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BUDDHIST FOUNDATION OF ECONOMICS
Tue Sy
I. SETTING THE LIMITS
Never does man come to the end of his search into
the nature expecting to gain more things to fill his ever-wanting
storehouse. From the outset, he is doomed to face a world that tends to
reduce his ability as he recognizes his hands are too short and his feet
are too slow to catch up the swift flow of existence. Nature endows him
with a body as an effective instrument to enjoy the taste of life, but
at the same time it burdens him with a heavy load. To enjoy life he has
to feed the body. Hunger and thirst ceaselessly urge him to move.
However, never satisfactorily is hunger relieved and thirst quenched
down. Now he finds himself facing a reality that drives him to make
prompt decision. Drink up your fill before the rivulet runs dry. He had
to choose this one and forgo the others, either engaged in work or
taking leisure. Working or leisure, the world appears before him with
its limitation in space and time. Somehow, it draws a curve the two ends
of which would set the fragment of existence, the very instant of life.
Every instant is marked with the rising and falling of things, their
appearance and disappearance. The continuity of instant after instant
constitutes the duration of life. That where on the curve man should pin
down his decision to optimize his gain over loss depends on his store of
knowledge about the world around him. Nature appears to offer him, to
the point of his observation, infinite resources that would ever satisfy
his wants. Nevertheless, being sandwiched between time and space, he
could not move at will to get what he wanted at anytime. Resources
appear to be infinite to his vision but scarce within his reach. What he
should do is to learn how to reasonably allocate the resources.
Before learning how to do this, he is suggested to
learn what to know. He is convinced to know by whom this world was
created, and how it was created. Otherwise, human existence is
supposedly meaningless; life and death are by incident, irrationally and
aimlessly. If the Bible did not contain the book of Genesis, people
would not know what the face of the world might have been as they think
of today, better or rather worse. Nevertheless, such a question has been
set aside by Buddhists.
Once upon a time, a young monk named Māluṅkya
thought he had rather challenged the Blessed-One to see if He knew or
knew not whether the world is or is not eternal; it is or is not
infinite; whether soul and body are identical; and so on. Let the
Blessed-One declare He knows if in fact He knows. And let the
Blessed-One declare He knows not if in fact He knows not. Otherwise, the
young monk would deny the Buddha and return to his worldly life. It is
better to conduct a worldly life enjoying sensual pleasures like every
other ordinary person than to observe ascetic disciplines without having
answer to the questions concerning the origin and nature of the world.
Much against his expectation was the Buddha’s
negative answer. On this very account, some might have accused Buddha of
trying to unsophisticatedly evade the problem; many others attributed to
Him a detestable agnosticism.
Instead of explaining how the world was created and
what it is for, the Buddha admonished the young ascetic not to waste his
time about the questions beyond the reach of human knowledge but rather
to concentrate his effort to know his actual conditions. He gave a
smile. A man was hit with a poisonous arrow. Time was not generous to
him with asking about where the arrow came from, what kind of wood it
was made of, and who had shot it. The most pressing importance for him
to do first of all was to plug out the poisonous arrow, treat the wound.
Survival first, the rest would be accomplished later.
As your eyes have yet to be amplified with a
sophisticated tool such as a telescope, don’t be anxious to locate the
orbit of Pluto’s satellite. In addition, a telescope cannot be
fabricated with mere human labor, ignoring other materials, which
require some amount of capital to produce.
Although there is a saying that people do not live
merely with bread, there is a truth that on the edge of starvation he
might have died before he could learn to know how a bicycle was made.
Think of the majority of people in the poorest country of the world.
Trying to teach them how the universe has expanded, from the Big Bang or
anything else, rather than trying to teach them how to get food
successfully, not only makes fun of the problem but also exposes the
outrageous aspect of human life.
In a Sutta,
while explaining to a brahmanic priest the true meaning of, and how to
celebrate, a great sacrifice, an important ceremony of the Brahmanic
religion then, the Buddha relates in disguise a story of the past. Once,
a king intended to hold a great sacrifice for the benefit of his
kingdom. He consulted the highest priest. The latter gave him a homily
on what to do first. The kingdom was then suffering poverty and unrest,
rife with robbers and rebels. If His Majesty was thinking about raising
tax and crushing those robbers and rebels by force and death punishment,
a number of them would be still at large and go on devastating the
kingdom. Yet there was an effective measure to improve the situation. To
those engaged in agriculture and husbandry, supply them with seed. To
those apt to do commerce, supply them with capital to invest. To those
tending to public servants, supply them with wages. Should people be
employed, robbery and rebellion would be reduced. As long as the
national treasure is abundant, people live in prosperity, and a great
sacrifice can be expected.
