The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics 3030972232, 9783030972233

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STUDIES IN BUDDHIST ECONOMICS, MANAGEMENT, AND POLICY

The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics Joel Magnuson

Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy

Series Editors Clair Brown, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, USA László Zsolnai, Corvinus University Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

This book series is devoted to exploring and presenting new developments in contemplative inquiry related to Buddhist Economics, Well-Being, Social Transformation, Mindful Organizations, and Ecological Worldview in management and policy contexts. This particular combination of fields represents a unique nexus for reflection and action toward developing ways of mindful and sustainable management for organizations in the economic and social life.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16318

Joel Magnuson

The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics

Joel Magnuson Tualatin, OR, USA

Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy ISBN 978-3-030-97223-3 ISBN 978-3-030-97224-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In memory of Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–2022)

Contents

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1

Introduction

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Socially Engaged Buddhism and Economics

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3

Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

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4

Paradigm Shifts

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Institutional Economics, Pragmatism, and Buddhism

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Eye of the Heart

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Ecodharma and Economics

163

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Mindfulness and the Outer Work of Social Change

189

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Right Livelihood Institutions

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Appendix

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Index

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vii

List of Figures

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.1 4.1 7.1 9.1 A.1

Greed, hatred, and delusion The utility continuum Carbon dioxide concentration, 1960–2021 Sources of socially engaged buddhist economics Gross national happiness in Bhutan

34 78 171 228 253

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

We are drifting into a perfect storm. Ours is an era during which global warming, massive species extinction, extreme polarization of wealth distribution, the ascent of violently reactionary politics and divisiveness, and grand episodes of economic instability are on a path of convergence. The common element among all these crises is that they are all anthropogenic. Meaning self-inflicted. A concern raised here is that so many of us are becoming numb to our self-inflicted wounds and bury our heads in the sands of cognitive dissonance as a way of avoiding anxiety. And like so many mythological “boiling frogs” accepting these pathological system conditions as the new normal. By doing so, finding solutions and ways to heal become increasingly difficult. To address some aspects of these converging conditions and crises, this book presents a case for Buddhist economics, or what I am specifically calling Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. One main theme that runs through this project is that Buddhism can help us make positive changes in our economic systems and thereby help address our anthropogenic crises. Specifically, it provides a philosophical basis for dual process of transformation. One part of the process is to look deeply inward into our minds and spirit to dissolve and liberate ourselves from the internal vexations that make us suffer—the inner work. The other is to extend from this place of liberation to work toward liberating our social and economic © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_1

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systems from the same vexations—the outer work. This dual process of inner and outer liberation becomes the basis for transformation of our economic lives. Transformation is the very essence of Buddhism: the transformation of personal suffering into wellbeing, and socially engaged Buddhism gives this process of transformation a social dimension. It is cultivating a Buddhist practice directed towards fundamentally changing the conditions in our social milieu where systemic problems are arguably salient and worsening. It draws support from the Dharma, the vast catalog of Buddhist wisdom, though specifically forged from two key aspects: the social ontology of interconnectedness and the temporal dimension of karma. Interconnectedness in the social context implies is another way of saying that we are all interdependent. Clair Brown in her book, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science (2017) she writes, Interdependence in Buddhist economics is expressed in three ways. The first involves using resources to enhance the quality of life for ourselves and for others. The second integrates caring for Nature and our environment into all activities. And the third involves reducing suffering and practicing compassion, both locally and globally.1

As we work with this kind of caring and compassion, the effect over time is karmic and cumulative. We make progress and improve our condition. To move toward this enlightened approach requires a comprehensive framework for economic action, policy, and reflection. In his youth, the Buddha ventured out into the world and witnessed a ubiquity of human suffering. He observed that so many people languished under the grip of inner vexations of the mind and outer material conditions of poverty. Filled with compassion, he embarked on a lifelong journey of discovery and teaching to find ways to liberate humanity from such suffering that has both inner and outer origins. Some of his earliest teachings were focused on what we would now call economic issues in the sense that he advocated that wellbeing could be cultivated by pursuing a middle way between poverty and opulence and a right 1 Brown, Clair, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science (NY: Bloomsbury Press, 2017), p. 8.

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livelihood committed to making a living without doing harm to others— including nature and future generations. Such a path toward liberation necessarily involves individuals dissolving their vexations of the mind that stem from attachment, greed, hatred, or aggression, and delusion as a starting place. But the inner work alone is not enough to liberate the whole of society from suffering. Completing the journey to wellbeing also requires transforming our economy and society with the same effort of dissolving greed, hatred, and delusion of the mind as they have become embodied in our socio-economic systems. The emphasis in this book therefore is to make a case for the inner work of dissolving defilements of the mind while simultaneously doing the outer work of making positive changes in our economic system. It is important to note that many Buddhists see their practice as very individualistic in which their practice is focused on liberating themselves from personal vexations, while engaged Buddhists are compelled to extend their practice into the social realm and work toward social change for the better. The goals of both the inner and outer work are to secure the wellbeing of people and the flourishing of the life-giving qualities of nature and to transform pathological systems into healthy ones crafted in the spirit of right livelihood. In a normative sense, this Buddhist way toward wellbeing shares an affinity with what institutional economists call social provisioning. Evolving toward a system that provides for genuine wellbeing of the population requires maintaining an economic society that exists to mobilize resources to provide food, housing, health care, education, security in retirement, and all the other things required to sustain people living healthy and meaningful lives. These are paramount priorities. Such a view of social provisioning is a first principle in institutional economics. To achieve social provisioning in a genuine way would require a transformation of what institutional economist Thorstein Veblen calls “habits of thought” as well as transformation in the economic milieu that is dominated by what he calls “the interests.” For Veblen, the interests are giant corporations that hold social provisioning as secondary or incidental to profit-making and shareholder value. The principles of Buddhism and institutional economics also share an affinity with the philosophy of pragmatism developed by the American philosophers John Dewey, George H. Mead, and others. Dewey and Mead set out to build a philosophy based on a foundation of social action put in the service of humanity. He also makes a case for

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human social behavior that springs from an existential drive, not for egoaggrandizement, but to shape the world in positive ways. If people seek an economy that is grounded in social provisioning in the pragmatic sense, Buddhist philosophy and practice can be enormously helpful. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness can also help as a kind of reality check by simply observing and asking pragmatic questions: Is our outer work in the economy helpful for social provisioning? If not, then why we are doing it? Or, are we doing it because inwardly we remain captured by our attachments and the defilements of greed, hatred, and delusion? The chapters that follow explore various facets of socially engaged Buddhist economics including a serious examination of institutionalized greed, hatred, and delusion; a more holistic economic paradigm for analysis; a philosophical framework that explores the affinities between pragmatism, institutional economics, and Buddhism; linking economics to the ecodharma movement; debate on Buddhist mindfulness vs. McMindfulness; a proposal for new kinds of economic institutions that I call Right Livelihood Institutions; and the tell the stories of initiatives taken by Bhutan and Thailand as examples of high-level outer work in engaged Buddhism. The upshot of all of this material is the message that there is much in Buddhist economics that can help societies everywhere grasp and cope with the overwhelming environmental and social crises bearing down on the contemporary world. What professor Brown and I and others have been working toward is a complete paradigm of Buddhist economics. As it stands today, the aspect of Buddhism that is engaged in political, environmental, or economic issues—socially engaged Buddhism—lacks such a paradigm (Chapter Two). This is sorely needed as we consider that the anthropogenic nature of the crises involved derive from economic activity. Global warming, being the most severe environmental concern today, is generated from a long history of production and consumption powered by burning fossil fuels. In other words, we are working toward building an economic paradigm, nestled in the Buddhist vision of transforming the way our economies operate and the way we live. In the pages of this volume, we refer to this paradigm as Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. One of the first steps as well as one of the steepest challenges for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics to confront the deeply rooted condition of institutionalized greed, hatred, and delusion (Chapter Three). In his very first sermons, the Buddha warned that these are the three fires that burn within us and cause a great deal of suffering. It is

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one thing to see a Buddhist practice as an individualized discipline of developing the skills to liberate ourselves from greed, hatred, and delusion for a healthier way of living, but it is quite another to recognize that they are also embedded in our institutional fabric. This is the product of generations, if not centuries, of social habituation karmically passed down from one generation to the next. Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics does recognize this and rises to the paramount challenge of confronting and working toward social change in our social structures. Such change or transformation is carried out in the social milieu with the same diligence as it is with individual practice. Seen in this way, Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics is about doing both the inner work of a traditional Buddhist practice while also doing the outer work of social change in the spirit of interdependence. Specifically, this involves dissolving the vexations of greed, hatred, and delusion as the most destructive elements in our corporate-dominated social milieu. In the karmic sense, this is an evolutionary process of transforming our economic institutions and transforming how we act and think in the world. If we seek to transform in this way, then we are faced with the challenge of embracing a total paradigm shift in economic thought (Chapter Four). The standard economic paradigm in the West is structured around the classical liberal ideology of John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith along with mechanistic, mathematical framework developed by Isaac Newton. Inherent in this paradigm is a vision of fundamentalist individualism, or social atomism. In this vision, there is no such thing as society, only individual producers and consumers acting autonomously in the open fields of the free market. All individuals are held to be essentially passive and only inspired to action by shifting market signals. Insofar as societies do not exist, producers and consumers are unburdened of social responsibility. They are free to pursue economic self-interest without having to give undue attention to social or environmental consequences. The orthodoxy of this paradigm derives from its function as an ideological justification for the institutions of corporate capitalism, which in its current form is dominated by Wall Street and Fortune 500 enterprises. To make a paradigm shift from this to Buddhist economics, however, does not require reinventing the wheel. A significantly different paradigm based on holism, systems, and evolution has been developed by institutional economics, which is considered heterodox (Chapter Five). Beginning in the late nineteenth century, with the work of Thorstein Veblen and others, institutional economics evolved into a social, humanistic

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theory of economics embodied in modern science and rigorous statistical modeling. The main body of this work was done at the University of Chicago in the early twentieth century where these economists joined forces with the American pragmatists. The integration of these two American schools of philosophy and economics combined to form a holistic social theory par excellence. Moreover, as we will uncover here, these two schools of thought share a remarkable affinity with contemporary Buddhist social thought. Drawing from Veblen and others, a central theme that runs throughout this book is that institutional fabric of society is the foundation for how economies are structured and operate. Institutions are powerful aspects of the whole of culture and are the laws, mores, norms, or rules that we live by. Another dimension to Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics is the work of E.F. Schumacher and a small gathering of Anglo-American intellectuals that I call the “meta economists” (Chapter Six). Meta-economics is a vision that is not necessarily grounded in formal economic theory but rather extends beyond traditional theoretical frameworks to consider ethics, moral commitments, norms, values, and consciousness. Together their work challenges the metaphysical foundation of modern economic thought. Mechanistic representations in standard economics are seen here as distorted and stunted representations of human sociality. It also allows for the indulgence of our most base, reptilian instincts for predation and aggression while ignoring the most salient aspects of the human species—our spiritual and altruistic nature. Schumacher was inspired by nineteenth-century British meta-economists such as John Ruskin, William Morris, and Patrick Geddes. Together with twentieth century American kindred spirits such as Lewis Mumford and Schumacher and the other meta-economists form a very different perspective on economics with a more exalted view of human potential along with a proposition for economic development that would corporate what he called “technology with a human face.” For Schumacher, the goal of technological development ought to be the lightening of our burden and enhancing the joy of work. Technology has not done this. It has lightened the burden of work in certain places by making it heavier in others. Tremendous systems of mass production remove the intrinsic joy that good work can bring and replace it with meaningless, joyless, assembly line toil, and deskilled labor in sweatshops. What Ruskin, Morris, and Geddes envisioned as a society grounded in creative adaptation, cooperation, and the love of crafts and nature

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was being drummed out in favor of domination, profit-making, and mass production. Combined they present a sophisticated social vision with practical concerns of civic participation, appropriate forms of technology and scales of production systems, aesthetics, a reverence for human creativity, and a social/spiritual vision of human ecology. These too have an affinity with Buddhist philosophy and social thought. Such a vision of human ecology is part of the core substance in David Loy’s and others’ project of ecodharma (Chapter Seven). Ecodharma is the merging of the Dharma with the science of ecology. Loy and the others involved in this project have presented contemporary Buddhism with a challenge: to become more involved in socially engaged actions related to global warming or become irrelevant. The data as well as realtime environmental catastrophes stemming from global warming are no longer deniable. The severity of crises is such that no one can be neutral, and the Dharma can be very helpful for those seeking to be involved. Engagement of a broad base of population is crucial and the current state of climate crisis is no time for lip service or half measures. Our species must be firmly on track to change our way of life or be forced to face our bloody and painful extinction. Among the most compelling aspects of a Buddhist practice is its emphasis on doing the inner work of training the mind with mindfulness (Chapter Eight). One of the many powers of mindfulness is that it is a useful skill for reality checks by developing greater awareness of what is happening around us with a measure of objectivity. One such check is the ability to see clearly that what we consider to be our normal way of life is making us suffer. So many of us hold on to a fiction or shibboleth of “rugged individualism” while holding a vision of ourselves fundamentally disconnected from one another. What becomes of individualism is an asocial view of how we live and work. It is a pretense, a vestige of nineteenth-century ideological superstition that social interdependence does not actually exist. As such it is not difficult to extrapolate from such a pretense to sociopathy. For Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, the goal is to see ourselves not as separated from others the process of breaking free from this condition begins with the inner work of training the mind and living mindfully. Mindfulness is indispensable in this regard. It is a healing energy that allows us to step outside the vicious circle of thinking and acting with vexations, and projecting those vexations into the social firmament, which in turn will exert problematic influence on our ways of thinking and

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acting. But like so many other things that hold great value, mindfulness is in danger of becoming commodified in our corporate-dominated society. Such commodification or commercialization is identified by business professor and author, Ron Purser in his book McMindfulness : How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (2019). Purser argues that once it is stripped of its most potent aspect—the power to transform our minds—it is being dumbed down to self-help fads full of gimmicky workshops designed to help people cope with job stress. In a more authentic sense, mindfulness can be effective inner work that can empower people to participate in the process of building new economic institutions based on a system of ethics (Chapter Nine). The system of ethics is derived from the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Individually, such institutional alternatives are not going to change the world. But if we begin to look things holistically, in the spirit of codetermination, we can begin to develop a vision and framework for real change in which each of these alternatives play a role in affecting in transforming the pathological system we have now into the kind of system most of us want. The project of real change was not lost on the monarchs of the Buddhist kingdoms of Bhutan and Thailand (Appendix). Both countries have a majority Buddhist population, maintain a strong Buddhist heritage and culture, and are not shy about seeking institutional change that stands outside the mainstream if necessary. They have been the source of inspiration for the rest of the world in terms of what kinds of positive change can become manifest with serious commitment to social, political, and economic transformation. It is hard to imagine a better time than the present to see what we can learn from these examples of applied Buddhism. Future historians will look back on our current period with sadness and wonder why we with all our intelligence and technology failed to do something about existential crises such as climate change before it was too late. Future Buddhist will also reflect with sadness if the Buddhists of the world were to maintain aloofness and without the interest or energy to be a part of social change. For this reason, and for the moral responsibility, we have to our future generations, all of us—Buddhists or otherwise—have to be forward-thinking and proactive into doing what is central to this spiritual tradition, transforming suffering into wellbeing. The emphasis here is on stepping on to another economic path with the intention to build a framework for how we act in the world and how

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we think about the world economically. The Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics movement is directed at thoroughgoing systemic change, but the path toward change begins with local, community-based institutional development where people have the most control and can be most effective. It is local action and engagement that is intertwined with a holistic consciousness and an awareness that our every action is linked to every other as we tread our way through the twenty-first century. To that end, the chapters that follow explore various aspects of the inner and outer work of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics including theory and practice. The normative aspiration for exploring all this material is seek a way that Buddhist economics can help societies everywhere grasp and cope with the overwhelming environmental and social crises bearing down on the contemporary world.

Reference Brown, Clair, Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science (NY: Bloomsbury Press, 2017).

CHAPTER 2

Socially Engaged Buddhism and Economics

As with all aspects of Buddhism, socially engaged Buddhism is about working toward the liberation of all beings from the conditions of suffering. The notion of suffering in Buddhism is often misunderstood as a fatalistic condition from which there is no escape. Perhaps the misunderstanding comes from the inherent difficulty of translating into modern language the ancient texts that themselves were accounts of the oral tradition of the Buddha’s teachings. Be that as it may, what we now generally accept as the notion of human suffering in Buddhism is a spectrum of conditions that have taken a wrong turn. In this text, I refer to these conditions as pathology. The English word pathology derives from the ancient Greek root of pathos, meaning the experience of suffering. Generally, now the term applies to medical science and the study of disease, but in a broader sense it simply means conditions of suffering. We may not understand why or how the conditions arise, but we know that they are wrong somehow as we can identify agony, pain, fear, anxiety, sickness, or injustice. Working toward liberation is the process of freeing ourselves from these pathological conditions, however, mild or severe. Socially engaged Buddhism is work that is leveraged from a doctrinal foundation. The first piece of which is the recognition that suffering exists. Once there is this recognition, the work extends to finding the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_2

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sources of suffering that we bring on ourselves—individually and societally. If we take a glance at our historical record, we can tally up an impressive list of examples of how humans have a penchant for self-destruction. Global warming is undoubtedly the most pernicious condition of pathology of the twenty-first century, and one that promises to worsen with no end in sight. It has arisen as a result of our dependency on fossil fuel energy that is blanketing our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, which is overheating the planet and destroying the environmental habitat that otherwise sustains us. Such destruction is a condition that we are bringing down on ourselves; that is, it is a system condition that is anthropogenic. Anthropogenic causality is the reality of an event that is caused by human activity. There are some forms of suffering that are not anthropogenic such as aging and all the pain and discomfort that comes with it, but there is much that is, such as conditions of poverty, social injustice, or ecological breakdown. The first step toward liberation for socially engaged Buddhism is to realize and identify this reality. If people can make such a realization, the next step in the work is to make commitment to real and lasting change. This involves tracing the social pathology to the sources in specific habituated patterns of thought and action, then uproot these patterns through a dedicated to a program of change grounded in a system of ethics and practice. Buddhist ethics are a set of guidelines that suggest ways of thinking, communicating, and living that can guide us along a different path away from pathology and destruction toward healthier ways of thinking and behaving in society. Toward wellbeing. Most of what is considered a Buddhist practice is directed at the work of individual liberation from suffering—to look inward into our own individual minds and dissolve the vexations lurking there that lead to suffering. But, as Zen teacher David Loy shows us, there is “an extraordinary parallel between our usual individual predicament and our present collective situation.”1 The collective situation is specifically the social and environmental malaise caused by global warming, social injustice, human rights violations, social and economic inequality, and conflict. The vexations we find in ourselves are also found in our social milieu—a collective sense of alienation and a collective attempt to react to this alienation in

1 Loy, David, “Ecodharma: A New Buddhist Path?,” Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies, 2020, No. 15, p. 53.

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destructive and even violent ways.2 Yet at the same time there is the possibility of a collective realization and a collective movement toward liberation. If we collectively get ourselves into social and environmental trouble, we must collectively get ourselves out and Buddhism can help. This is the essence of socially engaged Buddhism.

Peace Activism Much of the work of contemporary socially engaged Buddhism has been focused on peace activism. Zen master, teacher, and writer Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the originators of socially engaged Buddhism and peace of activism. His work began when he and other young Buddhists created the Order of Interbeing during the Vietnam War in the 1960s. These young Vietnamese Buddhist monks took direct action to help their fellow countrymen who suffered from the violence and destruction of war. The Order organized and mobilized volunteers to rebuild villages that were destroyed by American bombing, created farmers’ cooperatives, and established health clinics.3 During the war, Nhat Hanh shared his view with Americans and emphasized that Americans “were not the only ones responsible… Our individual consciousness is a product of our society, ancestors, education, and many other factors….”4 What was happening to villagers in Vietnam was happening to everyone as karmic conditions working their way through time. Like leaves of a tree, it seems senseless for one leaf to admonish another for changing colors. All are part of the same human conditions with a shared history. Nhat Hanh went on to say, “If we divide reality into two camps… and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame those we feel are responsible for war and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and with those we condemn to have a real impact.”5 2 Ibid., pp. 56–57. 3 Queen, Christopher, “Introduction: A New Buddhism,” in Queen, Christopher, ed.,

Engaged Buddhism in the West, (Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000), p. 2. 4 Hunt-Perry, Patricia and Fine, Lyn, “All Buddhism Is Engaged: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing,” In Queen, Christopher, ed., Engaged Buddhism in the West, (Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2000), p. 47. 5 Ibid., p. 46.

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His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and other prominent Buddhist leaders have similarly advocated for empathic engagement for nonviolence. As they deliberately focus on nonviolent social change, they inspire people from all over the world with their humanity as well as by personally modeling how to be engaged in complex and daunting issues such as political violence, environmental destruction, and social injustice from a place of compassion and joy rather than anger, blame, and fear. He also has been outspoken regarding climate change and the specific threats it poses to Tibet with glacier melting. At the Paris Climate Conference in 2015, the Dalai Lama presented a video in which he stated that although we humans, “despite of a lot of development—we have technology, science, and these things—however, we also created more human-made problems… for those problems, which human beings created, it is logically [that] we human beings have the responsibility to reduce these problems and finally eliminate these problems.”6 These leaders and virtually all Buddhists who are seriously involved in social engagement see their involved dharma practice in terms of doing both inner and outer work. Venerable Phra Prayudh Payutto notes that peace activism is central to engaged Buddhism primarily “because Buddhism itself, the whole of it, is concerned with peace.” But he adds that both the individual’s inner work of cultivating a condition of peace within and the outer work of cultivating societal conditions for peace are necessary. Payutto emphasizes that “In order to have peace outside we must have peace inside… those who have happiness inside tend to radiate happiness outside also.”7 Nonviolence movements need to do more than just renounce violence. There is a distinction between renouncing violence and being actively engaged in achieving nonviolence. Active steps need to be taken to eliminate the conditions of poverty, hatred, injustice, or xenophobia that create the circumstances that can lead to violence in the first place. Buddhist activist John McConnell argues that a dharma practice, “… is not a set of dogma to be believed, but a way of beginning, here and now, with the mess we have made of our lives, and turning things around.”8 We can 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYBMLsc64HM. 7 Quoted in “The Madhupindika Sutta and the Reality of Conflict,” in Socially Engaged

Buddhism for the New Millennium, p. 324. 8 John McConnell, “The Realism of Applying Damma to Situations of Conflict,” in Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium, p. 315.

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look inward and dissolve the vexations that lead to violent actions, but we can also look outward to dissolve the pathological social conditions that spawn and reinforce those actions. McConnell and others turn to the inner work of mindfulness as a way of developing the will and concentration to help resolve conflict, yet at the same time realizing that striving for social change must be part of their dharma practice. The state of world affairs and climate change make such that it is no longer possible to measure the quality of a Buddhist practice in terms of individual goals, holding certain beliefs, or individual observance of traditions. The scale and complexity of social, economic, and environmental crises have compelled many Buddhists to do the outer work of engaging in public service or political activism, and to elevate their practice to a broader sphere of social experience as a way to serve the ultimate cause of peace both within and among peoples. The scope of socially engaged Buddhism is not limited to peace activism and extends to a addressing a host of other dimensions to social and environmental malaise. Engagement is predicated on an awareness that suffering is not just an individual condition, but it is also systemic as it originates in social and ecological conditions that have allowed suffering to fester and become more complex in time. For the transformation toward wellbeing, social transformation must be part of the movement. The process of changing society first begins with work on the self yet remaining mindfully present with affecting social change. Zen master Philip Kapleau reflects on this, “To help people without hurting them at the same time, or hurting yourself, means that we must first work on ourselves.” He uses the term middle way as a kind of metaphor, “A Middle Way that alternates between the life of inward meditation and the life of action-in-the-world….”9 The dharma practice of socially engaged Buddhism can be seen as having two aspects, the inner work of individual transformation from suffering to wellbeing and the outer work of social transformation of suffering to wellbeing. Like all things in complex systems, there is a dual nature to our existence: our individual selves and our social selves that are inextricably tied to social structures. If the individual is a kind of social

9 Kapleau, Philip, “Responsibility and Social Action,” in Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, (Boston: Shambala, 2000), p. 243.

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molecule, then social institutions and cultures are the higher-level structures. Change happens at both levels continuously, whether we intend so or not, in a complex and dialectic process of interplay between the social self and social formations. The inner work of changing ourselves and the outer work of changing our society are taking place simultaneously in a dialectical process. In the Buddhist view, all is impermanent and changing. We are undergoing a continuous transformation through processes of aging, adapting to our surroundings, and forming social relationships. We are steadily changing by virtue of our experiences in society and by the choices we make. If there are changes in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, then we change accordingly. If we make choices to change the kind of food we eat or the places we live, we change our surroundings. As our society changes, we change and as we change society changes. Nothing is permanent. We are all having an impact on everything we touch. In the sense of impact, it is always there whether intentional or not. In this way, we are shaping our social and environmental context, and in turn the context is continuously shaping who and what we are. We are embedded in our surroundings and our surroundings are embedded in us. As we live and breathe on the crust of the earth, we are engaged in everything around us, and this is so from the time we are born to the time we die. None of us lives in isolation; we can only shift from one state or degree of connectedness to another. The main question for what we call “engaged Buddhism” is how we can direct this two-way dialectic through conscious volition. Thich Nhat Hanh’s conception of what he calls “interbeing” exemplifies this dialectical interconnectedness at a deep level. A cornerstone doctrine of Buddhist philosophy is dependent origination, which we’ll explore in more detail later, but is basically the realization that nothing is discrete. All forms of being are conditional in the sense that all things— mental or physical, human or natural, individual or social—depend on all other things for their existence. Things exist as formations or entities arising from certain external conditions, or they cease to exist when those conditions are removed. When we attest to the basic condition that everything is connected to everything else, we also become aware that our actions affect everything else. How we think and act in the world is the same as how we are in the world, which is the same as how we make

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the world, which influences how we think and act. A circle of karmic responsibility. Karma is the cause-and-effect way of things that works through the space–time continuum. Three-dimensional space is the environmental and social context of human existence where everything is connected, and the time dimension is the unfolding of change. Human action is conditioned both by the circumstances of our physical, environmental, and social surroundings at a spot in time as well as the conditioning of change through time. The connection between dependent origination and karma illuminates a fundamental reality that we are creating a world that we inherited and is not of our creation. Socially engaged Buddhism emphasizes an awareness of karmic cause and effect relationships. When all things, including people, depend on all other things, the volitional action of one affects all others. Karma works holistically and universally through time. Everything is relational including the nature of social change itself. What we do individually and how we do it affects others now and in the future. We are engaged in a social context that has been karmically conditioned by the cumulative actions of our own past as well as the past of others, and we are conditioning the social context of the future by the actions we take in the present moment. Engaged Buddhism emphasizes the need to do the inner work and be fully attentive and mindful in the present moment of our own motivations and intentions, and of the outer work of our actions. Our motivations, intentions, and actions have karmic repercussions. The impact may be either imperceptible or dramatic, small or big, and has a cause-and-effect relationship with everything else. The motivation-intentions-actions of the present moment will create new conditions that will either lead toward liberation from suffering, nirvana, or toward more suffering, samsara. Engaged Buddhism emphasizes intentional actions directed at making changes in both the immediate context and on impacting future beings. These are actions compelled by intentions, which have immutable implications in time. Depending on the temperament that give rise to the intentions and actions, the implications could lead to more suffering or less. A temperament imbued with greed, hatred, or delusion can lead to more suffering in some way or another, whereas a temperament arising from loving-kindness, compassion, and wisdom can lead to less suffering and authentic wellbeing. American Buddhist monk and scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi describes that “In addition to giving a clear, explicit account of the conditional structure of the liberative progression, this sutta has the further advantage of bringing

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the supramundane form of dependent arising into immediate connection with its familiar samsaric counterpart.” That is, karma is always in motion and the direction of its movement is dependent on the conditions we create. “By making this connection it brings into prominence the comprehensive character of the principle of conditionality.”10 The inner work is to foster clarity of understanding of where we are, what are we doing, and where we are going. As we will see in a later chapter, the inner work of Buddhism, mindfulness in particular, helps cultivate such awareness of ourselves, our thoughts, and our surroundings. As we become more aware we begin to see more clearly the causality between karmic volition and impact the actions—the outer work—we have willed into being have in our social and environmental milieu. In Buddhist practice traditionally, much of the emphasis has been on karma in individual experience and liberation, but socially engaged Buddhism extends to societal experience. Both are important for Buddhist economics. People who live in societies where there is some measure of democratic accountability have a sense of the malleability of their political institutions. By virtue of universal suffrage, all citizens can vote, sign petitions, run for office, protest, or volunteer on campaigns in order to bring about changes in those societies. Engaged Buddhism identifies forces in the human world that can lead to violence, poverty, injustice, crime, etc., then takes action to eliminate or change those forces. Environmental protections, civil rights, health care services, and social security are provisions brought about by citizen engagement. Without such engagement, life would be much like it was in the nineteenth century with rampant poverty, injustice, instability, and perhaps even slavery. Such democratic political institutions did not come into being by chance, they came into being by engagement and collective volition—the collective will of the people. By virtue of karmic volition, our living generations are the beneficiaries of the good karma brought about by the hard work and determination of preceding generations. Whether or not these institutions remain intact or are improved upon depends on the will, intentions, and engagement of us living here and now.

10 Bhikkhu, Bodhi, “Transcendental Dependent Arising: A Translation and Exposition of the Upanisa Sutta”. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition). 1 December 2013. https:// www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel277.html.

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Herein lies the importance of the inner work. In the Buddhist tradition, much of what can be identified as motivation-intention-action that bring samsaric conditions stem from psychic pathologies of greed, hatred, and delusion. For a mind that is untrained in the work of mindfulness, it becomes cluttered with desires, resentments, and fears that coagulate around the ego. The world with which we interact becomes a shadowy and fearful place and becomes a stage upon which insatiable desire, addiction, rage, aggression, and cognitive dissonance become powerful motivating forces. These forces color the intentions and actions of individuals. Individual behavior becomes covetous, grasping, aggressive, and even predatory. What follows is outer work that gives rise to violence, social instability, and ecological crises—general samsara. A Buddhist spiritual practice involves disengaging from our personal selves (our egos) and examining our mental state and its bearing on our motivations and intentions, which then shape our action in the world. Much of what we see in engaged Buddhism is an examination with selfcompassion into our state of mind and the behavior that is willed into being as a result of that state. With mindfulness practice we develop the skillful means—a skill set of motivations, intentions, and actions that are liberated from egoism—from which peaceable and creative work naturally flows. To some extent, we are all individually responsible for our mental states and emotions just as we are responsible for our intentions, actions, and consequences that follow. Such a sense of karmic responsibility extends to the economic consequences of our actions. If we find ourselves absorbed by the passions of greed, hatred, and delusion then destructive economic behavior follows.

Economics and the Buddha Much of what stands as Buddhist economics deals with the “three fires” of greed, aggression, and delusion, and how it can help us find a way clear from the flames and find peace. Buddhist teachings can offer insight into our motivations, sharpen our abilities to see into them deeply, and, perhaps most importantly, change them. These insights can eventually lead to a profound sense of liberation and self-awareness that stems from a gradual process of dissolving the confusion between what is harmful economic activity and what is truly beneficial. Such insights provide a foundation for both a living model of ethics and social change. As a first

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step, it is important that we take a brief glimpse into how the Buddha came to see the world in a profoundly liberating way. The root narrative of Buddhist economics naturally traces back to the extraordinary personal story of Siddhartha Gautama, the man who became the Buddha about two-and-half millennia ago. Siddhartha lived in splendid comfort and luxury as the chosen son to succeed his father as head of the Shakya dynasty that was sovereign over a vast territory in a border region between India and Nepal. As a boy and young man, he lived in splendid luxury with all the comforts and privilege imaginable in his time. Yet he was discontent and there was something inside him that compelled to find a deeper more meaningful truth of life outside his cloister of dynastic privilege. He occasionally wandered outside of his palatial home into nearby villages where he bore witness to a mass of human population sinking into a vortex of poverty and disease. Upon return he also bore witness to the wealthy and powerful frantic with anxiety, jealousy, fear, and an insatiable desire for more. The wealthy and poor alike were suffering. Siddhartha realized that there was answer to what seemed to be a universal condition of misery and the answer had nothing to do with the material standards of living. He also realized that in order to find that answer he had to let go of his own wealth, the status of his house, and even his own family. Siddhartha contemplated, The thought came to me. The household life, this place of impurity, is narrow… It is not easy for a householder to lead the perfected, utterly pure and perfect holy life. What if I were now to cut off my hair and beards, don yellow robes, and go forth from the household into homelessness?11

And he did just that. He took on the task of outer work wholeheartedly. For a time the young man lived a life of homelessness and serious poverty. Siddhartha disavowed his wealth and status and became a mendicant wanderer in an arduous quest for truth, and to uncover the way to transform suffering into wellbeing. He survived largely by begging and drifted from one place to another seeking instruction from various masters on yoga, meditation, and every other form of practice he could

11 Majihima, Nikaya, translated as The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, by Bhikku Nanamoli, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2nd ed., 2001), p. 335.

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find. Though he remained frustrated as these practices were not providing him with the kind of deeper insights he was seeking. Siddhartha joined a group of ascetics who were committed to a spiritual practice that was predicated on self-denial and extended periods of fasting. They believed this practice would purify the spirit from the corruption of sense pleasures. With the ascetics, Siddhartha subjected himself to long periods of starvation with the hope that such physical stress would bring him closer to some kind of purity promise by the ascetics. But eventually came to the conclusion that asceticism was ultimately self-defeating as it brought him to the very precipice of death. He came to understand that such a weakened physical condition would make it impossible for him to achieve the breakthrough to enlightenment that he intuitively knew was there. Later he told his followers, Because I ate so little, my buttocks became like a camel’s hoof, my backbone protruded like a line of spindles, my ribs corroded and collapsed like the rafters of an old and rotten shed, the gleams of the pupils in my eye sockets appeared deeply sunken, my scalp became wrinkled and shrunken... Though I have undergone severe ascetic practice, I cannot reach the special and wonderful knowledge and insight transcending the affairs of human beings. Could there be another way of enlightenment?12

He left the ascetic community and after a time of regaining his strength, he set out once again to wander alone. He eventually settled in Bodhgaya in the northeastern part of India. It was at Bodhgaya that Siddhartha experienced a profound turning point. He realized that he was not going to find what he was seeking outwardly in the world and redirected his journey inwardly to the inherent potential of the mind. Siddhartha sat in deep inward meditation under a pipal tree—a kind of large fig with heavy branches that span outward to provide shade like an elm—resolute to stay in meditation until he experienced true wisdom or enlightenment, a state to which he knew he was coming close.13 As Siddhartha sat in meditation, he was reminded of a pleasant childhood memory of sitting in the shade of a large tree in one of his father’s

12 Ibid., pp. 175 and 329. 13 In Bodhgaya today there is a shrine at the Mahabodhi temple that built around a

pipal tree that is believed to be a descendant through a succession of replantations from the original tree under which Siddhartha experienced his enlightenment.

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fields. He had let his mind wander freely, without attachments, until it became quite still and for a moment experienced a kind of perfect serenity and equanimity. He remained for a stretch of time, completely unattached to his thoughts or feelings, with the pure calm he once knew in his childhood and a breakthrough finally came in a deep and sudden flash. In that moment, Siddhartha realized that the truth he had been searching for all this time was something that he had known all along, but it had become clouded over by a deluded state of mind. This was his enlightenment, his nirvana, and he was momentously liberated from what seemed up to that point an inescapable state of suffering and despair.14 His discovery was simple but profound: the end to human suffering is to liberate ourselves from the defilements of our minds. From that point on, Siddhartha came to be known as Shakyamuni Buddha, meaning “the enlightened one from the Shakya dynasty” or simply, the Buddha. The Buddha devoted the rest of his life to teaching, like Socrates, by way of oral tradition the things he had learned and understood about the way of enlightenment—the dharma. The Buddha summarized with his followers again, Dear friends… I tell you that if I have not experienced directly all that I have told you, I would not proclaim that I am an enlightened person, free from suffering. Because I myself have identified suffering, understood suffering, identified the causes of suffering, removed the causes of suffering, confirmed the existence of well-being, obtained well- being, identified the path to well-being, gone to the end of the path, and realized total liberation, I now proclaim to you that I am a free person.15

With his discovery of liberation, the wheels of the Dharma began to turn. What the Buddha taught was not conventional religious doctrine as understood in the West, nor was it metaphysical discourse on divinity, heaven, and hell, or the wrath of deities. His teachings were reflections on the mind—a kind of spiritual psychology for living a liberated life. His conclusions about liberation constituted a substantial break from accepted wisdom of time based on asceticism that emphasized physical deprivation 14 Thien An, Thich, Zen Philosophy Zen Practice (Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1975), pp. 3, 11. 15 Nhat Han, Thich, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. (NY: Broadway Books, 1998), p. 7.

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as a path to liberation. The Buddha experienced the pain and misery of living as an ascetic, but he also knew the suffering arising from the feverish clamor for wealth he witnessed as the privileged progeny of the powerful Shakya clan. He realized that the life of asceticism and self-emaciation leads to enormous suffering and not much good could be expected to come from that. Yet he also noted that suffering is not brought to an end by chasing after great wealth; the chasing itself only leads to suffering of a different kind: chronic dissatisfaction and insatiable greed. He concluded that neither was the correct path and taught instead a third option that has come to be known as the Middle Way. Early on in his teachings, the Buddha emphasized practical matters of living. He made it clear to his followers that meeting the foundational needs of a person—the basic necessities for living—is necessary before they can attain spiritual enlightenment. At the same time, avoiding selfindulgence is equally important. He experienced both deprivation and indulgence and rejected both. The Buddha’s notion of the Middle Way is not a compromise between these extremes of insatiable greed and the pain and humiliation of poverty; for a positive cannot be found between two negatives. One is a humiliating trap, and the other is an addiction from which no amount of material wealth can provide liberation. The Middle Way is a mode of departure from the two opposing pathways that converge on the same place of suffering. He taught that “There are these two extremes… giving oneself up to indulgence in sensual pleasures; this is base, common, vulgar, unholy, unprofitable…[or] giving oneself up to self-torment; this is painful, unholy (and also) unprofitable.”16 To be clear, unholy and unprofitable in this sense implies leading away from suffering and toward more liberation.

Engaged Buddhism and Economics Most of the contemporary literature in socially engaged Buddhism that branches into economics focuses on individual conduct such as applying Buddhist skillful means to making healthy choices as consumers, developing Buddhist-inspired business models that are socially responsible, or commending the virtues of charitable giving and the accumulation of merits. For the most part extent, this work focuses on the inner work of

16 Ibid., p. 257.

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retraining the mind and cultivating a new set of motivations, intentions, and actions in the marketplace. Environmental studies professor Stephanie Kaza has published work examining the cultural phenomenon of consumerism from a Buddhist perspective. Without the development of skillful means, individuals are vulnerable to be manipulated by business marketing strategies intended to instill a delusional sense of personal inadequacy and discontent that can only be “fixed” with more shopping. She, like most environmentalists, sees consumerism as the progenitor of all forms of pathological environmental conditions such as species loss, habitat ruination, resource depletion, and climate change. She adds that this compounds into social ill will, “by setting up idealized stereotypes, advertisements foster greed, status-envy.” Self-identity based on possessions, “…generates a shadow side of aggression and fearful distrust. Gated communities for the wealthy, security guards for shopping malls, burglar alarms….”17 For its protection, consumer society needs its own security state. For Kaza, a Buddhist practice can help individuals challenge this agenda by dissolving the psychic attachment to material things and fostering a different skillful lifestyle and liberated mindset. Also, with an understanding of interconnectedness and dependent origination she argues, “a review of linked factors of desire can yield points for mindful ethical choices.”18 The idea is to foster more awareness of the forces that influence consumer behavior. Manipulative advertising and glitzy shopping malls overwhelm the senses and loads the dissatisfied ego with junk. With mindful awareness, “one can choose to avoid materialist overstimulation or to reduce self-identification with products.”19 Focusing on such conduct is consistent with Buddhist philosophy and practice, though the attention is largely on building skillful means or livelihoods for individuals. Philosophy professor Sally King also takes on consumerism from an engaged Buddhist perspective by linking it to the capitalist system’s growth imperative, the commodification of everything under the sun, and incessant advertising. Like Kaza, she asserts that the social and environmental damage created by consumerism and endless growth is 17 Kaza, Stephanie, “Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism,” in Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium, (Bangkok, Thailand: The Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation), p. 60. 18 Ibid., p. 65. 19 Ibid., p. 68.

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alarming. The work of engaged Buddhism in response is largely directed at “working on the personal level, using education, meditation, and work with precepts to change individual attitudes and behaviors.”20 As far as theory for social change, however, King provides general standpoint positions regarding more equitable distribution of wealth and the Middle Way, moderation and contentment, and a general view that capitalism and communism are economic systems that are not conducive to a Buddhist way. On the business side of the economy, King highlights the work of Roshi Bernard Tetsugen Glassman. Bernie Glassman, as he is popularly known, was cofounder of the Greyston Mandala project and the Zen Peacemakers Order (ZPO), both established in the 1980s. As a general principle, Glassman took “the American economic system as a given and works within it, using capitalism and profit making to the end of helping the poor.”21 Glassman developed a distinguishing style of engaged Buddhism based on, “…the creative use of traditional Buddhist metaphors and images … and the emergence of a distinctive new dharma of social service,”22 yet making it clear that the work of a socially engaged Buddhist practice is predicated on doing the “self-work,” or inner work first. For Glassman that based on the Soto Zen tradition of shikantaza meditation, which literally means “just sitting” and nothing else. For Glassman, meditation is an exercise in cultivating what he calls “bearing witness” as a kind of window to the wholeness of life, without judgment or preconception. It is a process of dissolving attachments in the ego-based mind, letting go of preconceived notions, and simply being. For Glassman, nonattachment and bearing witness breaks down social divisiveness and naturally fosters an inclination to engage compassionately in the world. It was from this compassion and openness that Glassman, starting in the 1970s and 1980s, devoted himself to founding various Zen-based institutions. After becoming ordained in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition in 1976, Glassman sought to build a particular brand of Buddhism that holds social engagement and social transformation to be as important as self-work and personal transformation. 20 King, Sally B., Socially Engaged Buddhism, (Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2009), p. 103. 21 Ibid., p. 114. 22 Glassman, Bernard Glassman and Fields, Rick, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen

Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters, (NY: Bell Tower, 1996), p. 88.

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Glassman found inspiration from the working meditation of early Zen masters. As Buddhism spread throughout China in the sixth century, lay practitioners gravitated to monasteries to deepen their study and Buddhist practice. With more people to feed and house, monks started placing more emphasis on daily chores. The Zen tradition began taking on a new element involving meditation not only when sitting on the cushion, but also when engaged in the tasks of everyday working life. The contemplative monastic life extended beyond study, meditation, and doing whatever other work needed to be done such as tending to the garden or rice fields cleaning rooms, preparing meals, and gathering firewood and water. Meditation thus extended to beyond the self to work and social structures. The work itself became a kind of meditation or mindfulness practice. For Glassman, this extended to a business enterprise with Buddhist guidelines—from right mindfulness to right livelihood—to serve both as a way to support a Zen community and to positively affect social change. With that in mind, Glassman opened Greyston Bakery a social enterprise originally established in The Bronx, New York. The idea of the bakery was to create a business that could support a growing community, provide training and opportunities for personal growth and spiritual transformation, and to help alleviate homelessness among the underprivileged. As a social enterprise, Greyston pursues multiple objectives: providing baked goods for consumers and other businesses, employment, job skills, and training as an anti-poverty measure, and an “open door” hiring system. Glassman notes, “As a Zen community, we didn’t want to engage in anything that fell outside the Buddhist definition of right livelihood. We didn’t want to produce anything that would harm people. … In terms of social action, we needed a labor-intensive business that could create jobs for a lot of people.”23 Forty years later, Greyston remains a going concern as a model for forprofit social enterprise. Profits garnered by Greyston are channeled into its foundation to help fund other initiatives for social progress.24 As a social enterprise, Greyston pursues multiple objectives: providing baked goods for consumers and other businesses, employment, job skills, and training as an anti-poverty measure, and an “open door” hiring system. According

23 Ibid., pp. 59–60. 24 See http://greyston.com/about-greyston, see also, Magnuson, The Approaching

Great Transf ormation (2013) on B Corporations.

