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ECONOMIC CRISIS
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APPLIED BUDDHISM AND GLOBAL
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Abstract
Modern Buddhism has become an intrinsic part of a globalized world. With its
philosophy of the way of life, it takes special place in human and cultural identity.
Buddhism in modern times had already incorporated either other genuine Asian
traditions or Western traditions and merged with the socio-cultural backgrounds of many
countries across the world. Buddhism stresses the principle of interdependence which is
others. So, it is not possible for economics to be free of values when, in fact, it is rooted
in the human mind. The economic process begins with want, continues with choice and
ends with satisfaction. All of these are functions of the mind. We need to give up our
attachments to material wealth and conquer greed and obsession for social recognition
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Key words: Globalization, Buddhism, Applied, Wealth, Economy.
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APPLIED BUDDHISM AND GLOBAL
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Introduction
The issue of globalization is directly or indirectly affecting all our lives. Globalization
undermine local cultures and disrupt traditional relationships in a society with the
assumption that free trade will also lead to the formation of a more democratic society.
Unfortunately, the effects of the globalization of business and trade are often disastrous
for underdeveloped nations. These nations provide the raw materials and cheap labor
which are necessary to make globalization prosperous for the more developed nations.
Though there are successes in the process of globalization, there is much unrest in the
poor and underdeveloped nations which are deep in debt and suffer internal conflict,
world faith. Buddhism in modern times had already incorporated either other genuine
Asian traditions or Western traditions and merged with the socio-cultural backgrounds of
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many countries across the world. Buddhism stresses the principle of interdependence
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Buddhism and the Problem of Global Economic Crisis
When we evaluate an economic system, we should consider not only how efficiently it
produces and distributes goods, but also its effects on human values, and through them
its larger social effects. The collective values that it encourages should be consistent
with the individual Buddhist values that reduce the Dukkha. As the individual and social
values cannot be delinked, the crucial issue remains as whether our economic system
human nature. Those who defend market capitalism argue that its emphasis on
competition and personal gain is grounded in the fact that humans are fundamentally
self-centered and self-interested. Critics of capitalism argue that our basic nature is
more cooperative and generous that is, we are naturally more selfless.3,4
Buddhism avoids that debate by taking a different approach. The Buddha emphasized
that we all have both unwholesome and unwholesome traits (kusala / akusalamula).
The important issue is the practical matter of how to reduce our unwholesome
characteristics and develop the more wholesome ones. This process is symbolized by
the lotus flower. Although rooted in the mud and muck at the bottom of a pond, the lotus
grows upwards to bloom on the surface, thus representing our potential to purify
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poisons" or three roots of evil: lobha - greed, dosa - anger and moha - delusion. The
goal of the Buddhist way of life is to eliminate these roots by transforming them into their
positive counterparts: greed into generosity (Dāna), anger into loving-kindness (metta),
Economists talk about demand, but their concern to be objective and value-neutral does
not allow them to evaluate different types of demand. The "engine" of the economic
process is the desire for continual profits and in order to keep making those profits
people must consume more. Harnessing this type of motivation has been extraordinarily
Institute, more goods and services were consumed in the forty years between 1950 and
1990 (measured in constant dollars) than by all the previous generations in human
history. According to the United Nations Human Development Report for 1999, the
world spent at least $435 billion the previous year for advertising, plus well over $100
billion for public relations and marketing. The result is 270 million "global teens" who
now inhabit a single pop-culture world, consuming the same designer clothes, music
While this growth has given us opportunities that our grandparents never dreamed of,
we have also become more sensitive to the negative consequences such as its
staggering ecological impact and the worsening mal-distribution of this wealth. A child in
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the developed countries consumes and pollutes 30 to 50 times as much as a poor one
in an undeveloped country, according to the same UNHDR. Today 1.2 billion people
survive on less than a dollar a day and almost half the world's population live on less
than two dollars a day. The 20% of people in the richest countries enjoy 86% of the
world's consumption, the poorest 20% only 1.3%. Thus, the gap of globalization is
delusion that genuine happiness can be found this way. If insatiable desires (tanha) are
the source of the frustration (dukkha) that we experience in our daily lives, then such
consumption, which distracts us and intoxicates us, is not the solution to our
unhappiness but one of its main symptoms. That brings us to the final irony of this
Americans who considered themselves happy peaked in 1957, despite the fact that
consumption per person has more than doubled since then. At the same time, studies of
U.S. households have found that between 1986 and 1994 the amount of money people
think they need to live happily has doubled. That seems paradoxical, but it is not difficult
to explain. When we define ourselves as consumers, we can never have enough. For
reasons we never quite understand, consumerism never really gives us what we want
from it; it works by keeping us thinking that the next thing we buy will satisfy us.4,5,7,8
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Higher incomes have certainly enabled many people to become more generous, but this
has not been their main effect, because capitalism is based upon a very different
principle: that capital should be used to create more capital. Rather than redistributing
our wealth, we prefer to invest that wealth as a means to accumulate more and spend
more, regardless of whether or not we need more. In fact, the question of whether or not
we really need more has become rather quaint; you can never be too rich.4,5,6,8
This way of thinking has become natural for us, but it is uncommon in societies where
advertising has not yet conditioned people into believing that happiness is something
you purchase. International development agencies have been slow to realize what
anthropologists have long understood. In traditional cultures, income is not the primary
criterion of well-being and sometimes it is not even a major one. The person who is
Our obsession with economic growth seems natural to us because we have forgotten
the hierarchy of "needs" that we often take for granted. We project our own values when
we assume that a person must be unhappy by presuming that the only way to become
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Buddhism. This is expressed better in a Tibetan Buddhist analogy. The world is full of
thorns and sharp stones (and now broken glass too). What should we do about this?