As we have seen, economic growth is the basis for
social order and peace, hence its development including the expansion of
religious practice. This aspect in the Buddha’s teaching was very often
neglected, and the emphasis, if not excluded, was laid upon the ethical
behavior. Ethical perfection is, of course, the lofty goal of Buddhist
practice, but meditation can never be practiced by those who are starved
out.
This is implied in a Buddha’s saying: “All sentient beings are
subsisting on food.”
In modern view, this can be considered as an economic background of
Buddhism.
II. WHAT TO PRODUCE: THE DOCTRINE OF
NUTRIMENT
Thus, there must be a Buddhist economics.
It is not only of the kind that teaches how man should dhammically, that
is, legally and honestly, earn his living, but it also teaches how he
could make use of his gains for the benefit of his own and others.
Accordingly, it does not neglect the problem of production and
consumption.
It is commonplace to say the modern economics is
trying to tackle the problems of what, how and for whom to produce. Much
is focused on the production of goods, or to name it distinctively,
goods and services. These are but a general denomination of a variety of
articles produced for sale or for use.
Whether it is essential of economic studies or not,
it is out of controversy that what man in the first place and ultimately
tends to produce is the need for life, and what gives him satisfaction.
Economics may study how to optimally allocate scare resources and how
markets work for the allocation, and whatever definitions there may be,
if and only if human living exists.
Man, this complicated and sophisticated composition
of matter and spirit as commonly assumed, is the first motive and final
cause of every human activities. Practically, man needs material food
for the sustenance of his physical body and spiritual food, so to say,
for his spiritual development. Generally speaking, the modern economics
has as its object the contemporary man, the living organism that has
reached its relatively high, but, of course, not final evolution as it
is at the present day. However advanced may be his level throughout his
history of evolution, man likely started his life in embryo, which at
the very first moment of conception is but a lump of matter. The
question if human life begins with embryo is the controversial issue
among religions and ethics, economics unconcerned. Normally economists
include this first stage of human life in the first period in the two
period model of economy. For our particular purpose, we will deal with
embryo and foetus as independent consumer.
Basically man needs material food for his material
life. This begins at the first moment of conception until ending up in
death. Food needed in this condition of nutrition is of matter, which is
composed of primary elements universally found in all other varieties of
matter. Because at the first period of his life man was not capable of
production, so he lived on endowment economy. Economically he was then
borrower. What he had borrowed yesterday he had to pay today and what is
done to day will be retributed tomorrow: that is the law of action and
its retribution based upon the doctrine of karma. Man is a debtor of his
own and of others in the past and present. What should be taken in
consideration in this regard is not merely quantitative but qualitative
as well.
We suppose the doctrine of karma is well known to
those who have acquired a basic knowledge of Buddhism, so it is not
necessary to be dealt with in details here. Anyhow, it suggests that the
problem of consumption and savings can be treated on the foundation of
the doctrine of karma.
III. FOR WHOM TO PRODUCE: LEVELS OF
EXISTENCE
Now, the question is set up: what does human being
need for its subsistence and development? In the first place, as a
sentient being it merely needs physical food. In its evolution, as an
animal it needs one more kind of food: contact food. To the higher level
of existence, as a human being it needs all four kinds of food: physical
food, contact food, mental food and consciousness food. It is said in
Sutta: “There are these four kinds of food for the subsistence of beings
who have taken birth or for the support of those in search of a place to
be born. Which four? Physical food, gross or refined; contact as the
second, mind and will the third, and consciousness the fourth.”
If we examine the life of a sentient being from its
first moment of conception to the last point as death, its development
can be traced back from the time immemorial when the first living came
about to the world until now. Within a limited span of life, a living
being is marked with its first existence as a mere germ of physical
material. It is differentiated from the other class of nonliving being
by the kind of material of which it is composed. Ultimately primary
elements are intangible, invisible. The differentiation of matter is due
to the way in which elements are distributed, arranged in the
construction of organism.
In the first stage, supplied with physical
nutriment, the germ of physical material expands in proportion to the
amount of food consumed at a rate of growth. This process goes on while
sensory organs gradually develop. Up to a definite stage mind appears
and engages in actions like a speculator.
It accumulates data with the cooperation of sensory organs, processes
them, and converts them into information. Based on this information,
perception is brought to operation. The latter gathers all information
thus given to construct a world that is conceived as reflecting the true
reality. Nevertheless, the image of the world is not taken once forever
as a photograph. It ever changes in quantity as well as in quality as
sensory organs develop in stable condition and operate more effectively
in response to the demand of mind and will. The image of the world is
stored up as a positive ground on which mind ascertains its existence
and deploys its activities.
In every stage of development, consciousness is
given rise immediately as soon as there is the interaction of external
object and internal sensory organ. But on the lower level, the
appearance of consciousness is too dim to collect knowledge of the
world. On this level, consciousness is merely a blind will of
subsistence.