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to their website, they have open door hiring policy geared toward offering employment opportunities regardless of educational attainment, work history, or past social barriers such as incarceration, homelessness, or drug use.25 The social enterprise’s mission has expanded to include developing affordable housing, childcare facilities, community gardens, and workforce development projects.26 Such a business model as Greyston is rare, and there is much work to be done in Buddhist economics to address the problem of widespread corporate greed. In the summer of 2019, Dharma Drum Institute for Liberal Arts in Taiwan hosted an international conference commemorating the passing of founder and Chan master Sheng Yen. Among the papers presented at the conference was one by Simon Ho, president of Hang Seng University in Hong Kong. The central theme in his presentation was the problem of corporate misconduct and a widespread lack of ethics in the business world. He highlighted the short-term, bottom-line orientation of corporate capitalism and a disregard for social or environmental concerns as a reflection of “the current nature of the business environment, which itself [is] a question on the morality of society at large.”27 For Ho, passing more regulations on business to achieve a better social or ecological track record in business is ineffective and a more effective approach would be for businesses to “formulate their own ethical standards, and such need all individual players to follow earnestly… Business ethics is a system of moral principles and values that are applied to business activities affecting all stakeholder groups.”28 For this, he turns to Buddhist doctrines encompassing karmic cycles, altruism, empathy, and compassion guided by relevant scriptures. His plea is for individuals working in the world of business to follow such teachings and by doing so capitalism can be reshaped into a more ethical system that would improve the lives of people. At the same conference, another paper was presented on Buddhism and sustainable development. The author cites a host of evidence that the human race is moving further away from a sustainable condition. 25 See http://greyston.com/about-greyston. 26 Ibid. 27 Studies of Master Sheng Yen, Vol. 13, “Collection of Essays From the 2019 International Conference Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of Master Sheng Yen’s Passing,” November 2020, (Taiwan: Dharma Drum Mountain, 2020), p. 90. 28 Ibid.

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They extend their analysis to systemic causes rooted in “the ways we have organized ourselves socially, politically and economically.”29 To change this condition, therefore, lies with “a global ethics that can guide people to act responsibly, righteously, justly, virtuously, mindfully, and compassionately.”30 To that end, they turn to the Buddhadharma. The core argument here is that the model for change originates with personal practice and education with an assumption that once the practice reaches a critical mass among the overall population, societal changes will naturally follow. Focusing on such conduct is consistent with Buddhist philosophy and practice, though the attention is largely on building skillful means or livelihoods for individuals. It is fair to say that if a critical mass of the population were to practice the ethics taught in Buddhism or any spiritual tradition for that matter, the population and the planet would both be in much healthier shape than they are now. But notably absent in this work is an emphasis on making change at the institutional level. As I argue here and in my other work, societies will never get to the other side of global social, economic, and environmental crises we face unless we address these crises at the institutional level as well as the emphasis on personal practice. Engaged Buddhism must broaden its scope beyond individualism and address specific crises that are sourced from socially constructed human behavior patterns embedded in social structures and institutions. Mindfulness is an awareness of things as they truly are without judgment. This clarity of perception applies to seeing not only our own behavior, but to an awareness of the social forces around us as well. This awareness is crucial particularly in economics. We will never be able to understand how economies function if we do not understand the institutions that comprise them and how they influence our daily lives. Doing the outer work of rebuilding our economic institutions that lead toward systemic change is a long-term, evolutionary process. This may seem daunting, but it is no less daunting than doing the self-work of liberating something as complex and mysterious as our own minds. In this regard, there exists a substantial body of work within the engaged Buddhist movement that does focus on crises that are generated from social structures and institutions. This work addresses the current

29 Ibid., p. 242. 30 Ibid., pp. 242–243.

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environmental, health, and political crises facing humanity and emphasizes the need for social transformations as well individual practice for liberation.31 There is much less, however, on specific economic aspects. The goal here, therefore, is to make a contribution to this body of work and extend a holistic and transformative framework for viewing economics specifically. Economies are evolving systems comprised of specific institutions—financial, corporate, market, media, state—that are integrated into vast ecologies of institutions which dominate the global economy. These institutions exert a powerful force that defines the form and substance of most producer and consumer behavior, and often does so in ways that cause damage socially and environmentally. As such, what would constitute socially engaged Buddhist economics extends beyond economic individualism into a holistic framework that is grounded in modern social philosophy and supported by modern economics that reflect Buddhist values and teachings. As we seek alternatives that will help us cope with problems of recurring financial system instability, we have to survey these problems within the broader context of broader whole of the economic system. But at the center of that system is the large, publicly traded corporation. In the next chapter, we’ll explore in more detail how the corporate institution has evolved to become such a formidable economic, political, and cultural force in the world.

References Bhikku Bodhi, translated by Nikaya, Samyutta, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000). Glassman, Bernard and Fields, Rick, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters, (NY: Bell Tower, 1996), and https:// greystonbakery.com/pages/about-greystongreyston.com/about-greyston.

31 See Hershock, Peter, Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence, (NY: Routledge, 2006); Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003); Kapleau, Philip, The Three Pillars of Zen (NY: Doubleday, 1980) and Kapleau, Philip, “Responsibility and Social Action,” in Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., (Boston: Shambala, 2000), p. 243; Loy, David, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008); and Sivaraksa, Sulak, The Wisdom of Sustainability: Buddhist Economics for the 21st Century (Kihei, Hawaii: Koa Books, 2016).

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Hunt-Perry, Patricia and Fine, Lyn, “All Buddhism Is Engaged: Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing,” in Engaged Buddhism in the West, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000). Kaza, Stephanie, “Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism,” in Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium, (Bangkok: The Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation). MacQueen, Graeme, “Engaged Nonviolence,” in Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium. Magnuson, Joel, The Approaching Great Transformation, (NY: Seven Stories Press, 2013). McConnell, John, “The Realism of Applying Damma to Situations of Conflict,” in Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium. Queen, Christopher S., “Introduction: A New Buddhism,” in Queen, Christopher S., ed., Engaged Buddhism in the West, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000). Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation, (NY: Broadway Books, 1998). Thich Thien An, Zen Philosophy Zen Practice, (Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1975).

CHAPTER 3

Greed, Hatred, and Delusion

According to the Buddhist oral tradition, among the very first things the Buddha taught his followers, some 2,600 years ago, was how greed, hatred, and delusion lie just beneath the surface of a whole spectrum of human suffering. He warned that, “All is burning… burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion.”1 Buddhists are not alone in seeing the destructiveness of these fires. All the great spiritual traditions have a set of ethical principles or precepts to guide individual behavior away from the traps of destructive emotions, and societies everywhere would much healthier if each of us were to skillfully following such ethical guidelines. But establishing the do and don’t guidelines for individual behavior is only part of the story. There is also much to be said about how our social institutions and cultures play a potent role in how we act in the world. Social forces can push individuals to behave in ways that are in the opposite direction of ethical or healthful living. For evidence of this look no further than Wall Street. Social institutions are powerful forces in every society. They shape our values, worldviews, and ideologies. They influence how we consume and produce things, how we think about value, and how we use our time 1 Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 38.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_3

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and energy. For this reason, Buddhist economics needs to have a vision for progressive social change alongside providing guidelines for individual behavior. It needs to extend and reflect on the behavior patterns of individual producers, investors, and consumers within the purview that such patterns are heavily if not entirely structured by corporate, financial, and government institutions. What we will address here is how institutions have been restructured by large and powerful corporations and the wealthy elite as their power and influence has grown since the mid-twentieth century, which has resulted in neoliberal economic policies. Also, we examine how that these institutions fan the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion around the world with emphasis on conquering markets, celebrating greed and cunning, and fostering a cult of consumerism. The power of corporate media and advertising to propagandize a certain obsessive–compulsive lifestyle is obvious to anyone who cares to take a critical look. But most of us choose not to think about it. There is comfort in surrendering to a kind of sleepy acceptance of corporate influence and not bother with seeking truth outside of what we are told. This acquiescence stems in part from the fact that corporate society has created its own systems for modulating social behavior. Engaged Buddhist Sulak Sivaraksa reflects on this, “We have to see the relationships between social structures, self-surveillance, and self-censorship. To enforce social constructions, institutions intimidate us… The media—almost all are forprofit corporations—are expert in legitimizing the actions of those in power.”2 David Loy also draws the conclusion that, “…the problem is not only that the three poisons [three fires] operate collectively but that they have taken a life of their own.”3 The social construction of greed, as well as hatred and delusion, is itself a powerful force and needs to be addressed by any serious socially engaged Buddhist movements. Before we get to that, however, the starting place for Buddhism is always with the mind. Zen teacher Philip Kapleau teaches us that the process of changing society always begins with work on the self, but remaining mindfully present with affecting social change, “To help people without hurting them at the same

2 Sivaraksa, Sulak, The Wisdom of Sustainability: Buddhist Economics for the 21st Century (Kihei, Hawaii: Koa Books, 2016), p. 15. 3 Loy, David, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008), p. 89.

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time, or hurting yourself, means that we must first work on ourselves.”4 In this Buddhist view, the mind is something that needs training. Training the mind in this sense is not just about education though that is a part of the practice. Buddhists make no distinction between the conscious mind and the spiritual essence of ones being, which ultimately is pure emptiness. Training the mind in a Buddhist practice therefore is a process of dissolving the figments, structures, obsessions, and other things that crowd into this empty space and give rise to vexations and a troubled consciousness. A troubled consciousness leads to troubled motivations, intentions, and eventually troubling behavior. Without such training— mindfulness training specifically—the mind is vulnerable to be crowded with daily habits of thinking that can be destructive.

Destructive Mental States In a society where people’s minds are captured by craving or obsessive acquisitiveness, it is as if we all have an internal voice in our heads that is continuously compelling us gain more, consume more, make more. This opens the starting gates in a race to accumulate more and more in a process that has no end or finish line. With each lap there builds a deepening sense of dissatisfaction, which crowds out a mind condition of authentic wellbeing. As Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, “you probably have a notion that there’s some as yet unrealized condition that has to be attained before you can be happy… a promotion or income level. But that notion may be the very thing that prevents you from being happy.” For Nhat Hanh, the first step to be taken toward liberating ourselves from this is to begin fostering mindful awareness, “To release that notion and make space for true happiness to manifest, you first have to experience the truth that entertaining your current ideas is making you suffer.”5 Craving makes one see things in a way that they are not. One’s perception of reality becomes warped, which then ties greed with delusion, which combined with aggression leads to a heightened feeling of anxiety.

4 Philip Kapleau, “Responsibility and Social Action,” in Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, (Boston: Shambala, 2000), p. 243. 5 Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise (NY: Harper Collins, 2015), p. 71.

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Language rarely captures an essence with precision, and it is helpful to see these as generic categories for a multitude of destructive mind conditions summarized in the figure below. We refer to these mind conditions as destructive for the simple reason that they cause harm to ourselves and others. Seen in a broader context, these conditions can fester, spread, and ultimately lead to ill-fated results at the societal level, yet somehow being accepted as normal in corporate, consumerist culture. Strangely, when pathology is writ large at the societal level and has become socialized, it has a tendency to be treated as normal. Pyromania is classified as an impulse control disorder. It is a type of psychopathy in which the afflicted have an inability to control their impulse to set things on fire. The act of starting fires provides a sense of relief, instant gratification, or euphoria to which the person becomes addicted. But when we look at our economic activity that underlies anthropogenic global warming, the results are the same and even more severe wildfires. As this activity is shared and habituated through our economic institutions, it becomes difficult for many to care as they seem beyond individual control (Fig. 3.1).

Fig. 3.1 Greed, hatred, and delusion

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Be that as it may, what is key here for Buddhist economics is to trace these destructive mental states to their fundamental origin of selfattachment. Self-attachment is a deeply ingrained grasping to an entity that has taken form as ego. When we are self-attached, the ego-self is believed to be an unchanging noumenon in the Kantian sense that it exists independently of sense, perception, or experience. The ego-self forms a delusion that its own existence is permanent, and this is the paramount delusion in the Buddhist view of things. In Buddhism, the existence of the ego-self is a mental figment and our belief that it exists is a powerful delusion. It is a construction to we attach names but cannot be found in either body or consciousness. The figment originates at the point of contact between the conscious mind and the surrounding world. It is an emergent entity that is created uniquely in this place but has no substance or tangible existence. It cannot be located in space or time, nor can it be perceived by any of our senses. Rather, it is an illusory construct reified through an underlying interface between physical and cognitive processes. In the Buddhist view, the physical body and the consciousness that give shape and form to the illusion are themselves ultimately formless and empty. The body is a swarm of molecules and atoms that come and go in the otherwise completely empty space–time dimensions. The chatter stream of conscious mind activity is either something that was thought and passed or something that has not yet become manifest. The space between that which has passed and that which is not yet manifest can be reduced to infinitesimally smaller and smaller dimensions until it vanishes completely. In other words, it is nothing. Self-attachment is forged out of a cauldron of fear of this nothingness, which is felt existentially as death. Consequently, the ego-self is a construct created out of a cauldron of fear, sometimes monumentally so. There is a powerful tendency for us to create the ego-self as an abstraction and then become attached to it as if life depends on it. The ego-self suffers from an existential vulnerability as if it is under constant threat and needs to be protected and pampered. As such we from a white-knuckled attachment, and this ego-self attachment is the taproot from which greed, hatred, and delusion are subsidiaries. As we become self-attached in this way, we are grasping on to a figment of our imagination like identifying with a character in a movie. A deep sense of dissatisfaction and frustration looms as we try to constantly affirm a fabricated self. It is like trying to fill a void that cannot be filled yet

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feeling eternally frustrated because the more we try to fill the imagined hole, the more we realize the futility of trying to fill an endless chasm. Paradoxically as we try to feel more alive, we go out of our way to mask who we really are. We cling and grasp on to impermanent, illusory things, feelings, and sensations that we believe will affirm our ego. This can only serve to make us feel even more vulnerable and thus strengthening a resolve to reject anything that seems to pose a threat. All of this begins to take on a life of its own and a sense of vulnerability builds; we cling, grasp, and covet out of worry that if we stop, everything will fall to pieces. It is almost as if the clinging itself is what makes us feel alive. On this Ken Jones, a pioneer in Western engaged Buddhism, notes that, “Liberation from our sense of lack is impossible as long as we evade accepting it’s ultimately ego-created nature and instead go on trying to fill the imagined hole by top-loading our lives and the world with ego-affirming behavior that is needless, ineffective, and destructive.”6 In the Buddhist view, this attachment to the fabricated ego-self is the most fundamental afflictions in the human psyche as it leads to a painful, unsatisfactory, even pathological state of existence. Suffering arises from an inability to experience a broader sense of pure goodness and cling to things that only serve immediate ego-gratification. In this way, we slide into a vicious circle of pathology and deeper into a state of delusion formed with a desire to possess or acquire things that we believe will shelter us from the abyss of nothingness. The emptier we feel, the more we wrap ourselves with inauthentic accoutrements of materialism and consumerism until we become mummified. The result from chronic dissatisfaction is an ersatz life that, given societal norms of corporate and consumerist standards, appears to be thriving. Coveting and grasping naturally leads to aggression as we start getting in each other’s way. In time, we create the disagreeable social conditions that are passed on as karma from one generation to the next. And because we normalize these conditions collectively, there is a general condition that is often depicted in Buddhist literature as the “Realm of Hungry Ghosts.” In some interpretations, the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a mythological place where people languish in a kind of hellish world of discontent. In this realm, each is trapped in a state of escalating cravings that will never be satisfied. Here people are captured by their compulsions to chase

6 Jones, The New Social Face of Buddhism, p. 32.

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after what seems to be an illusory “good life,” only to experience these fleeting moments of joy that are soon overshadowed by the heavy feelings that things are never good enough. Physician and author, Gabor Maté, refers to this realm as the domain of addiction, “where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment.”7 Maté sees contemporary Western culture, particularly in the United States, as awash with addictions: to drugs, alcohol, food, cell phones, computers, sex, and not least of which to consuming, shopping, gambling, and of course money. Jungian psychologist and financial analyst, Deborah Gregory, looks at these questions from the view of modern psychology and draws the conclusion that they are partially driven by the cultural fascination with money. She writes, “…when examined on the unconscious level from a psychoanalytic perspective… [greed] is being driven by an inner need to accumulate money… the compulsion to amass wealth is akin to an empty hole that will need continual filling.” Compulsions lead to craving and hoarding and chronic dissatisfaction, which leads to jealousy, prejudiced hostility toward others, and aggression. The more people are motived by the three fires, the more they feel they must manipulate their surroundings to get what they want. Manipulative behavior inevitably leads to feelings of alienation as each begins to see how they are being manipulated by others. Society becomes awash in mutual distrust and anxiety.8 The anxiety in part stems from a condition of living conceptualized a free market survival of the fittest. This is a Spencerian competitive struggle to survive in which each individual is pitted against all other individuals in combative market environment in which survival is never assured. In a commodity-producing system, such suffering is said to be ameliorated by consumer spending and gratification in consumption. The more the anxiety, the more there is a need to improve the consumers’ material standard of living, which ironically leads to competitive acquisition and more anxiety. Producers are also driven to exhaustion with acquisitive and combative market competition. Capitalism has always been characterized as a system of competitors struggling against one another in a gladiatorial combat

7 Mate, Gabor, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts : Close Encounters with Addiction (Berkely, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2008), pp. 1–3. 8 Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma, p. 63.

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for market share and profits. In this endless struggle, the power of any given capitalist depends on the amount of capital he or she controls. If one acquires more capital, then they will grow in size, have technical advantages, and build their economic strength with the advantages gained as such making them ore fiercely more competitive and will eventually drive others out of the market. In the Spencerian struggle for survival of the fittest, aggression thus abounds along with heightened anxiety about facing market extinction. Everywhere in the capitalist system are frantic efforts of capitalists to make more profits and to convert these profits into more capital in an attempt to secure a safety niche in a hostile environment. Thus, acquisitiveness and combativeness and market aggression fall into the clusters of kinship of greed and hatred. Recent studies in psychological pathology indicates that societies everywhere are moving in the direction of permitting, reinforcing, and actually valuing some of the traits listed in the “psychopathy checklist,” including traits such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, and lack of remorse.9 The pathology arising from greed and hatred is evident not just in the harm we do, but also from our distorted perception of reality; delusion. Delusion causes harm, too, but in more subtle ways. A destructive emotion can be seen as an obscuring phenomenon such that it prevents the mind form ascertaining reality as it is. Without training, the mind is susceptible to self-attachment that is the sinkhole into which we can fall into harmful obsessive compulsive behavior. Greed, hatred, and delusion are destructive emotions stemming from self-attachment, but they also exist alongside a multitude of other emotions including compassion, trust, and a desire to make life joyful. These emotions are all potentialities. None of us is impervious from being captured by destructive emotions and none of is without the potential for living with healthy emotions. On this Thich Nhat Hanh provides an important metaphor. He sees the potential to be overtaken by greed is like a seed lying dormant in a garden bed along with seeds of hatred, aggression, or despair. When the seeds get watered through experience, they become mental narratives that eventually drive behavior. Nhat Hanh writes, “Store consciousness is like the land, the ground, with man seeds preserved in it. In our store consciousness there are seeds of joy… also seeds of anger, hate, despair… One of the functions of the store 9 Hare, R.D., Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, (NY: Pocket Books, 1993), p. 177.

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consciousness is to maintain these seeds… When a seed is watered in our store consciousness, it manifests as an energy in our mind consciousness and becomes a mental formation.”10 These seeds are sown by our own experience as well as the experiences of our families, our societies, and histories and are drivers of behavior. The human potential for greedinspired behavior is thus like a seed in our store consciousness waiting to sprout along with a multitude among many other seeds. This is a profound understanding as it points to the importance of social context. In other words, social context and institutional priorities determine which seeds receive the water and nutrients they need to thrive while others remain dormant. In socially engaged Buddhism, we have to look both inwardly and deeply into ourselves as well as outwardly to the conditions of our surroundings. This is the inner and outer work. Collin Ash, a scholar from The University of Reading, compiled data that showing how people suffer from a kind of mistaken identity developed in a consumeristic and materialistic cultures.11 That is, our economic system creates mental impairment as we obsess about things and mistake those things for ourselves. The money and cars and things we covet become our self-identity such that our normal life experiences become warped and distorted. The afflicted develop neurotic habits of mind that are similar to gambling addiction or to the way that addicts believe that drugs or alcohol will bring them more wellbeing. The end result according to Ash is, “a permanent state of unfulfilled desire, manifesting in the economic sphere as a mood of restless dissatisfaction about what we have got and who we are so that we therefore pursue income, consumer goods, and status at the expense of more valuable relationships… [and commit] the ultimate cognitive error with self-deception of defining our identity by what we earn and consume.”12 Deborah Gregory emphasizes that, “The national culture of the United States,” which has so much emphasis on hustling for money, “has supported the rise and continued existence of Wall Street and its affiliates over centuries.”13 Accordingly, we have to be continuously and mindfully examining our motivations as 10 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (NY: Harper One, 2007), pp. 17–18. 11 Ash, Collin, “Do Our Economic Choices Make Us Happy?” in Zsolnai, Laszlo,

ed., Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation—A Buddhist Approach, (London, Springer, 2011), p. 116. 12 Ibid., pp. 119–120. 13 Gregory, Deborah Unmasking Financial Psychopaths, p. 31.

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well as our social arrangements and make clear the distinction between the motivations that stem from greed and those that stem from in impulse for creative self-development, of which healthy entrepreneurship and business enterprise building can be a part. There is much suffering that originates from the troubled conditions wrapped up in our individual sense of self, the ego, and from the same defiled conditions embodied in our social structures. These conditions are continuously accentuated through corporate institutions that seem to thrive in such an environment. Zen teacher, Philip Kapleau, writes about the widespread suffering that is created in corporate capitalism, “Capitalist industrial society has created conditions of extreme impermanence, terrifying insubstantiality, and a struggling dissatisfaction and frustration. It would be difficult to imagine any social order for which Buddhism was more relevant and needed.”14 All members of an economic community must be continuously and mindfully examining our motivations as well as our social arrangements and make clear the distinction between the motivations that stem from greed and those that stem from in impulse for creative self-development, of which healthy economic activity can be a part. For the inner work, we can see this as the existential origins of greed of self-attachment, though the word greed carries judgmental connotations. The intention here is not to indict humanity for such afflictions, but rather to understand their social origins and to map out a program for change. For the outer work, we must take a step back and see that greed extends beyond the individual and is part of the cultural fabric of capitalist society. The realm of hungry ghosts is just that: a realm. The existence of suffering is connected to the fearful ego as well as societal conditioning. Thus, to find the root causes of our pathological system conditions, we must look both inwardly and deeply into ourselves as well as outwardly to the conditions of our surroundings. There is much suffering that originates from the troubled conditions wrapped up in our individual sense of self, the ego, and just the same from the defiled conditions embodied in our social structures, our institutions.

14 Kapleau, “Responsibility and Social Action,” p. 244.

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The Institutionalization of Greed When we talk of greed being a pathological mental state, we are careful to gently direct the meaning without judgment toward a condition that is within us all as a potentiality. It is not helpful to contend that there are good people who are not greedy and bad people who are; rather, we all collectively share the same store consciousness and the same tendencies and potentialities. Again, we emphasize the importance of social context. It is not a coincidence that the greed is accepted as a positive force in societies that are dominated by corporate capitalism. The rise of capitalistic institutions and the shrugged-shoulder acceptance of greed are one—an economic force cloaked in ideological apparel. The challenge here is to give a more rigorous, nonjudgmental explanation as to how can it be that greed, hatred, and delusion have become so deeply entrenched as widespread destructive, toxic, pathological states of mind. Part of the explanation lies with individual predilections, but perhaps a larger part is the habits sown into the collective psyche or habits of mind. They are destructive in the sense that they cause harm. They cause harm to oneself and to others as well as the environment. To strive for a nonjudgmental view of behavior is to see certain actions as inherently neutral; they are just actions like wind. It is the consequences of the actions that determine the karmic nature of what we do—healthy or pathological. This is something that is fairly easy to see on an individual level. Imagine that someone goes into a parched forest where the ground is covered with dry branches like kindling. The person dowses the area with gasoline then lights a match to set it ablaze. This is quite obviously a destructive action. Perhaps they thought a forest fire would be amusing to watch or was craving the smell of smoke. But the act of lighting a match is not inherently destructive, for it could be done to light incense or to a light a gas stove for cooking. Nor is dousing something with gasoline inherently destructive as it could be done carefully to start a campfire or as a cleaning solvent. The problem arises from socially constructed values and intentions that underly the action. This compels us, in a karmic sense, to examine not only the actions we take but also our socially constructed values, the things we hold to be true, and our intentions that stem from those beliefs and values. Again, context is key. The task for engaged Buddhism is to identify such pathology as a system condition and treat it as such with system change. This is a steep challenge. An individual can address their behavioral problems and

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undergo treatment to get well, but when the problems become accepted norms in society they are no longer seen as problems and are largely ignore as such. As we take up this challenge, we will explore the historicalkarmic process that led to the normalization and institutionalization of greed in particular.

The Commercial Revolution, Religion, and the Sanctification of Greed The view of greed, an obsessive craving for accumulation, has been subject to multiple revisions over the last few centuries. The revisions stem from changes in economic institutions and the priorities and purposes of those institutions. Over the centuries of Western capitalist development, it was eventually settled in economic orthodoxy that greed is both an innate part of human nature and necessary for economic progress. In contemporary economics discourse, to openly pathologize greed as a destructive force in the world is likely to be met with a cynical backlash and accusations of self-righteous moralizing. Even so, it required a long period of struggle to reach this point at which criticism of obsessive–compulsive yearning for endless financial and material gain to be largely purged from debate. The sanctification of greed emerged simultaneously with the rise and consolidation of capitalism, particularly by the early modern period in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Western Europe. This period was a watershed of economic development. The commercialization of land replaced feudal land tenure systems. New models of finance and business organization outpaced traditional land-based means of capital formation. The commercial and financial centers in Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, and elsewhere were rapidly developing new economic institutions that were directed at creating the markets and financial instruments needed to facilitate the long distance, multilateral trade network for commodities such as timber, spices, cloth, silver, and gold. The Commercial Revolution in the early modern period gave rise to the most powerful economic institution in existence—the corporation. The earliest incarnation of a corporation as an institution emerged during the early modern period as an adjunct to the power of monarchs. As they set out to build modernized and militaristic countries. Queen Elizabeth of England and other monarchs aspired to expand their power by undertaking large overseas ventures to acquire land, cheap labor, and raw

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materials, and to seize profitable trading opportunities. The earliest jointstock ventures were high-risk overseas voyages of discovery, plunder, and trade that required considerable capital investment in ships, shipbuilding, and cargo. To meet this demand for capital, they enlisted the help of merchants and bankers who were experienced in creating new methods of finance. These were private enterprises, but the charters were controlled by the sovereigns with the objective of using these companies to amass financial wealth. Money was increasingly coveted as something that could easily be translated into weapons, mercenaries, and power. Arguably the most salient characteristic of a corporation is its ability to aggregate large amounts of capital. Corporations pull together gather and centralize capital by selling shares to a broad section of the population, which included virtually anyone with some money and the willingness to take a risk. When a king or queen or business tycoon imagined of doing something on a fantastic scale such as conquering an entire subcontinent or building a transcontinental railroad, there was always the question of how to finance such an undertaking—how to raise enough capital to do something on a vast scale. Forming corporations that can pull together unlimited amounts capital from widely dispersed sources was the most expedient answer. Though it may seem mundane now, this institutional development was a profound development in the history of capitalism. Labor historian Harry Braverman tells us, “The scale of capitalist enterprise, prior to the development of the modern corporation, was limited by both the availability of capital and the management capacities of the capitalist or group of partners…. Huge aggregates of capital may be assembled that far transcend the sum of the wealth of those immediately associate with the enterprise.”15 Through the process of capital aggregation, the corporate whole emerged to become greater than the sum of its parts and an institutional entity was born. Capitalism as a system carried on with wealth accumulation as usual, but now it was enhanced with the added capacity to assemble and use the capital from a multitude of investors, and to harness the ability to undertake tasks that were of a scale far beyond the financial reach of any individual entrepreneur. Another characteristic that became a distinguishing mark of a corporation as an institution is the limited liability status of shareholders. Limited 15 Braverman, Harry, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1974) pp. 257–258.

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liability extends from the legal separation of the corporation as separate entity from its shareholders as well as managers. As a legal entity, it protects those who supply capital by limiting their liability to the amount of their original investment. Unlike individual proprietors or partners stockholders are not responsible to creditors to repay debts of the corporation in which they invest, nor are they typically accountable for other legal liabilities of the companies. In the most practical sense, the only liability for corporate shareholders is the dollar amount of their original investments they stand to lose if the company fails. On the earnings side, however, there are no limits. The shared profits and equity growth distributed to stockholders are virtually boundless. This asymmetry between unlimited earnings potential and limited liability proved to be a winning combination and a lure to draw out investors. As money poured from absentee owners eager to make fortunes, the corporation became a supreme capital raising machine, became an economic force to be reckoned with, and as its power grew proportionally with its size, it eventually tore itself away from the institution of the state that was originally its sponsor. Greed, the fascination with easy money and absentee ownership, and the unlimited potential for wealth accumulation all are embodied in the corporation as an economic institution. Greed is institutionalized. To aggregate capital into the corporation, market institutions needed to be developed. In tandem with the rise of the corporation, securities exchanges, commodities markets, and trading systems sprang up in first in cities throughout Europe, then everywhere. Stocks and bonds became the premier instruments of large-scale finance. As the corporation rose to commanding heights, it stands to reason that these instruments that were created and traded in its sphere would also increase in trading volume. Greed-inspired speculative manias—widespread and irrational trading in securities markets—broke out like epidemics. A speculator pulls out cash to buy a security such as a stock or bond, watch the value of the security grow, then sell it for a profit without having to exert labor or actually create something of value. With the expanded wealth, the speculator could perform the same transaction again and again. By so doing, one could amass a fortune, and with the right luck perhaps do so over a very short period. A fascination with “easy money” takes hold in the popular imagination as people got word that fortunes were to be made betting on the markets. The more drawn to get-rich-schemes in speculative markets, the larger and more widespread became the crisis that followed. The scope

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of institutionalized greed spread beyond the corporation to the broader structure of finance. Speculation, of course, comes with risk. Speculators could just as easily watch their investments collapse and they could watch them expand. If these markets are left uncontrolled or unregulated, they tend to undulate though boom and bust patterns of instability. Prices can move up or down as market conditions change—sometimes overnight and sometimes by the minute. Capital was drawn together and centralized, and risk was spread outward and decentralized. The result of widespread greed and risk are system conditions, and these conditions are the basis for endemic instability. Securities markets are particularly vulnerable to such instability as they are designed to be liquid or easily converted to cash. As such they are subject to constantly changing conditions and uncertainty and speculators move their cash in and out often on a whim or rumors. Speculative booms are inevitably followed by busts, leaving behind a wide patch of financial ruin. Joint-stock companies—the early prototype of the modern corporation—facilitated the aggregation of capital so that business ventures could be conducted on a much larger scale. These ventures were financed through merchant banks and newly formed stock market exchanges. International clearing-house operations were developed so that bills of exchange, contracts, basic commodities, and cash from every nation in the trade network could be swapped and thus maintaining a constant stream of commodity-cash liquidity. Such development created a demand for a new professional class of finance specialists and lawyers was required along with merchants, accountants, and bankers who had the technical expertise to set the rules of operations. The ascent of capitalism also gave rise to the institution of the market system. Although markets for finished products have always existed in precapitalist times, what was new in the early modern period was the transformation of resources and capital into marketable commodities for trade. All basic resources off the land, human labor, and physical capital were transformed into commodities so that they could be acquired with this new flow of finance capital. Once acquired, they were put to work in the newly emerging industrial system that churned out finished products in ever larger quantities and sold for money and profit. Profits get plowed back into the commodity producing system to make more profits, and so the capitalist arrangement of accumulation goes.

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For this arrangement to work, and to successfully expand everywhere as it did, it demanded a critical mass of entrepreneurs, financiers, shop owners, etc. to unleash self-seeking, acquisitive dispositions. Maximizing profits does not work well for a population that is reticent to unleash egoistic motives. The reticent were quickly driven to the margins by those who openly embraced greed as their primary motivation. Greed not only became part of the institutional fabric of capitalism; it became a necessary element for its existence as a system driven, single-mindedly, for profit accumulation. These developments created enormous pressure to upend economic ideology to conform to the dictates of capitalism that rapidly emerged as the dominant economic system. Up to the early modern period and the late Renaissance, economic ideology was bound to Church doctrine. More specifically, it was bound to the conservative authority of the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic Church and their preeminent spokesman, Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was by most accounts the most important and influential philosopher of the Middle Ages. His work assimilated Platonism, Roman Law, Stoicism, and most importantly, Aristotle into Roman Catholicism. Observing that society was in the very early stages of change toward a money-based economic system, Aquinas and other scholars of the church felt compelled to develop a philosophy that would provide a moral foundation for economic activity and at the same time preserve the traditions of medieval Europe. To achieve this, Aquinas synthesized Aristotle’s “naturalism” with Roman Catholic doctrine. This work was compiled into the Summa Theologica in the late thirteenth century.16 Summa Theologica covered a comprehensive range of topics on Christian faith, the existence of God, Kingship and governance, happiness, law, and economics. Most prominent on the latter is his treatment of what he called fraud and the sin of usury. On the issue of fraud, which for Aquinas was charging a price for a good in the marketplace that reflects excess profits, he cites Aristotelian naturalism, “As Aristotle says there are two kinds of business exchanges. One is natural and necessary. It consists in the exchange of one commodity for another, or of a commodity for the money to buy what is

16 Sigmund, Paul E., ed., St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics, (NY: W.W. Norton, 1988), p. 30.

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needed for life.”17 Aquinas held this kind of exchange to be praiseworthy because it serves to provide for natural requirements of life. Aquinas goes on, “The other kind of exchange of money for money, or money for goods, is not concerned with the needs of life but with making money, and this is the exchange in which tradesmen engage.”18 This type of business exchange, according to Aquinas, is to be condemned since in itself it is motivated by greed for money which has no limited but tends to increase to infinity. On profit in trade, he emphasizes that it “does not in itself involve something honorable or necessary,” but can be made licit if one used it to “maintain his household or to support the poor… or for the public welfare to provide his country with the necessities of life.”19 Profit-making with the goal of accumulation was therefore seen as unnatural and amounts to the sin of fraud. On lending money with interest, Aquinas was equally strict and referred to it as the Sin of Usury. He explains, “To receive interest (usury) for lending money is unjust in itself for something is sold that does not exist, and this obviously results in an inequality which is contrary to justice.”20 In this way, Aquinas is making a case that interest-bearing loans constitute an attempt to financialize time, which belongs to no one but God. He also, again, saw it as a practice that is contrary to Aristotle, “according to the Philosopher, money was devised to facilitate exchange, so that the proper and principal use of money is it use or expenditure when exchanges are carried out. Therefore, it is wrong in itself to receive a payment for the use of a loan of money.”21 These strictures remained orthodox up to the early modern period. Economic interests were still being held accountable to the supreme business of life, which is salvation, and that economic behavior is only one of many aspects of personal conduct upon which the rules of Christian morality are binding. The church scholars continued to condemn the practice of economic activity being carried out wholly for purposes of financial gain. Society overall was envisioned to be a single spiritual

17 Ibid., p. 73. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 74. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid.

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organism and economic appetites needed to be controlled and tempered out of concern for the health of the whole being. Their warnings proliferated against allowing economic interests to dominate the whole of society, and these warnings included forceful condemnations of price exploitation and usury. They recognized the importance of trade for the economic development of the nation but also emphasized that commerce had to demonstrate some measure of public benefit. Profits taken from trade should not be in excess of what would otherwise be equal to wages from labor. Private property is a necessary institution but only if legitimately acquired through proper industriousness, and ownership must be as widely distributed among the largest segment of the population as possible. Nonetheless, the juggernaut that was capitalism was not going to be slowed down. Eventually the strands connecting individual consumers and producers to a higher order of spirituality were dissolving. In their place was economic individualism and in the spirit of liberty and modernity, and spirituality was pushed aside to make room for very different institutions with different ideologies and different priorities. A chasm began to open separating attitudes regarding economic conduct and moral philosophy. It was becoming quite evident to Christian scholars that the accumulation of financial wealth translated expediently into political power. On the one hand, they saw that to repress economic appetites for gain runs the risk of slipping into backwardness and relative political weakness. Yet on the other hand to unleash avarice into the world raised concerns about the health of nation’s soul. As the pressures for ideological change mounted, the church was settling on the realization that the compulsions for endless accumulation of wealth took on a life of its own and could no longer be brought under control by moral reasoning. The church began to yield as the floodgates of an economic revolution were fully opened. As it yielded, so did its position on strictures for controlling economic behavior. And as the material realities of capitalism became seemingly immutable, the church was compelled to revise its economic ideology. Most capitalists during this period felt constrained by Christian ethics and state controls and were eager to embrace a different ideology that naturalized and even celebrated the drive to accumulate wealth for wealth’s sake. This drive found rationalization as the Reformation movement consolidated in places where capitalism was becoming dominant.

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The basic tenet of Protestantism, which laid the groundwork for religious attitudes that were to sanction middle-class business practices, carried a new doctrine that people were justified by faith rather than by works. It is something of a myth to say that capitalism was allowed to flourish as a result of the Protestant Reformation as Max Weber and others have argued. Rather, the Reformation had, among other things, turned away from Aquinas as a move to survive and avoid being steamrolled into oblivion by the unstoppable momentum of capitalist revolutions. New generations of church scholars became pioneers of a liberal intellectual movement. On this, economic historian Richard writes, “By lifting the weight of antiquated formulae, they cleared a space within the stiff framework of religious authority for new and mobile economic interests, and thus supplied an intellectual justification for developments which earlier generations would have condemned.”22 Another economic historian William Letwin adds, “After 1660, what the divines had to say about money was hardly mentioned even in passing, and the church took to saying little at all about economic questions of any sort.”23 Secular writers began to assert that selfish, egoistic motives were the primary if not the only ones that moved individuals to action and thus necessary for progress. Economics was eventually uprooted from Christian moral strictures and became nestled into a mechanistic framework of moral neutrality. From the seventeenth century on, addressing economic issues was a task that was being pulled outside the province of religion and found a home in the mathematics developed in the mechanistic paradigm developed by Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton. Tawney summarizes the essence of this change, “Influenced in its method by the contemporary progress of mathematics and physics, it handles economic phenomena, not as a casuist, concerned to distinguish right from wrong, but as a scientist, apply a new calculus to impersonal economic forces.”24 In the same way that planetary motion or the operation of a lever are governed by physical laws of motion and gravity, economic processes came to be portrayed in terms of a multitude of self-contained units

22 Tawney, Richard H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism [1926] (NY: Transaction Publishers, 2006), p. 31. 23 Letwin, William, The Origins of Scientific Economics (NY: Anchor Books, 1965), p. 86. 24 Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, p. 17.

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acting completely untethered to anything but self-interest. With a mechanistic frame of reference, the implication was that there was no reason to think of economic processes as embedded within the body of a Christian community guided by moral strictures of the church. Human economic behavior shifted from being part of a religious and organic worldview to part of a vast apparatus that self-regulates through equilibrating forces in open markets. In this new economic vision, there is no longer a place for moral strictures any more than there would be or the forces of gravity or planetary motion. The cleverness of this new paradigm is astounding. By rendering economic activity as a mechanical process, traditional Christian ethics are purged making them seem as absurdly animistic as arguing that planetary motion is governed by ethics. Capitalist ideology idealized a view that economies are empty spaces that are filled, not by social structures, but with individuals who maximize financial self-interest through free acquisitive action in open markets. To work toward this ideal, it is necessary to marginalize all other institutions that would be seen as interferences such as organized labor, government regulatory agencies, and of course religion. Economics came to be a discipline that is entirely about justifying a market system that is governed by natural laws that are immutable through time and entirely independent of social institutions. As we will see in the next chapter, this paradigm led to social atomism and the mechanistic view of human sociality, which provide free passage for greed-centered economics by normalizing the notion that social structures do not even exist. And if social structures do not exist, then there is no such thing as social responsibility. Here then was a perfect storm. All the institutional developments that eventually created the capitalist system coincided with technological developments that brought about the industrial revolution, and these coincided with religious and ideological transformations. Perhaps the most important development of all was that the large, publicly traded, profit maximizing corporation was unchained and allowed to embark on at least two centuries of unfettered growth. By the late nineteenth century, the corporation became the dominant economic institution, particularly in the United States where it was given an open field to assert its dominance. As it took monopoly control of virtually all the basic industries, the corporation consolidated the project of ongoing, limitless accumulation of monetary wealth for its own sake and nothing more.

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The Corporation and the Institutionalization of Greed Nearly a century ago, legendary economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen looked to the future and was troubled. In one of his very last pieces of writing he outlined what he called “The Secular Trend.”25 He examined past trends, present conditions, and extrapolated to the future of economic society in America that is certain to tear itself apart into a state of antagonism among our economic institutions. What he predicted for our future was a nation deeply divided between healthy, well-adjusted institutions and those that are maladjusted and imbecilic. On the well-adjusted side, Veblen identified habitual ways of behaving that are grounded in science, problem solving, creativity, and are useful to the human life process. They guide our work in ways that are useful to people, not because there are fortunes to be made, but because of the historically rich craft traditions in which humans are fascinated with the idea of doing things better. These stand on the side of progress, appropriately implemented technology, stability, and the provision for the general wellbeing of the population. Given this antagonistic dichotomy, the question of concern is which groups of people make the rules and establish the practices that hold an economic system intact. Veblen’s time was gilded age of great monopolies and the Robber Barons who ruled over the market system like feudal lords. He was vexed by what he observed as the creative, inventive workers and engineers who pioneered technology and progress were being marginalized and replaced by powerful corporate institutions. Veblen saw the consolidation of corporate power as no less than a raw, maladaptive, myopic pursuit of wealth accumulation and strategic control of all the major industries, “through shrewd investments and coalitions with other business men” with disregard for the legitimate and pragmatic purposes for which the industries were originally created.26 He warned that if our society allows corporate entities to become the size of Jupiter, all else will become its moons and satellites, with a gravitational bind among them that is so strong that, “the rest of the 25 Veblen, Thorstein, Absentee Ownership: Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America [1923], (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997), pp. 398–445. 26 Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of Business Enterprise [1904], (Clifton, NJ: Augustus Kelly, 1975), p. 24.

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community, the industrial system and the underlying population are at the disposal of the Interests.”27 Veblen attested to the rise of the corporation, not as a business model, but as a dominant institution. For Veblen, the Interests represent the principal shareholders and the corporate class of professionals that work at the top of the hierarchy. Paper wealth accumulation became the economic priority and was pursued at all costs. He saw the members of this class positioning themselves to take control of the economy with a patent indifference to economic stability, industrial progress, or anything else that might contribute to social wellbeing beyond financial gain. He also saw a system emerging in which the entire economy would eventually succumb to predatory impulses in which taking profits and conquering becomes more important that actual productive work or social provisioning. Veblen’s secular trend came to be a kind of structural drift in which the entire system was moving toward a system condition of maladjustment which he described as “systematic retardation and derangement.”28 Veblen presciently warned of the formidable power of Wall Street and giant corporations. In his view, the corporation is a legal-financial institution that is structured around securities trades for capitalization and commodity trades for profits and is devoid of the adaptive elements of craft and industry. It is an institution that is programmed in such a way that its stakeholders are not required to accomplish anything, or even care what the business does, except generate financial returns. Rather, the “ways and means of business, to be managed in a temperate spirit of usufruct for the continued and cumulative benefit of the major Interests and their absentee owners.”29 By usufruct Veblen means to exploit the economic system for the aggrandizement of individuals who are already wealthy and powerful. To that end, the corporate sector became “the main controlling factor in the established order of things.”30 For Veblen, these are the maladjusted institutions that exist to accumulate ostentatious fortunes, status, and conquests for a class of the wealthy and powerful “absentee owners.” Rather than contribute to progress, they smother the economy with greed, corruption, and stagnation. They

27 Veblen, Absentee Ownership, (1997), p. 399. 28 Ibid., p. 421. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., p. 4.

