Buddhist Economics?

I've been a Buddhist for 20 years and a member of a Buddhist Order for 9 years. I'm always intrigued when the idea of Buddhist Economics comes up. Of course we'd all like to see some alternative to the gross utilitarianism of Neolibertarian economics. But what is Buddhist economics? Well, given that the Buddhists ideal is a monk who neither handles money nor engages in economic activity, Buddhist economics is at best an abstraction.

Perhaps we could get an idea of what Buddhist economics are like from looking at countries that are traditionally Buddhist?

We have the Theravādin countries including: Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. They are either outright military dictatorships with command economies, or the military plays an prominent role in running the country (Thailand is presently under martial law). In fact there's nothing about any of these countries that would want to make us emulate their economic policies. They are poor, repressive and retrogressive. The whole of South-east Asia was a war-zone for decades and of course Cambodia gave us Pol Pot. Modern Western economics is sometimes criticised for prioritising profit over people, but there's nothing here to inspire us.

Thailand has been particularly in the news for opposing the ordination of women (despite there being no valid theological argument against it). When some Australian monks took it upon themselves to ordain some women, there Thai head office threw them out of their organisation and made sure that non of the new nuns were allowed to travel to Thailand. Since the clergy is a branch of the government their word is virtually law.

What about those countries which practice a form of Buddhism more influenced by compassion (Mahāyāna Buddhism), including: China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and Tibet. I'm not sure I could briefly describe China's current economics, but what we do know is that their cities are the most polluted in the world, that they certainly do not prioritise people and the government is authoritarian and repressive. Japan is a basket-case economically and it will be many decades before they pay off their 200+% government debt. Vietnam is a 3rd world country which also has a history of repression, it is famous as the home of monks who immolated themselves as a political protest against political oppression. Tibet was a feudal state until it was taken over by China. Korea is a country of two halves. The North needs no commentary: insane military ruler and repression on a scale seldom seen. The South was mugged by the World Bank/IMF gang in the 1980s and has yet to really recover. The one plus I can think of is that when the government was bankrupted by the machinations of the Western libertarians, the women of South Korea donated their gold jewellery to the nation to help pay off the debts. I think that might have been the influence of Buddhism.

Nepal might be included in the list, since there are Buddhists living there, but their ruling family were Hindus until relatively recently so they're not likely to be practising Buddhist economics. Nepal was in the news a few years ago when the crown prince murdered most of his family to get to the throne. And the country was torn apart by a violent Marxist insurgency for decades, though things seem to have settled down now.

The one Buddhist country that is sometimes held up as an example of economic sanity is Bhutan. In Bhutan they coined the term "gross national happiness". But that happiness is only for the Bhutanese and they are busy persecuting Nepalese refugees who fled from the Marxist insurgency. The Bhutanese state, like old Tibet, was until recently a feudal state in which peasants were indoctrinated into believing that the priestly royalty were gods. In Bhutan this has made the attempted transition to democracy difficult because the peasants don't want to vote - they are too busy prostrating themselves to their god-king to actually want self-determination.

In all of these countries the monasteries gradually suck money out of the economy through tax free donations, sometimes of staggering proportions. In Tibet and Nepal the myth of god-kings who reincarnate is used to control that wealth. In Japan they abandoned celibacy and started handing down monastic wealth and power in patriarchal structures. In other countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand the monasteries were simply nationalised.

So much for Buddhist economics in practice: totalitarianism, feudalism, and systematic economic oppression of women and racial minorities and the poor. So far it's not looking good. Why then are we still talking about Buddhist Economics? A lot of it has to do with the collision of tradition Asian Buddhism with Western Modernity. The outlines of chimera that has resulted have been delineated in David McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism (note the emphasis in the title).

One of the products of Buddhist Modernism is a little book by E. F. Schumacher which has a chapter entitled Buddhist Economics. The books is seriously anachronistic with respect to Buddhism and hopelessly sentimental. Schumacher's analysis is a mishmash of ideas. He says for example:

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 [sic] by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. 