As sensory organs reach their maturity, the image
of the world is reflected clearer and more distinctively, and the
knowledge about it is more rational, more synthetic. On the higher
degree of this progression, consciousness develops to
self-consciousness, recognizing the existence of the outer world as well
as the existence of its self. Consciousness as the fourth kind of food
is needed for this stage of evolution.
Thus, the evolution of beings depends on what kind
of food they consume. On the lowest level of existence, a living being
is hardly different from the vegetative state of life, and only the
physical food is needed. On a much higher level, in which a living being
is endowed in addition with the least sensory organs sufficient to
detect the danger from the external world, contact food is added. This
evolution can be tracked in the development of an animal, including a
human being, from the very first moment of conception to the instant
when it is brought to daylight. From then onward, for some species of
animal the process of evolution comes to a stop. Even to certain human
beings whose sensory organs are fully endowed, but for some unknown
reason their mind cannot reach beyond the sphere of animal.
Mental development depends on the accumulation of
experiences. If the processing of accumulation fails, the functioning of
sensory organs yields no good effect on mind. This means that facts as
mental food have not been supplied sufficiently, or the structure has
refused this kind of food. The third kind of food could be called food
for thought. It is converted into kind of energy, which makes the mental
organization work, and consequently the social structure is motivated
and the civilization of mankind is engendered. Food for civilization to
be kept going and developing is consciousness.
What to produce is the first concern of economics.
Goods and services are produced to satisfied human wants. Among other
things having been created by God, the “dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth” was given to the first man. This means since the
time of Genesis, the material production, that is, to produce physical
food including clothing, and shelter, and the like, was marked as the
main occupation of human livelihood.
According to Buddhist tradition, as related in the
Aggañña-sutta,
in the beginning human being collected natural resources for his food
and clothing, “lived on a kind of naturally ripened uncooked rice.” We
can imagine that natural resources mentioned here collected by the
primitive men was nonstorable,
“What they collect in the evening for evening meal will growth again and
ripen in the morning; what they collect in the morning for morning meal
will growth again and ripen in the evening.”
This was due partly to his lack of technology and most essentially due
to his lack of the idea of accumulation. It is only up to a later
definite stage of evolution that human being began to engender in his
mind this idea: “Why should I collect rice in the evening for evening
meal and in the morning for morning meal? I would rather collect it once
for two days.” And he did it. Soon this goaded others into outdoing him.
Thus the idea of accumulation entailed speculation.
Eventually struggle among rivals within community was aroused and the
primitive society of mankind started a new turn engaged into social
conflict.
It is easy to recognize the primitive man mentioned
in the above quotation from Sutta is far from the real one. But in terms
of economical treaty it might serve as a simple economic agent with
which a number of models, agent-based models for example, can be built
for the convenience of economic analysis.
It is a matter of common sense to take the
primitive accumulation as being activated by human laziness. According
to the Buddhist theory of nutriment it was due to the growth of the
demand for food compatible with the development of human organs. In the
first stage of human living, fragmentedly physical food was needed,
collaboratively consumed by organs of olfaction, gustation and
tactition. In grown-ups, sight and hearing need enhancing for their
ability to perceive the external world, so more kinds of food must be
supplied in addition. As mind developed sufficiently to make decisions
of what and how was to be collected for its agent’s benefit, man now was
faced with the limitation of time. He had to allocate his time optimally
between labor and leisure. He had to learn how to make choices.
In this regard we involve both consumption and idleness in the leisure
time. Consumption is meant to signify enjoyment of goods and services
produced by man’s labor to satisfy his wants, while idleness implies
enjoyment of those given by nature. To higher levels of evolution,
leisure time is thoroughly dedicated to enjoyment of four kinds of food.
Bread, and anything of the kind, is consumed for sustaining biological
body and the stable state of inner organism. Seeing and hearing,
sightseeing and listening to music for instance, serve as contact food
for the accumulation of experiences hence enhancing the ability of
judgment and making choices between the better and the worse. The
thinking and willing are fed with mental food, the third kind, by virtue
of which human action is taken off aiming at the ultimate end of his
destination. Moreover, his future depends on what he is doing in the
present. Economically speaking he must learn how to allocate resources
across time: how much time for work and consumption he should optimally
decide on today so that he would live a life of contentment tomorrow.
This lifetime budget constraint is drawn on the substratum of life, that
is, the continuum of consciousness, without which no future time is
conceived. The latter is irrigated with food termed as consciousness
which is marked with the notion of self.