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do not create wealth, they own and extract it. By its own mandate, it was fashioned to be indifferent to social provisioning and is governed by the narrowest of objectives—to make money for vested owners, “The effective control of the economic situation, in business, industry, and civil life, rests on the on the control of credit. Therefore, the effectual exercise of initiative, discretion, and authority is perforce vested in those massive aggregations of absentee ownership that make the Interests.”31 He attested to an evolutionary drift toward corporate hegemony in which all other major institutions were becoming increasingly pressed under the boot of corporate power. He described the formation of an emergent system as, “One Big Union made up of partners, auxiliaries, subsidiaries, extensions and purveyors of traffic.”32 In other words, what Veblen was describing was an evolutionary trend toward corporate hegemony, which like so many other creations of capitalism, it has developed a kind of mind of its own. What was most troubling for Veblen was that he saw a future in which the corporate world would push all else aside and the entire economic system would cease to be concerned about providing for the needs of people and only about financial gain—a pathological end game. Veblen paraphrased what contemporary engaged Buddhists see now as a global problem of the institutionalization of greed, aggression, and delusion. With its emphasis on aggregating financial capital, buying and selling, taking profits wherever they can be found, the corporation rose to prominence with a singularity of purpose: to ceaselessly maximize and compound shareholder returns without limit. Financial wealth accumulation became an economic priority, and along with this came an addiction to economic growth and consumerism. David Loy has often pointed out that greed—which in this case is the boundless compulsion to accumulate financial and material wealth—is not just a human emotion; it is an institutionalized force within the capitalist world, “our economic system institutionalizes greed in at least two ways: corporations are never profitable enough and people never consume enough.”33 Engaged Buddhist from Thailand, Sulak Sivaraksa, argues that capitalism encourages greed and consumerism, and reinforces delusion with media advertising. He also points out that the message from the media is that happiness is something

31 Ibid., pp. 398–399. 32 Ibid., p. 399. 33 Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma, p. 89.

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that can be gained from consuming endless quantities of stuff. In the case of the United States, that would involve buying larger and larger cars, and larger and larger homes. Echoing these sentiments, Loy emphasizes that media companies never question the delusions spawned by their manipulative advertising, which are specifically designed to foster consumerist impulses to buy things. Thich Nhat Hanh also tells us of how corporate media is a source of mental and spiritual pollution that encourages greed, violence, and anxiety. He sees no distinction between the pollution of consciousness and the destruction of our natural environment. To genuinely understand how such a condition has come to pass, it is crucial to see this from a historical perspective as a cumulative phenomenon that has been building for centuries.34 Of the thirty million businesses operating in the U.S. economy only about five million are corporations, yet they account for between vast majority of all economic production. Within this group, a super team of the largest one percent claims more than two thirds of all corporate income in the U.S. economy. The large publicly traded corporation is unquestionably the dominant economic institution in the United States economy. Emboldened by federal government subsidies, patent protections, the effective removal of state controls of corporate charters, and the constitutional protections provided by corporate personhood, the corporation now towers over American society. The corporation continues to defy most attempts to bring it under democratic control or regulate it in the public interest. They can defy accountability to democratically elected government in large part because their large campaign donations elect the very same government officials who are supposed to enforce accountability but rather celebrate corporate capitalism at the behest of their lobbyists. As such, the corporation is able to exert enormous influence on local and national government. Thorstein Veblen observed that the state, once the progenitor and overseer of the corporation, came to be its servant, “…the chief concern of the constituted authorities in all the civilized nations [is] to safeguard the security and gainfulness of absentee ownership. This state of things is now plain to be seen, and it is therefore beginning to cloud the sentiments of the underlying population at

34 Sivaraksa, Sulak, The Wisdom of Sustainability, p. 8.

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whose cost its security and gainfulness are maintained.”35 As the corporation became the dominant institution, its agenda of endless accumulation of wealth accumulation became the raison d’etre for all economic activity. To gain a better understanding of how this came to pass, we return to history. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the corporation came into its full power. The corporate tycoons who monopolized the American economy in the nineteenth century such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan lorded over their industries like feudal barons. Their companies were near perfect embodiments of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. American capitalism, as Veblen had warned, became a value system in which materialism and wealth accumulation ascended like a druglike substitute for true wellbeing. Rewards and trophies were bestowed on those who could aggressively build corporate empires as monuments to their own egos, and to successfully wage wars of aggression against their competitors. Veblen launched a scathing critique of the predatory corporate society that America had become. He lampooned the wealthy segments of America’s population as they ostentatiously displayed their affluence by flaunting their ownership expensive consumer goods signifying the winners in the hustlers’ game. He also highlighted how the average working person on the street had been swept into the game with delusions of grandeur and would go to great lengths to emulate the wealthy. The barons of capitalism became heroic figureheads, and their legends were woven deeply into American culture, mindset, and above all its institutions. For Veblen economic institutions are simply habituated ways that humans behave in society economically or “action-patterns induced by the run of past habituation.”36 In other words, institutionalization is karmic volition. By the 1960s, a massive corporate merger wave swept across the American economic landscape. Companies trying to diversify, with mergers that created conglomerates such as General Electric, which had businesses ranging from manufacturing equipment, to television, and even financial services. Single corporate enterprises stretched across state lines and their political power and influence grew accordingly. By this time, the trend

35 Veblen, Absentee Ownership, p. 84. 36 Ibid., p. 398.

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toward industry concentration was moved by conglomerate mergers in which businesses that are more or less unrelated were consolidating.37 Institutional economists John K. Galbraith and Clarence Ayres observed all of this with keen interest. In his writings, Galbraith emphasizes that there is an inconsistency between the corporation’s idealized definition and its actual existence. The general textbookish presentation of a corporation is normative as it tends to be defined as something it should be, “an association of persons into an autonomous legal unit with a distinct legal personality that enables it to carry on business, own property and contract debts.”38 But Galbraith contrasts this with what it actually is as a market powerhouse that is, “influential in the markets in which it buys materials, components and labor and in which it sells its finished products… becomes gargantuan, expands into wholly unrelated activities, has the powers of a monopsony where it buys and of a monopoly where it sells.”39 The contrast illuminating what the corporation is said to be and what it actually is suggests that there is something abnormal or anomalous about what kind of institution it was developing into. Galbraith concludes that the economics profession largely ignores all of this discord and instead rests on the viewpoint of an economy without a society. Mills, like institutionalist economists, saw the ascent of the corporation as a developmental process that had been underway for over a century, “The story of the American economy since the Civil War is thus the story of the creation and consolidation of this corporate world of centralized property.”40 A contemporary of Galbraith and institutional economist Clarence Ayres also observed the evolutionary rise of corporate power with concern. In the intellectual tradition established by Veblen and others, Ayres held the normative position that the broadest aim of any economic system should be social provisioning—to provide for the core needs of the population. He saw that the projects of provisioning could make lasting progress with technological advancement and economic development. But he was concerned that the provisioning aspects of economic 37 Lowe, Janet, The Secret Empire: How 25 Multinationals Rule the World, (Burr Ridge, IL: Business One, Irwin, 1992), p. 65. 38 Galbraith, John K., The New Industrial State, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), p. 76. 39 Ibid. 40 Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite, (NY: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 125.

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development were being marginalized, and in its place grew what he called “ceremonialism” in corporate society. By this Ayres means that the overriding function of a corporate dominated economy drifts away from what is socially helpful in order to maintain something more symbolic: the status, wealth, and power of the elite.41 Corporate empire building and the aggrandizement of the executive class was overtaking all else. For Ayres, this was “the moral crisis of the twentieth century.”42 The ability of society to use systematic knowledge for solving problems in the “general life process” was constrained by the growing corporate structure that was functioning to serve the social, political, and economic domination of the elite—the already powerful and already wealthy.

Dharma Talk In Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, we have to be continuously and mindfully examining our motivations as well as our social arrangements and make clear the distinction between the motivations that stem from greed and those that stem from in impulse for creative self-development, of which healthy entrepreneurship and business enterprise building can be a part. The corporation is at the center of a vast network of powerful commercial, financial, government, media, and monetary institutions— a corporate hegemony. Within that hegemony, the largest Fortune 500 corporations and leviathan bank holding companies are the dominant institutions by virtue of concentration of wealth and revenue. From the holistic view, therefore, the corporation is viewed not as a business model, but as an institution. Moreover, it is not just an institution existing in isolation, but is part of a system of institutions that play a dominant role in contemporary culture. This culture is shaping the intentions, values, and motivations of a large segment of the American population, with little regard or attention being paid to whether we are contributing to our wellbeing. Captured by the allure of ever-rising wealth accumulation, people pour trillions into pension funds, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc., because of the promise that these investments are going to continuously appreciate

41 Ayres, Clarence E., Toward a Reasonable Society, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), p. 28. 42 Ibid., p. 49.

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in value and will provide for us in our retirement or pay for our children’s education. When these funds began racking up double digit returns, dreams of becoming millionaires spread, everyone wanted more. Institutional investors including pension funds with defined benefits sought higher and higher returns wherever they could find them. Bond returns were too low, and the allure of risky ventures became irresistible. A kind of institutionalized gambling addiction was created. Like all addictions, this is fraught with delusion. Parents used to say to their children that money doesn’t grow on trees implying that you have to work for it. That has changed and money now is always expected to grow at an extraordinarily fast rate in investment funds stretching out into an infinite horizon of financial wealth. This expectation is a major force for economic expansion. If the money side of the economy is expected to keep ballooning out, it follows that businesses are pushed to generate new sales and create new markets. If they succeed, then the businesses are rewarded with higher stock prices and management with hefty bonuses. The profits businesses make from their new sales provide financing for new capital, which will drive production and sales even higher. For that, though, they need to find more consumers with voracious appetites. In time, this forms into a perfect circle or positive feedback loop. We expect and demand that our financial wealth continue to accumulate, this financial growth is derived from expanding business profits, business profits are derived from expanding sales, and expanding sales are predicated on the creation of a consumer culture that idolizes the accumulation of financial wealth. Most of us will find it nearly impossible to let go of these deeply held beliefs. Even when the physical world is reeling from climate change, the defensive response is to deny the evidence. When the evidence becomes irrefutable, we are compelled to find logical loopholes or that the science is biased. Widespread cognitive dissonance obliges us cling even harder to the belief that unencumbered financial markets will always accrue and our wealth will always compound are the true one and only destiny. With the inner work of mindfulness people can unshackle themselves from all of this become empowered to do the outer work of social change. There are already many people from socially engaged Buddhist movements who are creating new models ranging from local bakeries to new global development paradigms at the United Nations with the hope of making change for the better in local communities and internationally. We will further see that there is a body of ideas that is being created

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by Buddhists and non-Buddhists that are important in this movement— scholars, economists, philosophers, and activists—who are helping us gain a deeper understanding of our problems and providing guidelines for developing new ways of thinking and acting in the economic world.

References Ash, Collin, “Do Our Economic Choices Make Us Happy?” in Zsolnai, Laszlo, ed., Ethical Principles and Economic Transformation—A Buddhist Approach, (London: Springer, 2011). Ayres, Clarence E., Toward a Reasonable Society, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961). Braverman, Harry, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1974). Galbraith, John K., The New Industrial State, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967). Gregory, Deborah, Unmasking Financial Psychopaths: Inside the Minds of Investors in the Twenty-First Century, (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Hare, R.D., Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, (NY: Pocket Books, 1993). Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003). Kapleau, Philip, “Responsibility and Social Action,” in Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, (Boston: Shambala, 2000). Letwin, William, The Origins of Scientific Economics, (NY: Anchor Books, 1965). Lowe, Janet, The Secret Empire: How 25 Multinationals Rule the World, (Burr Ridge, IL: Business One, Irwin, 1992). Loy, David, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008). Mate, Gabor, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction (Berkely, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2008). Sigmund, Paul E., ed., St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics, (NY: W.W. Norton, 1988). Sivaraksa, Sulak, The Wisdom of Sustainability: Buddhist Economics for the 21st Century (Kihei, Hawaii: Koa Books, 1992). Tawney, Richard H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism [1926], (NY: Transaction Publishers, 2006). Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power (NY: Harper One, 2007). Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise (NY: Harper Collins, 2015).

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Veblen, Thorstein, Absentee Ownership: Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America [1923], (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997). Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of Business Enterprise [1904], (Clifton, NJ: Augustus Kelly, 1975).

CHAPTER 4

Paradigm Shifts

As we saw in the last chapter, the progressive changes brought by the emergence of capitalism and the corporate system gave rise to the need for a new economic paradigm. With the collapse of the institutions of feudalism and the development of the Commercial Revolution, a new paradigm of social order that was more conducive to capitalism and the individual accumulation of wealth ascended. As the authoritarian and paternalistic view of economics of the Church scholars began to fade, economic individualism and self-interest arose to take its place, complete with an emphasis on normalizing greed as the drive of economic productivity. As the Buddha warned, greed, hatred, and delusion are pathologies that lie at the foundation of much human suffering, and with the institutional and ideological development of capitalism, these pathologies became institutionalized and normalized in modern culture. Socially engaged Buddhism thus faces the challenge of recognizing that the three fires are not only in our hearts but are writ large as destructive social phenomenon. It also faces the challenge of changing the social conditions that perpetuate these fires and their destructiveness. The order business in this chapter is to look carefully at the paradigm underlying standard economics which serves as an instrument to perpetuate greed-centered economics by ignoring society altogether with ideology masked as science.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_4

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Modern capitalist economics is based in part on the notion that there are no such things as social structures, only individual producers and consumers pursuing self-interest in the open field of the marketplace. This notion dates to the very beginnings of capitalism four hundred years ago when the market system began its dramatic and rapid expansion. In this view, it is the nature of humanity to feel the need to be free from restrictions in the open market in order to pursue unlimited wealth accumulation. Against the authoritarian and paternalistic structure of feudalism and the church, the market system began to foster a different sensibility in which the individual ought to be independent a unit distinguished from the social mass rather than submerged in it. As an institutional requirement, the capitalist market system needs self-seeking, acquisitive behavior to function. Early modern theorists began to assert that such egoistic inclinations were the primary, if not the only, motivations that would compel an otherwise passive individual into productive action. Through individual actions, completely disconnected from one another, the natural tendency is for everything to balance and move in harmony like planetary orbits—all of which guided by the superstition of the “invisible hand.” In this idealized model, all things involved in the processes of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption are structured around depersonalized exchange and flows money and commodities. Our personal lives and social connections are mediated by the market. In the capitalist market system, human labor is hired in labor markets for money, natural resources and capital equipment are acquired in markets for money, land is rented or purchased with money, and the final goods and services are sold for money in markets. In this way, a capitalist makes money purely through buying on the input side and selling on the output side—buying low and selling high in the market system. Prior to the ascent of capitalism in the sixteenth century, such a system was not possible. Land and its resources were then considered the domain of God and were not ordinarily thought of as commodities to be bought and sold for money in markets. Nor was labor hired for wages in labor markets. Human labor was embedded in a system of hierarchy of servile relationships that revolved around the control of land, not money. There were few or no institutions created for raising finance capital, and human made resources such as the equipment and tools used in production were not so much privately owned as they were used collectively in peasant communities or controlled by guild masters. Eminent economic historian Karl Polanyi described the process of transforming land, labor, and capital

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into marketable commodities as a historical sea change leading to modern capitalist development in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Polanyi refers to this sea change as “The Great Transformation.”1 In a purely capitalist economy, the coordination of the distribution of goods, services, and productive inputs is carried out in a system of markets by virtue of the forces of supply, demand, and prices. With this exclusive reliance on markets, the capitalist system revolves around money. This reinforces the power and control of those in society that have money— namely the wealthy investor class. People without money are essentially powerless in a market system. Capitalism thus created a class separation based on monetary wealth. It is a transactional and exchange system that in an ideal form is a social edifice that is scaffolded entirely with money, markets, commodities, and little else. In this economic ideology in which economic interrelationships and dependencies exist, but do not involve direct personal interaction or association. The individual interacts only with the impersonal forces of the open market, in which the individual freely exchanges commodities for money and money for commodities. The root metaphor for how this system is supposed to function is the concept of equilibrium borrowed from physics. The idea is that markets for all things if left to operate freely without interference will automatically come to place of balance and stability, i.e., equilibrium. If there are shortages in a market, then prices will rise naturally. This discourages buyers and eventually the shortage is eliminated and the balance between supply and demand is brought into balance. If there are surpluses in a market, then prices will drop naturally. This encourages buyers and eventually the surplus is eliminated and the balance between supply and demand are again brought into balance. The system of a naturally adjusting market system is manifestly mechanistic. For century and half, economists have gone to great lengths to demonstrate the mechanics of this process, with the implication that there are no social or institutional forces required to govern economic activity but markets and freely adjusting prices. As the emphasis was increasingly being placed on these mechanistic interpretations of economic activity, the need arose to restructure economic discourse. Specifically, it was a need to pursue economics in a manner that is similar to physics and to structure economics so to appear governed by natural laws like the laws of gravitation. By doing 1 Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944).

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so, economics could be liberated from the constraints of ethics, and the notion of institutionalized greed could be buried underneath mechanistic tropes and mathematical formalisms. To that end, economics needed a new paradigm—a structure of ideas, symbols, and methodologies that stand as authoritative in economic inquiry and discourse. The paradigm that was hatched from a mechanistic approach to science is what Thomas Kuhn characterized as part of the “mechanico-corpuscular” worldview, and it defined the basic model for scientific economics.2 The paradigm is based on a core structure of irreducible units or particles moving in an open space according to the laws of motion in physics. The paradigm framed all things—nature, humanity, social organize, the universe—as fundamentally mechanistic and atomistic. It further implied human behavior is passive, like billiard balls in motion, and incapable of forming into larger entities such that social structures are mere epiphenomenal. In other words, social structures have no independent ontology, which is a neoliberal ideal. All of the precapitalist anthropomorphic and organistic expressions that sought social unification within the body, blood, and spirit of Christ were giving way to this new paradigm. It promised to unify every event and object in the universe under one all-encompassing systematic framework, where every occurrence could be wholly explicable in terms of the laws of mechanics. In his Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1954), intellectual historian E.A. Burtt identified the rise of the mechanistic world view as it conquered all avenues of inquiry starting with the physical sciences and then “later biological and sociological branches took over their basic postulates from the earlier victorious mechanics, especially the all-important postulate that valid explanations must always be in terms of small elementary units in regularly changing relations.”3 Before we see how this played out in economics, we first need to gain an understanding of the importance of a paradigm as a pre-analytic vision and how it defines the boundaries, assumptions, and methodologies for inquiry. For this we turn to Alfred N. Whitehead and speculative philosophy. The emphasis is on the mechanistic framework that provided intellectual justification for the events of the early modern period and after that 2 Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 14. 3 Burtt, E. A., The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, (New York, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954), p. 57.

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we have been exploring in the last two chapters. The importance of the emergence of this paradigm derives from these historical events in which capitalist logic, institutions, and ideologies emerged from the margins of society to prominence. The paradigm provides a basis for scripting human nature and behavior such that it conforms to the necessities of capitalist culture. this paradigm proved to be so efficacious in this regard that it has remained the standard practice in orthodox Western economics to this day.

Whitehead’s Speculative Philosophy In his development of speculative philosophy, Alfred North Whitehead emphasized that the apprehension of all systematic knowledge, or science, is predicated on “a widespread instinctive conviction in the existence of an Order of Things,”4 or the “the understanding of actuality requires a reference to an ideality.”5 William Barrett, philosopher and editor of DT Suzuki’s classic Zen Buddhism (1955), refers to Whitehead’s notion of an ideality, or an a priori pre-inquiry framework of analysis, as a system based on a “generality that reaches beyond the boundaries of a particular scientific discipline and which embodies a comprehensive and coherent framework of ideas which help render the results of a scientific inquire intelligible.”6 It is perhaps helpful to note that Whitehead published this work in the 1920s and was part of distinct movement in American social philosophy that emerged simultaneously with institutional economics and pragmatism. This movement and its implications for Buddhism will be explored in detail in the next chapter. Whitehead’s speculative philosophy was a challenge to pure empiricism in which the understanding of things arises purely from correlative data. He argued that as a framework underlying scientific inquiry, a pre-inquiry paradigm comprised of an internally coherent set of ideas or images exists

4 Whitehead, Alfred N., Science and the Modern World, (New York, NY: Macmillan

Company, 1925), p. 4. Also, for a definition of speculative philosophy see Whitehead’s Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, (New York, NY: MacMillan Company, 1929), p. 5. 5 Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 52. 6 Barrett, William, The Illusion of Technique, (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1979),

p. 16.

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through which the empirical experience of reality is subsequently interpreted. Such a paradigm gives characterization to perception and thought such as to provide a conceptual order for a reality that is otherwise meaningless and in a state of perceptual chaos. Such a paradigm, in other words, helps us make order out of chaos. Generally, a paradigm in science and philosophy represents a distinct set of principles and ideas that shape hypotheses, theories, methodology, and the ideology of what is held to be legitimate or relevant and what is not. Here we expand this understanding of a paradigm to include symbols, tropes, and even stories. In this sense, a paradigm is a symbolic structure for ontology and epistemology. Modern science with its positivist overtones has disparaged the notion that such a pre-inquiry framework exists for a true scientist. The positivist ideal is based on the attempt to construct theoretical models that are held to be non-figurative “mirror reflections” of empirical reality. That is, positivism purports that true scientific models represent precisely isomorphic relationships between the form of relationship (discursive) and some irreducible aspect of empirical reality (nondiscursive). The positivist contention is that there is a discrete “Truth” out in the world entirely separate from human consciousness awaiting discovery and precise mathematical reconstruction in a model. In this view, science is seen as a purely disinterested pursuit of systematic knowledge without presuppositions or philosophical speculation. Whitehead and others who developed speculative philosophy see it differently. As a symbolic structure, it is a formalized consolidation of what is traditionally and somewhat amorphously termed a “worldview” or what economist Joseph Schumpeter refers to as a “pre- analytical cognitive vision.”7 It should be noted that this understanding of paradigms differs slightly from Thomas Kuhn’s conception in one important way: a Kuhnian paradigm is a structural model for ontology and epistemology, but its genesis and evolution is delimited to a self-contained community of scholars. Here, however, we render it as a structure that is inextricably intertwined with its broader sociocultural context. For Kuhn, paradigm shifts are not lined to sociocultural evolution, but rather occur as a result of anomalies emerging within the community’s internalized

7 Schumpeter, Joseph, History of Economic Analysis, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 41.

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logical edifice. Symbolic idealities, on the other hand are wholly contextual, normative, and to some extent both determine their sociocultural situation and are determined by it. Whitehead’s speculative philosophy frames a paradigm as a sort of culturally sublimated repertory of “naturalized” forms of representation that both constitute “reality” and at the same time conform to the dictates of the broader sociocultural contexts. The paradigm performs its functions as the mechanism of interpretation of reality, the constitution of reality, and does so within a social context of institutional control, power, and legitimation. The key here being that with the rise of capitalism, the pre-analytical vision needed to be refashioned away from the organic forms of premodern representation. Unlike the Kuhnian approach that suggests new paradigms arise as a result of a series of contradictions that cannot be resolved in the old, speculative philosophy is socially constructed given certain structures of power that are dominant. From the viewpoint of speculative philosophy, therefore, scientific inquiry is carried out under the umbrella of a paradigm that both precedes and transcends the specific line of inquiry. The paradigm itself is comprised of symbolism that has become the dominant discursive force that has epistemological implications in the sense that the symbols and images are not just descriptive, they are constitutive. The symbols and images give shape and form, order out of chaos, which understanding of social reality is formed. These symbols and images cohere logically into an all-encompassing framework, a paradigm, which becomes dominant given the institutional forces that prevail over the material aspects of life. It is not to say that things in the world do not exist merely because we interpret them through a paradigm or frame of reference. They may exist or they may be purely in our imagination. What is key for speculative philosophy is that the frame helps us make sense of what otherwise is unknowable at a point in time. The images, symbols, stories, equations, etc., comprise a structure that communicates and preserves ideas and ideologies within a society. In the poststructuralist view, nondiscursive objects cannot be comprehended outside of the discursive practices of their apprehension. This implies that discursive representation is not merely an act of conveyance but is also constitutive—it not only gives meaning to reality, it creates the reality itself in our minds. In The Politics of Representation (1988) Michael Shapiro clarifies this point. In the post-structuralism of Saussure, “the signifier (representation) precedes the signified (object). This implies that those phenomena (signified) about

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which we have understandings take on meaning in the context of signifying practices.”8 Certain signifying practices become dominant while others become marginalized under specific contexts. Signifying practices take on a myriad of forms beyond linguistic structures and symbols to include equations, photographic images, stories, poetry, etc., all of which can be read as text in the sense of the conveyance and constitution of reality. As these forms reify into a structural model, they function as the group’s organon—the conceptual instrument that facilitates the interpretation of reality. Thus, from the perspective of speculative philosophy reality can be interpreted for a social group through a list of categories that cohere into a highly integrated structure sublimated by social forces and passed on to subsequent generations. It would be beyond the scope of this project to try to make a claim as to the scientific efficacy of one paradigm over another. Here we are interested in exploring the role of a particular set of mechanistic forms of representation that are held to represent human economic behavior, to see how these representations are ideologically scripted, and how they conform to the dictates of the broader institutional contexts within which they derive their validity. A paradigm might be based on a set of mathematical models, or in might be based on a set of images, anthropomorphic iconography, stories, or animistic symbols. These discursive representations are generated by forces within a social group and are passed on to subsequent generations. Paradigms are engendered through acts of creativity by members of a social group. If the creation is useful to the existence and perpetuation of the social group, then it is sublimated and reified as truth. If it is not useful as such, it is marginalized into the shadows of the dominant view. With Whitehead’s speculative philosophy we will specifically look at Thomas Kuhn’s mechanico-corpuscular paradigm and its implications for social atomism, as well as how it shaped economic discourse in ways that conformed to the necessities of capitalism.

8 Shapiro, Michael, The Politics of Representation, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), p. 12.

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The Mechanico-Corpuscular Paradigm and Social Atomism The Mechanico-Corpuscular (M-C) paradigm is a normative preanalytical vision that represents a total paradigm shift from the more organic and anthropomorphic worldview of Medieval philosophers who saw society as organic by design. The shift to the view of society as mechanical was also by design. is also undiscoverable in reality as it too was pre-analytic. One of the main architects of the sociology of knowledge, Werner Stark, summarizes this shift from Religious organicism to mechanism: Normative mechanism…maintains that society is a mechanically, not an organically, ordered and coherent entity; an equilibrium system rather than a kind of body, a multiplicity rather than unity… Where organicism sees empirical social life as an ascent towards quasi-organic integration, mechanism sees it as a descent from quasi-mechanical balance. Where organicism demands that politics should push forward to that happy consummation, mechanism calls for a great return, a return to the halcyon days of coexistence without coercion.9

Coexistence without coercion for economics implies moving toward a free-market system in which there are no institutional controls on human economic behavior, which in fact is impossible. Under the logic of capitalism, the social relations between people and communities lost their living or organic qualities and became mechanistic, atomistic, and objectified. With the market system rising to dominance, the social and ecological relationships became refashioned as relations of commodified units in monetary exchange. Dissolved were the organic bonds between producer and consumer, between worker and craft, and between humans and their natural habitat. Their connections came to be envisioned as mediated by money-commodity transactions in which buyers and seller are fundamentally separated and connected only by money—the medium of exchange. Economics increasingly became seeing people as mysteriously changed from sentient beings to inert factor inputs.

9 Stark, Werner, The Fundamental Forms of Social Thought, (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 1963), p. 109.

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The system of market exchanges was held to have an independent existence that overtook the living, spiritual human culture. This vision of dehumanized and objectified economic society provided an intellectual opening for the proliferation of mechanistic forms of representation in economic discourse. The implication was that there is some kind of natural geometry or algebra inherent in this commodified social system that provided a basis for its formalization using representations appropriated from classical physics. The individual came to be seen as analogous to a particle or atom, and social processes were seen as extensions of the universal laws of motion. The implications of the rise of this paradigm as the new pre-analytic model for interpreting all things were profound. The premodern paradigm representing human economic activity in terms of organic and spiritual bonds was melted away and basic economic process came to be seen as resulting from the movements of fundamentally disconnected units, persons, analogous to particles moving in empty space. The immutable laws of physical matter were visualized as universal and applicable not only to inorganic phenomena, but also to organic and social phenomena. This vision was worked into a structural model that became the M-C paradigm for social ontology and had supplanted the moralistic doctrines of the Christian church as the foundation for all economic theory (Table 4.1). The basic elements of this paradigm are (1) an atomistic or “corpuscular” assumption of the ontology of all things, (2) an open and unrestrained spatio-temporal field of location generally expressed in threedimensional space with Cartesian coordinates, (3) the primary laws of motion, and (4) a principle of stasis that suggests natural stability occurs Table 4.1 The mechanico-corpuscular paradigm

Mechanico-Corpuscular Paradigm Physics

Economics Analog

Atomistic ontology

Social atomism-individualism Open field of the free market Laws of supply and demand Market equilibrium and stable prices

Open spatio-temporal field Primary laws of motion Principle of stasis

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when left to its own mechanistic devices. The analogous counterparts for social phenomenon for each element are summarized here (1) Atomism or corpuscular ontology is the analog to economic individualism, (2) the open spatial-temporal field is the analog to the market system, which is the economic playing field as it were, (3) the laws of motion are the analogs to self-interest pursuits of consumers and producers—laws of supply and demand as it were, (4) the principle of stasis is the analog to market equilibrium to which all quantifiable markers, namely prices, will gravitate given the above three elements are in natural and full force.10 Isaac Newton synthesized these elements into a brilliant mathematical system, and these elements became the foundation for theoretical speculation on the forces governing all domains of phenomena. The M-C paradigm became the basic framework for modern science for hundreds of years to come, but it was the imaginations of eighteenth and nineteenth-century so-called enlightenment philosophers and economists that brought this framework into its fullest expression as a paradigm for human sociality. The Newtonian-Cartesian M-C worldview came to hold all the presuppositions that remained at the base of all subsequent theoretical inquiries. The pre-analytic imagery that was then imposed on modern social reality was one of irreducible particles of matter moving in spatial-temporal figurations. The movement of these particles is governed by the immutable mathematical laws of nature, which are held to be under the rubric of mechanical laws of motion. One important aspect of this paradigm is the idea of separation. As things are presented as particles rolling around like billiard balls in space, they are discretely disconnected like mathematical integers. Economic historian Karl Polanyi argues that forms vision for economic processes as individualistic and dis-embedded from any context including social, cultural, and spiritual settings. Polanyi writes, “To separate labor from other activities of life and to subject it to the laws of the market was to annihilate all organic forms of existence and to replace them by a different type of organization, an atomistic and individualistic one.”11

10 Magnuson, Joel, Physico-Mechanistic Representation in Early Modern Economic Discourse, (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 1996), pp. 87–95. 11 Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944), p. 163.

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With the rise of capitalism and the totality of the market system, living systems are broken down like so many entries in accounting ledgers. Humanity is reduced to bits, social atoms, and this representation quickly took form in classical liberal philosophy and economics. This pre-analytic vision conformed to the enlightenment doctrines of liberalism and individualism, and naturalized and legitimized the new institutions of capitalism. It provided a foundation for laissez faire market ideology by rebranding economics as something that works according to laws of motion not the rules of society. John Locke was among the first to synthesize the mechanistic paradigm with the political philosophy of classical liberalism. The ideals that make up the cornerstones of early modern economic thought such as individualism, the labor theory of value, property rights, and an open field of markets can be traced to Locke. He scripted social phenomenon in ways that conjured people as atomized bodies in motion that could be configured according to succinctly delineated causal laws. The paradigm was so universally upheld by Locke that he envisioned a total framework that applied to all phenomena from planetary motion to human sociality to the workings of the human mind. In his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke maintained that human understating of reality is essentially a mechanical process, The ideas we get by more than one sense are of space or extension, figure, rest and motion. For these make perceivable impression, both on the eyes and touch; and we can receive and convey into our minds the ideas of the extension, figure, motion, and rest of bodies both by seeing and feeling.12

Locke’s representation of the human mind in the M-C paradigm begins with the blank slate, tabula rasa, which in the paradigm is the open playing field. Sense perceptions enter the field as particles in motion, then according to the laws of motion configure into the formations of ideas. Through his contact with Robert Boyle at the Royal Society of London, Locke learned of the scientific methodology and analytical geometry of Descartes, and Newton’s universal laws of motion. He later expanded the M-C vision of the human mind to the whole of human existence—an existential mass of atoms in empty geometrical space. 12 Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [1690], (New York, NY: Meridian Books, 1969), p. 67.

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He asserted that the laws governing the dynamics of a polity are no longer subsumed under the teleological models of the church. Rather they naturally exist in a state of social equality where all are equally subject to the same mechanistic, atomistic laws of nature. In this paradigm of politics and philosophy, the laws that governed planetary motion equally became the same laws that would govern nature, human life, and the mind. Moral doctrine as traditionally conceived in Christendom was removed from its central place and was replaced by the laws of mechanics and motion. This shift constituted a profound break from the constraining doctrines of the premodern epoch. The fundamental state of nature for Locke was characterized by all things as being individually discrete and independent. Moreover, Locke contended that nature has a kind of equilibrating tendency such that if all people were guided by their own independent compasses, the natural state of things would automatically come to rest in a harmonic state of balance, yet existentially separated. For Locke, the emerging political ideology was such that all individuals coexist without institutional control and that is the true essence of human sociality. This mechanistic vision of human society also found expression in the eighteenth-century political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau sought to craft a political philosophy that would return human society to a natural state in which each person lives in isolation from all the others.13 The desire for self-preservation or to seek something of self-interest is what compels humans out of their solitude and drives them into the social mixture of others. Institutions are seen as encumbrances in this world. Institutions denaturalize humanity and rob the human being in their natural absolute existence. Even the institution of the family is only important for a fleeting moment while the children need parents for survival, and “As soon as this need comes to an end, the natural bond dissolves.”14 For Rousseau, a natural society is nothing more than a randomized collection of irreducible units, the individuals, and society itself has no independent ontological status. The atomistic individual therefore exists in an empty playing field and is spurred into social action only by self-interest, which in this paradigm is the only law of motion for human behavior. Rousseau expressed this in stark terms by emphasizing that the individual “thinks of himself without considering

13 Stark, The Fundamental Forms of Social Thought, p. 110. 14 Ibid., p. 111.

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others and finds it good that others should not consider him. He expects nothing of anybody and feels no obligation to anybody, for he is alone within human society.”15 One of the problems immediately encountered in the political logic of M-C paradigm mechanism is that in this empty playing field it is inevitable that these atomistic individuals in motion will eventually collide like asteroids in the cosmos—conflict. For Rousseau, the only way to deal with clashing interests and conflict arising in the open field is the social contract: an amicable settlement of differences among peers rather than by force of authority. The key for such a horizontal system to be sustained with human coexistence is a sense of balance. The recognition of the need for balance takes us deeper into the mechanistic underpinnings of Rousseau’s political thought. A contract is only fair if the contracting parties are equal in strength and there is a balance of forces at the basis of it. In a normative sense, a good society is one characterized as an equilibrium system within which every individual counteracts and counterchecks every other individual, so that body one person can subdue the interests of any others. In Rousseau’s idealized, socially atomized political system, if people are granted freedom, harmony will naturally come about provided only that there is equality at the same time. For if there is equality, men cannot harm each other, and liberty, far from leading to disorder, will lead to order. The firmest order conceivable is that which is based on the laws of mechanics and Newtonian physics. Among Newton’s breathtaking achievements was to unveil the simple and elegant mathematical proportionalities between the mass of bodies and their interstitial distances. Eventually such proportionality combined with the notion of balance and equilibrium became the language of economics in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Just as scientists were using Newtonian models in discussing pressures, volume, heat, motion, etc. based on proportionalities, so too were the early classical economists. As Locke was an inspired Newtonian, he maintained that prices of commodities were primarily dependent on a system of conserved proportionalities between quantities of certain goods to their demand. Money, which is an institution and not a physical object, was treated as a particle in motion and its value derived from its proportionality to goods and the velocity of trade.

15 Ibid.

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Following Locke, David Hume also crafted a mechanistic view of trade called the “specie gold flow mechanism” though with a twist that the mechanism is self-regulating. With the onset of capitalism, there was a struggle in moral philosophy regarding the governance of prices, the use of money, charging interest on loans, etc. The dominant view in the pre-Newtonian vision was that the pursuit of individual interest, unless closely controlled by moral authorities or the state, would conflict with the broader social interest. In Hume’s time, crown regulations were still strapped around economic activity. But the growing influence and power of the entrepreneurial class were bent on cutting loose from these straps. They supported the arguments that society could achieve balance and stability naturally by way of self-regulating forces rather than by authoritarian control. Hume expanded on Locke’s theory of money as applied to international trade. He argued that the quantity of money in one country is proportional to the country’s prices. If a country increased its exports, the amount of money flowing into the country would rise. When that happens, prices will also rise, and exports would slow down. Eventually, through balance and counterbalance, equilibrium in trade volume and prices would be automatically achieved. Hume writes, “were it to be raised in any one place, the superior gravity of that part not being balanced, must depress it, till it meet a counterpoise.”16 Adam Smith joined the discourse with a more comprehensive treatment that covered all forms of economic exchange predicated on the division of labor. For Smith international trade, domestic market exchanges, labor markets, and all other markets could settle on the same kind of proportional balance. With division of labor everywhere, market transactions would multiply. As this happened market prices would, if left to the mechanics of the laws of motion and proportionality, naturally gravitate toward the natural price—that which is consistent with the laws of nature. In summary, at its most fundamental level, the M-C paradigm is such that everything in the physical universe is a discrete unit that is governed mechanically by the Newtonian laws of motion. In this paradigm, all things in the inorganic and organic realms, including humans, are seen as inert, passive, and devoid of social purpose. They are constructed from masses of irreducible particles—like so many billiard balls—swirling and twirling in empty three-dimensional space. As they are ontologically 16 Rotwein, Eugene, ed., Writings on Economics, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955), p. 64.

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passive, any change or movement occurs only when these discrete units are launched into motion by external stimuli that arouses self-interest. When applied to social behavior, this paradigm also treats human beings similarly as analogs to particles in empty space and this became the pre-analytic vision for classical economics. In this vision, humans are conceptualized as self-contained units that are fundamentally separated from one another and are socially engaged only when spurred into action in response to stimuli arising from their immediate surroundings, which in the case of economics would be market signals. Space is held to be distinct from time and all primary qualities of phenomena are distinct from all other primary qualities. In physics, every atom was seen as distinct from every other atom, and all atoms are governed by natural laws of motion which are distinct from all other natural laws. All things in the inorganic, organic, and super-organic (social) realms are considered inert, devoid of purpose or volition, and are conceptualized as made up of irreducible particles, like so many billiard balls, swirling and twirling in Euclidean three-dimensional space. Every individual is passive, inert, and distinct from every other individual in an atomistic state of total individualism. The upshot, therefore, is that this provides justification for the economic ideology of classical liberalism, laissez faire, and the push to liberate of economic activity from any form of institutional control outside the market system. Locke, Hume, Smith, and others were laid the pre-analytic foundation for the broadly reified mechanistic representation of economic activity. This vision became the baseline construct for economic individualism, ontological disconnectedness, and the implication that social systems are mere epiphenomena of individual self-interested behavior. Society is seen as not having its own ontology, which implies that it is not real. If society is not real, there is no need for social philosophy or moral philosophy for that matter. Social atomism thus became an ideological support system for self-interested, greed-based, free-market capitalism in which all players are left free from constraints of social responsibility. By the nineteenth century, orthodox economics—wholly captured in the web of the M-C paradigm—became a closed axiomatic system that increasingly became wrapped in an exotic concatenation of mathematical formalisms. The most significant development in that direction came in the 1870s and the emergence of neoclassical economics.

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Social Atomism and Neoclassical Economics By the late nineteenth century, the M-C paradigm as applied to human economic behavior was firmly established as orthodoxy. At the same time, a crisis of logic was building. Starting with John Locke, the standard theory for determining the value of products sold in markets was the labor theory of value. The idea was a classic iteration of an M-C vision in which the market value of something is reduced to the quantity of labor units, corpuscles, used to produce it. The labor theory supported the economic ideas of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other classical economists. But by the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Marx used the same labor theory as a conservation principle to demonstrate how capitalism was doomed to experience multifaceted crises and ultimately complete failure as a system. His critique was devastating. In response, capitalism’s economists were compelled to find a new value theory that maintained the same mechanistic, quantifiable, and individualistic approach. In that effort, the utility theory of value was created, and the main creator was William Stanley Jevons. In the 1870s, Jevons and others who were compelled to respond to Karl Marx’s scathing and thoroughgoing critique of prevailing economic ideology constructed a fundamentally different approach to value theory. Value theory has always been an important aspect of economics. The main reason being that with a solid value theory one could explain how the exchange system of capitalism functions as it rests on a foundation of money-commodity trade in markets. The labor theory of value asserts that value originates in production with the employment of labor. As that was theory was abandoned, the new theory asserted that value is created at the other end of the economic process with consumer satisfaction, or utility. With this new theory of value, the origins of neoclassical economics surfaced and remain orthodox to this day. Utility theory had been developed for about a century before Jevons, particularly deriving from the influential work of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham’s career as a writer and social theorist spanned several decades, but arguably his most powerful impact on economics came from his An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780). Bentham’s Introduction did not address economic theory specifically, but his treatment of utilitarian social philosophy became the groundwork for Jevon’s utility theory of value and contemporary neoclassical economics. In keeping with the passive view of human behavior in social atomism,

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Fig. 4.1 The utility continuum

Bentham argued that “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do… They govern us in all we do, in all we say in all we think… the principle of utility recognizes this subjection. All value is founded on utility.17 For Bentham, utility is anything that produces benefits included in which could be power, advantage, sense pleasure, or happiness. All the ways that beneficial results can be realized from certain behavior are categorized as utility. Pain in his vision is inimical to pleasure and is to be avoided. Taking the pleasure-pain vision to a logical extension, pain can be interpreted as negative utility thereby reducing human action-intentionmotivation to a single pleasure principle which could be sketched on number line (Fig. 4.1). By reducing human impulse to this single pleasure principle, Bentham claimed to have uncovered the key to the construction of an exact science of human happiness. Pleasure and the avoidance of pain are such that they can be numerically quantified, giving what they considered to be an exact science of value. This inspired Jevons to adopt utility theory as a value quotient in his quest to define value as something originating in market exchange. He restricted his analysis to the sphere of money and commodity exchange and circulation. As in all forms of social atomism, social structures and power relations are nonexistent in his purview. People are caricaturized as having two defining behavioral characteristic: to passively respond to pleasure (positive or negative) and endless cravings for more pleasure. The fascination for Jevons was that the atomistic units of utility could be quantified and as such they can be subjected to scientific rigor. In his Theory of Political Economy (1871) Jevons opens with a statement about utilitarianism, “In this work I have attempted to treat economy as

17 Bentham, Jeremy, “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,” in Mack, B.P., ed., A Bentham Reader, (New York, NY: Pegasus, 1969), p. 85.

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a calculus of pleasure and pain, and have sketched out… the form which the science must ultimately take.”18 In his self-proclaimed science of value, Jevons notes that human beings are uniformly the same in that they share two basic characteristics: (1) that they derive utility from consuming good and services and (2) that they are rational utility maximizers. He writes, “To satisfy our wants to the utmost with the least effort—to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable—in other words to maximize pleasure, is the problem of economics.”19 What Jevons accomplished was to maintain the baseline construct of economic atomism with individuals seen as utility maximizing units. He extrapolated this into a kind of mandate which normalizes and rationalizes self-indulgence and greed as scientific principles of human behavior. This vision of self-indulgent economic individuals became the caricature of Homo economicus, or “rational economic man.” This is characterization of ourselves has been maintained in standard economy theory for a century and a half. As economic agents, we are seen as myopically self-interested and are rational in the sense that we consistently weigh utility against disutility in all our choice-making behavior in the open market. Such representation is a caricature of human beings that lies at the heartless core of mainstream neoclassical economic. Economist Kate Raworth makes a keen observation regarding Homo economicus and the portrayal of human economic behavior as atomistic and self-indulgent, Homo economicus may be the smallest unit of analysis in economic theory—equivalent to the atom in Newton’s physics—but, just like an atom, his composition has profound consequences…. If we head towards that future continuing to imagine, conduct and justify ourselves as Homo economicus—solitary, calculating, competing and insatiable— then we stand little chance of meeting the human rights of all within the means of our living planet.20

18 Jevons, William S., The Theory of Political Economy [1871], 2nd ed., (Baltimore: Penguin, 1970), p. 44. 19 Ibid., pp. 101–102. 20 Raworth, Kate, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century

Economist, (Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2017), p. 82.

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The challenge for socially engaged Buddhism, therefore, is to craft a different approach to economics with a holistic paradigm that is profoundly different from the reductionistic, atomistic, mechanistic framework. Holistic, interdisciplinary, ecological thinking has largely superseded the old mechanic-corpuscular, Newtonian paradigm. Indeed, a second paradigm shift has already been underway for a century and has transformed nearly all the modern sciences, just not standard economics.