One solution is to pave over the entire earth, but a simpler alternative is to wear shoes.
"Paving the whole planet" is a good metaphor for how our collective technological and
we will not be satisfied even when we have used up all the earth's resources. The other
solution is for our minds to learn how to "wear shoes," so that our collective ends
Our evangelical efforts to economically "develop" other societies, which cherish their
own spiritual values and community traditions, might be viewed as a contemporary form
limited but our desires are infinitely expandable. As we know, desire leads to frustration
and it is a major cause of anger and hatred. Without self-limitation desire also becomes
a cause for conflict. From a Buddhist point of view, our economic emphasis on
competition and individual gain encourages the development of anger and hatred in the
mind rather than cultivating the loving-kindness. A society where people do not feel that
they benefit from sharing with each other is a society that has already begun to break
down. The Buddha warned against negative feelings such as envy (issa) and avarice
(macchariya). Issa becomes intense when certain possessions are enjoyed by one
section of society while another section does not have the opportunity to acquire them.
Macchariya is the selfish enjoyment of goods while greedily guarding them from others.
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A society in which these psychological tendencies predominate may be materially
The globalization of market capitalism is a victory for "free trade" over the inefficiencies
of protectionism and special interests. Free trade seems to realize in the economic
sphere the supreme value that we place on freedom. It optimizes access to resources
and markets. But despite its success, it is only one historically-conditioned way of
understanding and reorganizing the world. However, if we view "free trade" from a
helps us to see presuppositions usually taken for granted. The Buddhist critique of a
inevitable.1,2,3
The critical stage in the development of market capitalism occurred during the industrial
revolution (1750 1850 in England), when new technologies led to the "liberation" of a
critical mass of land, labor, and capital. They became understood in a new way for
commodities to be bought and sold. The world had to be converted into exchangeable
"resources" for market forces to interact freely and productively. But it was strongly
resisted by most people at the time and was later successfully implemented only
because of strong government support for it. For those who had capital to invest, the
industrial revolution was very profitable. But for most people industrial commoditization
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seems to have been experienced as a tragedy. The earth became commoditized into a
work time and was also priced according to supply and demand. All these became
From a religious perspective, when things become treated as commodities they lose
between humans and the rest of the world. All value is created by our goals and
desires. The rest of the world has no meaning or value except when it serves our
purposes. This now seems quite natural to us, because we have been conditioned to
think and live this way. For Buddhism, however, such a dualistic understanding is
delusive. The world is a web; nothing has any reality of its own apart from that web,
challenges our usual sense of separation from the world. The feeling that ‘I am here and
the world is out there’, is at the root of our Dukkha and it alienates us from the world
where we live. This non-dual interdependence of things was experienced by the Buddha
when he became enlightened. The Buddhist path works by helping us to realize our
interdependence and non-duality with the world and to live in harmony with it.5,6,7,8
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Conclusion
Buddhism shows us the possibility of a better way of leading a stress-free life. However,
escapist.5,6,8
The teachings of the Buddha are based on a different way of understanding the
relationship between ourselves and the world. From the Buddhist perspective, economic
growth and consumerism are unsatisfactory alternatives because they evade the basic
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References
1. Quang, T.T. 2009. Buddhism and Globalization. Bliss and Growth. Blag Biz.
5. Payutto, P.A. 1994. Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market Place.
Buddhadhamma Foundation.
6. Sizemore, R.F., Swearer, D.K., ed. 1990. Ethics, Wealth and Salvation: A Study
Carolina.
7. David R. Loy, "The Religion of the Market" in Visions of a New Earth: Religious
and Dan Maguire (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1999.
8. Hodge, H.N. 2009. Buddhism in the Global Economy. Berkeley, US: ISEC.
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