When the sensory organs reach their maturity for
sensation and perception, the balance of food consumption, so far
having been tilted to the physical one, now begins to lean toward the
others, the first being contact. The enjoyment of seeing and hearing in
leisure time passively impressed by nature is no longer sufficient to
satisfy the wants of accumulation of experiences as energy resources for
motivating mental structure to work. Materials serving as contact food
must be produced as items of goods. All the same, physical food needed
for sustaining biological body cannot be reduced. He has, therefore,
either to double working time or improve his skill in production. The
primitive man mentioned in the above-cited Sutta doubled his product,
but there is no hint of how he had managed to do so. It makes sense to
suppose that along with the full-fledged development of sensory organs
he had made a considerable progress in acquiring technological knowledge
which enabled him to increase the quantity of his product.
IV. HOW TO PRODUCE
Though mystified with the form of legend related in
sort of vernacular by the Sutta, some economic models can in fact be
constructed based on the primitive agent. He had as his counterpart in
another system of economy Robinson Crusoe
who started his living on a deserted island where in his early days of
making a living he was endowed merely with his own labor using his hands
and what given by nature circumscribed by his environment. Goods
produced by the mix of labor and nature-given elements are naturally
nonstorable. Without having aid of any other tools than his own hands,
he had to spend most of his time for productivity. At the same time, he
also needed a shelter to protect him from danger and damage likely
engendered by environment. Within limited total hours of day, even if
rationally and proportionally divided between working and leisure – of
course he needed a rest or recreation after having toiled –, he was
forced to reduce the hours spent on food collection as to spend on
building a hut. Unconsciously he constructed in mind the production
possibilities frontier which allocates his scarce resources optimally.
The metaphor of Robinson Crusoe enables us to
reason out the increase in productivity by the primitive man – doubling
the quantity of rice collected sufficient for two days consumption
instead of just one day. Given the production function, other things are
held constant – land, and labor in the present context remains
unchanged–, a change in technology will alter the output.
In this connection, based on Buddhist theory of
four kinds of food, the demand for consumption goods as physical food –
supposed in the long-run economy – when reaching the last unit of its
marginal utility will be held constant over a period of time and then
fall down along with the decay of human life which is subject to the law
of the material world. The other three, in the first place fundamentally
considered as mere complements to physical food, will be diminished as
the body, which they have as support, decays. But in the ultimate sense,
contact is meant to signify the threefold combination of consciousness
as subject, its corresponding object and sensory organs as its support.
Accordingly, whenever consciousness exists contact is currently working.
In the material world, sensory organs are full-fledged only at a
definite stage after sentient being was given birth. On account of this,
their development is subject to the physical law, and their activity
will fade as their support is falling into decay. If the support is
unsteady, the structure of mind will be unstable and the activity of
consciousness is weakening. Nevertheless, the state of sense contact
could be sublimated by the appropriate practice of which meditation is
the most effective. Just as sanitary food is beneficial for the health
of body, aesthetic works as contact food – food for sight such as
paintings and food for hearing such as music and the like – are helpful
to the soundness of mind. Relying on the soundness of mind, mental
structure operates in an equilibrium state to absorb more sublimate food
supplied through sensory organs and converts it into information. Greed,
hatred, delusion are noxious food for mind and information converted
from data detained with these defilements will form false judgments and
give a distorted image of the world.
Modern economics by definition yet controversial is
dealing with the production of goods and services to satisfy human wants
in terms of material resources. Human wants, however, are unlimited, and
natural resources are exhaustible; he is, therefore, permanently facing
the problems of scarcity.
According to Buddhist psychological view, living
being is a substrum (upādāna) on which mind and body are supported, with
which and by means of which fuel for life and action is supplied.
Terminologically, this fuel is named as taṇhā – craving or thirst or
hunger for existence. Directed by the conception of a self and subject
to a world that is perpetually inclined to decay, a living being is
depressed by the thirst for fuel to light up its existence and the
expectation of the moment of life to come.
Being conscious of living is having a mind in becoming, expecting to get
a more satisfactory state of affairs against the current situation which
is ever marked with uneasiness.
Nevertheless, under the spell of the law of impermanence, spurred by the
thirst for life, man incessantly runs like a thirty horse in moor after
a mirage he thinks a stream of water. The more it is seen just a
distance, the farther it appears to move away. Never would the thirst be
satisfied. This urges man to act more, to move forward to look for
further satisfaction. But limited by environment and the biological
nature of his body in addition to the scarcity of resources, man never
reaches the end of his satisfaction.
In the story of the primitive man as mentioned
above, it is said that as people vied with each other for gathering rice
to store up for the future consumption, the so-called naturally ripened
uncooked rice disappeared and a new kind of rice that required man’s
labor to produce replaced it. In the present context, it is
understandable that his double collection of rice was not simply due to
his want of having more time for tomorrow’s leisure, rather in fact it
is meant to signify a primitive act of saving against an uncertain
future, for nobody knew for sure what would happen to him or to his
environment. Because he could not reduce the quantity of goods currently
consumed such as food and housing and the like, he had to increase
product. In comparison with the situation of Robinson Crusoe as much
preferred by economists, in which all that he could get in hands were
elements given by nature, but no tools were available other than his own
labor to produce things he needed to satisfy his even few wants, he was
forced to make a choice of either consuming to his fill all he had
gotten today or reducing a portion as saving for tomorrow; in the case
of the primitive man, saving was not made by reducing today consumption
for tomorrow use, but increasing the quantity of output by improving his
productivity. In the present context, it is acceptable that in Buddhist
view as stated in the above-cited Sutta that originally, before any
model of economy could be imagined, when facing the limitation of
environment, and the scarcity of external means to satisfy his wants,
man saw the increase in product as his best choice. The creation of
mankind is not once forever; but is an evolution instead, ranging from
microbiology to as human being.