A Second Paradigm Shift By the end of the nineteenth century, a major paradigm shift in science had begun. Scientists and philosophers in Europe and North America were rejecting the mechanico-corpuscular paradigm while a flurry of new ways of understanding the world came alive and rendered it obsolete. At the same time, economics was becoming even more entrenched with its commitment to atomism, mechanism, and a fundamental disregard for a broader, holistic vision that was coming into being in virtually all other fields. In physics, James Clerk Maxwell saw that the image and mathematics of electromagnetic fields became relevant for understanding physical reality than billiard balls rolling around in empty space. Albert Einstein, too, created a radically different view of space and time in the atomic and subatomic realms. Marie Curie and Antoine Becquerel found that radioactivity was a real phenomenon, and its penetrating power could not be explained using the mechanistic paradigm. Karl Marx and Charles Darwin created entirely new frameworks of human existence in which static, mechanistic inertia was replaced progressive and cumulative change in the social and biological worlds. And in his pathbreaking contributions to the philosophy of science around the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred North Whitehead asserted that the interactions between things became more important to understanding reality than the material things themselves. With these intellectual developments, the vision of ourselves and everything around us was changing. Our purview was shifting so that process replaced structure, dynamic change replaced static inertia, and holism replaced reductionism. One of the most profound implications for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics is that this new paradigm is much more conducive to the Buddhist way of seeing things. As we will explore in more detail later, one of the central tenets of Buddhist thought is the

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notion of impermanence. All is in a state of flux and transformation. Resonating this Buddhist vision of things is Whitehead, That ‘all things flow’ is the first vague generalization which the unsystematized, barely analysed, intuition of men has produced… Without doubt, if we are to go back to that ultimate, integral experience, unwarped by the sophistications of theory, that experience whose elucidation is the final aim of philosophy, the flux of things is on ultimate generalization around which we must weave our philosophical system.21

Whitehead developed a philosophy of process in which he asserted that the interactions between things became ontologically more important to understanding reality than the material things themselves. As they entered the twentieth century, every mode of inquiry was changing and the gap separating modern science and Buddhist philosophy was narrowing, with the one exception of conventional economics. Economics held on to a vision that people behave atomistically in a social vacuum, are cultureless objects compelled into action only in response to enticements and punishments presented by the idealized principles of supply and demand of the market. Economics still holds steadfast to the meaningless attempts to quantify “utility” and continuously pays homage to a bizarre and unsettling metaphor called “the invisible hand.” Culture and social institutions are either completely ignored in this purview or taken for granted as something entirely exogenous to economic behavior. As such, economics continues to serve out a life sentence trapped in a nineteenth-century paradigm. Heterodox economists have been pointing out this problem in economics for a century. One of the modern pioneers of ecological economics, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, describes the mechanistic portrayal of human behavior in mainstream economics as a paradigm that, “…strips man’s behavior of every cultural propensity, which is tantamount to saying that in his economic life man acts mechanically…. The whole truth is that economics, in the way this discipline is now generally professed, is mechanistic in the same strong sense in which we generally believe only classical mechanics to be.22 21 Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality, p. 240. 22 Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, The Entropy Law and

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 1.

the Economic Process,

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It is important to reference Georgescu-Roegen at this juncture. In his classic, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971) GeorgescuRoegen presented a masterful critique of neoclassical economics by leveraging the laws of thermodynamics. Early developments in thermodynamics and quantum physics reinforced the challenge to Newtonian mechanics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, or the entropy law, holds that systems are qualitatively changing and continuously moving toward a state in which all useable energy has been transformed into unusable or “bound” energy. All things, whether organic or inorganic, are breaking down as dissipative structures in isolation. Place something in a closed system or vacuum chamber, it will dissipate and become ergodic, meaning that whatever energized state had existed in the thing will inevitably move toward a lifeless state like changing from hot embers to cold ashes, and the cold ashes will be distributed evenly throughout. In the physics of thermodynamics, this is a state of maximum entropy that is called “equilibrium” or sometimes referred to as “heat death.” But life does not exist in a vacuum chamber. The life process exists in open systems as a counteracting, self-organizing means that sustains itself by being in a state of energy transference with a surrounding environment. Life and living systems are “far-from-equilibrium” in the sense that the life process is the struggle to survive against heat death. Systems theorist and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy writes that the flame of a candle “keeps it shape by burning.”23 The flame as a pattern is a kind of metaphor for the life process that creates order out of the entropic process of burning away the candle’s fuel. The candle’s flame is like a living entity, but it can only continue to live by drawing more fuel from the wick. Macy’s systems approach was in part shaped by the work of Austrian biologist and systems theorist Ludwig von Bertalanffy. Bertalanffy was was one of the founders of general systems theory. He was among the first to identify how the entropy law applied to closed systems but not to open systems that can exchange energy with their environments. His analysis is centered on the principle that things were best described not as units, but as systems. Systems are not objects, but rather are processes and events that are leading to some kind of pattern of organization. For Bertalanffy, the same principles of organization that create an organism—an 23 Macy, Joanna, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory, (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 73.

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organic whole as a living system—also apply to that organism’s interaction with, and symbiotic interdependence with, its habitat. Whatever the scale, the atom, molecule, cell, organ, organism, population, or ecosystem, all follow similar patterns of organization, and all were seen by Bertalanffy as integrated into living systems. In this view, all things are formations that have a dual nature. Like Macy’s flame it is a whole thing unto itself, yet it is also part of whole that is bigger than itself. Each formation nests into larger formation as a subformation yet is a supraformation composed of other subformations in a hierarchy of scale, like a series of Russian dolls. The process of creating formations does not necessarily stem from higherlevel formations dictating lower-lever formations, but rather higher-level formations are created as a result of the interplay between various lowerlevel formations. Interaction and process are paramount. The interaction of lower-level formations creates higher-level emergent properties. It is important to note also that these properties are not necessarily determinant. Lower-level formations may be stable and remain in a state of flux-balance for protracted periods of time and thus give the illusion of permanence and immutability. But any formation at any level can change as a result of either the change of the properties of component formations that comprise it, or as a result of a change in the nature of the interaction among those components. As systemic changes occur and create changed systems conditions, then the elements within the system can change as they adapt to new systems conditions. These changes can give rise to other changes at higher levels in a chain reaction up and down the system. This structure of whole formations tied together with other formations is the ontological basis of holism. In this way, formations are both being and becoming wholes. Higherlevel formations do not necessarily dictate to, nor become dictated by, the conditions of lower-level formations. Any formation at any level can change as a result of either a change in the properties at the lower, or as a result of a change in the nature of its interaction with other formations. It is relatively easy to see holistic formations in language. A word is a whole or pattern resulting from interaction of a specific series of letters. The meaning of the word cannot be understood by observing a particular letter in isolation. Only when the letters are brought together into a specific configuration does the meaning of the word emerge. At another level that word can be an element of a higher-level formation: a conversation. A conversation between two people is a whole in the sense that it

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is not reducible to a particular word or sentence spoken by a particular individual. Though each word, sentence, or phrase is a whole itself, it is only when it is brought together with other elements in an interactive process that we can understand the nature of the conversation as a whole. Interaction and process are not reducible, and non-reductionism is a salient characteristic of holism, which is a foundational concept in Buddhism as well as institutional economics. Given this interactive orientation, we can see this succession of wholes as a succession of “formations.” Any thought, object, or event can be seen as a formation in the sense that it emerges through some kind of interactive process involving other formations. These interactive processes exist at two fundamental levels. At one level, a formation exists as its own composite whole made up of lower-level formations, and at another level it becomes a composing element within a higher-level formation by its interaction with others. We can also see formations in natural and social sciences. Examining a hydrogen atom in isolation, for example, cannot lead us to understand the essential nature of water. A hydrogen atom is itself a kind of whole just as an oxygen atom is also a kind of whole, but the emergent properties of water is a higher-level formation that results from the mutual interaction of these atoms. The properties of water—buoyancy, concentrations of oxygen and minerals, etc.—provide a habitat for fish. And the fish are wholes comprised of organs, which are made of cells, and so on. The very existence of the fish is predicated on their interaction with each other and with their habitat. These interactions are also higher-level formations of schools of fish. To take the example further, as fish concentrate their population into schools, these are formations that will attract predators such as other fish or human fishermen. The people who catch the fish are also form associations with other members of their social community. As fishermen interact with each other and local merchants who sell the fish along with other food items produced by local farmers who work on the land, or with people who supply fishing equipment, their behavior falls into discernable patterns. These patterns of behavior become habituated and to form social institutions, including specific types of business enterprises. These institutions are formations that eventually take root and evolve along with other institutions into networks of institutions that become higher-level formations or economic systems. Economic systems also become embedded within

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broader cultural formations, and cultures are embedded within ecological formations. As we explore the building of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, it will require us to be aware that business institutions are part of a web of interconnectedness that weaves through all inorganic (water molecules), organic (fish and humans), and super-organic (institutional and systemic) formations. Such awareness is fundamental to an ecological consciousness. Through action and interaction, economic, and ecological formations coevolve. Through this co-evolution, the strands are woven together into a vast web of interconnectedness. Yet as these strands are woven together, they can be creating formations that are maladaptive and pathological. To continue with the fishing community example, if fishermen are driven by some impulse to harvest fish to the point of extinction, a crisis emerges that affects not only the health of marine life but threatens the very existence of the community itself. Yet this crisis is a pathological systems condition that goes beyond the mere behavior of fishermen. An attempt to deal with the problem by punishing the fishermen with taxes, fines, or quotas, might slow down the harvesting, but are not real solutions. Though the fishermen’s behavior originated from internal predatory impulse, their behavior to act on that impulse was likely fostered within the context of their habituated associations with other members of their community. Thus, working toward real and long-term solutions to economic and ecological problems requires a holistic view of human behavior. This requires awareness that the level of the formation we are trying to understand is interconnected with others, and such awareness is part of the co-arising of consciousness with reality. Conscious awareness is an ongoing, evolutionary process. A key step in the coarising process is an attempt to be as inclusive as possible. Inclusiveness entails both specialization of understanding and articulating with other specializations to form an integrated, evolving, collective community of understanding. By establishing an integrated approach, we consciously set parameters for analysis. The range of parameters established do not set boundaries for a closed system, but rather remains open and is outwardly and continually evolving. Integrated understanding is necessarily a shared process in which the baton can be passed from one discipline to the next, one level of complexity to the next, or one time period to the next. Communication then becomes vital so to ensure that one level naturally feeds into the other without contradictions. These communicative formations

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cohere into higher-level formations. A key aspect of this epistemological system is mindfulness praxis. The actions people must be guided by clearheaded insights that are become free from destructive impulses. Free from destructive impulses, people are less likely to form destructive habits, and healthier habits form naturally. The process of freeing one’s thoughts and actions from destructive habits is at the core of Buddhist philosophy and practice.

The Second Shift and Buddhism A cornerstone of Joanna Macy’s work is her synthesizing of the holistic and dynamic aspects of general systems theory and Buddhist philosophy. Macy has uncovered many parallels between Buddhist philosophy and general systems theory. Here she rephrases the Buddhist concept of interbeing (paticca samuppada) as a doctrine of mutual causality, “In this doctrine, reality appears as a dynamically interdependent process. All factors, mental and physical, subsist in a web of mutual causal interaction, with no element or essence held to be immutable or autonomous.”24 She argues that as one becomes awakened to a level of being that transcends the immediate self or ego, one also becomes awakened to the dependent nature of their immediate social surroundings, their habitat, their country, and their world. Individual existence is not isolated by imaginary delineations like being forced into the shape of a billiard ball. Macy asserts that each individual exists in a state of oneness with all things such that there is no us and them distinction. This doctrine in Buddhism holds that everything is equal in both origination and dissipation. When this arises, that also arises; when this dissipates, that also dissipates. Nothing has a separate, permanent identity in itself. All is contingent and impermanent. The origination of all things depends on the origination of all other things. Applied to social philosophy, dependent origination holds that every individual and every process in society equally arises and exists with all other things and processes in the social whole or firmament. The image of Indra’s Net is often used in Buddhist literature to convey this holistic vision. The net is comprised of an infinite number of strands that extend in all directions to without end. At each intersection where the strands of the net cross there is what appears to be a sparkling jewel. Upon close

24 Ibid., p. 33.

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inspection, each jewel is merely the light reflection of all the other jewels in the net. The existence of each jewel is dependent on the existence of all other jewels such that none has its own discrete or independent reality, and each is empty or without form. Such emptiness symbolizes a condition of liberation from selfattachment. Each individual self exists through the medium of other selves. The whole web is not only greater than the sum of the parts, but it is self-sustaining through interbeing or a process of mutual co-arising of all formations. In essence, individual formations have no existence separately from all the others. Engaged Buddhist sociologist Ken Jones expresses this sense of holistic unity as a higher third that transcends the specific this or that of things. Jones’s holistic vision moves beyond black and white perceptions and into something polychromatic where there is unity in diversity. Jones summarizes the usefulness of Indra’s net as a metaphor for social unity in economic activity, From the standpoint of an engaged Buddhism the net is valuable as a working ideal for society and its organizations, in which we are brothers and sisters in mutuality. The network of autonomous groups is now widely regarded as a more appropriate response to many task situations than the traditional model of hierarchical bureaucracy. Economist E.F. Schumacher proclaimed that “small is beautiful,” yet the problem remains of effectively managing and coordinating extensive networks in the larger interest without the coercion of a “free” market or a centralized state. The answer for such a commonwealth must surely lie in a high level public-spiritedness—for which Indra’s Net provides the ultimate metaphor.25

The vision presented here is one of a higher order frame of reference in which people are no longer fragmented by delusional and arbitrary delineations. Rather, people sense the oneness of all things as a result of an awakening that occurs from deep insight. The jewels inside the net are essentially empty, but emptiness represents the idea of liberation from spiritual defilements. The web of autonomous groups described by Jones is a social system of production, but one that is grounded in a publicspirited sense of wellbeing. 25 Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 17.

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In that context members of a community experience collectively interlinking factors, healthy or pathological; disease, poverty, and instability or healthy living and stable livelihoods. Both can be mutually and karmically reinforcing in positive or negative direction. Macy emphasizes this, Because reality is seen as dependently co-arising, or systemic in nature, each and every act is understood to have an effect on the larger web of life, and the process of development is perceived as multidimensional. One’s personal awakening is integral to the awakening of one’s village and both play integral roles in… the awakening of one’s country and one’s world. Being interdependent, these developments do not occur sequentially, in a linear fashion, but synchronously, each abetting and reinforcing the other through multiplicities of contacts and currents, each subtly alter the context in which other events occur.26

In light of such a vision of unity, the dharma gives rise to moral values in social context. Moral values do not stem from commandments from on high, but from the fundamental condition of causal interconnectedness of all things. Thich Nhat Hanh also gives us descriptive guidance on this, When we think of a speck of dust, a flower, or a human being, our thinking cannot break loose from the idea of unity, or one, of calculation. We see a line drawn between one and many, one and not one. But if we truly realize the interdependent nature of the dust, the flower, and the human being, we see that unity cannot exist without diversity. Unity and diversity interpenetrate each other freely. Unity is diversity, and diversity is unity. This is the principle of interbeing.27

This notion of wellbeing springs from a disciplined mindful practice rather than capitalistic self-aggrandizing aspirations for wealth and consumer goods. This notion of wellbeing springs from a disciplined mindful practice rather than capitalistic self-aggrandizing aspirations for wealth and consumer goods. Mainstreasm economics presents the individual worker or consumer as an atomistic, isolated, non-cultural, ratiocinator who has a single-minded, hedonistic pursuit of material self-interest. In this model, humans are merely driven by a fixed, motor impulse to 26 Macy, Joanna, Dharma and Development: Religion as Resource in the Sarvodaya Self-help Movement, (Boulder, CO: Kumarian Press, 1983), p. 33. 27 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power, (New York, NY: Harper One, 2007), p. 85.

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have and consume; to seek out pleasure or avoid pain. Classical economic psychology holds the individual to be passive acted upon by natural laws in a manner similar to the forces of gravity. The responses that follow would be inherently predictable because of they assume human nature to be fixed and unchanging. As argued above, conventional economics treat individual producers and consumers as mathematical analogs to moving parts in empty space. Human sociality is purged from the condition of being. Social and institutional context is either completely ignored in this purview or is taken for granted as something entirely exogenous to economic behavior All members who are active in the economy are presented as ontologically cultureless objects that robotically make choices in a social vacuum where they are spurred into action by enticements or punishments presented by the idealized principles of supply and demand of the free market. These market forces, too, are presumed to operate in a social vacuum. With human sociality purged from the core ontology of our species, the effect is to problematize an expectation of a self-contained unit to behave in any way except according to egoistic impulses. In this paradigm, all things in the inorganic and organic realms are seen as inert, passive, and devoid of purpose. They are constructed from masses of irreducible particles—like so many billiard balls—swirling and twirling in empty three-dimensional space. As they are ontologically passive, any change or movement occurs only when these discrete units are launched into motion by external stimuli. Humans are conceptualized as self-contained units that are fundamentally passive, without volition, and are socially engaged only when spurred into action in response to stimuli arising from their immediate surroundings—presumably in response to changes in market prices. When applied to human consciousness and social behavior, this paradigm also treats individuals as analogs to particles in empty space. Stripped of social ontology, what remains is an extreme form of individualism in human behavior in which there is only a core ego seeking pleasure or avoiding pain for itself. Thus, analytically reduced to self-contained units of desire, humans are treated as blindly and single-mindedly compelled to keep running on a treadmill chasing after more utility—the hedonistic satisfaction gained from forever mounting consumption and forever mounting financial gain—regardless of social, environmental, or spiritual repercussions. In this way, neoclassical economics provides safe passage for the assumption that material craving is axiomatic and the only

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impulse by which people can be motivated to do useful work according to human nature.

Dharma Talk In the views presented here, to truly understand the nature of individual behavior requires a deeper insight into the being, or ontology, of the individual “self,” as well as a broader sociological view of how that self takes specific form and moves human social behavior. That is, human behavior is understood as originating both in the primal self and also as a product of social conditioning. Human nature is not something that is inviolable and eternal, but rather is pliable and in a continuous state of flux. The individual self is actively changing the world, and in so doing, constantly changing human nature. The individual is subject to everlasting changes by a cumulative series of actions, intentions, and karma. In fact, the actor becomes the product of the cumulative series. By emphasizing individual choice-making in the open market, neoclassical economics portrays all as to be held accountable for their own part individually, yet no person actually is accountable and leads to a situation in which mass, collective void of responsibility. This is the same type of dilemma illustrated in the widely understood as the “tragedy of the commons.” Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom points to the dilemma of common-pool resource use when relying on social individualism. “Social dilemmas,” she writes, “are pervasive in social life, and proposed solutions to these dilemmas have occupied all great political philosophers… There are many differently structure social dilemmas, but they all are characterized by a situation where everyone is tempted to take one action, but all will be better off if all (or most of them) take another action.” Dealing with global warming is the ultimate common-pool dilemma posed by economic individualism. If we do not have institutional rules which place restrictions on common-pool use, “individuals face strong incentives to appropriate more and more resource units leading eventually to congestion, overuse, and even the destruction of the resource itself.”28 Rather than seeing our ecosphere as our surrounding “environment” from which we are separate, we see it instead as the ultimate

28 Elinor Ostrom, Understanding Institutional Diversity, (Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 79.

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common-pool resource that seemed to have the ability of infinite replenishing capabilities until now. The dilemma illustrates the supreme failure of social atomism. Ostrom continues, Consequently, one of the important problems facing the joint users of common-pool resource is known as the ‘Commons Dilemma,’ given the potential incentives in all jointly used common-pool resources for individuals to appropriate more resource units when acting independently than they would if they could find some way of coordinating their appropriation activities.29

The collective nature of resource use and environmental problems that go with renders individualism self-interest as obstacles to forming an economic system that can actually deal with this. From here, then it is time to start fleshing out Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics with some help from institutional economics and pragmatism.

References Barrett, William, The Illusion of Technique, (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1979). Bentham, Jeremy, “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,” in Mack, B.P., ed., A Bentham Reader, (New York, NY: Pegasus, 1969). Burtt, E. A., The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, (New York, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954). Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971). Jevons, William S., The Theory of Political Economy [1871], 2nd ed., (Baltimore: Penguin, 1970). Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [1690], (New York, NY: Meridian Books, 1969). Macy, Joanna, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory, (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991). Macy, Joanna, Dharma and Development: Religion as Resource in the Sarvodaya Self-Help Movement, (San Francisco, CA: Kumarian Press, 1991).

29 Ibid., p. 80.

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Magnuson, Joel, Physico-Mechanistic Representation in Early Modern Economic Discourse, (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 1996). Ostrom, Elinor, Understanding Institutional Diversity, (Princeton University Press, 2005). Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944). Raworth, Kate, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, (Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2017). Rotwein, Eugene, ed., Writings on Economics, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1955). Schumpeter, Joseph, History of Economic Analysis, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1954). Shapiro, Michael, The Politics of Representation, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). Stark, Werner, The Fundamental Forms of Social Thought, (New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 1963). Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power, (New York, NY: Harper One, 2007). Whitehead, Alfred N., Science and the Modern World, (New York, NY: Macmillan Company, 1925). ———. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, (New York, NY: Macmillan Company, 1929).

CHAPTER 5

Institutional Economics, Pragmatism, and Buddhism

After a long, arduous journey during which he probed deeply into the nature and causes of human suffering, the Buddha conveyed had an enlightenment experience. In flash of insight, he realized that the reality of human suffering is clear to see if only we could develop the skills of the mind that would allow ourselves to see it. From that point on, he devoted the rest of his life to helping people do just that with his teachings. What he passed became the essence of Buddhism, the Dharma, and at the core of these teachings are the Four Noble Truths. The first is to know the truth that our suffering exists, the second is to know the truth about the causes of this suffering, the third is to know the truth that changes need to be made to free ourselves from this suffering, and the fourth is to know the truth that we need a pathway that charts a course for these changes for more healthful living that puts an end to suffering. Although there are many variations of Buddhist philosophy and practice as they have evolved over the last two-and-half millennia, virtually all schools of Buddhist thought hold these basic elements to be their foundation.1 For Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics the First Noble Truth is to terms with the spectrum of disagreeable conditions that we find ourselves 1 For more information on this see Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 3.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_5

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in both personally and societally. In this sense, it might be easier to see this more as a healing practice than a religious one, although many Buddhists would not see the distinction. All healing practices start with identifying pathologies—sickness, unhealthy conditions, and disorders—then finding out what causes the pathology and find a treatment or a process of change for achieving greater wellbeing. The means changing not only our own individual habits of thought and action that makes us suffer, but to also change the social conditions that lead to suffering as well. The Second Noble Truth and Third Noble Truth are more challenging as they require that we clear the fog of delusion and make real changes. It is coming to know the root causes and origins of our suffering. There are perhaps as many root causes as there are different varieties of dislikable conditions of life, but for the project of developing Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, our focus is on the kinds suffering that are of our own creation, specifically the troubling social conditions spewing like a volcano from institutionalized greed, hatred, and delusion. The challenge presented here is that true liberation needs to be focused as much on social change as on individual change. In economic terms, this means changing the conditions that cause stress at work, job or financial insecurity, unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosure, or poverty. Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics must focus on developing an awareness that such disagreeable conditions arise from our economic system that, as we have been arguing, stem from the greed-centered corporate system. The system and our habitual participation in it create these disagreeable social conditions. These habits and conditions are passed on as karma from one generation to the next. A karmic way of thinking is to envision ourselves heading down a path that leads in one direction or another. The Fourth Noble Truth is about staying on the right path; that is, the one that leads to wellbeing. As we identify socially conditioned suffering, its social causes, and do the work of social change, Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics needs some guidelines that will help guide us down this path. The Fourth Noble Truth is coupled with a broader framework for guiding healthy action that will lead us down a different path away from suffering and toward genuine wellbeing. This framework is the Noble Eightfold Path as set forth by the Buddha, “And what, friends, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, Right View, Right Intention [Thinking], Right Speech, Right Action,

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Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.”2 In a later chapter we will explore this eightfold path in more detail in what we will define as right livelihood institutions. Before we can get there, however, we need to have a clear understanding of the nature of social conditioning and social change. To this end, the task here is to attach some social thought that is technically outside the Buddhist canon but shares enough affinity to be helpful for Buddhists to think and work outside of the individual self and into the social milieu. Specifically, we will pull together some ideas from the American schools of pragmatism and institutional economics. Pragmatism and institutional economics both began to take shape around the turn of the twentieth century in the United States. John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, and Thorstein Veblen were crafting a humanistic and progressive social philosophy that was unrivaled in their time. Although they were working independently of each other, they were all developing their ideas at the University of Chicago and were aware of each other’s work. They expanded on the foundational work of Charles S. Peirce and William James and shared a common intellectual basis with the speculative and process philosophies developed by Alfred North Whitehead. Together their work served as a platform from which the uniquely American schools of philosophical pragmatism and institutional economics sprang forth. They crafted social and economic philosophies grounded in the use of a holistic framework of analysis, a vision of transformation based on evolution and the concept of impermanence, and a humanistic concern for genuine wellbeing. They also shared a rejection of social atomism as a derivative of the mechanic-corpuscular (M-C) paradigm, particularly as it is fashioned in standard economics. In these ways we find of kinship between pragmatism, institutionalism, and Buddhism and an alignment as they all challenged the core assumptions of neoclassical economics. As described in the last chapter, the view of human behavior in standard Western economics is that it is essentially egoistic and maximizing self-interest, which they see as natural and axiomatic. These axioms captured in the M-C paradigm are presented in the form of hard science with sophisticated, and at times mind-boggling, mathematical expressions. In the Buddhist view, however, self-seeking is not a given axiom of 2 Quoted in Kramer, Gregory, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 2007), p. 77.

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normal human behavior. Rather, it is pathological and is a kind of craving that extends from self-attachment, which is a source of suffering. Human suffering intensifies from grasping and clinging to mental constructs of the self that are illusions which cloud an otherwise open and clear mind. In the view of Western economics, however, a much different view is presented. Social atomism functions as representation of economic individualism in which each individual is absorbed with desire and ambition for wealth accumulation. Such desire is activated with market signals that spur people into action and the action brings productivity and material wealth. Self-attachment and craving in human economic behavior are presumed to be immutable aspects of human nature and therefore are rationalized in orthodox economics as both natural and as the wellsprings of material progress. This vision of physical social reality was uniformly rejected by pragmatists and institutional economists who were working creatively during the paradigm shift of the early twentieth century. In his development of speculative and process philosophies in the early twentieth century, Whitehead characterized the M-C paradigm as out of step with modern science and argued that inherent in this paradigm “There persists … [a] fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread through space in a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being.” As we noted earlier, Whitehead asserted further that process, flux, and interactions are key to understanding physical reality. He concluded that the mechanistic paradigm is founded on an “assumption that I call ‘scientific materialism.’ Also, it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived…”3 For Whitehead, such an asocial conception of human existence, as it is perpetuated in economics, is accountable for the moral and ethical disgrace in the modern age. This treatment of human economic behavior was also the principal focus of the pragmatist and institutional economist’s critique of neoclassical economics.

3 Whitehead, Alfred North, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1925), p. 17.

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Peirce and James Charles S. Peirce and William James were among the founders of American pragmatism. They rejected atomism in general, particularly as applied to human sociality. They joined Whitehead in opening a critical account of social atomism, which they sought to replace with a more holistic vision of human consciousness and action. Peirce asserted that the central maxim of pragmatism as a philosophy of science is that it must “Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearing you conceive the object of your conception to have.”4 The notion of the practical bearing, which became synonymous with pragmatism, is more than merely considering some practical course of action. For Peirce, it is a statement of metaphysics. As a physicist, Peirce questioned the veracity of inert particles in empty space as a representation of physical ontology. He presaged some of the core developments quantum mechanics that were just beginning to surface in his time and had later been drawn in parallel with the Buddhist doctrine of dependent co-origination by Joanna Macy. Peirce notes that, “When it comes to atoms, the presumption in favor of a simple law seems very slender. There is room for serious doubt whether the fundamental laws of mechanics hold good for single atoms.” Like other forward-thinking scientists, Peirce suspected that fundamental particles “are capable of motion in more than three dimensions.”5 Like Whitehead he considered that a more accurate conception of physical reality is a multidimensional field in which cause-and-effect interactions between objects, or between objects and environments, are at least as ontologically significant as the objects themselves. Things cannot be fully understood until they have been brought together in conjunction with the effects the action of the object as on other objects. Effects resulting from interactions among things are more than just epiphenomena for Peirce, they are key to understanding the actuality of things. Once the impact the behavior of an object has on its milieu is fully understood and integrated, “Then your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.”6 Peirce held that the existence of a thing and the impact or bearing the 4 Wiener, Philip P., ed., Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings (New York: Dover, 1958), p. 192. 5 Ibid., p. 147. 6 Ibid., p. 192.

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thing has on its surroundings are inseparable phenomena. As such, the integration of an object and the practical effect the object has on its milieu became central to Peirce’s vision of pragmatism. Peirce’s pragmatism is grounded in the bedrock of day to day lives of people and thus carries a holistic vision of thought, action, and impact. He extended this concept of practical bearing to a holistic and volitional conception of human consciousness. Human consciousness is not passive and inert as seen in the M-C paradigm. Rather, it is actively pursuing a variety of interests, not the least of which is scientific understanding and curiosity. For Peirce, this is a fundamental condition for human inquiry and the key to the evolution of consciousness. A theory or hypothesis or idea about life (particularly economic life for our purposes), is meaningful to the extent that it has designated effects on other living persons and on the environment. In a holistic sense, thinking as volitional action, the person doing the thinking, the milieu within the thinking and action takes place all merge as one. Peirce concluded that an open and unclouded mind free from what he called “fixed beliefs” has the potentiality for multidimensional expansion, which is key for the evolution of human consciousness.7 For Peirce, the development of intelligent means as such hinged on a karmic interplay between “belief” and “doubt.” Belief, as Peirce uses the term, is something that has a tendency to remain fixed in the human imagination. In his essay, “The Fixation of Belief” he refers to concepts long settled in the minds of people that have a continuity based on custom, tradition, fashion, or folkways. He goes on, “It is not a momentary mode of consciousness; it is a habit of mind essentially enduring for some time, and mostly (at least) unconscious…” and then adds that “Doubt is of an altogether contrary genus. It is not a habit, but the privation of a habit.”8 For Peirce, the existence of doubt puts the mind into “an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into a state of belief.”9 This gives rise to unhabituated action, which he calls “erratic,” that takes place in the time and space between doubt and belief.

7 Ibid., p. 113. 8 Ibid., p. 189. 9 Ibid., pp. 99, 189.

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There is a tendency for the mind to be somewhat neurotically provoked by doubt in such a way that the psyche is animated to do something to be rid of it. The existence of doubt, according to Peirce, “stimulates the mind to an activity which may be slight or energetic, calm or turbulent. Images pass rapidly through consciousness, one incessantly melting into another, until at least, when all is over… we find ourselves decided as to how we should act under such circumstances as those which occasioned our hesitation.”10 Peirce describes the cumulative effect of habituation. Fixed beliefs for Peirce are the body of ideas that have become habituated within a specific culture and are passed down from one generation to the next as unassailable truths and immune to critical examination. By being attached to a set of ideas, we relieve ourselves of the existential discomfort of having to make revisions to what we consider to be generally accepted wisdom or common sense. Consequently, there is a tendency for the habits of mind which ultimately give rise to habits of action to approximate indefinitely toward the perfection of that fixed character. Peirce was grappling with what social psychologist decades later identified as cognitive dissonance, or what Buddhists simply classify as delusion. Like Whitehead, he concluded that the fixed belief of the M-C vision of things, which includes human consciousness, is an unsuitable representation of reality and thus a form of socially habituated delusion. For Peirce, detaching the mind from such delusion is a fundamental condition for human inquiry and the evolution of human consciousness. To reiterate, thinking as willful action in the world, the person doing the thinking, and the milieu within which the person’s action of thinking is taking place all merge into an evolving singularity. Such a transcendent conception of human ontology is impossible in the M-C paradigm into which standard economics remains wholly absorbed. In Buddhist terms, striving to make a fixed character out of habits of mind is a process of trying to achieve permanence in a state of existence where there is only impermanence. It is important to note that Peirce and other pragmatists and institutionalists share with the Buddhist the view that the attempt to make permanent that which is not permanent is a source of trouble. William James, another pioneer in philosophical pragmatism as well as modern psychology, acknowledged that there was a certain persuasiveness to the M-C paradigm, though he eventually rejected it as a

10 Ibid., p. 119.

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distorted concept of human thought and behavior.11 He saw atomism as rooted in the brutal world of Herbert Spencer where survival instincts and consciousness are treated as mere “impotent epiphenomenon… a collateral product of our nervous system processes”12 where human thought and action are grounded in nothing more transcendent than a single explanatory model of mechanistic stimulus–response. Herbert Spencer’s sociological vision is based on evolutionism. But unlike Darwin’s conception of natural selection, Spencer contended that each individual’s mind is programmed with a survival formula and that all individuals are unwittingly placed in an open field to pursue their competitive self-interest and nothing more can be expected. In his article, “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,” James assailed Spencer’s treatment of consciousness is reductionistic, fragmented, and overlooks a large swath of the human experience. While rejecting Spencer’s definition of human mind as a survival formula, James argued that the mind functions for a galaxy of other needs and, like Peirce, equipped with volitional will.13 It is not simply a passive reflection of external reality, it is active, selective, and functioning for the wellbeing of the “whole man.” James ultimately saw consciousness as having a relational and process orientation, which naturally means action. He notes, “the peculiarity of our experiences, that they not only are, but are known, which their ‘conscious’ quality is invoked to explain, is better explained by their relations—the relations themselves bring experiences to one another.”14 James’s “whole man” is a warning against adopting a narrow Spencerian interpretation of wellbeing as something limited to satisfying survivaloriented needs. James writes, “In a word, ‘Mind,’ as we actually find it, contains all sorts of laws—those of logic, of fancy, of wit, of tastes, decorum, beauty, morals and so forth, as well as perception of fact. Common sense estimates mental excellence by a combination of all these

11 James, William, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), p. 129. 12 Ibid. 13 “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,” Journal of Specula-

tive Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1878, pp. 1–18. 14 James, William, “Does Consciousness Exist?” Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 1, No. 18, 1904, p. 486.

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standards…”15 James viewed the human mind and action first through the window of biology, then psychology, and then finally of philosophy and his work often is, as he admits, loose and inconsistent. But what is consistent throughout his inquiry is that he held to a theory of humanity—a general investigation into the vast and complicated realm of human experience. Thus, he was compelled to discard Herbert Spencer’s biological determinism in which he argued that the mind functions in a multitude of ways that go far beyond the confines of survival needs of the organism. James was particularly concerned with the atomistic conception that conscious action in the world is passive, self-contained, and acting only as a response to signals flashing in external reality. Consciousness, for James, is not passive nor an inert responder to external reality. It is willful, active, interested, efficacious, subject to change, and functions for the wellbeing of the whole man. He generalizes that consciousness is in its very nature impulsive and to act in its milieu by prompting behavior, “It is the essence of all consciousness to instigate movement of some sort.”16 As such, it has a relational and process orientation, which naturally means action. Like Peirce he envisioned human thought and behavior as interactionist. He emphasized that, “the peculiarity of our experiences, that they not only are, but are known, which their ‘conscious’ quality is invoked to explain, is better explained by their relations—the relations themselves bring experiences to one another.”17 In this way, James expressed a hint as to the direction of the development of consciousness in term of its efficacy in serving the humanistic ends of logic, wit, or nirvana: “If nirvana were the end, instead of survival, then it is true the means would be different, but in both cases alike the end would not precede the means.”18 James reverses means and ends in this developmental process and emphasizes that “[ends] utterly depend on [means], and follow them in point of time.”19 The mind is a purposive entity that has a will to act in the world and ends are the accomplishments or “interests” of the action. For James, “intelligent intelligence” 15 James, “Remarks,” p. 3. 16 James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2, p. 551. 17 James, “Consciousness,” p. 486. 18 James, “Remarks,” pp. 14–15. 19 Ibid.

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exists and gives rise to survival as only one of many interests, which for James are the things that make “survival worth securing. The social affections, all the various forms of play, the thrilling intimations of art, the delights of philosophic contemplation, the rest of religious emotion, the joy of moral self-approbation… the charm of fancy and of wit—some or all of these are absolutely required to make the notion of mere existence tolerable…”20 For James an adequate notion of mind must take into account a wide array of mental activity. The totality and variety of human experiences must be incorporated into an adequate and more comprehensive concept of man. “I have become more and more convinced of the difficulty of treating psychology without introducing some true and suitable philosophical doctrine.”21 “True and suitable” for James is predicated on which accommodates the interests of humanity holistically, which includes spiritual, ethical, and aesthetic aspects. In other words, James concluded that the whole man vision of human consciousness is volitional, purposeful, and the categories of purposes are endless. Human purposes extend far beyond survival imperatives and encompass the totality of human experience including culture, religion, and capacity for self-reflection. The work of Peirce and James, though at times vague and incomplete, had taken form around a holistic and humanistic philosophy of pragmatism. They looked deeply into an existential mirror and outwardly at the whole man that cannot be fully understood independently of the context of social behavior, which includes habits of thought and action and the practical bearing of those thoughts and actions. Such thoughts and actions become most impactful when carried out in the context of the ongoing economic project of social provisioning. Peirce held that “The essence of belief is the establishment of habit, and different habits are distinguished by the different mode of action to which they give rise.”22 Healthy habits of thought can give rise to healthy patterns of behavior for social provisioning, pathological habits of thought can give rise to pathological patterns of behavior. But this is only part of the story, because healthy

20 Ibid., p. 7. 21 Perry, Ralph B., The Thought and Character of William James , Vol. 2 (Boston: Little,

Brown and Co., 1935), p. 75. 22 Weiner, Peirce, p. 121.

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or pathological habits can be cemented in established belief systems and institutions. In a holistic view, all levels must be examined. This view informs a pragmatist system of ethics as Peirce and James both highlight ethical considerations by emphasizing the practical bearing habits of thought and action have on society at large. Peirce and James created a vision of human thought and action that stands in stark contrast with social atomism as the life of the mind and the life of the individual are both active and inherently purposively connected to the social milieu. The interaction of mind and the present-moment environment, including human culture and day to day economic life, is ontologically real and as important as the organic and cognitive structures of the mind. Pragmatism for James and Peirce is thus grounded in the bedrock of the daily lives of people. Human consciousness is active, willful, and out to daily interact with the world rather than simply respond to its stimuli. In the sense that pragmatism is a philosophy of action, selection, and human interest in the satisfaction of the wide range of needs and purposes of the people. Yet, day to day living becomes the arena in which habits of thought and of behavior which can become fixed and reified into the social milieu as institutional structures of power. These structures can impose fixity on the collective mindset and behavior of the population. Fixity on the mindset was for Peirce unscientific and for James it was limiting the capacity of human interests. Challenging the fixity of mindset and institutional structures became the central component of the pragmatism of John Dewey, George H. Mead, and of the economic thinking of Thorstein Veblen.

Holism and the Individual in Pragmatism and Institutional Economics John Dewey, arguably the most important figure in American pragmatism, was also critical of the M-C paradigm as a distorted representation of humanity. He was particularly critical of how social atomism is used in economic theory to justify asocial egoistic behavior. As atomism and individualism are dimensions of the same mechanistic paradigm, social atomism is the extension of this paradigm to characterize human social behavior as self-contained, asocial, and non-cultural—like pebbles or nuts and bolts. For Dewey and other pragmatists, however, a core aspect of human life is to be interactive and socially engaged, not contained in the cage of an atomistic, egoistic self. In their view, the individual is

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not a passive unit bumped into motion by external forces. Rather, it is fundamentally active and socially interactive in such a way that makes social context is as much a part of our being as our physical selves. The contours of individual engagement are shaped by social context, which includes habits of thought and habits of behavior that are passed down into the community through time by way of institutions. Such habits include those perpetuated by standard economics and the social atomism of homo economicus . Dewey challenged the neoclassical assumption that it is human nature to be economically inactive unless spurred on by external stimuli. He joined Peirce and James in envisioning human behavior as intrinsically purposeful in a wide range of possible modes of development. He rejected the idea that human economic behavior is inert unless prompted by promise of utility or financial gain, “The idea of a thing intrinsically wholly inert in the sense of absolutely passive is expelled from physics and has taken refuge in the psychology of current economics.”23 Dewey also rejected the assumption that greed in economic behavior is human nature, “Those who attempt to defend the necessity of existing economic institutions [of capitalism] as manifestations of human nature convert this suggestion of a concrete inquiry into a generalized truth and hence into a definitive falsity.”24 Humans are much more socially malleable. Greed and endless striving for financial and material gain are socially constructed phenomena, potent but not deterministic, and are passed on from one generation to the next. Thorstein Veblen, one of the founders of institutional economics, was a contemporary of Dewey at the University of Chicago and sympathetic to philosophical pragmatism. He was also a critic of social atomism and repeatedly attacked the standard formulations in economic theory that it is in human’s core nature to behave egoistically in economic life. Veblen expresses a parody of utilitarianism and social atomism, “The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about…”25 He argued instead that 23 Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library, 1930), p. 119. 24 Ibid., p. 118. 25 Veblen, Thorstein, “Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?” The Quarterly

Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1898, pp. 389–390.

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it is the characteristic of human beings to be active in their social milieu, not to simply shuffle between pleasure and pain stimuli. For Veblen and other institutionalists, humans behave in the world economically not as an isolated bundle of desires that can only satisfied when placed in the path of the rewards and punishments, but rather are ontologically cultural beings with a coherent structure of socially acquired propensities and habits which seek proactive realization in the world. He also shared with Peirce and James the vision that habits of consciousness, which for Veblen are socially constructed, are just as much of a part of human ontology as the flesh and blood being. Pragmatists and institutionalists assailed social atomism and neoclassical economics as a poor representation of human sociality. They indicted economics with the charge that its function exists purely to provide conceptual support for amoral, egoistic self-gratification deemed necessary in capitalist society by mainstream economists. Recall that Joanna Macy asserts that all aspects of our world, including consciousness, are connected to all other aspects; and all phenomena are co-arising with all other phenomena. Using the same assertion, human consciousness, institutions, and culture are also co-arising in a vast web of interconnectedness. The image of a net or web of interconnectedness resonated with the institutionalist economists nearly a century ago as has for eons of Buddhist thought. Recognizing this interdependent nature of human behavior and their surrounding social context, the institutionalists created an inclusive approach to economics by framing it within the broader purview of culture. Though this approach is nonetheless delimited, it opens points of contact to a wider milieu in which the analysis of economic is rich with social, historical, and cultural practices. Institutionalist economist and legal scholar, Walton Hamilton, provides an elegant summary of the economic dimension that exists within social institutions and human culture, Institution is a verbal symbol which for want of a better describes a cluster of social usages. It connotes a way of thought or action of some prevalence and permanence which is imbedded in the habits of a group or the customs of a people. In ordinary speech it is another world or procedure, convention, or arrangement; in the language of books it is the singular of which the mores or the folkways are the plural institutions that fix the confines of and impose form upon the activities of human beings. The

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world of [economic activity], to which imperfectly we accommodate our lives, is a tangled unbroken web of institutions.26

Elaborating on this theme, institutionalist, Allan Gruchy, emphasizes that the fundamental view of institutional economics is that it takes this web to be an “evolving, dynamic whole or synthesis, which is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but which also relates the parts such that their functioning is conditioned by their interrelation.”27 Such interrelation is the diversity of individual action within the unity of a vast cluster of social habits, conventions, folkways, beliefs, and symbols, etc., that impose form on the daily activities of individuals as they go about making their living. Institutionalist Russell Dixon also notes that, “To understand modern economic activity, which has become the dominant and directive force in our industrialized world, one must appreciate its place in the social entity called culture.”28 In their critique of social atomism, institutionalists argue that to study the ways by which people make their living without considering how these ways are inextricably bound to higher order social systems is to have a stunted view of economics. Institutionalist, Allan Gruchy, concludes that, “The assumptions of the holistic economists relating to the nature of human behavior are in conformity with their view of the economic system as an evolving cultural complex.”29 Dixon and Gruchy are outlining a holistic approach to epistemology and how we can come to know the truth of economics. This is a kind of middle way between nihilistic vision of economics in which there is no society and the Hegelian omniscient vision in which all is potentially knowable. The institutionalist’s holistic vision is centered on cultivating awareness that the level of the social formations that we are trying to comprehend must necessarily entail deep interconnectedness with a sense of historical-evolutionary processes of change. Such a socio-evolutionary awareness is part of the co-arising of conscious awareness of reality with reality itself. Conscious awareness of our social reality is a transformative 26 Hamilton, Walton, “Institutions,” in Encyclopedia of the Sciences, (New York: Macmillan, 1932), p. 84. 27 Gruchy, Allan, Modern Economic Thought (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1947), p. 4. 28 Dixon, Russell, Economic Institutions and Cultural Change (New York: McGraw-

Hill, 1941), p. 5. 29 Gruchy, Modern Economic Thought, pp. 560–565.

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and cumulative process, and a key step in the process is an attempt to be as inclusive as possible. Inclusiveness entails both specialization of understanding and articulating with other specializations to form an integrated, evolving, collective community of understanding. The range of parameters established in economic holism does not set boundaries for a closed system. Rather, it remains open and is outwardly and continually evolving. Holistic thinking is a shared process in which the baton can be passed from one discipline to the next, one level of complexity to the next, one community to the next, or one time period to the next. Communication then becomes vital to ensure that one naturally passes to the other without contradiction. These communicative formations cohere into higher-level formations. For pragmatists and institutionalists, this process is predicated communicating with, and action in, the world at large. Individual behavior is patterned by a combination of a volitional drive to act and the interplay of that action with surrounding social context. Specifically, the focus is on material actions taken by people in their communities who are driven by an internal volition to transform their surroundings. In an economic sense, the surroundings for pragmatists and institutional economists are the structure of institutions that control economic action and are embedded in what Gruchy and Dixon identify as the whole of culture, or what I call “the social firmament.” Returning to Dewey, individual action within the social firmament does not arise by force of impact by external stimuli as seen in neoclassical economics. It is an intrinsic aspect of being human. Dewey writes, “In truth man acts anyway, he can’t help acting. In every fundamental sense it is false that a man requires a motive to make him do something. To a healthy man inaction is the greatest of woes.”30 In his groundbreaking article, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” published in 1896, Dewey casts off the atomistic concept that human thought and action are held in a state of inertia until propelled into motion by an external force. He argued instead, as did James, that mental and physical action are predicated on pure volition, yet also acknowledges that the volitional aspect of the human condition is meaningless unless placed in the context of the structured habits within a broader cultural complex.31

30 Dewey, Human Nature, pp. 118–119. 31 Dewey, John, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” Psychological Review, Vol. 3,

1896.