But this is not really a Buddhist point of view, since as I say Buddhism says that ideally one ought to disengage from economic activities of all kinds. Schumacher actually sounds more like a Marxist than a Buddhist. The article by Maria Popova praising Schumacher that sparked this response says:

Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilization 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 links this to something that Gandhi said. But Gandhi was not a Buddhist and persistently opposed the Buddhist idealism of Dr Ambedkar when the two of them were helping to form the new Indian state (Ambedkar wrote the new constitution of India and was forced to make concessions to Gandhi's middle class Hinduism).

But here's the thing. Buddhists never talk about the essence of civilisation or character for that matter. The terms here are Romantic. One of McMahan's observations is the extent to which the values of Romanticism, Protestantism, and Rationalism are expressed by Buddhist Modernists as though they are entirely consistent with Buddhism; or indeed as though such values are Buddhist values. By blurring the distinctions, people like Schumacher are able to "speak for Buddhism". But this is a form of intellectual colonialism or cultural appropriation. By presenting Romantic/Marxist ideas as Buddhist Schumacher surfs the wave of enthusiasm for Buddhism that existed in the 1970s when he was writing. Perhaps he even believed that the ideas he was articulating really did represent Buddhism. But he appears to be entirely ignorant of the history of Buddhism and the economics of Buddhist countries. The modern day situation is replicated in the past, with perhaps a more extreme concentration of wealth and power and more repressive regimes.

In reality there is no such thing as Buddhist economics. Schumacher is not a Buddhist and presents Romantic, Humanist, and Marxist economic values as Buddhist values. In practice Buddhist countries have adopted a range of economics: though they lean towards the extreme right-wing ends of the economic spectrum: to fascism and feudalism. There is not a single example in the 2500 year history of Buddhism of a state which ran its economy in a way I would wish modern day Britain to emulate!

What we wish is that society in general would make real the Romantic ideals of Buddhists: i.e. to institute a Buddhist utopia that no Buddhist state has ever managed to bring about. Perhaps we think that with all their power and wealth modern Western states will manage what Buddhists have never managed for themselves. And isn't this just the kind of hopelessly naive fantasy that we expect from religious people? Buddhists make up less than 1% of the population of Western countries, and until recently we were outnumbered by Jedi in the UK (2001 Census recorded 0.3% Buddhist; 0.7% Jedi).

I too would certainly like to see our societies change towards liberal values. Unfortunately libertarianism dominates at present. Do we really think it makes sense to present people with a religious alternative in the present day, when the "no religion" is the fastest growing census category; when religious extremists are in the news every day destroying the lives of ordinary people in Burma and the Middle-East; when religion stands for everything that liberals reject these days? How stupid do we have to be to fall for this rhetoric. I'm a committed Buddhist and I'd vote for secularism and freedom of conscience, before I ever voted for a Buddhist state. Religion and power is a bad combination and this is so self-evident in the present that it hardly needs arguing.

To me "Buddhist Economics" is a distraction. Let's just talk about economics and if we want to look at values other than profit then let's not queer the pitch by throwing religious utopianism into the mix! People matter because they are people.

In Dependence on Causes: Buddhism and Political Engagement

As I write this Western politicians are striving to convince their colleagues that we must begin a "limited" military action against Syria for the use of chemical weapons (though doubts emerged from the USA today about what "limited" might mean). Few if any Western politicians are mentioning the International Criminal Court which was set up to prosecute war-crimes. It's as though a violent assault in the UK or the USA was dealt with by dragging the alleged perpetrator into an alley and giving them a beating. In other words it is extra-judicial punishment. The fictional lawyer Horace Rumpole was frequently made to say that the right to a trial before a jury of one's peers was a "golden thread" that runs through British justice. If Assad is a war-criminal, and on balance I think this is the most likely conclusion, then there is a process we can go through to bring him to trial and justice. Slow though it may have been, people like Slobodan Milošević were brought to trial. The more we use this means, the more resources we give the court, the more effective it will be as a deterrent. If we subvert it, then we subvert our very civilisation.