Another detail in the Sutta is worth notice. The
concurrence of speculation caused the disappearance of the primordial
food, originating the scarcity which required men much more labor to
tackle. This is the crucial point which is easily overlooked in the
Buddhist view on the approach to the problem of scarcity. As we have
seen, although there is no explicit explanation on the part of the Sutta
as cited above, its implication is clear enough for us to recognize the
fact that as mankind has made progress to a higher level in his
evolution here possibly embodied in a lifetime wants have increased
while material resources have remained as they have been, and man has
had to develop his technological knowledge to increase production to
meet quantity demanded.
The corollary proposition that follows is that
material consumption has its marginal utility, but human wants
compatible with far higher evolution have no limit, therefore human must
manage to reduce working time for increasing material goods so that more
time for feeding mental structure and consciousness stratum may be
spared. As a logical consequence, it is not the mere richness of
material quantity which may be valued to some extent as economic growth,
but the quality of spiritual consumption supplied with food for mental
structure and consciousness stratum that demonstrates the social
progress and the rise in standard of living. This does not mean,
however, material production should be neglected; in contrast, it must
give support to spiritual consumption. Accordingly, material growth must
be in proportion with spiritual development.
As a matter of fact, in dealing with the problem of
scarcity, it is not correct to state as some economists do that Buddhist
approach is “to alter the nature and level of wants… St. Francis of
Assisi and Buddhist monks shared a desire for a more meaningful life by
reducing wants or desires for material possessions. In the secular,
industrialized world, this approach is not often mentioned.”
Nevertheless, the criticism is not ungrounded.
Evidence for its justification can be found in the historical fact that
for many centuries most of countries in Asia under influence of Buddhism
failed to eradicate poverty and fell behind in comparison with the West.
Buddhism, judged on the background of its assumedly pessimistic view of
life, was likely to blame for the Asian backwardness.
That “they can model their economic development plans in accordance with
modern economics”
is not apt to justify their failure, rather than to emphasize that “the
destiny of modern civilization as developed by the white peoples in the
last two hundred years is inseparably linked with the fate of economic
science.”
Needless to say, that “economic science” is modelled on the frame of
western mentality.
Notwithstanding the material achievement as
currently seen in the West since the time of colonialism up to today
antiterrorist war, the western civilization somehow proved its
superiority over the eastern economic behavior. Its technological
progress has improved the standard of living. However, this does not
mean people are happier. Instead, the amazing achievement of science and
technology is pushing human kind to the brink of mass destruction.
V. PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION
To live means exist and become. Existence, firstly
biological one on which mental structure operates, is sustained with
external materials given by nature. It is due to the will for existence
that urges living beings to act as to make a living. It is a chain of
ever changing events, prone to change and become something other than
its current state, for better or for worse. Being perpetually threatened
by the danger inherent in surroundings, conscious of its power to act
circumscribed by its own body, facing a scarcity of external factors on
which its satisfaction depends, a living organism evolves into a
structure suitable for accumulation of past events as food for will and
thought to form the expectation of a better future, and to judge and
make choice of what is good and helpful.
Dealing with an unknown and uncertain future, man
proceeds to speculation, accumulating as much as possible whatsoever
within his reach. Things to be stored for future use require a minimum
quantity and preferable quality. Man is not content merely with gifts
gratuitously dispensed by nature; he is apt to re-make them so that they
could be suitable for his today consumption and accumulation for
tomorrow. Thus, to live, in a sense, is to act. Action implies
production.
Among other definitions of economics, I would like
to refer to one that would seem fit for contemporary capitalism as it
states “economics as a science that studies the production of wealth
under a system of division of labor…”
In this definition the importance is attached to the production of
wealth, for wealth in the present context is the accumulation of all
material goods produced by man’s labor capable of satisfying to some
extent human needs. Moreover, it is wealth that enhances one’s position
and authority in social relations.