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Veblen also saw human activity as willful and directed from an internal volition, yet continuously molded by an ongoing process of social habituation and reinforcement within human culture. The whole of the cultural complex is the totality of customs, language, symbols, and institutions, which taken together comprise the social firmament. In this holistic view, the social firmament is in a state of codetermination with each individual and with an evolving consciousness. True holism melts away the fault lines that delineate the individual, the mind, and the collective. Dewey and Veblen both envisioned the social firmament as carrying socially constructed habits that constitute the setting for human action. These habits are the filtering and coloring media through which the external world reaches our perception and thought. From this view, Dewey concluded, “Thus our purposes and commands regarding action (whether physical or moral) come to us through the refracting medium of bodily and moral habits.”32 By contrast, social atomism holds that the habits of society are nothing more than the arithmetic collection of individual habits raked together into an amorphous cluster. Dewey, however, argues that there is an underlying structure that is shaped by the material conditions of daily life in which people have common experiences and therefore develop commonly accepted social habits. He writes, “We often fancy that institutions, social custom, collective habit, have been formed by the consolidation of individual habits. In the main this supposition is false to fact… customs, or widespread uniformities of habit, exist because individuals face the same situation and react in like fashion.”33 Facing the same situation and reacting in like fashion for Dewey was an ongoing project of problem-solving in the tasks of wresting a livelihood from the crust of the earth—the very core action within all economic systems. Dewey writes, “The problem of origin and development of the various groupings, or definite customs, in existence at any particular time in any particular place is not solved by reference to psychic causes, elements, or forces. It is to be solved by reference to facts of action, demand for food, for houses, for a mate…”34 In the economic processes of production, distribution, and consumption, the habits of

32 Dewey, Human Nature, p. 32. 33 Ibid., p. 58. 34 Ibid.

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mind and habits of behavior of people become “deeply grooved systems of interaction which we call social groups, big and small…”35 The everyday lives of people have always been largely consumed in the struggles to gain a livelihood in their material surrounding. Knowledge about their material surrounding is derived from what is illuminated in, or relevant to, these struggles. Through the routines of work, individuals and communities settle on following a certain set of practical procedures, without which they would have to uneconomically reinvent and redefine the manner with which one performs work tasks each day. These procedures become habitualized and consequently provide a stable foundation upon which new procedures may be innovated in the face of new challenges, or by virtue of pure creativity. People work in the world together to make things, and in so doing self-create their own social groups. Dewey writes, “common mind, common ways of feeling and believing and purposing, comes into existence, then forms these groups.”36 Common ways of thinking acting reify into social groups which in time become the economic institutions that impose order and control over the economic process. In time these institutions interact with other institutions to create a network or ecosystem of institutions that Hamilton described as the unbroken web. The web evolves into a system that is intertwined within the whole of the social firmament. In this way, people create the social firmament that shapes and controls their lives. Systems Theorist Bertalanffy, concurs “[S]ystems theory sees the individual as primarily active, seeking not rest but that steady state maintained by the tension of interaction… Man is not a passive receiver of stimuli coming from an external world, but in a very concrete sense creates his universe.”37 This tension of interaction between the individual (self) and the social firmament (other) in the process of self-creation is dialectic. Reflecting on this tension in a Hegelian sense, philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer notes that, “To recognize one’s self in the alien, to become at home in it, is the basic movement of spirit, whose being consists only in returning to itself

35 Ibid., p. 60. 36 Ibid., p. 61. 37 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, General Systems Theory (New York: George Braziller, 1968),

p. 192.

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from what is other.”38 The whole of an evolving culture (bildung ) is the synthesis of the self with the firmament by inwardly making it a part of the self and by outwardly expressing the self to the firmament. By making the cultural world part of the self, George H. Mead, pragmatist and colleague of Dewey at the University of Chicago, notes that the symbols and images of a social group are used to construct the identity of what he calls the “social self.”39 Individuals are tied to a social group and play a role in that group which reflects back on the individual. Mead adds, “In this way we play the roles of all our group; indeed, it is only insofar as we do this they become part of our social environment.”40 Through their collective and habituated action in economic life, each individual social self shapes the contours of the social environment or firmament. The firmament, in turn, shapes the actions of people with work rules, symbols, social norms, and social habits, which in time become the building blocks of social institutions. Social institutions cohere into the structures that provide the rules that guide economic life. The social firmament is part of the very fabric of our economic being and our economic being is part of the social fabric. In this way, the development of the individual, social development, and the evolution of the social firmament are all locked together in a state of dependent co-origination. From this perspective, the social self of the individual, the business corporation as an institution, and the surrounding social firmament are all in a state of interbeing. For Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, the focus on making change from pathological conditions to wellbeing must be on all levels to be effective. Recall the systems view of formations. Human beings are formations comprised of organic subformations. Human consciousness is a formation comprised of cultural formations and organic subformations. Human volitional action is the subformation of the evolving social firmament. All levels are permeable and in that original state of flux as Whitehead observed a century ago. For both pragmatists and institutionalists, all human existence is in a state of interbeing with the surrounding social firmament such that 38 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, 2nd. ed. (New York: Continuum, 1993), p. 14. 39 Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 142. 40 Ibid., p. 146.

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behavior cannot be understood outside of this milieu any more than a fish can be understood without water. The whole of the social firmament is continuously in a state of flux resulting from the dialectical interplay between its unity and the diversity of the mass of active individuals each playing a role of social self. All aspects are thus impermanent and transformative. The direction of the transformation, however, is nonteleological and uncertain. For pragmatists, institutional economists, and socially engaged Buddhists, the ultimate task is to consciously give some direction to the evolution of the social firmament in order to realize healthy progress in people’s lives—to be of service to humanity and our ecological habitat. The dialectical interplay between individual and social firmament, and between habits of thought and habits of action, is a constantly evolving process. Recall that Peirce and James emphasized that this process has unlimited potential for progressive development. William James noted that the mind in this evolving process is such, “…no state ‘of consciousness’ once gone can ever recur and be identical with what it was before.”41 By contrast, the atomistic view sees changing consciousness as merely a rearranging of fixed responses to sensations. For pragmatists action and experience in the world reshapes the individual in every moment. The cognitive reaction to each experience is a reflection of the totality of all experiences and reshaping up to each moment and gives new shape to experiences to come. Through a process of karmic volition, James and other pragmatists see all human experience as deriving from a will to act which steadily transforms their world and their consciousness, and these transformations are cumulative. Given that the social firmament is in a state of continuous and cumulative transformation, a question arises regarding as to the direction of this change. Both pragmatists and institutionalists argue that the direction is non-teleological. In terms of Darwinian evolution, change is subject to chance and circumstance and can drift in an infinite number of directions. At the same time, however, it is subject to volitional will. The volition to act in the world is universal to all people and the specific actions people take are shaped within the social firmament. All the while, however, they are leaving their marks of alterations within the social firmament such that it is subject to permanent alteration by a cumulative series of actions.

41 James, William, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 230.

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Through the dialectic process of mutual creation between individuals and firmament, volitional human action in the world constitutes the key to cumulative change and social evolution. As the process is indeterminant insofar as there is no pre-determined blueprint, there are both karmic and ethical implications regarding the overall direction of such change. As humans have the volitional will to act in their community, this action will indubitably be a force—large or small—in the direction with which the firmament evolves. Through a process of karmic volition people’s actions in the material world lead toward evolutionary backsliding or toward creative progress. All is impermanent and in a state of flux. As we touch on evolutionary processes, we create a temporal aspect of our understanding. It also places us on a karmic timeline that includes past and future. Returning to Whitehead, each actual entity, although complete so far as concerns its microscopic process, is yet incomplete by reason of its objective inclusion of the macroscopic process. It really experiences a future which must be actual, although the completed actualities of that future are undetermined. In this sense, each actual occasion experiences its own objective immortality.42

For George H. Mead the interplay between people’s actions in daily life and the temporal flux of the social firmament was a central focus. He stood out among the pragmatists as the most preoccupied with problemsolving in society, particularly in the context of the flurry of the scientific developments of his era. Mead’s approach to pragmatism, often referred to as “constructivism,” was developed around what he called his “philosophy of act.”43 Mead emphasized that ethical considerations are bound to the reality that evolution of human beings and the impact their actions have on their social and natural environments are coterminous. Resonating with Peirce’s notion of practical bearing, the philosophy of act is more than merely considering some useful course of action, it is a statement of metaphysics in which a central aspect of human existence is the primacy of action, interaction, and impact or practical bearing. Mead writes, “It has become evident that an environment answers to the susceptibilities of the organism; that the organism determines thus its own environment; that the effect of every adaptation is a new environment 42 Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 248. 43 Reck, Mead, p. xlvi.

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which must change with that which responds to it.” The recognition of this process of mutual codetermination and impact engenders a sense of an ethical responsibility for Mead, “The full recognition, however, that form and environment must be phases that answer to each other, character for character, appears in ethical theory.”44 Form and environment are subject to cumulative change and moral awareness of the karmic impact of actions can determine the path of this change. For Mead, in the coterminous field of space and time there does not exist a one-directional extension with one level shaping the other. Rather, the effects of all are simultaneous, whole, and multidirectional, “…if we admit that the evolutionary process consists in a mutual determination of the individual and his environment—not the determination of the individual by his environment—moral necessity in conduct is found in the very evolutionary situation.”45 In this evolutionary sense, Mead emphasized that individual actions in their original form are the first overt phases in social acts and a social act is one in which one individual connects as a stimulus to a response from another individual. In a kind of dance of mutual adaptation, individuals signal to each other what their conduct implies in terms of appropriate and valuable responses from each other. Similarly, Dewey argued that it is impossible for a person to be morally neutral in this regard. Conduct is always shared and always has ethical impact one way or another. The ethical exigency arises in the context of making modifications that will have a karmic impact on the condition of the social firmament in future. Ultimately for both Dewey and Mead, the process of positive social change is not something that can be achieved by simply appealing to an individual to shape up and change their habits. It must extend into the realm of changing social conditions as well. Dewey argues, “We change character from worse to better only by changing conditions—among which, once more, are our own ways of dealing with the one we judge. We cannot change habit directly: that notion is magic. But we can change it indirectly by modifying conditions…”46 He was adamant that proclamations of social reform that promise putting an end to war, labor strife, or inequality for Dewey ring hollow unless accompanied with plans for changes in social structures,

44 Ibid., p. 65. 45 Ibid., pp. 86–87. 46 Dewey, Human Nature, p. 21.

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“…no amount of preaching good will or the golden rule or cultivation of sentiments of love and equity will accomplish the results. There must be change in objective arrangements and institutions. We must work on the environment not merely on the hearts of men. To think otherwise is to suppose that flowers can be raised in the desert or motor cars in a jungle. Both things can happen without a miracle. But only first by changing the jungle and the desert.”47 Dewey went further to argue that changing objective social conditions which have practical bearing on the habits of people is not something that can happen in a leap of revolutionary transformation. Revolutions enter the stage full of sound and fury, but then ultimately settle back to the deeply grooved habits of society. A revolutionary movement can have some momentary impact on the existing institutions but will inevitably be left behind because “the habits that are behind these institutions and that have, willy-nilly, been shaped by objective conditions the habits of thought and feeling are not so easily modified.”48 The force of lag in human life is enormous and actual social change is never so great as is apparent change. Glowing predictions of the immediate coming of a social order tend to terminate repeatedly in disappointment. He concludes that, “Habits of thought outlive modifications in habits of overt action.”49 Changing the jungle or desert, as it were, is gradual and piecemeal in a continuum of flux within which each “new generation must come upon the scene whose habits of mind have formed under new conditions.”50 For Veblen and Dewey, existing circumstances come into being not by extension of human nature, but through a process of social habituation. Dewey concurred with Veblen that the structure of economic activity largely depends on the state of the firmament at some point in time on the evolutionary continuum. Dewey argued there is an array of forces, not just one human aspect of “human nature,” that gives rise to the kind of aggression seen in capitalistic systems. He argues that monopolization through market conquests and aggression in general can be generated by the same impulses that lead to war: “Pugnacity, rivalry, vainglory, love of booty, fear, suspicion, anger, desire

47 Ibid., pp. 21–22. 48 Ibid., p. 108. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., p. 110.

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for freedom from conventions and restrictions of peace, love of power and hatred of oppression, opportunity for novel displays, love of home and soil, attachment to one’s people and to the altar and the hearth, courage, loyalty, opportunity to make a name, money or career, affection, piety to ancestors and ancestral gods—all of these things and many more.”51 He makes the point that “To suppose there is someone unchanging native force which generates aggression is as naïve as the usual assumption that our enemy is activated solely by the meaner of the tendencies named and we only by the nobler… Social conditions rather than an old and unchangeable Adam have generated wars; the irradicable impulses that are utilized in them are capable of being drafted into other channels.”52 Veblen and other institutionalists shared with Dewey the emphasis on evolutionary rather than revolutionary progress, which they often link to technological development, innovation, and creativity. Veblen identified an underlying mechanism for change that points our cultural evolution in one direction or another; for better or worse. This mechanism is what he calls “invention and diffusion.”53 As people act in the world, they invent and change things and project them into the social firmament. This could be a new form of technology, a new weapon, or a new skillful means. Eventually if the inventions take root, they become diffused through social interaction and eventually new habits are formed around them. They become part of the evolving firmament while the old habits fade in a continuous process of renewal and change. In Veblen’s analysis, there is conflict in the process of invention and diffusion in terms of what gets diffused and what fades. Each incremental change is either seen as adaptive or maladaptive. If the invention and diffusion of something result in improvements, it is adaptive and leads toward progress. The adaptive or maladaptive character of the invention depends on the prevailing disposition at the time it was developed. If it blooms from a prevalent disposition to creatively advance the wellbeing of the population, it is adaptive. A new medicine, more efficient use of energy, or innovative policies for eliminating poverty all stem from a broader humanistic motivation to create something that can be put

51 Ibid., pp. 112–113. 52 Ibid. 53 Veblen, Thorstein, The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of Industrial Arts (New York: W.B. Huebsch, 1922), pp. 112–113.

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into service of social provisioning. If, however, the invention was developed out of prevailing cultural disposition of craving or predation, then it leads to a kind of cultural de-evolution and is maladaptive to progress. For Veblen, inventions that foster predatory conquests, amassing fortunes in speculation for ego-aggrandizement are distinct from real creative or productive work. Their purpose is to sublimate the activities of individuals who are consumed with egoistic motivation. In this situation, there is little or no progress in terms of wellbeing or social provisioning. Socially engaged Buddhist economics fosters awareness of these processes. Just as with a disciplined Buddhist practice of looking inward at the vexations that trouble us, we can mindfully look outward at the socially constructed vexations—greed, hatred, delusion—that trouble us, and see clearly the role that standard economics plays in perpetuating these vexations. Mindful awareness in this way also helps us build a system of moral philosophy that can guide economic behavior toward healthy, adaptive, social provisioning.

Buddhism and Moral Necessity As mainstream economics tries to normalize egocentric self-attachment in human behavior, Buddhist economists see it as a distorted, delimiting affliction and thus as a primary driver of suffering. Attempts to normalize it are a distortion of our true nature of being. Venerable Phra Prayudh Payutto charges that, “…economics has become a narrow and rarefied discipline; an isolated, almost stunted, body of knowledge, having little to do with other disciplines or human activities.”54 Buddhist economist, Apichai Puntasen, asserts that “Mainstream economics has virtually nothing to say about living authentic lives and true happiness aside from its self-proclaimed axioms of self-indulgence.”55 These and other Buddhist economists warn that Western economic systems and ideologies, which have taken over much of the East, have culminated in a state of existence characterized by a dangerous combination of wealth and

54 Phra Prayudh Payutto, “Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Marketplace,” www.urbandharma.org/udharma2/becono.html, translated by Dhammavijaya and Bruce Evans, 1992, p. 5. 55 Puntasen, Apichai, Buddhist Economics: Evolution, Theories and Its Application to Various Economic Subjects (Bangkok: Amarin Press, 2004), p. 38.

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power wielded by those with defiled minds and stunted spiritual development. In an open dialog session with Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and the Dalai Lama, Ajahn Santikaro emphasizes that, “As long as our economic system is based on selfishness… it will fail. Buddhist economics, therefore, must overcome selfishness in both the worldly and spiritual spheres.”56 In this way, what Mead described as the “moral necessity in conduct is found in the very evolutionary situation”57 is the centerpiece of the ethical considerations of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. Considering this, Payutto extends his analysis of economic thought into a system of ethics, which discerns between two categories of economic motivations. One category is tanha, or small-minded motivations that are limited to individual ego-gratification and craving. The other category is chanda, or big-minded motivations stemming from an aspiration to contribute to societal wellbeing. Tanha is derived from the compulsions of the egocentric consumers, entrepreneurs, and financial market speculators who remain in a kind of dark prison of insatiability and self-indulgence—the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. In this category of economic motivations human activity is narrowly motivated as it is selfserving and is compelled by ego-gratification. Tanha economics is often lauded in Western economics as the source of material prosperity. The famous liberal economist John Maynard Keynes argues that although we must recognize the faults of widespread greed as a motivational force, he nonetheless maintained that greed is necessary for a positive outcome on the economy overall. Keynes writes, “The love of money as a possession … will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.” He nonetheless holds on to the idea that societies need to embrace greed for another century in order to be set free from economic depressions and insecurity. “For at least another hundred years,” Keynes writes, “we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a

56 Santikaro, Ajahn, A Single Bowl of Sauce: Teachings Beyond Good and Evil by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (Bangkok: The Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives, 2017), p. 119. 57 Mead, George H., “The Working Hypothesis in Social Reform,” The American Journal of Sociology, 1899, pp. 367–371.

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little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”58 Buddhists see it differently. Greed and self-interest only foster a delusion of wellbeing. They prevail in tanha economics as they flow from a boundless river of craving that can never be truly satisfying. The Buddha observed, “even if one could magically transform one single mountain into two mountains of solid gold it would still not provide complete and lasting satisfaction to one person.”59 Motivations emerging from such craving is seen by Payutto as a kind of motivation from which little or no good comes to society, therefore is devoid of ethical value. Chanda motivations are those that are compelling action that leads to overall wellbeing for not only the individual producer or consumer, but also for society and our natural habitat. In this case, Payutto calls the activity thus compelled as “morally skillful” and holding ethical value.60 Buddhist ethics in this sense is not a set of commandments or pronouncements about what is good, bad, evil, or sinful. It is centered on a karmic understanding of how things could be better in terms of overall wellbeing if members of the community act to free themselves from greed, aggression, and delusion. Crafting a vision of change from tanha to chanda economics necessarily means breaking from established economic ideology and institutions and reaching beyond social atomism and the egocentric axioms of neoclassical economics. Chanda is holistic as it includes the entirety of human sociality in its analytical purview and is an approach that is central to both pragmatism and institutional economics. Ethics seen in this way is proactive and is a lived ethics. For pragmatists, institutionalists, and Buddhists, individuals who participate in social and economic activities are not passive, static, or isolated units. Rather, they are seen holistically as actively creating, and being created by the social firmament within which economic production and consumption take place. Moral necessity arises in this realization that we are interconnected. In contrast to social atomism and neoclassical economics, the shared holistic view presented here holds no distinctions between unity of the whole and diversity of the mass of individuals. Distinctions between 58 Keynes, John M., Collected Writings, Moggridge, Donald E., ed. (London: Macmillan, 1971), Vol. IX, pp. 329, 331. 59 Quoted in Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism (Boston: Shambala, 2000), p. 85. 60 Payutto, Buddhist Economics, pp. 18–19.

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unity and diversity are artificial fragmentations within a systemic where all things and processes are in an inseparable and constantly changing state of interbeing.61 Holistically we share a common fate that arises from our collective actions. Socially Engaged Buddhism must foster awareness of this collective reality, and by doing so behavior will change to reflect that awareness. Buddhist scholar Peter Hershock emphasizes that it is not enough to simply be aware of interconnectedness to free ourselves from suffering and pathology. Rather, “it is crucial to ask whether existing emerging patterns of interdependence are wholesome and conducive to relating freely, or if they carry us, personally and communally, in a contrary direction.”62 Socially engaged Buddhism goes beyond gaining an understanding of interrelatedness and aspires to cultivate insight into the meaning and direction of progressive change in the interrelated system. Hershock emphasizes that “Affirming that all things arise interdependently is not to affirm that they do so in a necessarily liberating way… But can also mean deepening poverty, trouble, and suffering.”63 In other words, social change must be purposeful and directed toward positive outcomes and away from suffering. Suffering is not only a condition that affects us individually, but also systemic. In the socially engaged Buddhist view, the root causes of suffering transcend the individual and are connected to deeper existential defilements. There is much suffering that originates from the troubled conditions wrapped up in our individual sense of self, the ego, and from the same defiled conditions embodied in our social institutions and collective mindset. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that troubling patterns of behavior and feelings of agitation have social origins that have been habituated and carried forward in time, “We may think that our agitation is ours alone, but if we look carefully, we’ll see that it is our inheritance from our whole society and many generations of our ancestors.”64 Here Nhat Hanh raises the temporal and karmic aspects of change. Making positive 61 Nhat Hanh, Thich, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), pp. 42–43. 62 Hershock, Peter, Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 59. 63 Ibid. 64 Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise (New York:

Harper Collins, 2015), p. 75.

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changes within ourselves as well as changing the conditions in our social firmament is the dialectic interplay from which inner and outer work of socially engaged Buddhist economics takes its form, and it is cumulative as it passes through time. For Payutto, the ethical value of our actions is weighed by karmic and temporal repercussions of those actions and whether the action derives from tanha motivations or chanda motivations. Again, in Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, the central aspect of ethics is cultivating mindful awareness as to whether our habits of thought and action foster the evolution of cumulative change in ways that lead to general genuine wellbeing or suffering. On this matter of karmic and volitional social change, Hershock also argued that it is also important to emphasize the values and intentions that underly action. Liberation from suffering, which is the cardinal aim of Buddhism, would constitute reorienting our economic interdependencies away from destructive values, which lead to destructive intentions, which lead to destructive actions. Breaking such “ill-disposed patterns … and skillfully orienting it away from trouble and suffering are necessarily a part of contemporary Buddhist practice.” Karma, for Hershock, is a process of inheriting a set of social, political, and environmental conditions that have been formed from past values-intentions-actions. Progressive social change comes from identifying these conditions and consciously and creatively reforming our present-moment firmament using skillful means cultivated through practices which engender different values-intentionsactions. Hershock refers to this process of change as “dispositional revision.”65 Hershock further identifies karmic aspects of lived ethics in that “one of the root insights of Buddhist teachings on karma is that we have no choice but to work with the resources present in our own situation, as it has come to be…”66 Buddhists have a keen insight into reconstructing our lives through “skillful means,” which as Hershock explains involves “sensitivity to and abilities for creatively appropriating the karma of our present situation in its historical context.”67 Thus, changing circumstances involves reorienting our systems of interaction, which also “means

65 Hershock, Buddhism, pp. 14–15. 66 Ibid., p. 22. 67 Ibid.

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being capable of initiating and sustaining both discerning and enriching patterns of engagement with our situation… In the broadest Buddhist sense, this is what is meant by appropriate development.” Recall that Peirce asserted that the central maxim of pragmatism as a philosophy of science is that it must consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearing you conceive the object of your conception to have. For Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics the practical bearing and ethical starting place for appropriate development would be with meeting the foundational needs of the population. Economic production, distribution, and consumption constitute the structural basis for meeting what Hershock identifies as the foundational needs of human security: reasonable environmental quality, healthcare, adequate food, clothing, shelter, etc.68 Taking a holistic view, he sees that failing to meet these needs makes it virtually impossible to develop the higher-level capacities for human development such as advanced technology, literacy, civic participation, environmental stability, or social justice. Hershock emphasizes that “In strictly Buddhist terms, failing to secure these foundations needs means failing to secure the minimum conditions for a liberating practice aimed at the meaningful resolution of trouble or suffering—the orientation of our personal and communal patterns of interdependence away from samsara toward nirvana.”69 Meeting foundational needs is a precondition for making meaningful and positive changes in the social firmament that will be passed on to subsequent generations. This socially engaged Buddhist vision of progressive social karma is also centrally important to pragmatist philosophy and institutional economics. Both have adopted a methodology that stresses change. Gruchy refers to institutional economics as “processual economics,” the key to which is to view the economy as part of an evolving social whole.70 The karmic cause-effect process continues with precedent and antecedent, so selecting a starting place for socially engaged Buddhist economics with pragmatistinstitutionalist coloring is focused where our feet meet the ground. That is, with the fundamentals of careful, mindful social provisioning while being cognizant of the fact that we are doing this activity within the context of an evolving social whole. On this Veblen writes,

68 Ibid., p. 60. 69 Ibid. 70 Gruchy, Allan, Modern Economic Thought, p. 27.

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The activity is itself the substantial fact of the process, and the desires under whose guidance the action takes places are circumstances of temperament which determine the specific direction in which the activity will unfold itself in the given case. These circumstances of temperament are ultimate and definitive for the individual who acts under them, so far as regards his attitude as agent in the particular action in which he is engaged. But, in the view of science, they are elements of the existing frame of mind of the agent, and are the outcome of his antecedents and his life up to the point at which he stands. They are the products of his hereditary traits and his past experience cumulative wrought out under a given body of traditions, conventionalities, and material circumstances; and they afford the point of departure for the next step in the process. The economic life history of the individual is a cumulative process of adaptation of means to ends that cumulatively change as the process goes on.71

The frame of mind and framing of context are both part of the overall evolutionary process. This is the crux of the inner and outer work of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. Veblen asserted clearly that economics is concerned with the material basis of culture and the flow of material goods to meet the needs of people. The composition of culture and flow of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services is an integral part of the collective life process. In concentrating his attention of the flow of material goods as imbued with a social purpose, Veblen succinctly defined economics as “the science of social provisioning,” and further explained that “viewed from the standpoint of the collective interest, the economic process is rated primarily as a process for the provision of the aggregate material means of life.”72 But Veblen also noted that this process of social provisioning is not without conflict. He observed that the economic system was one in which the provisioning of society was accompanied by a basic conflict between two classes or employments, the pecuniary and the industrial classes—between those who have the power to milk the system for personal financial gain and those who depend on the system for livelihoods.73 Seen in this light, Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics 71 Veblen, Thorstein, The Portable Veblen, Lerner, Max, ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1948), pp. 233–234. 72 Gruchy, Allan, Modern Economic Thought, p. 58. 73 Veblen, Thorstein, “Industrial and Pecuniary Employments,” Publications of the

American Economic Association, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1901, pp. 190–235.

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requires a substantial effort in the outer work of embracing the conflict that goes with it. Social provisioning will always be based on the prevailing habits of thought and behavior—the institutions—at a given time within the confines of the social firmament. As people in their communities seek to have a society that provides for the wellbeing of the population, there must be a set of institutions, stable within the firmament, that set the rules for doing so and holds such provisioning as a priority. If people find themselves in an economic society which does not have such priorities, socially engaged Buddhists will be compelled to ask why this is not the case and what needs to be done to make it so. The implication is that there is a certain level of activism involved in the process of reorienting social structures and social habituations as a lived social ethic.

Dharma Talk The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are about the veracity of suffering, the sources of suffering, changing direction, and having a solid plan on how to make such change. These truths apply to a corporate-dominated society as much as they are guidelines for individual conduct. Changing in a healthy direction, individually or socially, necessarily involves some degree of letting go. Positive change cannot happen if members of society are absorbed with self-attachment or resisting the reorientation of institutions in the face of pathological conditions such as climate change, pandemics, and corporate greed run amok. Perhaps a crucial first step in letting go is to surrender to the notion of impermanence. Impermanence is another central concept in Buddhist thought. It is often referred to as annica in traditional Buddhist literature meaning that everything formed in this universe is ceaselessly changing. Nothing endures forever. There is only process, flux, and time. The thirteenthcentury Zen master, Dogen, calls it “being-time” indicating that because everything is changing, everything is time. He pointed to a sixteen-foot golden figure, a seemingly very solid and unchanging object, and said “this is time.”74 In the Buddhist view, everything—a golden statue, the

74 Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen (New York: Doubleday, 1980), p. 308.

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sun, the mountains—is temporal and flowing along the one directional arrow of time. Another concept closely linked to impermanence is karma. Karma is an understanding of time that connects the past, present, and future. As the saying goes, “The present is a shadow of the past and the future a shadow of the present.” Karma is both a doctrine of cause and effect and of action and reaction. Our actions motivated from ego-attachments create the reaction of more pathological conditions for the future. But it does not have to be this way. By the same reasoning, healthy motivations can give rise to beneficial actions, which create wholesome conditions for the future. We are, individually and societally, the engineers of our own fate through a process of karmic volition; for better or worse. In light of that, pragmatists, institutionalist, and Buddhists share the notion that it is our moral imperative to be the agents of skillful social change. This leads humanity in its current situation at a karmic crossroads. The pragmatist-institutionalist view sees nature of the individual self is to be an active, purposive agent and to extend into the world in some way. The specific patterns of the action are structured by set of habits that cohere into social institutions and become embedded in the whole of the social firmament. Depending on the circumstances, certain types of habits and institutions come to dominate the economic scene while the others lay dormant. This firmament is not fixed in time but subject to evolutionary change, though the force of lag is potent, particularly when powerful interests stand in the way of change. However slow or rapid, the direction of change constitutes a non-teleological drift and is possible to drift in an infinite number of directions. Thus, we are faced with a moral imperative to use intelligence, wisdom, invention and diffusion, and skillful means to affect such evolutionary change in our economic institutions. This outer work is of paramount importance for socially engaged Buddhist economics.

References Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, General Systems Theory, (New York: George Braziller, 1968). Dewey, John, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” Psychological Review, 1896, Vol. 3. ———, Human Nature and Conduct, (New York: Modern Library, 1930).

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Dixon, Russell, Economic Institutions and Cultural Change, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1941). Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., (New York: Continuum, 1993). Gruchy, Allan, Modern Economic Thought, (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1947). Hamilton, Walton, “Institutions,” in Encyclopedia of the Sciences, (New York: Macmillan, 1932). Hartshorne, Charles, ed., Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935–1970, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972). Hershock, Peter, Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence, (New York: Routledge, 2006). James, William, “Remarks on Spencer’s Definition of Mind as Correspondence,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 1878, Vol. 12, No. 1. ———, “Does Consciousness Exist?” Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1904, Vol. 1, No. 18. ———, Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1 and 2, (New York: Dover Publications, 1950). Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003). Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth, eds., Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, (Boston: Shambala, 2000). Kramer, Gregory, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom, (Boston: Shambhala, 2007). Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen, (New York: Doubleday, 1980). Payutto, Phra Prayudh Payutto, “Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Marketplace,” www.urbandharma.org/udharma2/becono.html, translated by Dhammavijaya and Bruce Evans, 1992. Perry, Ralph B., The Thought and Character of William James, Vol. 2, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1935). Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). Santikaro, Ajahn. A Single Bowl of Sauce: Teachings Beyond Good and Evil by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, (Bangkok: The Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives, 2017). Thich Nhat Hanh. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation (New York: Broadway Books, 1998). ———, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise, (New York: Harper Collins, 2015). Veblen, Thorstein, “Industrial and Pecuniary Employments,” Publications of the American Economic Association, 1901, Vol. 2, No. 1 pp. 190–235. ———, The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of Industrial Arts, (New York: W.B. Huebsch, 1922). ———, The Portable Veblen, Lerner, Max, ed., (New York: Viking Press, 1948).

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———, “Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1898, Vol. 12, No. 4. Whitehead, Alfred North, Science and the Modern World, (New York: Macmillan, 1925), p. 17. Wiener, Philip P., ed., Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings, (New York: Dover, 1958).

CHAPTER 6

Eye of the Heart

In the late 1940s, a group of economic theorists gathered at the posh Mont Pelerin resort in Switzerland. The purpose of the gathering was to combine wits and craft a comprehensive framework that would challenge Keynesian economic orthodoxy in the post-World War Two era. The economic theories of John M. Keynes were proclaimed as the definitive policy-based approach to economics that placed government spending programs at the center of the economic system in order to provide stability and employment. Writing in the 1930s, Keynes was making his case as a last resort to climb out of the nightmare of the Great Depression. The prevailing ideology up to that point remained tethered to laissez faire doctrines of free markets, limited government, and economic individualism. But most economists admitted that Keynes was correct in advocating a larger role of government intervention given the circumstances. The group at Mont Pelerin, however, saw things differently. Notably among them were Freidrich August von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Frank Knight. Together they formed a right-wing think tank, the Mont Pelerin Society, that became the center for the hardcore economic ideology that eventually came to be known as neoliberalism. Among the most influential works of this group to solidify neoliberal ideology were Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) and Individualism © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_6

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and Economic Order (1948). At the core of this ideology is an attempt to revitalize economic individualism, social atomism, and market fundamentalism. They restored the notion self-interest as sovereign in economic affairs and as a positive force in the economy. They launched attacks on all institutional structures outside the market system and for-profit business enterprise as “tyranny” and the loss of individual freedom. Their ideas defined an agenda that inspired generations of market ideologues and policymakers, not least of which were Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK and President Ronald Reagan in the US. Thatcher and Reagan spearheaded a series of policy initiatives aimed at lowering taxes for the wealthy, breaking down organized labor, deregulation of basic industries, and a host of other policies that benefitted the wealthy and powerful corporations at the expense of the general population. Riding this wave was twentieth-century author and intellectual, Ayn Rand. In her book The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1961), she not only denied the existence of social structures but assailed the idea that a population should pursue policies or create institutions for benefitting society. Benefitting society with social programs for Rand would mean “‘society’ stands above any principles of ethics… since ‘the good’ is whatever it wills, whatever it happens to assert as its own welfare and pleasure. This meant that ‘society’ may do anything it pleases.” She further claims that “there is no such entity as ‘society,’ since society is only a number of individual men. This meant that some men (the majority of any gang that claims to be its spokesman) are ethically entitled to pursue any whims (or any atrocities) they desire…”.1 Although Rand is not typically considered a major contributor to economic theory, her ideas were nonetheless influential and very popular in the US. Her belief system, which she called objectivism, is centered on this assertion that societies exist, only individual people and their desires. And such desires are predicated on the neoclassical utilitarian pleasure principle. Therefore, any attempt to objectively pursue values or ethical codes that place the social good above that of the individual self-interest is mere whimsy.2 Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher echoed Rand in a 1987 interview as she declared, “There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and

1 Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (NY: The New American Library, 1961), pp. 13–18. 2 Ibid.

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the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves…”3 Grasping, selfish, egoistic behavior for Rand is a natural inclination for our species and therefore is correct behavior as long as it results in physical sensations of pleasure. Rand’s objectivism helped shape the thinking of legendary Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who along with Thatcher, former American president Ronald Reagan and others forged the way toward a massive economic deregulation movement based on economic individualism and free market ideology. Income distribution from that point on continued to grow wider, driving a deep and hostile wedge between the wealthy and the poor, and creating widespread anxiety among the middle class. In the decades that followed the initial gathering of the Mont Pelerin Society on to the current period, neoliberalism was deliberately constructed to be the dominant economic ideology. The Mont Pelerin Society garnered financial support from billionaires and corporations from which they were able to fund professorships, scholarships, think tanks such as Washington D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Cato Institute; and the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, and they established a power base at the University of Chicago where Friedman spent thirty years as professor. Institutional economics was henceforth marginalized while the Mont Pelerin Society and neoliberals planted seeds of influence and popularity in Western culture and political establishments. With a well-funded agenda, the Society and its satellite institutions have been, and continue to be, working toward dismantling environmental controls, labor laws, public schools, and social support programs that engaged activists fought hardwon battles to achieve through legitimate democratic processes. In 1974, Hayek was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and in 1976 the prize went to Friedman. By the 1970s onward, the Society, armed with money and authority, came to dominate economic discourse in the West. It was at this time in the 1970s that E.F. Schumacher was publishing work on economics from a very different perspective.

3 Interview September 23, 1987, as quoted by Kay, Douglas in the magazine, Woman’s Own, October 31, 1987, pp. 8–10.

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The Eye of the Heart The decade of the 1970s was marked by profound developments in intellectual creativity and scientific discovery, particularly in the areas of system science and ecology. This was the denouement of the paradigm shift that began decades before. An environmental consciousness was emerging and people in general were becoming more aware of the impact their way of life was having on the planet. The first Earth Day was sanctioned by the United Nations in 1970 and a general interest in ecological science was gaining rapidly. Of particular interest was the rate with which resources were being depleted, specifically oil. Oil production in the US peaked in 1970 and by the fall of 1973 a global oil shortage shocked the world. The shortage was an extension of the war between Israel and a coalition of Arab States. As part of their war effort, the Arab states orchestrated a general oil embargo against the West in retaliation for the United States military support of Israel. The embargo caused oil prices to take an unprecedented leap prompting a deep global recession and rapid price inflation. The oil shock and the economic turbulence that followed revealed to scholars and scientists just how vulnerable our oildependent economies had become. Many were questioning the wisdom of our dependence on oil and sought out conservation measures and energy alternatives. Others were questioning the materialistic lifestyles in the West and the culture of consumerism. Aside from oil dependency, many other things were being called into question at that time. Large numbers of people mobilized and demanded changes in gender roles, race relations, and how we interact with nature. A sense of change was in the air and the conditions were ripe for a significant paradigm shift in science. Social, political, and ecological complexities demanded a new way of thinking—a shift from what was considered an outdated and reductionistic framework of analysis to one that is more holistic and interdisciplinary. More and more scientists were attempting to break out of the confines of their disciplines that had become narrow and overspecialized. Overspecialization led to firewalls being placed around discourse, which thwarted communication among disciplines and created a kind of academic tribalism. Some of the more forward-thinking intellectuals were breaking away from this narrowness and embraced a broader purview that crossed traditional disciplinary boundaries. One of the most significant contributions to systems thinking in science was by the Russian-born Belgian chemist, Ilya Prigogine. Prigogine

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won the Nobel Prize in 1977 for his work on “dissipative structures,” which asserts that science is non-determinant as was asserted in the now outmoded Newtonian worldview. Scientific theories, when expressed in classic mathematical formulas appear very pristine, tight, and deterministic. But the discoveries made in physics in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries led physicists to draw different conclusions. The physical universe is rather made of up of complex, chaotic, fuzzy systems that bleed into one another to the point that there can be no fundamental distinctions between the so-called hard sciences of physics and chemistry and the so-called soft sciences of human behavior. Prigogine’s work helped form a bridge between what were previously isolated domains of inquiry. As it became more interdisciplinary, scientific inquiry became more inclusive and systems thinking began to replace reductionism and the vestiges of the mechanistic-atomistic paradigm were laid to rest. This naturally led to a more ecological way of seeing things. Mainstream economics, however, was resisting these changes. It was during this rich time of scientific transformation that E.F. Schumacher published a collection of essays in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered (1973) which included an essay on “Buddhist Economics,” and his work on humanistic philosophy, A Guide for the Perplexed (1977). Schumacher was among the most prominent intellectuals of the post-Great Depression era. As Chief Economic Advisor to Britain’s National Coal Board between 1950 and 1970, he had an inside view of the troubling prospects of ongoing economic growth powered by largely by oil. He anticipated that economic expansion would eventually ebb from energy scarcities and high prices and openly challenged the typical economist’s infatuation with technology and their notion that technology will solve every problem of scarcity. He also challenged the core assumptions and philosophical foundation upon mainstream economics rests. In doing he, like Veblen and other institutional economists, became something of an economic heretic.4 As an economist in the U.K., Schumacher was a protégé of John M. Keynes. Recall as quoted earlier, Keynes argued that avarice and usury and precaution must be “our gods” for “only they can lead us out of the

4 Schumacher, E.F., Small Is Beautiful : Economics as If People Mattered (NY: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 15.

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tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”5 But unlike Keynes, Schumacher made no such pretense about the virtues of greed. Schumacher assailed Keynes’s contention that “foul is fair,” and argued that if people accept this notion, economic society will be fashioned into a culture of plunder based on “…greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.” Foul cannot be fair as it leads to a general collapse of intelligence, a loss of wisdom, people become blinded by their own rapacity, and it eventually strips bare all that has meaning. Schumacher laments that it is nonetheless deftly rationalized by economists in the simple stroke of pen—vice leads to virtue. He writes, “If whole societies become infected by these vices, they may indeed achieve astonishing things, but they become increasingly incapable of solving the most elementary problems of everyday existence.”6 The problems being frustration, alienation, and chronic dissatisfaction. They become hungry ghosts. What Schumacher called the “eye of the heart” is that which informs the mind and liberates the soul. For Schumacher and others, this is the most profound aspect of being human—our ability to be spiritual beings. Instead of relegating our preanalytical vision to moving parts, it is imbued with wisdom and a capacity to reflect from the heart, not just the intellect. Reverence for true wisdom can be found in all the great spiritual traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. Resonating with the early pragmatists William James and Charles S. Peirce, Schumacher writes, Can we see, with the light of the intellect, things which go beyond mathematics and geometry? Again, no one denies that we can see what another person means, sometimes even when he does not express himself accurately. Our everyday language is a constant witness to this power of seeing, of grasping ideas which is quite different from the processes of thinking and forming opinions…. The power of ‘the Eye of the Heart,’ which produces insight, is vastly superior to the power of thought, which produces opinions.7

5 Keynes, John M., in Moggridge, Donald E., ed., Collected Writings (London: Macmillan, 1971), Vol. IX, pp. 329, 331. 6 Small Is Beautiful , pp. 31–33. 7 Schumacher, E.F., A Guide for the Perplexed (NY: Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 46–47.

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In true spiritual practices, wisdom, love, compassion, and reverence for beauty and nature are elevated above the world of scientific facts. Seeing with the eye of the heart is a capacity to perceive reality this way, and thus cultivate an understanding in a manner that does not merely inform the mind but liberates the soul. For Schumacher, this spiritually informed quality is what allow us to see beyond the ego and live with each other and within our natural environment peacefully. Schumacher was, however, concerned that such a quality has been purged from serious inquiry and dismissed as authoritarian megalomania or preachy dogma. The eye of the heart was replaced with what he calls “materialistic scientism” in which spiritual traditions have been largely destroyed in the West and replaced with the M-C worldview that reduces the vision of ourselves, our society, and our environment to moving material parts.8 For Schumacher, the mechanistic paradigm ultimately blinds the eye of the heart and ignores the most profound qualities human life. As we come to see ourselves through the M-C lens, we are adrift without insight and are increasingly incapable of knowing our true natures. In this condition, it becomes easier to accept a cynical view of ourselves as automatons, dreadfully slogging on a spinning wheel of consumerism and material self-aggrandizement, and nothing more should be expected from us except naked self-interest, which further rationalizes predatory competition in the marketplace and aggression. We erase our capacity for spiritually informed wisdom to the extent that nothing really matters; we become indifferent. And when nothing matters, we develop vicious attitudes toward our natural habitat, which becomes a mere quarry for exploitation and a transgression against future generations. Schumacher concludes, “The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting economic affairs of man as if people really did not matter at all.”9 By reflecting on ourselves in a paradigm that consists of moving mechanical parts, we are mirroring ourselves as inanimate. We ignore the spiritual and intuitive aspects of our natures, which for Schumacher are not tangential but rather are what constitute the most significant and elevating aspects of our species. In the bulk of his writing, he reached far beyond criticism of conventional economics and

8 Small Is Beautiful , p. 90. 9 Ibid., p. 145.

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explored what the discipline might look like if we disregarded the egoistic and materialistic interpretation of economic life and in its place restored the eye of the heart. The eye of the heart is a core metaphysical phenomenon that cannot be proven or disproven by empirical science. Rather it is what we believe unconditionally to be true and is what guides our judgment and reasoning. Schumacher raises a concern that without a sound spiritual practice it has been neglected in the West and taken over by the mechanistic vision. He lamented that “… it is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper persists, the disorder will grow worse.”10 In other words, the ecological and social problems we are facing are symptomatic of a much deeper defilement of our core beliefs. His point was that contemporary life is contaminating our core beliefs with cynicism and materialism such that, “our heart and mind are at war. Our reason has become clouded by an extraordinary, blind, and unreasonable faith in a set of fantastic and life-destroying ideas inherited from the nineteenth century.”11 Schumacher insisted that we needed nothing less than a metaphysical reconstruction, which is spiritually informed inner work that naturally leads to spiritually outer work that reflects the interbeing of all existence of human life and the life of our world. This calls to mind John Ruskin’s romantic vision for the sacred in both economics and art. With a metaphysical reconstruction, Schumacher and others sought ways in which people could begin to act and think in different ways; hopefully in ways that will foster stable livelihoods, ecological permanence, and a serious commitment to social justice. In the Buddhist tradition, this would be considered “right livelihood” in which our work does not cause undue harm to ourselves, others, or our habitat. The “rightness” of it not based on moral judgments or commandments, but rather what is developed with our natural capacity for compassion, wholesome values, and a creative spirit that springs from a clear mind. To do this work, we will need what E.F. Schumacher calls a “metaeconomic” system; that is an ethical and ideological basis that will inform the specific aspects of institution building with wisdom and insight.