All this political upheaval and conflict in the Middle-East is often presented without any sense of historical context. For example how many of us realise that the USA has taken action against Syrian governments in the past, including the toppling of an elected leader and his replacement with a violent military dictator? In living memory. Does this sound familiar? It ought to, because it has played out time and again in the history of Western imperialism in the Middle East. 

As Buddhists we are taught to seek the causes of events and phenomena. Ultimately, we are told, our own minds are inextricably linked to the creation of our world. On the one hand the search for causes leads us to question the status quo, but on the other the idea that it is our own minds which determine reality, leads us to naval gazing and indifference to the world. Indeed I've argued that most Buddhists are stuck in an unhelpful kind of mind/body dualism which makes the physical world, the world of human endeavour, ugly to us. We constantly seek to get beyond the human realm, to create "sacred spaces" in which we are insulated from that ugliness. When that ugliness follows us into the sacred space we can become quite vicious in response (as I have discovered to my great personal cost over the years). 

At present the idea of causes and conditions ought to be at the forefront of our attempts to understand the present. Why is what is happening, happening? If we don't understand why it is happening, how can we respond effectively? And as Buddhists claim to be the masters of this kind of analysis, we ought to be at the forefront of the public discussion, pointing out how past actions have lead to current consequences. But Buddhists are nowhere in the public discourse. Indeed we are mentioned in recent times only in connection with Buddhists taking up arms against their Muslim neighbours in Burma, egged on by 'fully ordained' bhikkhus (funny how we drop that phrase 'fully ordained' when the PR is negative). 

When it comes to history, Buddhists often simply shrug and make an oblique reference to the faults of saṃsāra. Political disengagement is casts a dismal pall over public life at present, and Buddhists are leading the retreat. Compare fundamentalist Christians in the USA and the power they now have to install presidents and lead policy. If we are going to change the world, it won't be by naval gazing.

In any case we could do with some historical perspective on the Middle East. The Arabic speaking peoples of the world don't hate the West without reason. For a couple of centuries most of the Middle East was under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. When presented with an opportunity to throw off their oppressor with British help during World War One, they overcame sectarians divides and fought together. The person who brokered the alliance was T. E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence, on behalf of the British Government offered the Arabs self-rule if they would help fight the Turks. An Arab state, under Prince Faisal with it's capital in Damascus was the prize they fought for. 

This vision of self-rule and freedom from Imperial power inspired the Arabs who drove the Turks back. When the Brits arrived via Egypt, the Arab forces had already liberated Damascus. It was a great victory and they were on the verge of a new world. However the British government had no intention of honouring the agreement made through Lawrence. They hung him out to dry and with the French divided Arabia up and took over. Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement the British got the south: Egypt, Jordan and the, then new, oil fields of Southern Iraq. France took control of Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. A number of artificial boundaries were set up. Straight lines on maps that cut through religious and ethnic communities. The Kurds fared worse than average being scattered through 3 or 4 of the new 'countries'. This happened in 1916, with the blessing of Imperial Russia. 

Not many Westerners remember the Sykes-Picot agreement, but I gather it is still a hot topic of conversation in the Middle East. Having thrown off the Turkish overlords, they got landed with Western European overlords instead. Imperial Britain has seldom been any better than any other imperium, and at times as bad as any empire in history. 

The various new countries gained their freedom and by the early post-war years Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt were all democratic to some extent. Well, elections were being held, though they were widely corrupt. Much like Britain in the early 1800s, wealthy landowners controlled the power and forced people to vote for their choices or bought votes where force won't work. The story of the USA's secret and not-so secret attempts to subvert the political processes in Syria are recounted in a book called 'The Game of Nations' (1968) and more recently in Adam Curtis's blog from 2011: The Baby and the Baath Water. At first they tried to nudge Syria towards a freer society. When that did not work they engineered a military coup which put a violent military dictator in power in 1949. He had promised to support American interests before the coup d'etat but immediately reneged. For several years Syria was racked by political unrest and coups. 

Then in 1954 democracy was restored. However: 

"The politicians - and most of the Syrian people - were now terrified of America, not just because of the interventions and the coup, but also because of their support for Israel. In response the new government turned to the Soviet Union for economic aid and friendship."