In a Sutta,
it is stated that in ancient time, or in the era when people reach the
legendary highest development, there were only three varieties of need:
desire, hunger and old age. As time elapsed, when human society was
getting into fierce conflict, more varieties of need appeared. This
statement gives a general view on the evolution of mankind, from the
simple form of life to the complicated one. The notion of wealth is
conceived as human beings are conscious of their existence as a self
that acts as a master over its surroundings. According to the
Esukārī-sutta,
in the time of Buddha there existed a classification of wealth under
four categories with which social hierarchy was determined. Accordingly,
a man’s wealth was all he had in his possession; it is means by which he
earned a living. This conception of wealth suggests the notions of
production and consumption as are likely understood to some extent by
modern economics. Nonetheless, Buddha promoted the supreme Law as the
ultimate wealth that human being was recommended to seek. The Supreme
Law thus mentioned consists of seven factors or constituents of wealth;
they are faith, virtue, shame of sin, fear of sin, learning, generosity
and wisdom,
of which the sixth, generosity or liberty, attained by generously giving
up in practicing charity, implies the possession of material goods, for
one would give up to others only what one, a wealthy man or instance,
had in possession. Accordingly, these constituents of wealth should be
regarded as factors of production of goods of highest quality.
Nonetheless, most economic writers would be reluctant to approve such
likely idealistic a definition of wealth, for in their assumption by
wealth are meant “both real assets (a house, automobiles, television
sets, and other durables) and financial assets (cash, savings accounts,
stocks, bonds, insurance policies, pensions) that households own.”
In general, things, of which the causal connection
with human needs is recognized and which men have power to direct to
their satisfaction, are conceived as goods.
Goods thus characterized implies the meaning of wealth.
Suffice it to say in this implication of wealth
that in the ordinary sense all human action is aimed at satisfying his
wants and needs. In hope of reaching this end he has to gather all that
are thought beneficial to him. They constitute his wealth. In other
words, men make an effort and do labor to produce a variety of goods for
current consumption and in expectation of a better future.
As we have seen, it is commonplace to distinguish
between material goods that achieve one’s worldly satisfactions and
higher goods that serve as means of attainment of ideal satisfactions.
Because economics deals with only things in this world, it follows as a
logical consequence that only material consumption is concerned.
Buddha, in fact, never denied the need of material
goods consumed as requisites for sustaining human biological existence
that serves as a basis for higher development. In the Sutta of
Debtlessnes,
He recognizes four kinds of well-being: the enjoyment of having, the
enjoyment of making use of wealth, the enjoyment of being debtless, and
the enjoyment of being blameless. Here a man enjoys having righteous
wealth righteously gained through his effort and labor; he enjoys
rationally consuming and making merit righteous wealth righteously
accumulated; he experiences joy to own no debt; and he experiences joy
as thinking of the blamelessness of his actions performed with body,
speech and thought.
In this passage, the conditions of well-being are
by no means improved and increased merely by gaining and accumulating a
quantity of wealth even though “righteously gained through one’s effort
and labor.” Wealth is beneficial only if it brings men enjoyment and
happiness with both material consumption and spiritual development.
In another Sutta,
once a man came to Buddha and asked for the teaching in compliance with
which could live happily, in peace and prosperity in the very present
life and in the future as well, those who were “householders, enjoying
worldly pleasures, being in bondage to wives and children…” The Blessed
One then offered him in the first place four conditions that lead to the
present bliss. They were industry, protection, good friends and right
livelihood. Industry means he makes a living in pursuing a career, and
he is good at his occupation, practicing it assiduously, tirelessly.
Wealth gained with such industry should be safely guarded in such way
that it would not be taken away by thieves, destroyed by fire, swept
away by flood, or going bankrupt with spoiled children. Had these two
conditions been fulfilled, wealth would have been accumulated and
increased only in a favorable environment, with good social
relationship. In addition, at last, the household has to hold a balance
between income and expenditure.
Thus, in brief, economical behavior is instructed.
In production, industry or assiduity is emphasized. Exertion, energetic,
industrious, assiduous (viriya, uṭṭhāna, padhāna, etc.), sometimes can
be understood as describing the same state of mind or consciousness,
though their psychological activities are of a minor difference.
However, in general, they often express the most important element in
practice, namely vigilance (appamāda). Buddha said: “Vigilance is the
way to Deathless. Indolence is the way to Death.”
Negligence, carelessness, indolence, and laziness:
these are the inertia of mind or consciousness. It awakens in men a
declination to work. Economists might just as well call it leisure
versus labor. As it should be in this context to quote Mises:
“Leisure, other things being equal, preferred to travail.” That is, by
nature men have an inclination to enjoy more time used for leisure.
Working to him is a must only when he chooses to increase material goods
to satisfy his wants and needs.
Nonetheless, strictly speaking, leisure is not
negligence or laziness as it appears to be. As it is defined by
economists, leisure is a category of consumer’s goods that can be
measured in terms of units of time.