10 Ibid., p. 101. 11 Ibid.

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Meta-Economists Peter Gillingham wrote an epilogue titled, “The Making of Good Work,” that was included along with a collection of essays written by E.F. Schumacher and published shortly after Schumacher’s death in 1977 titled Good Work (1977).12 Gillingham emphasized that in the United States he was witnessing d a rise of a “meta-economy” based on distinct set of principles and values that are quite different from conventional economics—“that exhausts not only people and resources but itself as well.”13 As an alternative he sees meta-economics as emerging from vision of renewal rather than exhaustion or depletion. In his definition, “Meta-economics concerns itself with the degree to which an economic transaction reflects the deepest yearnings and motivations of the people who are party to it.”14 From these yearnings and motivations is a quest for an economic paradigm that questions economic growth for growth’s sake, the meaning of work and value, and the concept of fairness. The meta-economists briefly explored here are Anglo-American visionaries that have on this quest. As their ideas were unconventional in their time and clashed with orthodox belief systems, they were frequently met with scorn and hostility. Yet, these intellectuals were undaunted and established a legacy of original thought. From John Ruskin and William Morris in the mid-nineteenth century to Lewis Mumford and E.F. Schumacher in the twentieth century, a common theme in their work is that they were all prompted to breathe new life into communities as an antidote to what they perceived as dreadful modern industrial systems. The industrial revolution did bring great material improvements in people’s living standards. In contrast with Veblen and the pragmatists who were enthralled with technology and industrial development, these visionaries saw that it also created conditions of dehumanization, environmental ruination, and the poisoning of the human spirit. Rather than seeing them as economists in the conventional sense, we see their work as meta-economists as they stood back and reflected on economics critically while taking a more spiritual and comprehensive view.

12 Gillingham, Peter, “The Making of Good Work,” in Schumacher, E.F., ed., Good Work (NY: Harper Colophon, 1977), pp. 147–217. 13 Ibid., p. 192. 14 Ibid.

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The meta-economists explored ways of being and that involve changing how we meet our basic needs while cultivating a spiritual life, developing a deeper sense of aesthetics with the meaning of good work, realizing a sense of true justice and personal empowerment, and fostering a sense of belonging in communities. As early twentieth-century intellectual Randolph Bourne put it, to create a “beloved community is the cultivation of that ripening love of surroundings that gives quality to a place, and quality, too, to the individual life.”15 A common thread among these visionaries is their commitment to both an inward and outward transformative experience, which is consistent with dharma practice in Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. They saw that as individuals strive to better the conditions in their communities, they improve their own psychological and spiritual wellbeing; and as they evolve inwardly, they are naturally able to improve the conditions out in their communities. As Joseph Campbell similarly identified, the archetypal myth of the hero’s journey is to venture out into the world to realize a true source of empowerment then make a life-enhancing return to home. These meta-economists implore us to go out and engage in civic renewal, and by doing so we return transformed psychologically and spiritually. They make no distinctions between aesthetic, spiritual, intellectual, and political transformation, for they are all inseparable facets of human existence.

John Ruskin John Ruskin (1819–1900) was a mid-nineteenth-century British art critic and writer who traversed a landscape that covered art and architecture, culture, and economics. He was also a social reformer and sought justice for working people, though his sense of justice was unlike other social reformers of that period as it was tied to artistic expression rather than party politics. His view of artistic expression is also bound to spiritual wellbeing. Work, aesthetics, and spiritual fulfillment are, for Ruskin, one and the same. He saw that humans can rectify their suffering by looking inward to see both their ignorance and their inherent capabilities. If people overcome ignorance, cultivate their capabilities, and bring those capabilities into society, society will become a better place to live. But 15 Bourne, Randolph, “Trans-national America,” in Hansen, Olaf, ed., The Radical Will: Randolph Borne Selected Writings, 1911–1918 (NY: Urizen Books, 1977), p. 264.

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remaining in a state of ignorance thwarts personal development, and as the individual remains stunted, so does society. For Ruskin fully developing our inherent abilities is to foster creativity and expressiveness in work. Work is necessary for life, but it is not only the fruits of our labor that gives us joy. Ruskin saw that there is joy in the work itself as we have the innate capability to do it with creativity and artistic sensibilities. In Ruskin’s view, great art must also come from an understanding of natural, organic forms. He contended that all organic forms, including human beings, are at the height of their potential beauty when they are allowed to develop perfectly according to their true laws of growth. He saw organic forms existing in a state of interdependence. A plant living in nature requires the help of insects, birds, and other plants for it become wholly developed. If any one of these elements is removed or destroyed, the plant will be stunted in its development and will not be able to reach its full potential for beauty. Ruskin criticized the fashions of modern art and architecture for its failure to portray such organic interconnectedness. Modern art in his time was dominated by a movement to revive classical artistic forms of the late Renaissance. Ruskin rejected classical forms as reductionistic, standardized, mechanistic, and devoid of any grounding in nature or truth. Ruskin leveled a scathing critique against modern architecture as, …unholy in its revival, paralyzed in its old age… an architecture invented, as it seems, to make plagiarists of its architects, slaves of its workmen… an architecture in which intellect is idle, invention impossible, but in which luxury is gratified and all insolence fortified.12 This sociological view of artistic representation was typical of Ruskin. He saw the art of the nineteenth century as a reflection of deeper social and aesthetic maladies stemming from laissez faire capitalism and the industrial revolution. For Ruskin, capitalism did not represent a system of free markets and liberty in economic activity. He viewed it as an oppressively mechanized and dehumanizing system designed to benefit only a small few. Ruskin saw the classical genre of art in his time as contrived as the classical notion of “economic man” who is portrayed as a passive, self-interested blob of utilitarian desire without higher capacities for individual development. Ruskin was fascinated with Gothic architecture with its tall spires and gargoyles that represented organic relationships between craft workers and their guilds, the workers and their local community, the community and nature, and between people and God. Gothic forms represented

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for Ruskin “the liberty of every workman who struck the stone.”16 For Ruskin, true Gothic revival and the free expression of craft workers would be an antidote to the repressive sweatshops of industrial capitalism. Gothic revivalism for Ruskin would be a new movement that integrates natural aesthetic forms and human labor. As such, the meaningfulness of productive work would be restored to the stonemason, the carpenter, and other skilled workers. One of the most influential works on economics by Ruskin was his book, Unto this Last: On the First Principles of Political Economy (1881). Like the pragmatists and institutionalists, Ruskin was critical of standard economics of his time, particularly the work of John S. Mill. He writes, “Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most curious—certainly the least creditable—is the modern soi-dissant [so-called] science of political economy.”17 The delusion lies with the treatment of human economic behavior as fundamentally disconnected from social forces. What he calls social “affections” are seen by the economist as “accidental and disturbing elements in human nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant.”18 Like so many observant critics of conventional economics in his time, he was taken aback by the horrific state of inequality and injustice, worsened yet by spiritual and moral poverty of Victorian England. His essays on political economy are largely a rebuttal to the classical economists of the nineteenth century, as he pointed to the recklessness of purging moral philosophy from economics. He saw that a certain disposition among the consumer population is entirely predicated on a moral element, “economists have never perceived that disposition to buy is a wholly moral element in demand: that is to say, when you give a man half-a-crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor with it—whether he will buy disease, ruin, and hatred, or buy health, advancement, and domestic love.”19 Ruskin’s criticisms of economic orthodoxy was scathing and argued that a real science of economics “which has yet to be distinguished from the bastard 16 Ruskin, John, in Links, J.G., ed., The Stones of Venice (NY: DeCapo Press, 1960), p. 244. 17 Ruskin, John, Unto This Last: Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy (NY: Wiley & Sons, 1881), p. 17. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 95.

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science, as medicine from witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life.”20 But instead, he saw economics fostering “vanity,” “eternal emptiness,” and love of “possessions.”21 Ruskin’s ideas met with some hostility by those seeking to uphold the way of industrial capitalism and classical architecture, but his ideas left a strong impression on many who saw a need for social change. Although Veblen admired the work of Ruskin and in many ways their ideas followed parallel lines of development, he found this kind of work to be overly romantic and not in keeping with the industrial economy of the machine age.22 Nonetheless, Ruskin’s work inspired generations of critical thinkers and activists engaged in cooperative movements around the world, not least of which were Mahatma Gandhi and William Morris. Underlying Mahatma Gandhi’s fearless philosophy for nonviolent resistance are the principles fairness and truth, wellbeing of all (sardovaya), self-reliance, and appropriate technology. These were in part inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience (1849), Leo Tolstoy’s Christian pacifist social reform ideology, and Ruskin’s Unto this Last that he had read during his time in South Africa around the turn of the twentieth century. Gandhi translated Unto this Last into Gujarati with the new title “Sardovaya” meaning “sunrise” as a metaphor for uplifting all humanity. Gandhi saw in Ruskin’s work the notion that the notion of individualism is meaningless as “the good of the individual is contained in the good of all,” that all forms of productive work have the same right to a livelihood regardless of the skill levels or education, and that the “life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.”23 The works of Ruskin and Gandhi had a profound influence on E.F. Schumacher, particularly in his thinking on economic development. Schumacher swam against the mainstream in economic development theory and expounded an approach that emphasized grassroots development, the

20 Ibid., p. 100. 21 Ibid., pp. 100–104. 22 Bush, Donald J., “Veblen’s Economic Aesthetic,” Leonardo, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1978, pp. 281–285. 23 Gandhi, Mahatma, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (NY: Beacon Press, 1957), p. 224.

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use of intermediate forms of technology that are appropriate and affordable for poorer developing countries, the use of labor-intensive production systems coupled with placing greater value on that labor, and skilled handicraft.24 This too was a vision shared by another meta-economist, William Morris.

William Morris William Morris (1834–1896) was a nineteenth-century British artist, art critic, and socialist. Morris shared Ruskin’s disdain for modern architecture and extended the same criticism to the industrial production of decorative arts. He also shared Ruskin’s interest in Gothic revivalism. Morris was enormously creative in his own work which included handcrafted decorative objects, Gothic style printing, upholstery fabric, furniture, stained glass, poetry, and architectural design. He championed artisans who produce handicrafts as true artists in their own right claiming that there should be no hierarchical distinctions in artistic mediums. Like Ruskin, Morris saw that artisan work and politics were inseparable. Both had deplored the conditions within which working people toiled in the nineteenth-century England and saw craft labor and the empowerment of creative artisans as the solution. Both were advocates of traditional craftsmanship using natural medieval and folk decorative patterns. This blend of social reform politics and craft tradition based on natural forms led Morris to instigate what was succinctly named the Arts and Crafts Movement. The Arts and Crafts Movement was an attempt to revive a sense of community centered on artisanship. For Morris the movement was keyed to the abolition of the dehumanizing industrial division of labor that English poet and artist William Blake referred to as the Satanic Mills.14 Morris advocated establishing a more localized, cooperative system centered on an artisanal mode of production. He proclaimed that, “our day we shall win back art, that is to say, the pleasure of life; win back art again to our daily labor.” For Morris, artisan labor “used the whole of

24 Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful , pp. 3–6.

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a man for the production of a piece of goods, not small portions of many men.”25 For Morris, establishing a social economy based on artisanal labor would require very different institutions for organizing labor than the market system. Morris envisioned a class of craftsmen/citizens leading the social organization of productive work. Though he had been involved in socialist politics, like Ruskin he did not share the goal of the Fabians or other socialist groups to take over the factory systems for themselves. Morris hoped that working people could form associations of producers in skilled craft traditions in which the workers were able to reclaim their skills and heritage that had been lost to the mechanized wilderness of capitalist factories. Morris saw these associations, led by these skilled artisans, evolving into a broader economic system. Together the work of Ruskin and Morris stands as a kind of polemic against modern art and orthodox economic theory. Both modern art and economics were seen by them as a rationalization of a dehumanizing, mechanized system that was devoid of any sense of nature, beauty, or the creative human spirit. Orthodox economics treats work inherently irksome disutility endured in order to gain utility in consumption. By contrast, Ruskin and Morris saw work as a key part of a joyful life. Their eyes of the heart were clear and bright as they envisioned productive work springing from a spiritual center intertwined with a sense of aesthetics, a reverence for the beauty of nature, a deep sense of compassion for working people, and heartfelt conviction about the joys of creative work.

Patrick Geddes Patrick Geddes (1854–1932) was among the next generation of visionaries who were influenced the by the Gothic and aesthetic revivalism of Ruskin and Morris. Geddes upheld their appreciation of aesthetic form, artistic creativity, spirituality, and their love of nature. But rather than focusing on social reform movements through the revival of artisanal traditions, his efforts were focused on changing the abysmal conditions of the industrialized cities. He sought for a transformation in urban landscapes based on holistic conception of humans in both urban and natural habitats, which are all organically intertwined. 25 Morris, William, “Art and Socialism,” 1884, The Collected Works of William Morris, XXIII, LibCom.org.

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Geddes was a biologist trained in the laboratory of Thomas Huxley. He developed a fascination with the relationships that exist throughout the ecosphere—among plants, animals, and humans. He was a pioneer in human ecology and like Ruskin and Morris, he held a romantic view of organic forms. He was influenced by the evolutionism of Spencer and to a lesser degree Darwin though he ultimately distanced himself from both. Spencer viewed biological evolution through lenses that were colored by capitalistic notions of individualistic competitive struggles for survival. Geddes rejected the notion of survival of the fittest and instead maintained a holistic view of human life. He saw evolution progressing not from natural selection among individuals but as from the whole species adapting and forming symbiotic relationships and wholesome interaction with their habitats. He viewed forming cooperative biological relationships as the key to species wellbeing, including Homo sapiens. Humans are not so much “rugged individualists” as they are groups dependent on functioning within a vast web of biological and social relationships. One of Geddes core convictions was that we are social and ecological beings, not the socially atomistic individuals portrayed in conventional economic theory. It was from this conviction that Geddes sought to start a movement in urban planning centered on realigning urban living spaces in an ecological way. Like Ruskin and Morris, Geddes was appalled by urban conditions dominated by industrial machine systems. Life could be improved by recreating our living spaces to nestle harmoniously within more natural and organic systems where human culture forms into a living ecology of natural relationships. His ecological and interdependent view of human existence starkly contrasted with the beliefs of the classical economists who saw ideal human behavior as atomized, self-interested, and doomed to endless combat in open markets. Geddes chose to view natural systems in a more cooperative existence rather than one characterized by brutish competition. He felt that it would be better not to assume our existence is keyed to exploiting nature to gain competitive advantage, but that our existence is to cohabitate with, and be the stewards of nature. For Geddes, compassion, sympathy for people and the environment, and cooperation would create synergy—an emerging condition that would be far more beneficial to everyone than if each were to pursue their own individualistic agenda. His was a prototypical vision for an urban permaculture community based on the mutual cooperation with each other and nature such that all organic forms are allowed to develop to their full potential.

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Geddes envisioned that the whole person—a fully developed biological and social being—would also participate in urban community life. A person not stunted by the industrial division of labor could become fully engaged in transforming the conditions of urban life. Inspired by Ruskin’s aesthetic revival, this life could evolve into a kind of new “industrial reformation” in which there would be a reorganization of production systems that unite art and science to form a mode of production that is aesthetic, ecological, and productive. In other words, Geddes combined Ruskin’s moral and aesthetic criticism of industrial capitalism with insights gained from biological science to form an aesthetical-ecological-economical view of production systems. With this holistic view, Geddes created a eutopian vision of planning. As opposed to utopia which is a vision of something that does not exist, Geddes’s eutopia is something that exists when the conditions are just right. A eutopian human existence would be one in which the social and environmental conditions are perfect for contented living. With this vision, Geddes developed a template that would link social reform movements, city planning, and a harmonious relationship with the natural environment. According to Geddes, the goal of these movements is what he called “civic regeneration.” He saw civic regeneration as reconciliation between antagonistic aspects of life in industrialized cities where ideals of how to live healthy urban lives are in conflict with the practical concerns of commerce, where people’s lives in the country are starkly different from lives in the city, and where aesthetic forms of expression clash with ugly manifestations of heavy industry. For Geddes, as was for Ruskin and Morris, the task at hand is a transformation. That is, a cultural renewal in which modern societies build an entirely new way of life and culture that will enrich the individual person, integrate nature and aesthetics, and restore the bonds of association that will give rise to a healthy socio-ecological community. To achieve this, Geddes argued, we must maintain an undying faith in living organisms, including humans, to respond creatively to their environment. This faith in the potential for life to remake and revitalize the surrounding material world was the guiding principle behind Geddes’s concept of civic regeneration. For Geddes, organic life’s ability to revitalize itself was a kind of nonviolent insurgency or subversive force for change that communities will have to tap into for their renewal and resilience. Like so many other visionaries, Geddes’s work was largely underappreciated in his time. Nonetheless, he had a positive influence among

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generations to follow in twentieth century. Geddes was indelibly moved by the work of John Ruskin; so much so that he published a small book on Ruskin titled, John Ruskin, Economist (1884). In this pamphlet, he launched a scathing critique of social atomism and the utility theory of value, and concluded with this passage, For it is to be observed if these Darwinians are indeed to draw full consequences from their greatest law—that organism is made by function and environment, then man, if he is to remain healthy and become civilized, must not only aim at the highest standard of cerebral as well as noncerebral excellence, and so at function healthy and delightful, but must take especial heed of his environment; not only at his peril keeping the natural factor of air, water and light at their purest… In our day, both task and problem are far vaster than of old; and though a corresponding wealth of material resource has been in our hands, there has been little light to guide its application, and that mainly from dying lamps. The coming time is more hopeful; the sorely needed knowledge, both of the natural and the social order, is approaching maturity; the long-delayed renaissance of art has begun, and the prolonged discord of these is changing into harmony: so, with these for guidance, men shall no longer grind on in slavery to a false image of their lowest selves, miscalled Self-interest, but at length, as freemen, live in the Sympathy and labour in the Synergy of the Race… And for this, the last Crusade, herald, knight, and preacher are not wanting, yet in our land and day there has been no clearer herald, nobler preacher, nor truer knight than John Ruskin, Economist.”26

Lewis Mumford The bridge between Ruskin, Geddes, and Schumacher was spanned by Lewis Mumford (1895–1990). Mumford was profoundly influenced by the work of Geddes in whom he found his intellectual father.27 Geddes’s work, Cities in Evolution (1915), that focused on urban renewal fascinated the young Mumford as he himself was captivated by New York cityscape. He was profoundly influenced by Geddes view of the intellectual as activist in a manner similar to that of George H. Mead and the

26 Geddes, Patrick, John Ruskin, Economist (Edinburgh, UK: William Brown, 1884), pp. 35, 43. 27 Novak, Frank, Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The Correspondence (NY: Routledge, 1995), p. 1.

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philosophy of action in practical activity. He also discovered a distinctive affinity with Geddes’s interdisciplinary, holistic approach that sought to create organic unity out of fragmented aspects of urban life. Although Mumford was also influenced by the work of Veblen and Dewey, he found in Geddes work something crucial to his creation of a comprehensive outlook and role as a literary figure to create wholly as his own. He acknowledged Geddes influence as the single most important element contributing to his own outlook and intellectual disposition, “My greatest debt I owe to him is one that underlies my whole work, and it has little to do with his leading me to the study of cities. What he gave me above all was… ‘a sense of wonder of life’—of life as the so far ultimate manifestation of cosmic evolution.”28 Of particular importance was Geddes’s work on tracing the role of technology and machinery in changing the contours of the cityscape. Geddes had separated technological human civilization into the paleotechnic (industrial revolution) and neotechnic (contemporary) epochs. Mumford expanded on Geddes’s frame of reference and extended back a millennium. “Looking back over the last thousand years, one can divide the development of the machine and machine civilization into three successive but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases: eotechnic, paleotechnic, neotechnic.”29 Mumford added the eotechnic (middle ages) phase as preparation for the industrial revolution. Mumford writes, “In defining the paleotechnic and neotechnic phases, [Geddes] neglected the important period of preparation, when all the key inventions were either invented or foreshadowed.”30 In his analysis of technology and civilization, Mumford went far beyond Geddes. In his monumental work The Pentagon of Power (1964) Mumford settled on profound distinction between polytechnics (not to be confused with vocational schools of the same name) and monotechnics. Like Ruskin and Morris, Mumford celebrated craft traditions and with those traditions were polytechnic modes in which technology was a multi-faceted approach to problem-solving for the skilled craft worker. Technology was subordinate to human knowledge and skills employed

28 Ibid., p. 24. 29 Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1934),

p. 109. 30 Ibid.

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in production in the form of better tools, machinery, methods of transportation, etc. In monotechnic modes, technology subordinated human skills and knowledge for its own sake. The historic shift from polytechnics and monotechnics coincided with the rise of industrialization and capitalism. Mumford writes, “As capital gains increased, more capital was available for investment in mines, ships, and factories, a well as in the costly machinery that, from the eighteenth century on, competed with hand labor and drove it out of the market.”31 For Mumford, this led to systematic depersonalization of the production systems and destruction of the small craft workshops. Capitalism needed mass production in order to achieve mass sales and profits on mass scale. Again, Mumford writes, Thus, the various components of mechanized industry conspired to remove the traditional valuations and the human aims that had kept the economy under control and caused it to pursue other goals than power. Absentee ownership, the cash nexus managerial organization, military discipline, were from the beginning other social accompaniments of large-scale mechanization. … The result is that a monotechnics, based upon scientific intelligence and quantitative production, directed mainly toward economic expansion, material repletion, and military superiority, has taken the place of a polytechnics, based primarily , as in agriculture, on the needs, aptitudes, interests of living organisms: above all on man himself.32

What Ruskin, Morris, and Geddes envisioned as a society grounded in creative adaptation, cooperation, and the love of crafts and nature was being drummed out in favor of domination, profit-making, and mass production. Mumford’s work extended beyond his critical assessment of the scale technology and civilization, but it was that which caught the attention of E. F. Schumacher. Mumford sought to make a case for a more humancentered approach with an emphasis on civic participation on a smaller, localized, or regionalized scale. On this, Mumford writes, “Small groups: small classes: small communities: institutions framed to the human scale,

31 Mumford, Lewis, The Pentagon of Power (NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1964), p. 148. 32 Ibid., pp. 148, 155.

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are essential to purposive behavior in modern society.”33 In other words, small can be made beautiful.

Schumacher’s Technology with a Human Face Schumacher was profoundly inspired by the extensive work on technology by Lewis Mumford. As an economic advisor to countries around the world, he also had compassion for the poor and unemployed people in the so-called developing world. In his very popular book, Small Is Beautiful : Economics as If People Mattered (1973), he developed a proposition for economic development that would incorporate what he called “technology with a human face.” For Schumacher, the goal of technological development ought to be the lightening of our burden and enhancing the joy of work. Technology has not done this. It has lightened the burden of work in certain places by making it heavier in others. Tremendous systems of mass production remove the intrinsic joy that good work can bring and replaces it with meaningless, joyless, assembly line toil, and deskilled labor in sweatshops. Schumacher’s ideas about technology with a human face originate from a sense of compassion for the poor and unemployed people in the so-called third world. He observed that their development models were essentially copying the life-destroying industrial systems that have long since been developed in the West. As an alternative development model, Schumacher offers “intermediate” and “appropriate technology.” His proposal for this technology is rooted in four basic propositions. First is to decentralize industrial systems and move work where the people already live. Rather than the giant megalopolises, he envisions a decentralized system or network of “two million villages,” a network of small semi-autonomous mini systems. Second is to develop inexpensive technology that will not require large amounts of capital formation for investments, which is a resource that is very scarce in the developing world. Third, relatively simple production methods that are easily implemented and maintained. Fourth, production systems should be based on local resources and directed toward local use and consumption.34 33 Mumford, “A Search for the True Community,” in Schwartz, Leo W., ed., The Menorah Treasury: Harvest of Half a Century (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964), p. 859. 34 Small Is Beautiful, p. 175.

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Technology with a human face for Schumacher is a development model centered on bringing simpler, less costly, less resource consuming, and easy to maintain tools and equipment into the towns and villages where people already live and work, rather than giant factory systems in highly concentrated urban areas. The systems are flexible, adaptable, easy to maintain, decentralized, small scale, more manageable, and democratically accountable. The goal here was originally directed to absorb poor, unemployed people into meaningful and productive work and to alleviate poverty. Schumacher wanted to see these ideas get implemented and thus founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group in the 1960s. Though this was a model originally intended for developing countries, it became appropriate for creating more sustainable alternatives in the so-called developed nations as well. Over the decades since Schumacher was living and working his ideas took root. Alternative development models based on his principles were implemented in both developing and developed worlds. His ideas provided inspiration for the many movements around the world that are directed to developing community-based economics and voluntary simplicity. Schumacher is most known for Small is Beautiful, but he had also worked out a complex philosophy of ontology and epistemology in A Guide for the Perplexed (1977) Like Ruskin, Morris, pragmatists, and institutionalists, Schumacher was critical of the M-C view of human sociality and being. He sees that materialistic conception of science, for all its analytical prowess leaves the most important questions about humanity unanswered and aggressively denies the validity of questions that would go beyond that narrow framework. As human beings are conditioned to believe that they are basically nihilistic machines, their sociality is mere epiphenomena. Society is not ontologically real and as such individual are not expected to see themselves as part of a social order to which they bear responsibility. In this turn of mind, ethical guidelines in social and economic behavior are rendered meaningless in the same way that it would be absurd to expect a collection of nuts and bolts to conduct themselves according to a set of ethical principles. As a challenge to this, Schumacher crafted a philosophical map in which the human capacity for ethics and social and environmental responsibility is not only an integral part, it is our greatest trait as a species. At the core of his philosophy is a mapping of ontology and epistemology.

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Schumacherian Ontology In the tradition of holism in science, Schumacher makes note that there are four ontological levels each with emergent properties at each level. Together they form a hierarchy of complexity that he calls the “chain of being.”35 At the lowest level of complexity is inorganic matter. This is the level of matter and energy building blocks that are not endowed with life. From there to the next level is a great mystery: the formation of plant or plant-like life out of lifeless matter. It is mysterious to us inquisitive humans because it is impossible, even with the most advanced technology imaginable, for humans to sketch a recipe on how to assemble and process matter to create living beings that are able to “extract nourishment from its environment, grow, reproduce itself, ‘true to form,’ as it were.”36 There are no laws of motion or thermodynamics that explain or describe such powers. The ontological jump to the next level occurs when a similar nameless mystery gives rise to fully developed animals. Their abilities to hunt, mate, swim, herd, etc., are powers that cannot be understood by examining their inorganic elements such as carbon or even their organic components such as cells. A developed and evolved animal is ontologically distinct from inorganic matter and organic substance. The primary emergent property is that the animal has at some level a consciousness. In some organisms, consciousness is extremely primitive and in others it is highly developed and complex. As we move up Schumacher’s ladder of complexity, therefore, we start with inorganic matter, then move to life without consciousness, and then to life endowed with consciousness. But what Schumacher sees as most worthy of our attention is the next ontological jump to the human species. The distinction between animals and humans is a profound ontological leap. Humans have powers and abilities that lie entirely out of the range of possibilities of even the most sophisticated species in the animal kingdom. Humans have “powers of life like the plant, powers of consciousness like

35 Schumacher, E.F., A Guide for the Perplexed (NY: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 132. Note also that this is a Christian concept of spirituality and is not fully consistent with the Buddhist vision of nature. Moreover, it is important to understand Schumacher’s view of metaphysics to get a complete picture of his work and contribution to Buddhist economics. 36 Ibid., p. 16.

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the animal, and evidently something more.” That something more is at least partially linked to the fact that we not only have the power to think with our consciousness, but we are also aware of our own thinking. Moreover, humans have the ability to form societies and cultures that function to accumulate knowledge and pass that knowledge to our offspring. We are, in other words, aware of our own evolution and can consciously affect is development through the medium of culture. Here, we find the fourth and highest level of being where we see creativity, the building of social institutions, and the vast storehouse of culture. Social structures and culture cannot exist without the uniqueness of human consciousness, which in turn cannot exist without organic forms, which also cannot exist without inorganic matter. By contrast, the mechanistic-atomistic view holds that each level is simply a matter of degree and are not differences in kind—a scaling out of epiphenomena. But Schumacher takes a different view and argues “We never find life except as living matter; we never find consciousness except as conscious living matter; and we never find selfawareness except as self-aware, conscious, living matter.”37 The powers endowed with such self-awareness and the cumulative aspects of cultural evolution can lead to infinite possibilities. This capacity for self-awareness and the ability to envision better societies in future are for Schumacher are transcendent in the chain of being. But he also adds that these powers must be cultivated and realized by each individual. Our ability to create society, culture, institutions, and rule of law are necessarily cultivated in the individual, but insofar as they are societal rather than individual, they point to a level of being that transcends the individual. Self-awareness, creativity, and cultural existence are aspects of human life that transcend our flesh and blood individual existence. In this way, the chain of being is not just epiphenomena emerging at numerically higher levels, but rather is an ontological progression. This progression points to potentially state of being that exist at an even higher level, which transcends the human experience into the realm of spirituality. Schumacher contends that our knowing of such higher states of being are accessible but only in a deeper sense cultivated by spiritually informed wisdom.

37 Ibid., p. 23.

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Action and change are also important aspects of Schumacher’s ontological chain of being. At the inorganic level, matter has to experience an event—like colliding billiard balls—in order to be prompted into motion. Plants respond to environmental stimuli by means of tropism such as turning leaves toward the sun or reaching through the soil with its roots to get to water. Animals respond to stimuli by chasing after prey, looking for a mate, fleeing from predators, etc. But as he resonates with the pragmatists, Schumacher emphasizes that humans have a special capacity to act purely out of volition without stimuli or compulsion. These characteristics of humanity—the capacity for creative and volitional action, for accumulating and storing knowledge, to create culture—constitute an ontological upward leap in the chain of being and evolution. The evolutionary progression from physical cause to natural intention to creative volition is also a progression of expanding horizons. It is a progression of expanding beyond limitations; from being constrained entirely by the laws of physics, to being constrained entirely by the laws of nature, and to being constrained by these as well as the constraints imposed by human society and institutions. Schumacher further explains that this progression is also a process of higher and higher levels of integration and unity. Inorganic matter integrates into a unity or whole that becomes higher levels of being as organisms, organisms integrate into a unity with consciousness to become a higher level of being still, and human flesh and blood and consciousness integrates into a unity with volition to become part of a whole of society. Schumacher emphasizes that “Integration means the creation of an inner unity, a center of strength and freedom, so that the being ceases to be a mere object, acted upon by outside forces,” as the neoclassical economists see it, “and becomes a subject, acting from its own ‘inner space’ to the space outside itself.” Schumacher sees that our will to action in order to place ourselves outside ourselves in order to engage in the social milieu is at the top of the chain of being.

Schumacherian Epistemology On epistemology, Schumacher presents what he calls “The Great Truth of Adaequatio.” By this he means a certain adequateness in human understanding of things that need to be known that correspond to the hierarchical levels of being. The bodily sense can smell, touch, or see substances to the extent that these faculties are adequate for passively

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recognizing their existence by and large. But to make sense requires a higher order function of the mind that recognizes patterns, relationships, regularity, etc., that forms a more complex and active form of understanding. Schumacher refers to these powers as intellectual senses that are concomitant with “mind-in-action.”38 Adequateness at this higher level an ability to ascertain, not just the physical presence of things, but the broader whole that forms when the things enter into relationships with other things. Without the higher functions of the mind, the whole goes unnoticed. When one looks at the moon at different times, for instance, it appears to be larger when it gets closer to the earth’s horizon. Sometimes, it has a sliver hue and other times yellowish. Sometimes, it is full and sometimes it appears as if it has been sliced apart. Without a certain adequate mental faculty that extends beyond surface observation, one could infer that the moon is constantly changing shape and color. The changes occur from relationships with the sun, the earth, and earth’s atmosphere. Understanding these relationships requires a certain background of thought or pre-analytic vision. As we have been arguing throughout, this background of thought is largely a social construct. This means that the structure of thought and interpretations of reality change with changing social context. Schumacher notes that different interpretations may reflect differences in human physical endowment, “but such endowments are less important than differences in ‘interest’.”39 A human being thinks “with ideas, most of which it simply adopts and takes over from its surrounding society.”40 Going back to the institutionalist-pragmatist view, that surrounding society is the social firmament. He adds, There is nothing more difficult than to become critically aware of the presuppositions of one’s thought. Everything can be seen directly except the eye through which we see. Every thought can be scrutinized directly except the thought by which we scrutinize. A special effort is needed: that almost impossible feat of thought recoiling upon itself.”41

38 Ibid., p. 40. 39 Ibid., p. 43. 40 Ibid., p. 44. 41 Ibid.

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A deep inward self-awareness is an adequateness or means that allow a level of ascertainment that transcends the nuts and bolts of physical reality, which is the power that makes us human and also capable of transcending his humanity. Transcending humanity for Schumacher is rising to a spiritual ascertainment of a higher power, which comes from insight and wisdom not the ratiocinations of logic. Such a transcendent awareness is impossible to understand from a mechanistic-atomistic framework. This paradigm sees life, consciousness, and self-awareness as nothing but manifestations of complex arrangements of inanimate particles. Transcendent awareness and transcending humanity imply letting go of the very structure of thought that act as blockages or foggy encumbrances, which closes the eye of truth that stems from true wisdom from the heart. By emphasizing the letting go of our own structures of thought, Schumacher enters into a Buddhist conception of no mind. Schumacher writes, “The power of ‘the Eye of the Heart,’ which produces insight, is vastly superior to the power of thought, which produces opinions,” then he goes on to quote the Buddha, “Recognizing the poverty of philosophical opinions, not adhering to any of them, seeking the truth, I saw.” For Buddhists, this is something that requires a committed process of effort and learning. The mind must be trained to reach that level of insight without a structure for cognitive mooring. Schumacher adds that by doing so one “mentally realises the highest truth itself and, penetrating it by means of wisdom.” For Buddhists, access or discern this kind of truth first requires introspection. This is the core of the inner work of a Buddhist dharma practice. It involves a measured, disciplined, and serious inward focus into the inner space of mind where we create our world. That inner space is dark at first, but with time and practice a light appears. This light illuminates a form of consciousness separated from ordinary consciousness which remains in a dark, dreamlike state attached to self- constructed and socially constructed figments that have the dimming effect of clutter accumulation. Chan (Zen) Master, Sheng Yen describes the process of getting the mind out of the way in order for the light of wisdom to come through as “silent illumination.” The process begins with relaxation combined with open awareness, or stillness in the mind while maintaining clarity. “By gently settling the churning mind of deluded thinking, it seeks to allow the perfect quiescence and luminosity of the enlightened mind to

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naturally emerge.”42 As parallel to Schumacher’s thinking, “This is the process of gaining adaequatio, of developing the instrument capable of seeing the thus understanding the truth that does not merely inform the mind but liberates the soul.” On this Schumacher quotes the early twentieth-century psychiatrist and author, Maurice Nicoll, Inner perception of oneself, of one’s invisibility, is the beginning of light. This perception of truth is not a matter of sense-perception, but of the perception of the truth of ‘ideas’— through which, certainly, the perception of our senses is greatly increased. The path of self-knowledge has this aim in view, for no one can know himself unless he turns inwards.43

Schumacher notes that the eye of the heart is a metaphor that has appeared in all the great spiritual traditions. As a transcendent level of wisdom and understanding of things that reaches beyond the intellect, it is a way of realization that can only be achieved from insight that is not visible to a mind limited to rational logic alone. “Sense data alone do not produce insight or understanding of any kind,” Schumacher emphasizes, “Ideas produce insight and understanding, and the world of ideas lies within us.”44 The truth of ideas cannot be seen by the senses but only by that special, carefully cultivated capacity. When “science for manipulation” is subordinated to wisdom, that is “science for understanding,” it becomes a valuable part of our culture and our species that allows for the advancement of our evolution. But if these are reversed, wisdom fades and we lose interest in the pursuit of understanding for purposes of wellbeing. Systematic knowledge becomes a mere instrument of power of domination. Wisdom illuminates. It brings light to darkness and provides relief from the pain of ignorance. But modernity and the institutions of capitalism brought forward a different function of science. On this, Schumacher writes, “The new science was mainly directed toward material power, a tendency which has meanwhile developed to such lengths that the enhancement of political and economic power is now generally taken as the first purpose of, and main justification for, expenditures on scientific work.” Such an attitude pervades such that 42 Sheng Yen, Hoofprint of the Ox: Principles of the Chan Buddhist Path as Taught by a Modern Chinese Master (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 140. 43 Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed, p. 48. 44 Ibid.

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all things in our world are “an adversary to be conquered or a resource to be quarried and exploited.”45 Science for manipulation turned inward on humanity itself renders our race as objects to be studied for purposes of exploitation and manipulation. The progressive elimination of “science for understanding”—or “wisdom”—form Western civilization turns the rapid and ever-accelerating accumulation of knowledge for manipulation into a most serious threat. The consequences of this reversal are profound. In the absence of wisdom and the search for meaning and purpose of our existence, we become indifferent. We lose compassion for each other and become callous to suffering. We become a population of beings that feels nothing when confronted with the realities of global poverty, inequality, global warming, and environmental destruction. We also become spiritually impoverished as manipulation is justified by material progress though despite that human life becomes a joyless, somnambulant pursuit of consumer goods. The quest for wisdom fades and in its place arrives a blind and unwavering faith in technology. Spiritual neglect and impoverishment lead to the conclusion that we as human beings can survive without that aspect. It makes it all the more expedient to view ourselves as atomistic, selfish, hedonistic globules of desire for utility, and nothing great can be expected of us. As such, the higher powers that were once recognized as our salient characteristic and that which set us apart in the chain of being is allowed to atrophy and disappear altogether. We, by our own volition, render ourselves as spiritually and intellectually numb. Humans are progressively dumbing ourselves down. Lost is meaning or purpose or authenticity, beyond running like hamsters on the endlessly spinning and ever-accelerating wheel of economic growth. To bring the mass of human population to this level and to get us all to let go of our most sublime power requires a certain uniformity of somnambulance. The light of illumination is doused. Observing from a distance all the codes, mores, traditions, rules, and images that comprise the social firmament (outer) and therefore the habits of thought and action of individuals, we may want to find the truth of it. There are no metrics by which the truth value of deeply rooted traditions can be measured. Any attempt to do so would be like trying to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of God. Such aspects of human

45 Ibid., p. 54.

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life cannot be decided by science for manipulation. Modern epistemology as manifested in science and technology is a dazzling and unparalleled accomplishment for the human species. Nowhere on this planet is there a place that has not been touched by science for manipulation and a restless compulsion to transform the ecosphere into commodities, financial instruments, and profits. Yet, when it comes to a most fundamental inquiry into the true nature of ourselves, the ones feverishly scrambling about doing all this work, we are stone silent. Such questions are dismissed as metaphysical speculation and irrelevant. If such question arose in a board meeting or forum for policy making, it would be met with embarrassed silence or derision. For Schumacher, this is an unfortunate dismissal of a chance to grasp “the very purpose of human life on earth, a life that affords unique opportunities for development, a great chance and privilege, as the Buddhists have, ‘hard to obtain.’”46 If the possibility of science for understanding is denied “the highest faculties are never brought into play, they atrophy, and the very possibility of first understanding and the fulfilling the purpose of life disappears.”47 As mentioned above, Schumacher references the enigmatic writer P.D. Ouspensky. In his book The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution (1951) Ouspensky draws a remarkable parallel with silent illumination and mindfulness, “Without attention or with attention wandering, we are in the mechanical part; with the attention attracted by the subject of observation or reflection and kept there, we are in the emotional part; with the attention controlled and held on the subject by will, we are in the intellectual part.”48 In the mechanical state, there is little by way of inspired volition and the human subject is held to drift or be pushed into action by banal stimuli. Again, the somnambulant existence is not awake, in the Buddhist sense of samadhi. If not awake, it is impossible to be self-aware. Schumacher notes, “We are likely to act helplessly in accordance with uncontrolled inner drives and out compulsions.” In the Buddhist view, a somnambulant existence is trapped in the darkness of ignorance and without inspiration that derives from awakening to the true nature,

46 Ibid., p. 60. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., p. 68.

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dharma, of things including oneself. The somnambulant is without selfawareness and it is the “drifting, wandering, shiftless, moving of his attention that makes him incompetent, miserable, and less-than-fully-human” and therefore doomed to suffer.49 If a mechanistic paradigm dominates as a root metaphor in our social firmament, then it becomes the material from which we construct images of ourselves. It shapes how we view and act in the world. As such, it should not be surprising to learn that we act in such a way that we have, as Ouspensky would put it, “no more freedom to form intentions and act in accordance with them than has a machine.” In other words, the perfect consumer cog in a capitalist commodity-producing machine. Schumacher then extends this insight from Ouspensky to Buddhism. Schumacher began exploring Buddhism while living in Burma as an economic advisor and spending time with Buddhist monks. Of course, one does not need to become a Buddhist to restore a spiritual core, and Schumacher noted that “the teachings of Christianity, Islam, or Judaism could have been used just as well as those of any other of the great Eastern traditions.”50 But he was inspired by the way Burmese Buddhists saw economics and technology and how their views stood in such contrast to standard economics. He wrote a short essay titled, “Buddhist Economics,” which was subsequently published in 1973 as part of his enormously influential book, Small Is Beautiful Economics as If People Mattered (1973). In his essay, Schumacher emphasized that, “‘Right Livelihood’ is one of the requirements of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. It is clear, therefore, that there must be such a thing as Buddhist economics.”51 By no means did Schumacher’s essay convey a comprehensive picture of Buddhist economics. It simply explored a sampling of the differences between the Buddhist’s view and the views of Western economics. More importantly, it opened the door for the development of a new and lively economics subdiscipline based on interpretations of the dharma—the teachings of the Buddha and the notion of spiritual liberation. Schumacher introduced us all in the West to Buddhist economics. His understanding, as is the case with all Buddhist aspects, is that such a thing as Buddhist economics begins with the mind.

49 Ibid., p. 69. 50 Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful , p. 52. 51 Ibid., p. 53.

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Mind training and cultivating awakening and self-awareness are found in different religions and have evolved in different ways, but Schumacher places particular emphasis on the mindfulness practice of Buddhism at “the heart of Buddhist meditation.” He cites the German-born Buddhist monk Nuanaponika Thera who introduces his book, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness (1962) with this passage, This book is issued in the deep conviction that the systematic cultivation of Right Mindfulness, as taught by the Buddha in his Discourse on Satipatthana, still provides the most simple and direct, the most thorough and effective, method for training the mind for its daily tasks and problems as well as for its highest aim: mind’s unshakable deliverance from Greed, Hatred, and Delusion…52

In the Buddhist view, the power of transcendence arises from a process of letting go of the presuppositions that color and shape our thoughts. This implies letting go of the mechanistic-atomistic framework as well as any other framework. This is nonattachment and with practice and cultivation, nonattachment can give rise to much deeper and profound levels of insight. If one could imagine that we could dissolve all the presuppositions, tropes, narratives, images, and symbols that make up our background of thought, what is left is emptiness. As Schumacher saw it, we are destroying the land, climate, and ourselves not because our technology is flawed, but because the innermost convictions that we hold to be unassailable have been defiled. He is critical of the core concepts that have solidified into our metaphysical center and this center is what informs and guides all forms of inquiry. More specifically, for Schumacher, materialism has purged wisdom and higher-level truths and has allowed our cultures to be debased with the idolatry of wealth, fashion, self-aggrandizement, and technological gadgetry. From this core emanates a vicious ecological attitude toward our natural habitat that is nothing more than a quarry for exploitation—a transgression against future generations.