Already we start to see why Russia is reluctant to endorse the use of military force in Syria. In 1957 another CIA plot to overthrow the democratic government of Syria was uncovered. The plot was real. 

The vision of a Pan-Arab nation had not died with Sykes-Picot. President Nasser of Egypt nurtured such dream. So did the secular and modernising Baath (or Renaissance) Party. Amongst the Baathists in various places were a young Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad. The recent history of military coups and the dream of a united Arab republic helped the Baath Party to come to power, just as the recent instability helped the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in Egypt, only to be thrown out in a military coup. Across Arabia the people are looking for an alternative to the past. That past is dominated by sectarian divides, military coups, and US interference. Is it any wonder than people look to Islam to unite them and bring stability? 

The Ba'athist vision was submerged in sectarian politics and power plays. In Iraq Hussein was manipulated by the CIA into attacking their enemy, Iran (and Western nations sold arms to both sides of that war). In Syria Assad eliminated opposition and consolidated his power. He brutally put down a rebellion by the Sunni majority, lead by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982. 

As Adam Curtis says:

"Back in the 1950s America set out to create democracy in Syria, but it led to disaster. It was by no means the only factor that led to the violence and horror of the Assad dictatorship, but its unforeseen consequences played an important role in shaping the feverish paranoia in Syria in the late 1950s - which helped the Baath party come to power. And while the Western powers no longer remember this history, the Syrians surely do."

One can read a similar story in the history of Iran where CIA plots put the Shah in power for 25 years only to be replaced in an Islamic revolution. And in most countries of the Middle East Western powers have played a deadly game of manipulation and greed. 

Actions have consequences. For complex actions in complex situations there are almost always unintended consequences. The conclusion for Buddhists seems to be a determined step away from the world. In the early days of my involvement in Buddhism I asked why we did not contest elections and try to influence decision making. I was told that the world of politics corrupts people. Twenty years on I can see that it does. Witness the great liberal hope, President Obama, condoning drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan and now urging US politicians to subvert International legal processes and, to use the buzz words of the day, "degrade the Assad regime". 

I submit that even if we only drop bombs on Assad himself we won't win any friends in Syria. US bombs dropping on Syria will be a long-term disaster because people in Syria have not forgotten the reasons Assad was able to come to power and the role of the US in that rise. 

With respect to the Middle East the problem is not so much that the people are incapable of participating in a democracy, but that the powerful, both locally and internationally, won't let them participate. In the UK the gradual release of power to the disenfranchised was a long, painful process. Women got the vote in the UK less that a century ago, and then it was only for women over 30. Almost a century later women are chronically under-represented in public life, at least in part because the powerful are slow to relinquish power. Indeed in the UK we can say that the powerful have made a substantial grab for power in the last 30 or 40 years and that democracy has been seriously undermined and even compromised. Wealthy international business empires, controlled by a smallish group of men with no loyalty to anyone but themselves, have far too much power at present. They collude with professional politicians from privileged backgrounds, whose road to power is smoothed by nepotism, to subvert the will of the people, to directly manipulate that will using powerful psychological techniques via the mass media. We're caught up in the technological spectacle of multimedia entertainment while we are gradually being disinherited and disenfranchised. We sold our soul for another season of The Wire. Frank Zappa presciently said decades ago that government is the entertainment wing of the military industrial complex. 

I complained about the disadvantages of our Western Buddhist demographic recently, but one of the advantages of our demographic is that we are more than averagely educated and articulate. Without much effort we can all write to our MPs and tell them what we think. I don't presume for a moment that there will be a single Buddhist view of things, but I can hope that we will reflect on causes and conditions and understand that our previous interventions have gone awry most of the time. We can articulate our views to politicians and decision makers. As voters our sole advantage of the wealthy and powerful is that we out-number them. If we consistently speak up in our millions then we will carry the day. If the Buddhist message is going to make a difference beyond the confines of our tiny lives then we must actively engage with society and argue for change. 

It's been said that "all it takes for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing". And most of us are not even good, we're just ordinary. I guess that most people see no other option at present, which may be why anti-depressant prescriptions are so popular. Thoughts of hopelessness are a key symptom of depression.