As combined with consumption goods it forms a bundle for consumers to
make choices; for leisure by this definition means any time spent not
working in the labor market. Accordingly, as a worker tries to increase
his income, in the case that other things are equal, i.e. other
variables in the production function are held constant, he has to
increase the expenditure of labor, that means he should reduce the time
spent on leisure. Thus, labor is the opportunity cost of leisure.
With the aid of technological progress, today
worker can rise the productivity of labor that yields higher wage rate
without curtailing time for leisure. His standard of living is
increased, and his income is maximized; he has both wealth and leisure
to enjoy the pleasures of life. This is a feature of the modern
civilization which is dubbed as that of material consumption worked out
on the western model of economy.
It is, however, unjustified to blame the West for
the unrest of the today world only on account of its material
achievements; for the inclination to enjoying sensuous pleasures is
inherent in every sentient being. The satisfaction of it should first be
sought in the material factors that constitute physical food as stated
in the doctrine of nutriment. Hankering after sensuous pleasures keeps
living beings on the track of carnal appeal, incessantly seeking for
material objects to gratify the demanding body. In a Sutta,
Buddha likened material consumption to the child-eating of a couple.
Once a couple bringing with their only son crossed a desert. Halfway
through, their travel rations ran out, and they were driven to consent
to kill and sparingly eat the only son. As they were eating their only
son, they lamented over him. The simile reveals the marginal utility in
material consumption. Things, like physical food, here composed of
material elements, are supposedly needed for the removal of a human
being’s hunger or thirst, his felt uneasiness. In proceeding with
consumption of one kind of subjectively homogenous food, as one more
unit is added, the marginal utility of good consumed is diminished; up
to a point, as for the last unit, the marginal utility is negative and
no more good consumed is needed. However, this does not mean the
saturation of material enjoyment is reached. Man’s longing for sensuous
pleasures is never satiated. As a rule, the total utility of a good
consumed is treated with its quantitativeness; but to a consumer its
qualitativeness – hence its subjectivity, should not be neglected. Time
of consumption is as well a factor that affects the change in the total
utility. One more unit of time augmented lessens the favor with
enjoyment. A substitution of daily disk is desirable. The fact is that
as the supply of one thing is full while desire for enjoying it remains
insatiable, another is appealed for substitution.
Economists are normally concerned with the problem
of overproduction – whether it is relative and causes depression, but
they have paid no attention to the problem of overconsumption. The
effect we call over-consumption could be compared to people, albeit
being full, continuing to eat excessively to their obesity.
Buddha recognises four requisites: food, clothing,
housing, and medicine. They are of material elements and classified
under physical nutriment. The need for them is not unlimited, but the
want or desire for their enjoyment is somewhat unconstrained. Almost
all-human production is concentrated on the productivity of material
goods. Economic growth is exclusively based on the quantity of goods and
services that have been produced for the sake of the satisfaction of
material consumption. Any incentive that encourages consumption, thus
makes increase in quantity of demand.
This concentration on material production and
consumption, lacking other kinds of nutriment – that we call mental or
spiritual ones – needed for an ultimate evolution of mankind, has caused
the disparity between bodily and mental growth. Today with the wonderful
progress of science, and somewhat miraculous accomplishment of
technology, people know a lot of how matter works, yet their knowledge
of how mental structure is composed and which kind of food is to be
taken, is lamentably narrow. Dietetics would advise to people as to what
to be eaten is beneficial to health and against what is noxious, but for
mental health, little is warned against detriment. Adultery, rape, drug
traffic, violence, a myriad of social disorders; all these symptoms of
social obesity are in fact the outcome of the disparity of economic
development.
Economic growth of the world today has risen the
standard of living of mankind in general to a considerable level.
Nonetheless, the overproduction and overconsumption entail the
inevitable inequality in the distribution of wealth on the world scale.
The cause and effect of this mal-distribution has been much studied and
analysed among economists, and I suppose that I have no special
contribution to the estimation. Nonetheless, it is advisable in this
concern to makes some references to the Buddha’s instructions on the
current issue.
Once,
Buddha gave householder Anāthapiṇḍika instruction on five conditions to
accumulate wealth:
1. The householder, using the wealth righteously
earned through his effort and labor, enjoys himself with pleasure,
benefits his parents and family, living rightly with pleasures.
2. He benefits his friends and associates from
wealth that has been righteously accumulated.
3. He keeps safe the wealth that has been honestly
gathered, warding off from fire, flood, thieves, from being dissipated
by depraved heirs, and confisticated by the king.
4. Using his righteous wealth, he performs five
oblations: oblation to relatives, to guests, to the dead, to the king
(taxation), and to gods.
5 Using his righteous wealth, he accumulates
merits for the future life by giving to priests, to charity.
In another Sutta,
Buddha instructed a young householder to rationally optimize his income
by dividing it into four portions: One portion used for his wants; two
portions spent on business,
and the fourth kept away for times of need.