52 Ibid., p. 69.

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Dharma Talk Toward the end of his life, he left us with a vision of a future that is visible to us now. Schumacher the economist tells us of a future economic system that exists as a patchwork of semi-autonomous smaller scale organizations both public and private. With a different mindset people could re-create economic systems governed by rules and codes that lead to very different outcomes—ones that are governed democratically through worker and community-based councils. Like Ruskin and Morris, he had a vision of production systems that employ the skills of people who find actual joy in their work and at the same time innovate technology that is appropriate to lighten the burden of the workers yet does not take away their craft. Appropriate technology is improving the mastery of simpler methods of production and downgrading those that are excessive and overly complicated. He warns that what precisely is appropriate technology is difficult to pin down. There is no one-size-fits-all model. The technology is always developed within local institutions and local cultures. Most importantly is that it must be developed on a grass roots basis situated in the local culture and environmental habitat. Food production is by and for the local population. Smaller, simpler production systems naturally are more flexible and can be adapted to changing environments. He also envisioned a future social system of production that is grounded also in sound ecological principles. Schumacher submitted that if people accept the notions that greed is good, foul is fair, and that vice leads to virtue, then our society will be molded accordingly into a culture of plunder. In such a culture, there occurs a general collapse of intelligence, a loss of wisdom, and people become blinded by their own rapacity. As Ruskin warned a century before, people lose insight into their own nature and the reality of things around them. Schumacher saw that by accepting these assumptions, we have created a culture conducive not to ecological permanence, but to devastation and ruin. Plunder is to destroy and strip bare all that has value from other people and from our natural habitat. It is rape, spoilage, and ruin, yet rationalized by orthodox economics by swift and cynical flourish, “foul is fair.” This rationalization easily settled in the popular imagination of people living in capitalistic cultures. Schumacher argued that in these cultures people, in large numbers, are likely to replace intelligence and serenity with greed and envy. He writes, “If whole societies become infected by

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these vices, they may indeed achieve astonishing things, but they become increasingly incapable of solving the most elementary problem of everyday existence.” Nonetheless, this sanctification of greed still remains as one of the core tenets underlying orthodox economics. To most critics, however, this appears as nothing more than vulgar apologetics for business profits and accumulation. But for Schumacher this was symptomatic of a much deeper metaphysical crisis. It is here that Schumacher reads less as an economist and more as a philosopher. Schumacher was concerned that the ideas grounded in the great spiritual traditions have been gradually purged from this core and replaced with what he refers to as “materialistic scientism.” In the scientific community, spiritual traditions have been largely dismissed as authoritarian megalomania or preachy dogma and have been replaced by the mechanistic constructs of the nineteenth century. This is particularly so in economics. For Schumacher, the result was that the metaphysical core became filled with cynicism and life-destroying and soul-destroying confusion. For him, this is a kind of spiritual emptiness and a belief system that leads people away from compassion toward cynical axioms of self-interest, survival of the fittest, and predatory competition. These axioms further justify violence, aggression, and a self-aggrandizing culture fraught with delusions of power and grandeur. In his view, the meta-economic vision of materialistic scientism blinded the eye of the heart and left us rudderless without insight and wisdom. He admits that such a vision is appropriate for understanding the workings of the inorganic world and engineering, or what he calls, “science for manipulation.” But it is wholly inappropriate to humanity and its capacity for self-reflection and spirituality. By holding ourselves in a paradigm that consists of moving, mechanical parts we are mirroring ourselves as inanimate objects—we have lost our understanding of what it means to be human. By doing so, we undermine our ability for individual and cultural development. What is in the eye of the heart for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics? Perhaps one response would be to say that there is no eye and convictions are mere attachments to ideas. The question is better put to ask what is the eye of the heart of an actively engaged Buddhist.

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References Anthony, P.D., John Ruskin’s Labour: A Study of Ruskin’s Social Theory (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Blake, William, “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time,” 1808. Bourne, Randolph, “Trans-national America,” in Hansen, Olaf, ed., The Radical Will: Randolph Borne Selected Writings, 1911–1918 (NY: Urizen Books, 1977). Bush, Donald J., “Veblen’s Economic Aesthetic,” Leonardo, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1978. Gandhi, Mahatma, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (NY: Beacon Press, 1957). Geddes, Patrick, John Ruskin, Economist (Edinburgh, UK: William Brown, 1884). ———, Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics [1915] (Madrid: HardPress Publishing, 2012). Gillingham, Peter, “The Making of Good Work,” in Schumacher, E.F., ed., Good Work (NY: Harper Colophon, 1977). Kay, Douglas, Woman’s Own, October 31, 1987. Keynes, John M., in Moggridge, Donald E., ed., Collected Writings (London: Macmillan, 1971). Morris, William, “Art and Socialism,” 1884, The Collected Works of William Morris, XXIII, LibCom.org. Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1934). ———, The Pentagon of Power (NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1964). ———, “A Search for the True Community,” in Schwartz, Leo W. ed., The Menorah Treasury: Harvest of Half a Century (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964). Novak, Frank G., Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The Correspondence (NY: Routledge, 1995). Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (NY: The New American Library, 1961). Ruskin, John, The Stones of Venice (NY: DeCapo Press, 1960). ———, Unto this Last: Four Essays on the First Principles of Political Economy (NY: Wiley & Sons, 1881). Schumacher, E.F., Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered (NY: Harper and Row, 1973). ———, A Guide for the Perplexed (NY: Harper and Row, 1977). Sheng Yen, Hoofprint of the Ox: Principles of the Chan Buddhist Path as Taught by a Modern Chinese Master (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

CHAPTER 7

Ecodharma and Economics

When we talk about the Dharma in Buddhism, there are a couple of aspects that need clarification. There is “Dharma” and “dharma.” Dharma, with the upper-case D, points to a body of teachings or doctrine of the Buddha. The lower-case d points to metaphysics. We’ll start with metaphysics. Much of what passes for metaphysics in Western philosophy is passed down from German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant presented a dualistic aspect of getting a grip on our understanding of things in the world. One is the noumena, which is the thing in and of itself and the other is phenomena, the thing as we know it as it has been assembled in our intellect. Parallel to this dualism is another dualism—ontology and epistemology. Ontology the philosophy of being or the “isness” of how things are, and epistemology is the philosophy of how we come to know how things are or methodology. The duality of these concepts lies with knowability. The noumena and the ontology of something are not knowable to the human intellect. Phenomena and epistemology are how the mind makes sense of things. The latter is the realm of science, and the former is the realm of God or the gods. This duality drives a schism between science and religion leading to a permanent state of conflict. For the mind that has been trained in this way of thinking, it makes it hard to understand something like dharma because it carries is no such distinction. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_7

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The ancient philosophy of Daoism makes no such distinction. The fourth-century BC text Dao De Jing (道德经) by Daoist sage, Laozi contains three elements. The Dao (道), which roughly translate to English as “The Way,” integrates all things in the cosmos. It does not transcend the things in the world as it is in all things in the world; complete, all encompassing, and whole. It is the totality and spontaneity of all things. There is no Creator that presents a problem of knowability because all things just are spontaneously. To Western mind that is conditioned by dualisms, Daoist philosophy seems amorphous. To make it less amorphous, it contains the second element De (德), which roughly translates as “virtue.” Virtue in this sense means that which things become in order to be exactly what they are. The third element is Jing (经) which translates as “through.” Taken together the meaning is something like, the way through which things are exactly as they are in their true nature. To the Christian mind, a tree and bird are created by God. They are permanent and distinct from one another. For Daoism, the tree and the bird that nests in it are one with the Dao in which there are no distinctions, but virtue gives the tree and bird their identity. Virtue is a kind of purity of things undistorted in their natural state. What defines the natural state of things is not knowable to the intellect. Quite the opposite. The Daoist sage Zhuangzi explains, “Let your mind make excursions in the pure simplicity. Identify yourself with the nondistinction. Follow the nature of things, and admit no personal opinion. Then the world will be in peace.”1 The idea of silent illumination in Chan Buddhism is that the intellect needs to let go, be quiet; to stop narrating and commentating on everything that pass through our sense perception. With such stillness of the mind, the possibility of things presenting themselves to us in their purely natural state is found or illuminated. In the Buddhist tradition this is phenomena. Phenomena in the Western traditions remains grounded in scientific materialism, positivism, and constrained by logic and ratiocination. In Buddhism, dharma is the cosmic order of all things as they present themselves to us in their natural state without the filters imposed by the intellect. As such phenomena of all things can be realized as timeless truths without the intellect, but through a deeper realization as a spiritual experience.

1 Fung, Yu Lan, ed., A Taoist Classic: Chuang-Tzu (Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1931), p. 10.

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When the Buddha came to this realization through an enlightenment experience in a flash of insight, or kensho, he set out to devote the rest of his life to teaching what he experienced and came to understand. These teachings fill volumes and together are considered the Buddha’s fullest expression of dharma. This is the Dharma. At the core of the Dharma are the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, dependent origination, and so on. The teaching outcome is not to bring all people to enlightenment and become Buddhas, but rather to help them gain wisdom, compassion, and peace. Like all spiritual traditions, the Dharma varies from with place and time in which some aspects are emphasized over others depending on context. Again, as we have been emphasizing throughout, context matters. The point here, therefore, is to place the Dharma in a specific context of political ecology and what David Loy and others are crafting as ecodharma. Before we get to that, however, let’s look at the context, namely the pathological system condition of global warming.

Pathological System Condition: Global Warming Global warming represents a profound challenge to the economic systems of the world. Until the last few decades, the resources embedded within, and produced by, our planet’s regenerative processes have been taken for granted. For centuries, our species has managed to harness the resources and productive capacity of our habitat in ways that have profoundly changed our material lifestyles. Minerals, vegetation, water, fauna have all been transformed by human touch and technology to create a galaxy of consumer products on a scale that is unimaginable. This project of transforming our ecosphere into commodities has continuously evolved over the last few centuries of unabated capitalist growth and development. Human population grew exponentially in tandem with the growth and development of the material means required to sustain our numbers. Eventually, some observers began to take notice of the limits to such growth and warned about the constraints presented by resource depletion and the contamination of what seemed to us to be a passive ecosphere. But geologic time is slow. After centuries of manipulating, extracting, and polluting our ecosphere is lashing back raging heat, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. And it is just getting warmed up, so to speak. Global warming is the long-term karmic backlash against humanity’s doomed and futile project of trying to achieve endless growth on

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a finite planet. Vast segments of the human population are now rendered highly vulnerable, and like wealth distribution such vulnerability is not equally distributed globally. The poorest majority of the world’s population lacks the resources to adapt to these new climate conditions. All the efforts of post-World War Two progress in developing countries’ struggle to see improvements in their lives are being rolled back in tandem with ecosphere ruination with drought, crop failure, food shortages, and drying out potable water sources. Climate change presents not only a scientific challenge but political and moral challenges as well. This is generating a shift in discourse that reflects an emerging consensus that we are facing the real possibility that our chances of averting the worst effects of global warming have passed. What remains now is dealing with the karmic repercussions of at least a half century of dismissals and lip service as global warming rears head. Even as the evidence of global warming and the damage it is doing is clear to see, we continue to subordinate actions that could have changed course in favor of economic growth. We have been warned for over a half century that ongoing economic growth and consumerism are threatening the livability of human habitats. We have been challenged again and again to make necessary adjustments to protect ourselves, and each time we have failed. What have now is the reckoning. We missed the chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and are left with the dismal task of adapting to an ever more hostile environment and repair what we can along the way. This task will require mass engagement and mass mobilization of resources in order to cope with the most severely pathological system condition in human history. Recall that the term pathology derives from the ancient Greek root of pathos, meaning suffering. Generally, now the term applies to medical science and the study of disease but in a broader sense it simply means conditions of suffering. In terms of the Buddhist first noble truth, when we refer to pathological system conditions, we are talking about suffering that exists not just among individuals but that which is also as embedded in our social and ecological systems. Specifically, we are entering into an era during which the pathology of global warming and climate change are palpable. As we are now acutely aware, the global ambient temperatures are rising as a result of higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. On the ground, there are real-time events coinciding with these

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rising temperatures. Just in the last few years the United States has experienced record temperatures, hurricanes of growing intensity, record numbers of tornadoes, devastating floods, and catastrophic wildfires. In November 2018, a small California town called Paradise was consumed in a hellish wildfire. In the span of eight ghastly hours, ninety percent of the homes in this town were burned to the ground. Government officials and rescue teams warned the local population to evacuate their community. These warnings were identical to those issued about a month earlier to members of the small community of Mexico Beach, Florida that was crushed by Hurricane Michael. In 2020, wildfires continued to rage throughout the west coast, and in 2021 the Pacific Northwest was besieged with record shattering temperatures as high as 117 F (47 °C). In what was California’s most rich food producing region in the Central Valley, farmers are forced to leave their fields fallow due to drought conditions and overuse of aquifers. Hydroelectric dams are losing their ability to generate electricity because of falling reservoir levels. The list goes on and on. Although it is difficult to prove with 100% certainty that these environmental disasters are indeed the result of climate change, most scientists believe they are. Moreover, they are entirely consistent with what scientists have been warning for decades, and they are growing in intensity with rising global ambient temperatures. These pathological system conditions are causing us to drift toward what is becoming “triage economy” in which we are being forced to shift increasingly large amounts of resources to cope with this damage. In terms of the amount of money spent to repair, relocate, and reconstruct, there were over fourteen weather and climate disasters that cost over a billion dollars in the United States in the year 2018 alone. Of concern is that so many of us are becoming numb to all this and burying our heads in the sands of cognitive dissonance as a way of avoiding anxiety. Like so many mythological “boiling frogs” people are accepting these pathological system conditions as the new “normal.” Too many of us are turning their backs on the effects of climate change. As we do, we are choosing to turn their backs on the first noble truth that such conditions even exist. As we close our eyes to reality, it becomes profoundly more difficult to our open minds to the other noble truths about knowing to uncover the root causes of these conditions and knowing to make real and positive changes in how we think and act in the world. First, the science.

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IPCC Reports---2018, 2021 In the fall of 2018, just as Hurricane Michael was trampling the southeast part of the US, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a new report titled, “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C: Summary for Policymakers.”2 It was also at this time that CO2 levels had just risen once again above the grim marker of 400 ppm and seems destined to never again fall below. The general position held by the IPCC is that climate change is anthropogenic; that is, caused by human economic activity. It urges that immediate and comprehensive action needs to be taken to reduce concentrations of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere in order to limit the most severe warming trends—to bring it down to 1.5 °C or less over the next decade. The IPCC’s focus is primarily on overhauling energy production and consumption as the most significant option for global warming mitigation. The IPCC also notes that such mitigation efforts are aligned with the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations in 2015. The ultimate goal is to bring carbon dioxide levels down to below the threshold of 350 parts per million by 2030. As we can see from Figure One, this is threshold was exceeded around 1990 and has been on the rise since. The goal would be to limit the warming trend in global ambient temperatures down to 1.5 °C or less over the next decade. The IPCC notes that this effort “would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and rural infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems.”3 The IPCC report resonates as a final warning for significant efforts worldwide to overcome “socio-economic, institutional, technological, financing and environmental barriers that differ across regions.”4 In other words, they are calling for nothing short of large-scale systems transitions that are “unprecedented in terms of scale.”5 Such systems transitions would have to involve scaling down economic activity in general, but this would be at odds with the categorical imperative of ongoing economic 2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Special Report on Global warming of 1.5 °C: Summary for Policymakers,” October, 2018, http://www.ipcc.ch/. 3 Ibid., p. 18. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., p. 17.

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growth, which seems to be pursued at any cost and without regard to consequences for future generations. The warnings regarding the dangers to future generations have been raised continuously for decades seemingly without heed. In August of 2021, the IPCC issued another report. Bulleted below are the highlights from the report’s summary for policymakers: • It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred. Observed increases in well-mixed Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities. • Since 2011 (measurements reported in AR5), concentrations have continued to increase in the atmosphere, reaching annual averages of 410 ppm for Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) • Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850. • The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole and the present state of many aspects of the climate system are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. • In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years. • Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2000 years (high confidence). Temperatures during the most recent decade (2011–2020) exceed those of the most recent multi-century warm period, around 6500 years ago. • Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5. • It is virtually certain that hot extremes (including heatwaves) have become more frequent and more intense across most land regions since the 1950s, while cold extremes (including cold waves) have become less frequent and less severe, with high confidence that human-induced climate change is the main driver14 of these changes.

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• Global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered. Global warming of 1.5 °C and 2 °C will be exceeded during the twentyfirst century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades. • Many changes in the climate system become larger in direct relation to increasing global warming. They include increases in the frequency and intensity of hot extremes, marine heatwaves, and heavy precipitation, agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions, and proportion of intense tropical cyclones, as well as reductions in Arctic sea ice, snow cover, and permafrost. • Continued global warming is projected to further intensify the global water cycle, including its variability, global monsoon precipitation, and the severity of wet and dry events. • Under scenarios with increasing CO2 emissions, the ocean and land carbon sinks are projected to be less effective at slowing the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. • Many changes due to past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia, especially changes in the ocean, ice sheets, and global sea level.6 The evidence of climate change caused by global warming presented to us by climate scientists is abundant, clear and is caused primarily by human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) into the atmosphere. The science of global warming really isn’t that complicated. Given the earth’s distance from the sun, it should be colder than it is. The reason the planet can stay warmer is because it is wrapped in a blanket of carbon dioxide, CO2 , and to a lesser extent methane, CH4—the greenhouse gasses. As solar heat enters the atmosphere, the planet will absorb some of that energy like a sponge and the rest is reflected back out into space. The greenhouse gasses trap the reflecting heat and prevent it from leaving the atmosphere. The more carbon dioxide and methane we release into the air, the thicker that blanket of insulation becomes, and the planet gets increasingly warmer.

6 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “AR6 Climate Change, 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers,” 2021.

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Fig. 7.1 Carbon dioxide concentration, 1960–2021

Figure 7.1 shows the famous Keeling Curve—named after the scientist Charles D. Keeling who pioneered the work of measuring CO2 concentrations high in the atmosphere—shows that throughout the last several decades the amount of CO2 in the air is steadily getting heavier and the planet is warming. As the planet gets warmer, climate becomes more freakish and unstable. Sometime in late 2015, the global mean temperature passed the onedegree marker meaning that the average global temperature is full degree Celsius warmer than it was in preindustrial times. Given the trajectory of the Keeling Curve, there appears to be no hesitation as we march toward the 1.5-degree marker. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a number of warnings that this will happen with rising temperatures, and that nations everywhere will have to deal with disastrous conditions on multiple fronts. Governments are making preparations for dealing with an onslaught of problems that will unfold as a result of changing climate conditions at enormous costs, though arguably their efforts are decades too late to avoid truly devastating effects. In fact, their efforts have just begun in spite of the fact that climate change science is over a century old, and scientists’ dire warnings have been repeated for at least a half century.

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Unheeded Warnings In November 1965, a group of scientists prepared a report for the President of the United States titled, “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.” The panel, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, explained that as we humans have been powering our economies with fossil fuels, we are releasing massive amounts of carbon that has been locked in sediment for over five hundred million years into the atmosphere. “In a few short centuries,” the report says, “we are returning to the air a significant part of the carbon that was slowly extracted by plants and buried in the sediment during half a billion years.” The report goes on to say that the consequence would be significant changes in climate and those changes could be, “deleterious from the point of view of human life on the planet.”7 In 1987, the United Nations convened a World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). WCED came to be known as the Brundtland Commission as it was headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway. The Brundtland Commission convened to address critical issues of poverty and economic development as well as concerns about environmental degradation. The goal was to institutionalize, at a global level, certain guiding principles for dealing with world poverty and caring for natural environments. That same year the commission produced a report titled, “Our common Future,” which contained the first widely accepted and practical definition of sustainability as a guiding principle for economic development. Since then, the “Brundtland Definition” has become the standard definition of sustainable economic development: … “[economic] development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”8 This definition served as a platform from which researchers and scholars began working to formulate more precise principles for a sustainable society. This led to the development of the “Socio-Ecological Principles for a Sustainable Society” by John

7 President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), 1965, Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.pdf http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira%20downloads/ PSAC,%201965,%20Restoring%20the%20Quality%20of%20Our%20Environment.pdf. 8 The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford University Press, 1987) p. ix.

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Holmburg, Karl Henrik Roberts and Karl Erik Erikkson of the Institute of Physical Resource Theory.9 These principles are listed here: • Substances extracted from the lithosphere must not systematically accumulate in the ecosphere. • Society-produced substances must not systematically accumulate in the ecosphere. • The physical conditions for production and diversity within the ecosphere must not be systematically deteriorated. • The use of resources must be effective and just with respect to meeting human needs. The ecosphere is the part of our world that includes our air, water, topsoil, as well as plants and animals that harness energy from the sun and interact with each other. The lithosphere is the rest of the planet that includes minerals, fossil fuels, geothermal processes, as well as the radioactive decay of heavy elements. A true model of sustainability is one that achieves ecological balance both within the ecosphere and between the ecosphere and the lithosphere. In this view, a sustainable natural environment is a system that does not deteriorate over time. It is a steady-state system that is not structurally altered and remains basically intact. The natural environment is, of course, the foundation on which economic systems rest. Sustainable economics and sustainable ecology are thus indistinguishable. As ecology is the study of the relation between living organisms and their environment, ecological sustainability means that humans interact with their natural environment in a way that is stable and keeps the natural foundation intact. With this as a stated goal of the world community, concerns were being raised about carbon dioxide extracted from the lithosphere is systematically accumulating in the ecosphere creating global warming and climate change. The United Nations was compelled to address these concerns. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 was formed with the stated goal to achieve the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the 9 Holmberg, Robert and Erkisson, Karl Erik, “Socio-Ecological Principles for a Sustainable Society,” in Costanza, Segure, Martinez-Alier, eds., Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics, (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994), p. 17.

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climate system.”10 It was attended by 108 heads of state and had issued its report titled, “The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,” that included ambitious yet necessary goals on curbing carbon dioxide emissions among other things, and declared “That nothing less than a transformation of our attitudes and behavior would bring about the necessary changes.” It also created an international environmental treaty to fight against anthropogenic climate change. The treaty was signed by 154 signatory nations at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (NCED), also known as the “Earth Summit,” in June 1992. This was followed by Kyoto Protocol in 1997 as guidelines and goal setting for reducing greenhouse gas emissions with timelines. This too was followed by another Rio Summit in 2012 with the same goals, then again by the Paris Agreement in 2016 with, again, commitments on climate change mitigation that forged a commitment of every signatory nation to draft a national plan. This was followed by another summit in Glasgow in 2021. None of these had the slightest impact on CO2 , the world kept marching up the Keeling curve, and climate change is now much more severe than many thought was possible at this point in time. Seemingly every effort has been made at all levels: multilateral agreements and resolutions, summits, protocols, drafting definitions and standards for agree-upon measurements, definitions of sustainable development, education programs, public service programs on awareness and action, subsidizing the development of non-fossil fuel centered energy systems, cap and trade initiatives, carbon taxes, and the lists goes on. Yet, the pathological system condition of global warming rages on and grows more severe with each year. Part of the reason why governments and international bodies like the United Nations have failed to achieve their stated goals stems from a contradiction in their goals. Since its inception, the United Nations has been concerned about poverty and political instability in developing countries. The generally accepted position of most signatory nations at the UN is that the best way to deal with these problems is by way of economic growth measured in terms of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Politically, it is viewed as more acceptable to increase the size of the overall pie of prosperity rather than change the way the pie is sliced for distribution.

10 https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassem bly/docs/globalcompact/A_CONF.151_26_Vol.I_Declaration.pdf, 1992, p. 4.

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Schumacher addressed this contradiction several decades ago with remarkable accuracy. “The dominant modern belief is that the soundest foundation of peace would be universal prosperity,” Schumacher writes as he emphasized that poverty alongside riches is an obvious recipe for conflict. “The road to peace, it is argued, is to follow the road to riches.”11 But this assumes that as we follow this road to riches there will be some mechanism for distribution such that the poorer segments of the world’s population will benefit, and that there are no significant impediments on the road such as limits to growth or resource depletion. Schumacher presents the basic and inviolable argument that “economic growth, which viewed from the point of view of economics, physics, chemistry and technology, has no discernible limit, must necessarily run into decisive bottlenecks when viewed from the point of view of the environmental sciences.”12 Physics, chemistry, and other sciences have since drawn the same conclusion, but standard economics remains captivated by, and perpetuates, the delusion that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet. Schumacher also predicted that inequality of distribution of the growth in output would continue as in the past and will worsen as the rich strip the world of resources that will become scarcer and more expensive in time in such a way that the poor will be blocked out of access long before they had “acquired the wealth, education, industrial sophistication, and power of capital accumulation needed for the application of alternative fuels on any significant scale.”13 Schumacher was addressing fossil fuel depletion primarily but global warming has delivered the same issues as resource depletion as it affects the world’s poorest most severely. Schumacher was writing at a time when our understanding of climate change was still in a developmental stage. Seemingly every effort to address the twin crises of resource depletion and climate change. And the effort has been made at all levels: multilateral agreements and resolutions, summits, protocols, drafting definitions and standards for agree-upon measurements, definitions of sustainable development, education programs, public service programs on awareness and action, subsidizing the development of non-fossil fuel centered energy

11 Schumacher, E. F., Small Is Beautiful : Economics as if People Mattered, (NY: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 23. 12 Ibid., p. 29. 13 Ibid., p. 28.

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systems, cap and trade initiatives, carbon taxes, and the lists goes on. Yet, these pathological system conditions rage on and grow more severe with each year. As governments and international institutions seem to fail in reaching the objectives that could mitigate the effects of climate change, eyes turn to the business world in hopes for solutions.

“New Economics” For decades we have seen one economic initiative after another stepping forward promising to turn our social and environmental messes around. In the mid-1980s, for instance, a group of scholars convened for two conferences aimed at building a “New Economics” paradigm. The first was held in London, England in 1984 and the second was held in Bonn, Germany the following year. The goals set out for the new paradigm were to develop and promote an economic system that is centered on social justice, the satisfaction of a wide range of human needs, sustainable use of resources, and environmental conservation. The meetings were called The Other Economic Summit (TOES) to symbolize a clean break from the business-as-usual Group of Seven meetings or World Economic Forums. TOES addressed a spectrum of economic issues that were becoming increasingly exigent such as the problem of trying to achieve endless economic growth within the confines of a finite planet, the widening income and wealth gap between the world’s rich and poor, the need for economic indicators that could better assess human wellbeing than gross domestic product (GDP), chronic unemployment, access to education and health care services for the world’s population, alternative business models, alternative systems of finance and trade, gender equality, and tax policies. The conference presentations were compiled, edited by conference organizer and economist Paul Ekins, and a year later published in a book titled, The Living Economy: A New Economics in the Making (1986). This was followed by a host of a new economics proposals. Among the pioneers were Paul Hawken, Frances Cairncross, Amory and Hunter L. Lovins, Jonathan Porrit, Lester R. Brown, James “Gus” Speth, and others. Of the next two decades the like-minded economists launched a library of information in books: Costing the Earth (1992), Ecological Commerce (1993), Natural Capitalism (1999), Eco-Economy (2001), Capitalism as if the World Mattered (2005), and the Green Collar Economy (2009). The core message in all this work is summarized by

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Yale economist and founder of the National Resource Defense Council, Gus Speth, as an articulation of the notion that, “the market can be transformed into an instrument for environmental restoration; the incentives that govern corporate behavior can be rewritten; growth can be focused on things that truly need to grow and consumption on having enough, not always more; and the rights of future generations and other species can be respected.”14 As this “new economics” vision continued to gain momentum, market-oriented eco-entrepreneurship expanded with differentiated green product identities, conventional products were rebranded as to be seen as sustainable to stay ahead of market saturation. At the same time, there was an explosion of socially responsible investment funds, or SRIs, which later morphed into impact investing. Among the most recent and compelling developments in the “new economics” movement in the US is an initiative spearheaded by the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board and The Climate Disclosure Standards Board. These are non-profit organizations working to provide material information for investors and financial markets through the integration of sustainability and climate change-related information into mainstream financial reporting of publicly traded corporations. In other words, they are trying to place climate and sustainability practices on equal footing as the corporate bottom line. This initiative is largely in response to what they perceive as a shifting attitude among investors, particularly professional asset managers. Institutional investors are increasingly getting pressured by their clients to find investment funds that do good and do well. As such, they are pushing for new reporting and accounting standards that will be binding for all publicly traded corporations, and to make their track records transparent to investors. “Do good and do well” has been the mantra, and corporations, investors, and consumers alike find it irresistible. Workers were promised that now in addition to becoming information workers, they were also going to secure lucrative green collar jobs. As they make big money, they green collar professionals can afford to buy high end organic, sustainable, certified consumer goods, and the businesses that successfully market those goods will be plowing their profits back into even greener economic development. Everybody wins: producers make profits, investors get big 14 Speth, James Gustave, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 12.

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returns, workers get jobs, and consumers save the planet by shopping conscientiously. All of these initiatives over the last thirty years are very positive and doubtless are contributing, in some way or another, to a better world. But the central problem with this movement is that these initiatives continue to be forged from within the same cauldron of greed and delusion as were the corporations that have brought us to the brink of annihilation. Corporate institutions seem unable to change or adapt to the climate situation unless there is money to be made by doing so as they are still have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders whose expectations have not changed since Veblen warned about the dangers of such an arrangement over a century ago. This fiduciary responsibility to shareholder value is sovereign in the corporate capitalist world. If the Three Es of sustainable business— economy, equity, ecology—are like a three-legged stool in which the “do well” leg is much longer than the other two “do good” legs, and it is virtually impossible for a corporation to cut the other two legs down to match. Corporate executives are most likely to give a salute to sustainable practices, but if these do not result in handsome bottom-line returns, they will likely pass.

The Social Self and Consumerism When we approach global warming from the individualistic (social atomism) perspective, the tendency is to argue that consumerism is the mother of all environmental problems. If people would just stop demanding so much stuff, so the argument goes, we would not be putting so much strain on the environment. As we emphasized here, greed and acquisitiveness, stem from deluded sense of self-attachment. In the Buddhist view, the ontology of self is emptiness. To those who have become self-attached, this is feared in the same way people fear the dark void of death. From this fearful existential state arises a kind of grasping or clinging ego. In a turn of mind from Descartes, the fearful ego may assert “I grasp, therefore I exist.” What do we grasp onto? This is anything and everything that could give a sense of being grounded. In Western cultures, this often takes the form of grasping onto money, possessions, and power. It could also be holding onto narratives, other people, careers. David Loy refers to these as “lack projects” (because we believe they will fill up our sense of lack) or “reality projects (because we believe they will

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makeus feel more real).”15 Consumerism is a term widely used to express lack projects that have grown into a sociological phenomenon. The generally accepted view of consumerism, particularly in American culture, is that consumers are sovereign in the marketplace. Most proponents as well as critics of capitalism hold the belief that instinctive consumer demand is the prime mover in the basic economic processes. That is, consumers will express their demands in the markets and businesses dutifully follow. Proponents argue that growth serves to satisfy the demands of people, and critics argue that people are selfishly, or perhaps unwittingly, creating their own destruction with excessive demands. In either view, the line of causality begins with consumption and consumption drives production.There is truth in the assertion that consumerism and self-attachment are key elements in the creation of global warming. But we need to also see that the self-attached consumer is a product of social conditioning. Recall pragmatist’s concept of the social self. Among the contributors to American pragmatism in the early twentieth century is Charles Horton Cooley. Though his career was spent at the University of Michigan teaching economics and sociology, he is still associated with the Chicago school founded by Dewey and Mead. Among his chief contributions is his interpretation of modern social pathology as a conflict between the values of primary groups such as families with institutional values. Love, spirituality, or creativity are qualities of humanity that are threatened by the corporate drive to commodify them. In time, through interaction, they lose their authenticity and become the consumer of commodities the corporations need them to be. The individual and the corporate institution, through this process of interaction, become one. Cooley emphasizes this notion that the individual and society are two sides of the same coin, A separate individual is an abstraction unknown to experience, and so likewise is society when regarded as something apart from individuals… In other words, ‘society’ and individuals” do not denote separable phenomena, but are simply collective and distributive aspects of the same thing.16

15 Loy, David, “Ecodharma: A New Buddhist Path?” Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies, No. 15, 2020, p. 56. 16 Cooley, Charles Horton, Human Nature and the Social Order (NY: Scribner & Sons [1902], 1922), p. 36.

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The consuming individual or consumer-self is a contextualist model of selfhood as socially constructed through a dialectic of self-firmament relationships. These relationships happen on multiple levels through interactions between individual and society, individual and nature, and body-mind. These interactions can be found in the economic processes in which the mind and body are compelled into action, as James and Dewey argue, by way of an internal drive. The form with which that action takes place depends to a large degree on the society in which the self-firmament interaction takes place, as well as the habitat. As we have seen with Veblen and Dewey the most powerful element in that interaction are the habits that have been reified into our institutional fabric and passed on from one generation to the next. To put this in Buddhist terms, the self and the institutional fabric are in a state of dependent origination. This conception goes a long way in our understanding how it can be that even though global warming is presenting a direct threat to the survivability of our species, we do not change our habits. The question here is what kind of society or group is the individual interacting with and what are the priorities and purposes at the societal level? Such a question would be wasted on a neoclassical economist because they do not conceptualize that societies even exist, much less have a higher-level purpose. But recall Buddhist Peter Hershock and institutional economist Alan Gruchy who both argue a societal-level purpose should, in a normative sense, be directed toward social provisioning— providing for the foundational needs of people. Whether those needs are met depends on environmental conditions and social contexts. The corporate-dominated social firmament, however, is programmed to place the maximization of shareholder returns as the paramount societal-level purpose. Social provisioning is of secondary importance. Lack projects and consumerism are the products of the dialectic interplay between self (fabricated ego) and the institutionally reified ego-self (corporate-dominated social firmament). In the holistic, systems view this is an emergent phenomenon existing as a result of grasping, fearful ego coming into an interactive relationship with its social context—a context that is awash with corporate marketing and the relentless drive to sell their products with the promise of filling the void. Consumerism came into being through this interactive process as a system condition and emergent phenomenon in the sense that it could not exist without both elements in the same way that water molecules could not exist without the interaction of both hydrogen and oxygen. The institutionalization of greed, profits

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from sales are the source of returns to investors, and these returns cannot be sustained without consumerism. The relentless drive for profits created the consumer culture that fuels the economic machine. The corporate-dominated economy has a systemic need to sell things. If people show no inclination to buy these things, then the system will break down. To survive, the system must find ways—manipulation and seduction if necessary—to get people to buy more and more things that potentially have little or no relevance to their physical or spiritual wellbeing, or to that of their offspring. Marketing techniques have evolved with sophistication as it penetrates deeper into the fearful ego’s sense of lack with images and symbols that suggest comfort and fulfillment through consumption, not because it makes them better off, as consumption may or may not make them better off, but because the growth imperative of the capitalist machine requires it. By the time most people have reached maturity, they will have adapted to their culture’s overall “narrative” and will subscribe, consciously or not, to any number of subsidiary religious, political, social, scientific, or other disciplinary paradigm. Ongoing growth in production and consumption is not just some haphazard thing that people do by chance, it occurs deliberately in response to the economic system’s requirement to produce and sell everlarger amounts of goods and services. The roots of this requirement run very deep, and it is a requirement that has exceeded the planet’s ability to sustain it. Thus, humanity in its current mindset is faced with a choice: continue as usual and suffering extraordinary environmental crises of ever-increasing magnitude, or abandon course and experience extraordinary economic crises of ever-increasing magnitude. David Loy, however, suggests a third way: the ecosattva path.

Ecodharma and Economics In Buddhism, the bodhisattva is one who is resolute in becoming a Buddha through personal enlightenment but suspends enlightenment experience so that they can devote their efforts to helping others achieve their own liberation. Loy describes the bodhisattva as an “inspirational archetype that embodies a new vision of human possibility—in particular, the alternative to rampant, self-preoccupied individualism, including any approach to Buddhist practice that is concerned only about one’s own

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personal awakening.”17 For those involved in socially engaged Buddhism specifically, Loy sees the contemporary bodhisattva as one who is “ready to grapple with the collective and institutional causes of dukkha.”18 The contemporary bodhisattva is one whose motivation to be a force for positive change in the world “arises spontaneously from somewhere deep within us, form a place beyond self-interest … beyond our usual sense of self.”19 Such compassion can be cultivated with a disciplined Buddhist practice, particularly with regular meditation practice. Chan master Sheng Yen in a lecture titled, “Just Directly Relinquish This Self,” discusses the bodhisattva in terms of what he formed as silent illumination. Relinquishing in this context indicates nonattachment. Being in a state of samadhi in which the mind is still and is a space where wisdom and compassion are free to roam. With practice the mind can be trained to exist in a state of samadhi, without grasping at ideas (good or bad), or to oneself. The mind can remain in a deep state of samadhi and maintain total clarity though completely attend to what is happening around us. A condition for coming to this state is the relinquishing of the burden of self. For Sheng Yen, this is silent illumination. Silence is the unburdening of self-attachments and vexations with clarity of the path. The path is the position and journey of the bodhisattva illuminated by the light of an unencumbered and unfettered mind, “when we are able to let go, we take up the burden of the buddhas to ensure continuation of the Dharma. The practice is none other than following and progressing through the stages of the bodhisattva path.”20 Being on this bodhisattva path is a kind of meditation of the unburdened self not just while sitting on a cushion but also while eating, walking, working, and while being aware of all that is happening around us. From the unburdened self, compassion for all sentient beings naturally flows. It is maintaining a practice while actively responding to the suffering and destructiveness around us.

17 Loy, David, Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2018), pp. 163–164. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 165. 20 Sheng Yen, The Method of No Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination

(Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2008), p. 133.

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Being an engaged bodhisattva in contemporary society means being engaged to find resolution for social and environmental problems. The bodhisattva is wholly engaged with the intention and deliberate action. For socially engaged Buddhist economics, this means accepting and acting on the premise that pathological system conditions such as global warming are socio-anthropogenic, meaning that it the condition is not just caused by human action, but also by the institutions that function with a kind of intention and will of their own that originated from within their internal structures and programming. On this David Loy writes, Since awakening involves realizing that we are not separate from each other or from the earth, it becomes apparent that the ways we live together and relate to the earth need to be reconstructed as well. That means collective engagement with social dukkha: working together to challenge the problematic economic and political structures that are deeply implicated in the environmental crisis and social justice issues that confront us today.21

The challenging implication is that we have little choice other than to rebuild and reconstruct our social institutions and systems in ways that guide our actions in a markedly different direction. Ecodharma is a dharma-inspired response to the multiple crises raging in our ecosphere. It stands as a relatively new development in socially engaged Buddhism that is inspired by the dharma and informed by the science of ecology. For Loy, the emphasis is on collective transformation for the principal reason that ecological problems are collective problems, most notably global warming. So much of an organized Buddhist practice is focused on the individual and one’s own spiritual practice in a manner similar to yoga, but within a broader framework of ethical guidelines. This is very individualistic. As mentioned earlier, Loy sees a parallel between predicaments, or conditions that lead to human suffering of the individual and those of the whole of human civilization. To that point, he also addresses traditional Buddhism and the need for a vision for practice that goes beyond the individual. Loy writes, “The traditional Buddhist focus on individual awakening and individual compassion was logical because it was consistent with the traditional focus on individual dukkha—on the suffering due to my own karma and the way my own mind works. But what if one’s suffering is not always due to what one has done or is doing 21 Loy, Ecodharma, p. 102.

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now?”22 He makes the case that there are massive amounts of collective dukkha caused by institutions and other social structures. “How might conventional conceptions of the bodhisattva path be adapted to make Buddhist teachings more relevant to such challenges?”23 As we look around us, we witness painful things that are outside our own life and practice. Perhaps it is seeing extraordinary numbers of deaths from a viral pandemic that could have been mitigated with good social health policy and compliance. Or perhaps it is seeing someone’s house burn to the ground by extreme wildfires that are symptoms of global warming, or to see a man hatefully choked to death by a policeman, who is trained and trusted not to do such things. A non-engaged Buddhist might say our suffering arises as a result of our own attachment to people, material things, or notions of social or environmental justice; so we should just let it go. But this is dismissive and is not consistent with being a bodhisattva nor is it consistent with the noble truth of change. Collective transformation is as old as Buddhism itself and is as important as individual transformation. Nhat Hanh teaches us that “engaged Buddhism is Buddhism that penetrates into life. If Buddhism is not engaged, it’s not real Buddhism. This the attitude of the bodhisattvas… We practice meditation and mindfulness not only for ourselves; we practice to relieve the suffering of all beings and of Earth itself.”24 From the very beginning, the Buddha emphasized the importance of how we can transform our difficulties both individually and collectively. Nhat Hanh goes on to emphasize that the Buddha “focused on how we put the teachings into practice in our everyday lives. That is ethics.”25 In other words, the bodhisattva is engaged to transform collective suffering into wellbeing, and this is the ethics of the bodhisattva path. For Nhat Hanh, the most relevant ethical framework in Buddhism is the Noble Eightfold Path. He summarizes, The path of the eight right practices is a path for everyone, not just for monks and nuns or for Buddhists, but for everyone living in the world. We have to love our daily lives in such a way that we live deeply in mindfulness, so that we can see the nature of interbeing in everything. 22 Ibid., p. 168. 23 Ibid. 24 Nhat Hanh, Thich, Good Citizens: Creating an Enlightened Society (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012). 25 Ibid., p. 5.

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Following the Noble Eightfold Path brings us joy and ease and helps transform intolerance, dogmatism, attachment to views, discrimination, and violence.26

For Loy, this ethical framework—specifically when engaged in dealing with climate change and other pathological system conditions—requires distinctive emphasis on interdependence and to place our focus of attention toward the collective nature of the crises. As with all forms of socially engaged Buddhism, the movement collective change is nonviolent and “not only nonviolent but a politics motivated by love and compassion rather than anger.”27 This is an important distinction because if we take this seriously, we are compelled to examine our motivation and intentions. Mindfulness, or silent illumination, stills the mind and allows for compassion to naturally flow through one’s intentions, motivations, and action. Skillful means, cultivated through this practice, is an ability to adapt and engage effectively without encumbrances of fear or anger. This is particularly important when the object of the ecosattva’s action engagement is to transform massive social illbeing to wellbeing. This point brings again us to institutional economics and philosophical pragmatism. With each instance of social interaction, the social firmament changes. It may move in the direction of wellbeing or illbeing depending on the specific instance and the underlying motivations that serve as its volitional drive. If the motivation springs from greed, hatred, or delusion, then the social firmament will be impacted and changed accordingly. Depending on the scale of the impact, it could cause measurable and observable steps toward illbeing. If the animus springs from compassion and wisdom and had a measurable impact, it could move the firmament in a different direction toward wellbeing. Mindful awareness of our state of interbeing is important as we come to realize the karmic and cumulative nature of our actions and volition. Economics at its core is about production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. This is an ongoing process in which we humans are transforming the crust of the earth and the atmosphere. In light of this, how we act in the world ecologically is very much tied to how we act in the world economically. Similarly, contemporary political ecology and political economy are dimensions of this process and what 26 Ibid., p. 101. 27 Loy, Ecodharma, p. 168.

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is needed is ecological and economic balance. Both involve examining power relations inherent in our institutions that are involved in transforming our ecosphere into monetized units for sale, exploitation, and profit. The those involved in the Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics movement are seeking inspiration for transforming our existing institutions or building our institutions that will transform our social firmament in ways that allow its karmic evolution to sail in a different direction from institutionalized greed, hatred, and delusion. The challenge for the next generation of bodhisattvas is to help others move toward climate stability. It is helping with adapting to the permanent and worsening conditions of global warming. Climate change adaptation is the new frontier of economic development. As such, socially engaged Buddhist economics will increasingly be focused on recrafting local right livelihood institutions to construct ways people can survive the floods, winds, and flames of climate change and global warming. This is the paramount challenge of twenty-first century.

Dharma Talk One of the things I emphasize in my own writings is that an authentic economic system should exist for the purpose of social provisioning: mobilizing resources to provide food, housing, health care, education, security in retirement, and all the other things required to sustain a healthy population. Being mindful of this is at the very core of what I call Mindful Economics. If people seek to have an economic society grounded in social provisioning, then this would require an established set of economic institutions that hold such provisioning as a priority. Mindfulness can help as a kind of reality check in the outer work of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. By observing and constantly asking the very pragmatic question: Is what we are doing in our economy helpful for social provisioning? If not, then why we are doing it? The pragmatic vision of American philosopher, John Dewey, is valuable in this regard as he set out to build a philosophy based on a foundation of social action put in the service of humanity. Dewey makes a case for human social behavior that springs from an existential drive, not for egoaggrandizement, but to shape the world around them in positive ways. As people follow this drive and become engaged in social development, they can create better social structures that advance social intelligence

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and foster the development of education, art, health, technology, and purposeful economic activity. By doing so, communities pursue a pragmatic path toward creating opportunities for individuals to develop their own unique powers and capabilities. These powers and capabilities, in turn, will allow a person to become an effective participant in the life of the community and can advance the project of building institutions that provide for their wellbeing. In this way, communities and the individuals who live in them coevolve. The inner work of a sound Buddhist practice is key for the outer work of making positive changes in our communities. Practice is key because practice generates mindfulness, concentration, and insight. And these three energies are the foundation of all Buddhist practice and Buddhist Ethics. Yet, the outer work of social change and potentially dramatic reconstruction these energies are wasted. History is not going to show our current generation in a positive light for allowing to global warming to ravage our habitat. By the same reasoning, it will not look on Buddhism in a favorable light either if it maintains an aloofness to political and economic concerns. This means the dharma work is both the inner work on the meditation cushion and the outer work of social change, which has no cushion.

