the ideal world-monarch an enlightened ruler who carried out the Dharma in society and supported the Sangha, in return for which s/he received the Sangha's spiritual protection and legitimization.

The story of King Asoka of course seems to provide a major historical context for this ideal, and the stone edicts left by his rule point to the close and mutually beneficial relationship between him and the Buddhist sangha. These edicts refer to social policies which have been referred to by some scholars as a type of ancient "welfare state" in that various facilities for the poor, sick, and indigent were constructed by the state, in addition to state support for the sangha.22

Yet a closer reading of these edicts themselves makes clear that Asoka never intended to change the fundamental economic and social structure of his society. Instead, he focused his social activism more upon spreading the Dharma through charitable works for the poor, sick, and imprisoned, religious giving to the sangha, and encouraging meditation and proper treatment of one's father and mother, teacher, relatives, slaves and servants, priests and ascetics, and animals.23

From the historical example of Asoka and other instances of Sangha/state cooperation, early Theravada Buddhism developed and evolved its own concept of the ideal relationship between Sangha and state which, as two recent scholars have termed it, was a "purposeful political strategy of adjustment and accommodation" toward the state reflecting a "distinctly Buddhist understanding of the possibilities for social change" through "gradual reform with emphasis on religious education."24

In other words, here was established the typically Buddhist amelioratory approach to social change that would continue to affect both Theravada and Mahayana traditions later on. In this approach, the role of the enlightened king or state was to formulate specific laws for society based upon general ideas and principles given by the Buddha.25 At the same time, the political role of the Sangha was to teach the Dharma to the king and support the state by obeying the laws of the land (and not challenge the given economic distribution and social structure).

In this way, while ideas about social and economic justice did seem to exist in early Theravada Buddhism, they existed in the form of particular ideas about karma, dana and the state/Sangha relationship which were clearly different than most current Western ideas about justice. Yet, this should not be surprising since current Western ideas are themselves a product of a long evolution of concepts, and although related to their predecessors in Judeo­Christian ethics and Roman law, are still clearly different from them.

In conclusion, wealth and labor had value in early Theravada Buddhist ethics. But it is a value ultimately smaller than that given to the pursuit of enlightenment for the monastic and gaining merit through dana for the layperson.26 Wealth was never an evil in itself, either for layperson or monastic but was to be welcomed as the result of past merits, as long as one never became overly attached to it.

Giving was the way to avoid such attachment and for the laity such giving increasingly became giving to the Sangha (dana), rather than directly to the poor or reinvesting into one's secular business. Moreover, in contrast to the Calvinist with his God of predestination, the Theravadan layperson was never assured of salvation [understood either as rebirth in one of the heavens or as final release from all suffering in nirvana] and constantly had to work to earn it [and be assured of it as one's immediate destination for a lengthy life there] through the creation of additional merit through additional dana.

This led to an emphasis on investment in dana over investment in one's secular business, with the ultimate consequence for the Theravada Buddhist that his "proof of salvation" was found "not in accumulating and creating new wealth, but in giving it away in the form of dana."27 As a result, a type of Protestant asceticism emphasizing the accumulation of wealth which was then invested into one's secular business and (according to Weber) contributed to the development of modern capitalism in the West, was never encouraged in the Theravada tradition once the idea of dana became dominant. Some scholars go even further and argue that this very tradition of dana is an important reason for the slower development of modern capitalism in countries with a strong Theravada tradition.28