In more details as stated in the corresponding Sutta translated in
Chinese Āgamas,
two additional portions are added: one for building shrines and the
sixth for construction of monasteries.
It is interesting to take notice in the Chinese
translation of Āgama in which the role of god worshipping shrines and
monasteries in Ancient India is to be matched with today’s economical
and social institutions. They do not imply the meaning of religion as we
understand nowadays. Monasteries at the time of Buddha were converted
almost pleasure-grounds or parks originally owned by kings or queens, or
nobles, or the wealthy; later they were dedicated to religious or
sectarian groups for their preaching and practicing. Religious or
doctrinal debates sometimes took place among current sects involving
Buddhism. At those places, not only were religious dogmas taught but
many other branches of knowledge also. Oftentimes, subjects chatted
about among different communions were denounced in Buddhist canon as
futile, useless, or a mere waste of time.
Generally speaking, their roles were kind of cultural and educational
establishments where new thoughts and even technological knowledge were
from their spread and transmitted. The dedication to religious purposes
of a portion of the disposal income of a household as instructed by
Buddha is to be taken as a contribution to the cultural and educational
activities, kind of an investment in human capital.
VI. CONCLUSION
So far we have dealt with some aspects that can be
considered as the Buddhist foundation of economics. There are many left
to be discussed. Generally speaking, writings concerning the problem
were mostly focused on the moral issues and blamed for the situation of
the world today.
Many writers on Buddhist economics criticise Adam
Smith for his theorem of the “invisible hand” according to which if
individual behaves on the basis his own interest then social benefits
will be promoted. To some extent, this is not a normative theory, but a
positive one.
The fact that cannot be denied is that this
self-interest, or more exactly selfishness, has been the motive for the
economic growth that has been longed for by almost countries outside
Europe and her scions. As Smith may have affirmed, had individual’s
self-interest not been motivated, no economic development would be made.
It is accepted in the theory of general equilibrium that competitive
markets are adjusted among themselves under the effect of the
interaction between buyers and sellers, households and firms. The
interaction is brought about as partners in competitive markets are
trying to do the best, to gain the most profit they can.
In order to have a closer look at the picture,
let’s put the situation into Keynes’s words: “It does not count the cost
of the struggle, but looks only to the benefits of the final result
which are assumed to be permanent. The object of life being to crop the
leaves off the branches up to the greatest possible height, the
likeliest way of achieving this end is to leave the giraffes with the
longest necks to starve out those whose necks are shorter.”
As a logical consequence, it is needless to say about the outcome of
this pattern of competitive economy that it on one hand motivates
craving for profit as incentive for material achievement by means of
which people’s standard of living has been considerably improved –
despite the unjust distribution of wealth, and on the other hand it
entices humans to manufacture unimaginably lethal weapons and
innumerable apparatuses of exploitation and oppression.
Thus, the root causes of economic growth, for
better or worse as seen today, are entangled with greed, hate and
delusion. The elimination of these three poisons is the ultimate goal of
Buddhist life. Nonetheless, selfishness associated with evil root-causes
as revealed in the profit maximization, if Buddhist psychological
attitude is to be taken, is the driving force of every human action.
Based on the doctrine of nutriment, as the biological body keeps
subsisting even after the saint has attained the state of destroying the
evil root-causes, four kinds of food remain required until the saint
enters Nirvana as the body composed of five aggregates comes to a total
disintegration. In this perspective, a certain economic system still
exists as to supply him the requisites. But Buddha never taught anything
that goes far beyond the reach of human capacity. To those who choose to
follow the path that leads to the ultimate liberation, to the attainment
of Nirvana, He instructs the practice of the absolute renunciation of
worldly pleasures. To those who are bound up with sense pleasures, He
gives the teaching of mundane life so that they might live in peace and
happiness in the very present life, as well as in the future. The
teaching for the latter is simple: generosity and virtue. Generosity
here consists of offering to monks and giving to the poor. To be able to
practice generosity, he must possess a certain amount of wealth.
Thus, economic behavior of a lay Buddhist is a
purposeful action aimed at gathering tangible wealth for material
consumption and accumulating merits for the future life. Merit by
canonical definition is profitable deeds that are good for the actor
himself and for others in the present as well as in the future. In
relation to this purposeful action, the ground for increase in wealth of
a lay Buddhist is said to be comprised of ten items: land, capital,
children, servants, cattle, faith, virtue, learning, giving and wisdom.
Accordingly, conditions for economic growth must be a balance of
material consumption and spiritual development.
Nonetheless, Buddhist economics, if any, is
feasible only on the condition that an individual’s goal in this life
must be established and his deeds are directed with virtue; no matter if
the theory of selfishness or profit motive is in question. In this
respect, the Buddha’s teaching related to the right livelihood
is expected to contribute a good deal of leading principles for economic
studies.
T. S.
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