References Cooley, Charles Horton, Human Nature and the Social Order (NY: Scribner & Sons [1902], 1922). Fung, Yu Lan, ed., A Taoist Classic: Chuang-Tzu (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1931). Holmberg, Robert and Erkisson, Karl Erik, “Socio-Ecological Principles for a Sustainable Society,” in Costanza, Segure, Martinez-Alier, eds., Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of Ecological Economics (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1994). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “AR6 Climate Change, 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers,” 2021. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C: Summary for Policymakers,” October, 2018. Loy, David, Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2018). Loy, David, “Ecodharma: A New Buddhist Path?” Canadian Journal of Buddhist Studies, No. 15, 2020. Nhat Hanh, Thich, Good Citizens: Creating an Enlightened Society (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012).

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President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment,” 1965. Schumacher, E. F., Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (NY: Harper and Row, 1973). Sheng Yen, The Method of No Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2008). Speth, James Gustave, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/genera lassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_CONF.151_26_Vol.I_Declaration.pdf, 1992. The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford University Press, 1987).

CHAPTER 8

Mindfulness and the Outer Work of Social Change

As we peel back the layers of causality that have brought the world to climate crisis, we find the truth of its anthropogenic nature. Global warming is a pathological system condition. It is a manifestation of ecological crises that arise as the result of releasing formerly trapped carbon dioxide effluents into the air at a rate faster than the planet can reabsorb them. They systematically accumulate in the ecosphere creating a kind of layer of insulation around the planet that prevents the escape infrared heat radiation from returning into space. This causes the ambient temperatures around the planet to rise, and the result is global warming. With global warming comes a long list of ecological crises not least of which are drought, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. These system conditions affect all of us with crop failures, property damage, the ruination of land and forests, and the general destruction of the habitat that keeps us alive. Carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gasses have been systematically accumulating for centuries as a result of a combination of industrial growth and the growth of the human population. Industrial growth sustains the population, and the population perpetuates industrial growth. The only way to move toward a truly sustainable global economic system would be to de-growth of both factors. As we are working on economic issues, the focus here is only industrial growth. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_8

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Industrial growth, as we have discussed, is the product of the growth imperative of the corporate capitalist system. It is centered on the necessity of continuously generating profits by expanding markets, sales, and the production of things for the growing population to consume. This growth imperative is a fixture in both the institutional structure of our social firmament and the mindset of the population. From the Buddhist perspective presented here, we have argued that such fixtures form as the reification and institutionalization of greed, hatred, and delusion, which at a deeper level are the manifestations of pathologies that arise from self-attachment. Self-attachment colors our intentions, motivations, and actions such that we become hungry ghosts filled not with contentment or satisfaction but with aggression and delusion. All of which is perpetuated by the economics profession and media culture. The behavior patterns that arise from greed, hatred, and delusion are habituated and institutionally reinforced. And despite decades of warnings from scientists that our actions are creating one climate crisis after another, we have yet to break this habituation. Herein lies the truth of anthropogenic of global warming and all the suffering it is causing and will cause in the years to come. For Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, the central concern is transforming this and other pathological system conditions to a way of living that is conducive to socio-ecological wellbeing. By what means can we dismantle this habituation that has been reinforced in capitalist culture for centuries? Returning to John Dewey as he addressed this very question by raising the highlighting the alterability of human nature, which lies on a spectrum somewhere between the two extremes of being something that is fixed and unalterable and something that is infinitely malleable and perfectible.1 At one end is the argument that human instincts remain unchanged from generation to generation even though circumstances change. The other end argues that the social and political circumstances we find ourselves in can be transformed by completely transforming human nature in a comprehensive spasm of revolutionary catharsis. Dewey argues that between these polarized schemes there are “institutions as embodied habits” carried forward by inertia. Dewey writes,

1 Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library, 1930), pp. 106–107.

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Anyone with knowledge of the stability and force of habit will hesitate to propose or prophesy rapid and sweeping social changes. A social revolution may affect abrupt and deep alterations in external customs, in legal and political institutions. But the habits that are behind these institutions and that have, willy-nilly, been shaped by objective conditions, the habits of thought and feeling, are not so easily modified.2

Expecting a critical mass of the population to suddenly change the habituated way of thinking and acting would be comparable to suddenly demanding that everyone speak a new language at once. It is an entirely unrealistic expectation. Yet, continuing with the analogy, it is also unrealistic to argue that it is impossible to change the languages we speak because they are fixed for all time. Habituated ways of thinking and acting are rigid, but they are changeable with effort and time. Regarding changeability, Dewey narrows his focus to habits of mind as a starting place, “Habits of thought outlive modifications in habits of overt action. The former are vital, the latter, without the sustaining life of the former, are muscular tricks.” He also notes that habits of thought combine into a medley of habituation that chemically bond into a force for action. In Dewey’s time, the most salient pathological system condition was war. Habituated “pugnacity, rivalry… fear, suspicion, anger… all of these and many more make up the war-like force. Such considerations hardly prove that war is to be abolished at some future date. But they destroy that argument for necessary continuance which is based on the immutability of specified forces in human nature.”3 Dewey concludes that war is a function of social institutions—a toxic combination of concretized habits of mind—not something immutably fixed in the human constitution. Substituting war with global warming—a form of arson on our habitat and future generations—and we have the same logic and a parallel argument. Global warming is a function of social institutions—also a toxic combination of concretized habits of mind. In Buddhism, the most potent and gripping habit is self-attachment. Dewey also argues that the need to transform the crust of the earth into things, or economic goods, is a consistent and universal expect of human conduct. We need to appropriate food, clothing, shelter, tools, and resources in order to survive. It is safe to assume then that this is given. 2 Ibid., p. 108. 3 Ibid., pp. 112, 114.

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What is not given are the forms with which such appropriation takes place and the degree of delusion from social conditioning that impinge on the process. Dewey writes, “The need for appropriation has had to be satisfied; but only a callous imagination fancies that the institution of private property as it exists [in the current period] is the sole or the indispensable means of its realization.”4 The means of its realization is grounded in institutionalized behavior. Appropriation forged in the cauldron of greed and consumerism are drivers perpetuated from what Dewey describes as “the inertness of established habit.” Established habits for both Dewey and Veblen are the protoplasm of social institutions. Established habits “create out of the formless void of impulses, a world made in their own image.”5 Using the systems view of this interpretation of institutions, Margaret Wheatley and Peter Senge, detail in an essay titled “Toward a Theology of Institutions” in Seeing Things Whole, the point that institutions can be seen themselves metaphorically as living entities. They write, The affirmation that institutions are living systems links two important assertions, both fundamental to seeing institutions whole. The first is that institutions are alive. To say this is to recognize that the “being-ness” of institutions is comprised not only of its more tangible outward and physical reality (e.g., its facilities, people, formal organizational and information systems, technology and equipment), but along with this is a less-tangible interiority or animating spirit whose energy is reflected through a combination of historical memory, shared convictions and dreams, proud successes and bitter disappointments...the other assertion of this premise is that institutions are systems. As such they are wholly interdependent with the entire evolving world around them, both impacting and affected by everything that takes place throughout the constantly emerging reality of the existing order.6

The potency of the metaphor derives from the notion that institutions have a way of surviving and perpetuating themselves just as living beings.

4 Ibid., p. 117. 5 Ibid., p. 125. 6 Wheatley, Margaret and Senge, Peter, “Toward a Theology of Institutions,” Seeing

(things) Whole, December 6, 2010, http://www.seeingthingswhole.com/PDF/STW-tow ard-theology-of-institutions.pdf.

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As we have been arguing, the current economic system is an amalgamation of established, deeply reinforced habits that have become reified into institutions firmly set within the social firmament. The system of institutions continues to expand and transform everything in its own likeness, including the mindset of the whole of human population. This amalgamated structure of habits will perpetuate by transforming the social firmament through a process described here by Dewey, “They stimulate, intensify, weaken, select, concentrate and organize into their own likeness… Existing institutions impose their stamp, their superscription, upon impulse and instinct.”7 The firmament contains within its mass the whole of culture that has been assimilated through a selection process of assimilating elements that are useful and purging the rest. This process of shaping the firmament as such will continue until the “environment obstinately objects it.”8 That is, through forces within the firmament, or conditions in our ecosphere will begin to cause systemic breakdown as pathological system conditions reach a certain threshold beyond which the logic and purpose of the system can no longer be sustained. It would appear that we are close to that threshold now as pathologies abound without internal methods for resolution.

Cultural Hegemony and the Pathology of Normalcy The psychologist Erich Fromm argues that the “consumption-happy, fun-loving, jet-traveling” Americans are turned into “anxious, loveless shadows” by living what is considered a normal life. He identified a host of troubling social conditions, violence, alcoholism, suicide, divorce, crime, etc., as characteristics of what he calls the “pathology of normalcy.” Material wellbeing in the form of securing the necessary things to live healthy lives has always been seen by institutionalists and pragmatists as a means to the end of the complete unfolding of human potential. But the commodity-producing culture of modern capitalism turned this on its head such that economic production was once seen as “a means to the unfolding of man, not an end. It seems that today the means have become ends.” The distinctions between means and ends have become so blurred 7 Dewey, Human Nature, pp. 125–126. 8 Ibid.

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that an authentic sense of purpose vanishes in the noise. What remains is profit-making for profit’s sake.9 Within the capitalist firmament, Fromm argues that the life force of humanity is transformed into something apartment from itself, which are the consumer goods and the wealth-creating institutions of capitalism, “They are something apart from him, which he worships and to which he bows down before the works of his own hands. He experiences himself not as the active bearer of his own forces and riches but as an impoverished ‘thing’ dependent on other things outside of himself. He is the prisoner of the very economic and political circumstances which he has created.”10 In his collection of essays on social psychology in The Sane Society (1955), Fromm takes a holistic view of mental health. His ideas were controversial in his time as he challenged the orthodox position that social pathology is epiphenomenal arising from problems of individuals. He references the sanity of society, or its insanity. Fromm argues that the human species can be defined in ways that extend beyond our anatomical attributes and share basic psychic qualities. Like the pragmatists and institutionalists, Fromm argues against the “Old Adam” conception of human nature as mechanistically hardwired to be fixed and impervious to social forces. At the same time, he also problematizes the notion of each individual is a purely blank slate. Fromm writes, “The real problem is to infer the core common to the whole human race from the innumerable manifestations of human nature, the normal as well as the pathological ones, as we can observe them in different individuals and cultures.”11 That the core is a manifestly common denominator across space and time of human existence, it stands statistically as a social norm of human nature. The structure of the core itself is neither fixed for all time nor some written contingently on a blank slate. Fromm argues that the drivers of human behavior, including economic behavior result from the total existence of the human condition, which is composed of biological and social forces that interact with the core— a universally present ensemble of potentialities. The forces in the social

9 Fromm, Erich, “Our Way of Life Makes Us Miserable,” The Saturday Evening Post, July 25, 1964, p. 8. 10 Ibid. 11 Fromm, Erich, The Sane Society (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955), p. 13.

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firmament do not create these potentialities and resulting behaviors but rather determines which are to become active and dominant and which are to become passive and lay dormant. Fromm concludes, Man as he appears in any given culture is always a manifestation of human nature, a manifestation, however, which in its specific outcome is determined by the social arrangements under which he lives. Just as the infant is born with all human potentialities which are to develop under favorable social and cultural conditions, so the human race, in the process of history, develops into what it potentially is.12

Fromm’s perspective is one that transcends either biological determinism or sociological determinism by integrating them holistically into total existence. A key part of that total existence, nestled into the social firmament, is what Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci referred to as cultural hegemony. Gramsci, like so many others throughout human history, Gramsci was severely punished for his ideas and wrote most of his important work while sitting behind prison bars in Mussolini’s Italy in the 1930s. The most important of which was his theory of cultural hegemony. He observed that as capitalist institutions became firmly embedded into the social firmament, it would be unnecessary for the political establishment to use force to gain acceptance and compliance from the population as in the case of other forms of hegemony. Instead, the corporate class exercised its control over cultural production to massage the values, beliefs, and norms into the accepted belief of all. Gramsci describes cultural hegemony as “the spontaneous consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group.”13 Corporate hegemony, that powerful network of corporate institutions, and its attending social class, and its subordinate institutions in government maintains its control over the American economy and society and stands largely unchallenged. The American population holds onto a popular consensus around the core elements of corporate ideology and propaganda. Inside the popular myths of American culture is the vision of 12 Ibid., p. 14. 13 Lears, T.J. Jackson, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibili-

ties,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 3, June 1985, p. 568.

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economic society as a system of free markets where everyone is free to choose; where rugged individualism, self-interest, and hard work lead to “rags to riches” success stories. The ideology of neoliberalism is so deeply entrenched in the popular imagination that most Americans are unable to see that economic institutions even exist. For Gramsci, this is popular consent to a hegemonic structure of power. Gramsci articulated that popular consent is often ambiguous as a process of conflict between people’s own conception of things and that which they adopt. Even with a consensus, there remains opposition and public demonstration in defiance of corporate rule. Though rare, we can even encounter attempts to create counterhegemonic institutions. But in the main, most find it too difficult to maintain an outlook that runs counter to dominant culture, no matter how bootless that outlook may be. Consent, for Gramsci, entails a complex mindset in which there is an ideological mixture ranging from staunch adherence to orthodox ideology, to approval held with apathy, to resistance held with resignation. The dominant ideology is not merely a set of beliefs reflecting interests and structures of power but is a more complex “spontaneous philosophy” that is nestled within “the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing things and of acting, which are collective bundled together under the name of folklore.”14 In this sense, the often-repeated American shibboleths such as “rugged individualism”” or “the marketplace of ideas” where everyone is “free to choose” are part of this folklore that are extrapolated from habituation. So too are the denials of climate change and virtually any other pathological system condition that would originate within the bowels of corporate capitalism. The institutions of capitalism, particularly the corporation, impose their will on the population. The population, over time and with habituation under cultural hegemony, become supplicants as they concede with popular consent. In turn, popular consent reinforces the institutional structures of corporate hegemony. Engaged Buddhist Ken Jones reflects on this state of consensual being, As it is with individual lives, so it is with institutions, societies, and cultures: they may be swept into ruin by karmic and other tangled conditionality even though they have the objective means to avert their fate and more than enough warning of it. The actors are driven to additive behavior 14 Ibid., p. 570.

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and a kind of tunnel vision that is ultimately self-destructive. And when the majority is locked into mutually affirming karma it may be particularly difficult for even a well-informed minority to achieve a change of direction.15

Returning to Dewey, “How then can we get leverage for changing institutions? Is there a way out of this vicious circle?”16 One possibility suggested by Dewey is through education and encouraging critical and independent thinking among the young. In Dewey’s time, universal education was still in its early stages of development. The achievement of the pragmatists that had the deepest and widest effect on American life is progressive education. Mead pushed for progressive curricula noting that “The existing curricula were in inherited from a bygone time and were dominated by an outdated atomistic … psychology.”17 In the decades that followed Dewey and Mead, however, it became clear that educational institutions fell under the same selection, concentration process as all others. Veblen was less optimistic about the role of education in social change and was ahead of his time seeing the corporate takeover of curriculum that had become complete by the time of the Mont Pelerin Society. Veblen noticed that the church’s influence in higher education was diminishing along with its influence elsewhere. In the void that was created came corporate interests. Veblen writes, “The substitution is a substitution of businessmen and politicians; which amounts to saying that it is a substitution of businessmen. So that the discretionary control in matters of university policy now rests finally in the hands of businessmen.”18 Nonetheless, for Veblen, pragmatists, Schumacher, and Buddhists alike, the key to the outer work of long-term social change for a healthier way of being is to break away from the troubled, habituated ways of thinking and acting in the world beginning with the mind—the inner work. Mental training through mindfulness practice is indispensable

15 Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), p. 27. 16 Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library, 1930), pp. 126–127. 17 Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. xxxiv. 18 Veblen, Thorstein, “The Higher Learning,” in The Portable Veblen, (New York: Viking Press, 1948), p. 508.

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in this regard, though mindfulness itself is in danger of being assimilated into the corporate hegemony.

Mindfulness The Buddha conveyed to his followers some practical ways to help people transform greed into spontaneous joy and wellbeing, hatred into compassion for others, and delusion into wisdom. At the core of his teachings is the transformative experience of mindfulness meditation and practice. Mindfulness is based on a basic principle of bare attention. It is the practice of cultivating the energy that will allow us to step outside the vicious circle of thinking and acting with vexation, projecting vexations, into the social firmament that then exerts troubled influence on our ways of thinking and acting. With a daily practice, people become awakened to the true dynamic between action and ideality and develop a clear understanding of the meaning of our actions and our motives. It is a state of mind in which we become aware of our thoughts and actions and are fully occupied in the present moment. Mindfulness can help us gradually disentangling ourselves from all kinds of ego-based attachments, including those things that reside nowhere else but in our own minds. With mindfulness, the mind is deliberately kept at the level of bare attention, a detached observation of what is happening within us and around us in the present moment. All judgements and interpretations are suspended, or if they occur, just registered and dropped.19 A delusive mind captured by defilements and clouded by mental formations create distortions in thought. These distortions in thought lead to actions that are at odds with the reality of actual situation or circumstances. Without mindfulness, we can easily be prone to sinking into a deluded and troubling state, like finding ourselves drowning yet for no other reason than we stumbled into water without the ability to swim. It is the tool that we use to chip away the layers of vexations that delude our minds and compel us to act in ways that cause suffering and damage—particularly the actions that arise from greed, aggression, and delusion. Mindfulness is the way toward wisdom as sought by Schumacher with his vision for an economic life based on spiritually informed way of being

19 See Bhikku Bodhi, http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma10/bbodhi10.html.

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that transcends the specific aspects of daily living. Informed wisdom helps us see clearly which life actions lead to true wellbeing and which do not. In this sense, mindfulness is giving clarity to Schumacher’s eye of the heart and is situated at the very core of Buddhist economics. It is perfecting a level of awareness that is always sustained on being in the present moment, which if done correctly, can act as a kind of mirror of our own thoughts and impulses reflecting what is precisely happening and in exactly the way it is happening. It is a state of noticing the flow of all things which allows us to be attentive to what is happening in the moment, and to the origins of our motivations—particularly those that sprout from the seeds of greed, aggression, delusion that exist within us all. Without mindfulness, there is no Buddhist economics. The Buddha taught, “Having consumed food, energy is regained, sensual urges are quieted, all unwholesome tendencies are quieted…and equanimity is the cause of a state of pure mindfulness. When our mind has reached absorption, it is pure, clear, without unwholesome tendencies, unclouded, supple, well-suited for work, and free of apprehension.” There is a true being waiting behind all the confusion and noise of the greed-inspired, consumerist lifestyle. Once this true being is discovered, the path forward is a transformation from vicious circles of suffering to a way of being that is spontaneous and joyful. Payutto quotes the Buddha to us here, “This is a mental state that is conducive for seeing clearly that ‘this is suffering this is the arising of suffering, this is the passing away of suffering, and this is the path to putting an end to all suffering.’”20 With a mindfulness practice, we can develop a greater awareness of our state of mind with some measure of objectivity. If we can be in the moment, recognize aggression or greed as agitated states of mind when they arise, and we can become more adept at not becoming so possessed by them that they control of our lives. When we change our minds, we change our actions, and when we change our actions, we are actively changing society even though we may not even be aware of it. As such, mindfulness is a way to cultivate the skillful means we need to change ourselves and to be effective agents of institutional change. The key to an effective practice is meditation. Mindfulness meditation is a means by which we can become more self-aware, more mindful of our 20 Phra Prayudh Payutto, Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values for Life, Olson, Grant, trans. (New York: State University of New York, 1995), pp. 159–160.

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motivations, and as such is a means to recovery and to wellbeing. With time and diligence, we can step out of the circle of pathology in such a way and actually reverse the vicious circle. Based on that positivity as a foundation, according to Paramananda, “we can then act in the world creatively in ways that will help both ourselves and others.”21 Daily meditation practice of mindfulness literally opens the mind and is the tool by which we develop awareness and slowly chip away at the wall of delusion that blocks the living light of reality. Depending on the extent of one’s practice, mindfulness can lead to a spectrum of benefits ranging from a simple ability to relax to a deep spiritual enlightenment as was experienced by the Buddha. The Zen and Vipassana traditions within Buddhism place much emphasis on meditation and mindfulness, but not so much in a religious sense as we understand the meaning of the term in Western cultures. These are more like training programs for the mind. Some, particularly in the US, have taken an entirely secular approach to meditation practice. The practice can also be powerfully inspiring and felt to be a spiritual practice and therefore some imbue their practice with religiosity. What direction the practice takes is up to each individually. The focus here, however, is on practical daily living and approach as a lifelong commitment to finding peace and liberation from greed, aggression, and delusion for our society and ourselves. With a mindfulness practice, we can begin to gain clearer insights into who we really are by gradually allowing the fog of judgment and delusion to clear away the fog of delusion. With this thought, here is Nhat Hanh on mindfulness, Mindfulness gives you the inner space and quietness that allow you to look deeply, to find out who you are and what you want to do with your life. You won’t feel the need to make yourself run after meaningless pursuits anymore. You’ve been running… you push yourself to achieve this and that condition so you can be happy. You believe you don’t have enough conditions to be happy right now, and so you develop the habit many people have of constantly running after one thing or another. … [But] all the wonders of life are already here. They’re calling you. If you can listen to them, you will be able to stop running. What you need, what we all need,

21 Paramananda, Change Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Buddhist Meditation (London: Windhorse Publications, 1996), p. 5.

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is silence. Stop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard. Then you can begin to live your life authentically and deeply.”22

Like a blurry photo image that gradually comes into focus, we can see things as they truly are, and from this insight, a more compelling sense of interbeing develops naturally along with compassion, and people might find themselves a more comfortable place to stand in society alongside fellow human beings. Active social participation is part of the Buddhist way. According to the teachings of the Buddha, people are not to escape from life, but to relate and engage as thoroughly as possible. Such engagement is the practice of mindfulness. In a literal sense, mindfulness is a state of mind in which people become aware of their thoughts and actions and are fully occupied in the present moment. To be mindful is to be totally engaged in the here and now. With mindfulness, our minds are not cluttered with a running mental commentary or mental chatter about the millions of things that can capture our thoughts in a state. Mindfulness is a state that is free from this chatter and thereby enables us to openly and directly be engaged in the activities before us. With a daily practice of mindfulness, we can break out of the treadmill of pathology of action and mind. We become awakened to the true dynamic between action and ideality and develop a clear understanding of the meaning of our actions and our motives. Mindfulness is thoughtfulness without superfluous baggage, and thoughts are clear, open, and directly focused on the tasks at hand. Cultivated over time with practice, mindfulness allows us to be present in our minds and directly engaged in our daily tasks without delusion or attachment. But these tasks are not random, they are directed toward bringing about human and ecological wellbeing, and this will involve playing a role in institutional and systemic change. With appropriate mindfulness, people can begin the hard work of restructuring key economic institutions that direct economic activity on to a new course that leads systemic change and healthier livelihoods. According to Buddhist teachings, there are four domains of a mindfulness practice that were shared by the Buddha and passed on in the

22 Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), p. 8.

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Satipatthana Sutta in the Pali Canon. The four domains are the body, feeling, mind, and phenomena.23 Body: The body is the fundamental reference point in meditation. Mindful awareness of the body is an attentiveness to being in the body. As we sit in meditation or at our desk at work, we are sitting in our bodies. As we walk to the bus stop or to the market, we are walking in our bodies. This practice deepens our awareness and acquaintance with our physical being in all its conditions of comfort or discomfort and what we are doing in our bodies. As we become mindfully aware of every part of our bodies, we become aware of things like whether we are frowning or smiling, slouching or holding ourselves upright, tightness in our shoulders and neck or relaxed, etc. A centrally important aspect of mindfulness meditation is to be aware of our breathing in our bodies. It is said that in the Buddha’s original discourse on mindfulness, he emphasized that one should begin the practice by focusing attention on breathing first before noting other physical and mental conditions. Our breathing is the connection between body and mind as it is controlled unconsciously like our heartbeat but can also be controlled with conscious will. Being aware of the body allows for directly recognizing the sensations and feelings associated with it. Feeling: The second domain of mindfulness is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feelings as they come and go. It is a practice of observing these feelings without judgment or attachment. Just as we are in our bodies in each moment, we are also in our feelings and emotions in the instances that they arise. Mindfulness of feeling is simply to recognize that they are there without fighting them if they are unpleasant, without clinging to them if they are pleasant, or without ignoring them if they are neutral. If feelings of anger, anxiety, or happiness arise, mindfulness is simply to become aware of their existence without becoming dominated by them. Such awareness is critical for the work of dissolving the pathologies that arise from ego-attachment. Mind: The third domain is mindfulness of the mind or our own consciousness. Just as we practice awareness of conditions of the body, we also cultivate an awareness of mental states that form in the mind dispassionately, without judgment or opinion. Anger is a feeling or emotion but stewing in anger is a mental state that is formed around the emotion. Happiness, too, is an emotion but zeal or joie de vivre is a mental state

23 Hanh, Thich Nhat, Transformation and Healing: Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1990).

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formed around it. Mental states are constructs or formations that can forge a connection with intentions and behavior. Healthy and wholesome mental states can give rise to intention and behavior that is also wholesome; pathological mental states can give rise to pathological intentions and behavior. Mindfulness is a practice of recognizing their existence, which is important because without dispassionate recognition we become helplessly controlled by them. Phenomena: The fourth domain of mindfulness is phenomena. This is the formation in our mind regarding the object of thought and feeling. It is the object of our anger or desire and can be a thing, person, animal, a building, an institution etc., that we perceive to exist in the world. This is mindfulness of ontology, the philosophy of being and the way things are. In other words, this domain is mindfulness of dharma. Mindfulness of the dharma is a process of dissolving the fog of illusion that can coalesce around objects in the world which leads to ignorance or misperception. On this Nhat Hanh writes, “the Buddha taught that all our anxieties and difficulties come from our inability to see the true face, or true sign of things.”24 This inability comes from the psychic shadows cast upon reality by mental formations.

Nearly all of these constructions of mental formations take place in the mind but are based on action and experience. At one level, people experience their individual self in their physical form through bodily sensations. At another level, feelings form around those physical sensations. One may experience the physical sensation of sitting in a chair, then form a feeling about the chair—comfortable, uncomfortable, or neutral—based on the sensation. At another level, perceptions also form. With perception, people form concepts in which we categorize whether feelings are good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or safe or dangerous. Thich Nhat Hanh warns that these perceptions can be colored by afflictions such as craving, anger, or fear. Ken Jones argues further that a “volitional response” takes place, in which people experience some kind of urge or driving motivation to act.25 Perhaps the most important implication for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics is that action and experience takes place within a social firmament that shapes the perceptions and thereby exerts significant influence on individual behavior as well as feelings and emotions. Depending on the volition, these responses can be 24 Ibid., p. 77. 25 Jones, New Social Face, p. 31.

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grasping, consuming, or aggressive; nurturing, building, or collaborative; or indifferent. These responses will become manifestly pathological as they are based on socially conditioned afflictions, which themselves stem from existential hungering and greed. At yet another level are formations, which are like seeds that will sprout into another level—consciousness. Such seeds can be touched through our actions in the world and become manifest in our consciousness. This leads to intention and action that takes the specific form of reinforcing the seeds of pathology. Our attempts to grapple with the toxins of greed, hatred, and delusion are doomed to fail as long as they find a niche in the mind where they will fester. The exercise and practice of mindfulness is crucial as the luminosity of a clear and present mind leaves no room in the shadows for defilements to lurk and wreak havoc on perception, intention, and action. The working principle here is the simple fact that two thoughts cannot coexist at the same time: if the clear light of mindfulness is present, there is no room for mental twilight. When sustained mindfulness has secured a firm foothold, it will be a matter of comparatively secondary importance how the mind will then deal with those rudimentary thoughts, moods, and emotions. Encumbrances to mindfulness are inevitably encountered in meditation. External stimuli such as sounds or smells can push the mind away from stillness and into an agitated mental state. Mental states such as anger, boredom, anxiety can foment and intensify. Mindfulness is a skill that enable us to deal with these states in a more effective and less haphazard way. The antagonistic forces that appear in meditation and that are liable to upset its smooth course are of three kinds: (1) external disturbances, such as noise; (2) mental defilements (kilesa), such as lust, anger, restlessness, dissatisfaction, or sloth, which may arise at any time during meditation; and (3) various incidental stray thoughts or surrender to daydreaming. These distractions are the great stumbling blocks for a beginner in meditation who has not yet acquired sufficient dexterity to deal with them effectively. To give thought to those disturbing factors only when they actually arise at the time of meditation is insufficient.

Silent Illumination Another interpretation of mindfulness is silent illumination. Chan Master Sheng Yen traces a line of Buddhist practice back to early eleventh-century China that gradually formed into a method called mozhao chan, or “silent

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illumination Chan.” The practice was brought to full development by the Buddhist monk Hongzhi Zhengjue in the twelfth century. Hongzhi’s conception of silent illumination was instrumental in the development of the Caodong Chan and later the Soto Zen schools of Buddhist thought. Here, we will quote Hongzhi at length from Extensive Records of Chan Master Hongzhi, In learning to be a Buddha, and in seeking the essence in the teaching of our school, man should purify his mind and allow his spirit to penetrate the depths. Thus he will be able to wander silently within himself during contemplation, and he will clearly see the origin of all things, obscured by nothing, not even by a mustard seed or a thread of hair. His mind is boundless and formless, just as the pure water contains the essence of autumn. It is glistening white and lustrously bright in the same way that moonlight envelops the entire night. During that absolute moment there is illumination without darkness; there is transparency free from stain. It is what it is, absolutely tranquil and absolutely illuminating. When it is tranquil, this is not annihilation of cause and effect; wen it is illuminating, this is not the objective reflection. It is simply pure light and perfect quiescence which continues through endless time. Being motionless but free from obscurity; being silent but self-aware. When one steadily enters the depth, the crystal vase freely revolves and turns over. Through one shift of the direction of the moving force he engages himself in all world affairs.26

This method is passive in nature in the sense that it focuses first on relaxation and awareness and allows unperturbed stillness and clarity to settle in the mind. Sheng Yen describes the condition brought by diligent practice of silent illumination, “By gently settling the churning mind of deluded thinking, it seeks to allow the perfect quiescence and luminosity of the enlightened mind to naturally emerge. This mind is described as being smooth and clear like a mirror, cool and bright like the radiant moon, deep and still like a pellucid mountain lake.”27 The Western mind tends to see the world in terms of dualisms: black or white, positive or negative, this or that, us or them, etc. Silent illumination is a challenge to overcome this. When we speak of just sitting and stilling 26 Taigen Leighton, Daniel, trans., Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of the Zen Master Hongzhi (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991), p. 144. 27 Sheng Yen, The Method of No Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2008), p. 140.

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the mind, it is not to say we are going to “not think.” It is rather to dissolve the duality between thinking and not thinking altogether. The sixth patriarch Huineng exhorts practitioners to separate themselves from all views regarding mental activity. That separation means to neither hang on to the mental narratives and images that crowd themselves into the mind nor try to push them out. No thought, wuxin, is neither; it is non-thinking in a process of negation. Huineng teaches, “If there were no thinking, then ‘no thought’ would have no place to exist. ‘No’ is the ‘no’ of what? ‘Thought means ‘thinking of what?’”28 Dualism between thinking and not thinking is like two competing sports teams on a playing field. Wuxin is a separation from such dualism by passively and naturally allowing the entire game to dissolve into quietude and luminosity. In relation to the four domains of mindfulness, silent illumination is a practice of negation that keeps the body and all the senses in a passive state without engaging in perceptions of sight, sound, smell, taste, sensation, or thought. As the mind starts to engage as such, the practice is to let go of the engagement. The mind tends to wander into discursive patterns, expectations, remorse, likes, or dislikes on its own. The practice is to let go of this as well. And when all of that is let go, the practice is about letting go of the letting go and the process of complete negation is complete. In that state, compassion, joy, and wisdom flow naturally and spontaneously without the encumbrances of vexations. Silent illumination can be seen as an instrument used to whittle away at the existential fear around which greed, hatred, and delusion coalesce. As these pathologies dissolve with concentrated practice, the fog of illusion that blocks the living light of reality clears away. As such, mindfulness is a practice that gradually reveals the substance of reality. When the mind loses the mindful state of silent illumination, it is like stepping out into a field of grass, or a space filled with white noise. When the space of white noise takes over, there is fixation, rumination, judgment and soon these will grow into complete narratives and themes to which consciousness attaches to the exclusion of other things. In this condition, the dynamic and boundless state of no mind is lost. The mind is captured, subject to obsessiveness within which greed, hatred, and delusion will fester.

28 Ibid.

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Deborah Tull emphasizes the notion of “relational mindfulness.” “In every moment we have a choice in how we direct our attention. We can return to interconnection in every moment.”29 When we talk of the everyday life of economic activity, how much of that life is filled with thoughts, images, and fragmented self-centered narratives in our own consciousness, like voices in our heads repeating, “I wish, I wonder, I can’t stand, I have, I don’t have…” This stuff becomes the white noise of our minds, and the noise enshrouds our mental being like fog that distorts the authenticity of the present moment. If our attention is focused on this noise and constructs that condition our sense of self, we are in a state of captivity. We are captured by the fetishized and attached self. The power and efficacy of mindfulness is unquestionable as it can improve people’s lives in a multitude of ways. But this efficacy might also be a threat because it has been turned into a kind of self-help fad in popular culture. Long before it became a fad, Buddhist teacher Nyanaponika Thera warned that mindfulness is often seen as just a means to an end, like carefully staying in the moment to watch one’s steps on the way to reach some lofty goal. As mindfulness is rendered subservient in this way, its wider scope and possibilities are not recognized. What is striking about mindfulness if properly cultivated is that there are enormous hidden powers that is seemingly hidden in something so modest and radically simple as bare attention: “the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception.”30 Thera adds bare to attention or attentiveness to place emphasis on “because it attends to the bare facts of a perception without reacting to them by deed, speech, or mental comment.”31 With time and proper development, mindfulness is the key that unlocks the door to the mind’s vast powers and final liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion and all of the suffering these pathologies create. The threat of losing this integrity and the deeper power of mindfulness is looming as it has become a consumer product. 29 Tull, Deborah, Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection

with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 29. 30 Nyanaponika, Thera, The Power of Mindfulness: An Inquiry into the Scope of Bare Attention and the Principal Sources of Its Strength [1968–1997] (Penang, Malaysia: Wheel Publications, 1997). Open source at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/powermindful ness.pdf, p. vii. 31 Ibid., pp. vii–viii.

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Capitalism and the Assimilation of Mindfulness Mindfulness has grown to achieve tremendous popularity in recent years, though among some Buddhists the faddishness has stirred some controversy. Bhikkhu Bodhi, Ron Purser, and other have joined Tull in raising critical awareness of the appropriation of Buddhism in such a way as to erode its system of ethics and the centrally important aspect of transformation. Without a clear-headed social critique of this trend, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism. Like so many other things in American culture, when something of great authentic value becomes known inevitably someone is going to try to commodify it and make profits from it. Once that happens, it becomes packaged and sold as a consumer product loaded with gimmickry and marketing schemes. It then loses its authenticity and becomes dumbed down for mass consumption. A chief concern raised by Tull and others is that meditation is marketed as a means of relieving our suffering rather than ending our suffering. This difference can seem subtle though it is, according to Tull, a “promise that pervades our society. But because we’re so conditioned by the consumer mentality, it’s sometimes difficult to see. When we cease affiliating meditation with self-improvement, we can find our way to the great work, which is to find freedom from the cycle of suffering.”32 In a capitalist society, the value of something is largely measured in terms of how much money can be made from it. If there is not much to be made, then it is likely to be discarded as irrelevant. The deep and powerful effects of a lifelong Buddhist practice is neither a commodity nor a profitable enterprise. It had to be reworked and packaged to consumers as a trendy self-help craze. As mindfulness is commodified as such, real damage is done. As long as mindfulness is packaged to consumers as a self-help program, it will always remain on the surface and those who practice in this way will never get to a deeper place, which in Buddhism is the whole point. Depending on the extent of our practice, mindfulness meditation can lead to a spectrum of benefits ranging from an enhanced ability to deal with stress to a deep spiritual enlightenment as experienced by the Buddha. As people in general become more aware of the many benefits of mindfulness, it has become increasingly popular, particularly in the U.S. and the U.K. Mindfulness is 32 Tull, Relational, p. 65.

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fast growing in popularity as it is helping fill a need in society in which people everywhere are seeking for ways to cope with the constant stimulation and distractions of economic life. If distraction is the pre-eminent condition or our age, then mindfulness in the eyes of its enthusiasts is its most logical response. In other words, it is helping people cope with the pressures of the economic life of a hungry ghost rather than transforming the hungry ghost into person of wellbeing. To be exploited as this type of popular self-help program, mindfulness had to be severed from its Buddhist roots so as to not interfere with established religion. The most notable advocate of non-Buddhist mindfulness is Jon KabatZinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. We practice mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn contends, to be empowered “by a connection to something deeper within ourselves, a discerning wisdom that helps to penetrate and transcend the fear and the pain, and to discover some peace and hope within our situation as it is.”33 Kabat-Zinn is emphasizing using mindfulness as a way of coping with the hamster wheel “situation as it is.” Notwithstanding the positive benefits of this work, what is of concern is that so much of the popular literature on mindfulness has to do with coopting mindfulness by the corporate agenda. As this happens, mindfulness becomes distorted and misses the most important aspect of the Buddhist tradition—transformation. The key difference between Buddhism and the secularized and commodified version of mindfulness is the notion of change. The whole point of mindfulness in the Buddhist way is not to merely cope with pathological conditions that create suffering, but to change them. And for socially engaged Buddhist economics, this includes the radical notion of transforming our economic institutions away from grasping and clawing environment of the corporate world to alternatives devoted to genuine liberation and wellbeing. By contrast, the coopted approach is centered on stress reduction, particularly in the workplace. This approach has gained momentum for the main reason that meditation helps relieve stress, which enhances workplace productivity. Higher productivity eventually translates into profits. The prototype formula for mindfulness and reducing workplace stress and enhancing performance was a program developed called MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction (MBSR) by Kabat-Zinn. He describes MBSR as 33 Kabat-Zinn, Jon, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (New York: Bantam, 2013), p. 17.

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“based on rigorous and systematic training in mindfulness, a form of meditation. … It is a systematic approach to developing new kinds of agency, control, and wisdom in our lives, based on our inner capacity for paying attention and on the awareness, insight and compassion that naturally arise from paying attention in specific ways.” Drawing on this practice, Kabat-Zinn developed a clinic to help people deal with stress “… the MBSR program is a vehicle for active learning, in which people can build on the strengths that they already have and, as we noted, come to do something for themselves to improve their own health and well-being.”34 Inspired by the MBSR program, journalist and author of Mindful Work (2015), David Gelles, tells numerous stories of how large companies are incorporating mindfulness into management strategies because it helps build the bottom-line profits. Gelles chronicles case studies in which this MBSR program was administered to the employees of companies in face-paced, stressful industries that place heavy stress on their employees. After completing the course, the workers who participated in the course reported that they were less stressed, felt less anxiety, and had more energy at work. Moreover, the mindfulness program had improved their immune systems and personal confidence. Accordingly, in classic win–win optimism, workers feel better, perform better, and the businesses reap the rewards. Improved immune systems, more energy, workplace happiness are all positive things that contribute to wellbeing.35 Sharon Salzberg in her book, Real Happiness at Work (2014), acknowledges that meditation and mindfulness are techniques available to us for becoming more productive, satisfied, and peaceful at work. “Through meditation,” she writes, “we can come to understand work problems as a potential source of achieving greater clarity.” Salzberg adds that with a meditation practice, “it is possible to be competitive without being cruel—and committed without being consumed. Even in a job climate where being fired is a real and present danger, we have the power to improve our work lives immeasurably through awareness, compassion, patience, and ingenuity.”36 In these ways, mindfulness is seen as a source of company value and management consultants have jumped 34 Ibid., p. xlix. 35 David Gelles, Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business from the Inside

Out (New York: Mariner Books, 2016). 36 Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace (New York: Workman Publishing, 2014), pp. 2–3.

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on the mindfulness training bandwagon in droves. Mindfulness has been assimilated into the corporate hegemony. As we have argued, the corporate institutions that dominate the global economy are powerful structures that have been formed in a crucible of habitualized greed, hatred, and delusion. To work on ourselves yet ignore the need to change the pathological nature of our institutions is a contradiction. We have become what we have become in part because we are conditioned our surrounding social milieu. In the circle of pathology, our individual habits of thought and action are inseparable from the habits of thought and action embodied with our economic institutions. True change from greed to wellbeing must involve the transformation of both. David Loy teamed up with Ron Purser to write an article challenging corporate mindfulness. The authors raise warning flags about the corporate mindfulness movement as becoming a packaged commodity. “The booming popularity of the mindfulness movement,” the authors write, “has also turned it into a cottage industry.” It has become a product that management consultants have been marketing to corporate executives with the promise of bottom-line improvements derived from better efficiency, less absenteeism, and improved management skills. In an attempt to “brand” mindfulness as non-ideological, presumably to not step on religious toes, corporate mindfulness has relinquished all ties and affiliations to its Buddhist origins. Gelles takes it further as to describe mindfulness as packaged by MBSR as a consumer product, “as an introduction to mindfulness, MBSR shares the qualities of the best consumer products on the markets: high quality, deeply reliable, and well worth the investment.”37 Kabat-Zinn’s 650-page tome, Full Catastrophe Living (2013) references Buddhism briefly in the introduction and then not again until page 473 with a vague note to the Buddhist origins of mindfulness, which he then dismisses as “a very unusual religion.”38 Loy and Purser contend this exclusion is a matter of marketing expediency for McMindfulness where Buddhism is not widely accepted in the plush American self-help market.

37 Gelles, Mindful Work, p. 81. 38 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, p. 473.

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McMindfulness In an article for Salon titled, “Corporate Mindfulness Is Bullsh*t,” authors Ronald Purser and Edwin Ng challenge the credibility of mindfulness as it has gone mainstream. They challenge Gelles and others to address the broader corporate structure and consumer culture that imposes such stressful conditions in the first place, “those celebrating the mindfulness boom have avoided any serious consideration of why stress is so pervasive in corporations and society.”39 Mindfulness practice without emphasizing the troubling societal conditions that create suffering strips away much of its transformative power. In this way, the Buddhist noble truths are rendered half measures. Institutionalized greed, hatred, and delusion have created pathological system conditions such as global warming that transcend the individual’s ability to change. These are conditions that require a concerted social effort to transform into something better and less perilous. While it is true that MBSR training programs can help people cope with these conditions, the programs nonetheless are silent regarding the necessary social engagement and transformations necessary to remove those conditions. The conditions are ignored and placed in the minds of individuals. Once again, we are confronted with the ideology of social atomism and individualism. In the mindfulness industry, individual liberation from suffering is entirely a project of inner work while ignoring external conditions that are becoming increasingly dangerous. The emphasis of popular mindfulness placed on individual self-work and ignores the conditions in the social firmament that are becoming increasingly toxic. It is like being inside a building that is on fire yet ignoring the fire while mindfulness gurus encourage us to simply and watch our breathing and still the mind. Self-help programs are just that: programs that place all responsibility for restoring wellbeing on the individual while ignoring the causal factors in society. Purser, a business professor at San Francisco State University who invented the term “McMindfulness,” quotes political theorist Wendy Brown, “‘the body politic ceases to be a body, but is, rather, a group of

39 Purser, Ronald and Ng, Edwin, “Corporate Mindfulness Is Bullsh*t,” Salon, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/09/27/corporate_mindfulness_is_bullsht_zen_or_no_zen_ youre_working_harder_and_being_paid_less.

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individual entrepreneurs and consumers.’”40 Such a mentality resonates with neoliberal vision of a society without a society. Stripped from Buddhism and from any effort at social change, mindfulness is reformulated for mass consumption in a vast and rapidly growing industry. It is heavily marketed as a panacea for virtually every possible problem faced and has elbowed its way into the crowded market of books and podcasts dished out by self-help gurus, workshop entrepreneurs, and internet charlatans. It has been yanked out of its place in the ethical framework of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path. Again, Purser makes a lucid observation in his book McMindfulness : How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (2019), I have observed with great trepidation how mindfulness has been oversold and commodified, reduced to a technique for just about any instrumental purpose. It can give inner-city kids a calming time-out, or hedge fund traders a mental edge, or reduce the stress of military drone pilots. Void of a moral compass or ethical commitments, unmoored from a vision of the social good, the commodification of mindfulness keeps it anchored in the ethos of the market.41

Neoliberalism and the philosophy of social atomism fetishize individualism. By doing so attention is shifted away from social conditions that have coalesced around the core institutions of capitalism along which social atomism is part of its ideology. Coopted mindfulness perpetuates social atomism. It places all emphasis on the individual who is seen as helpless to change conditions in society and holds that anthropogenic suffering as something simply in their head. It has risen to bourgeois salon status. Posh grocery stores have mindfulness magazines that are filled with gimmicks and kitsch as they follow in the footsteps of commodified exercise programs, yoga, and organics, and are strategically placed to lure those who are searching for a palliative to quell the angst and feelings of being overwhelmed by the conditions of modern life. One of Purser’s main arguments that is quite relevant here is that McMindfulness is sold as a kind of capitalist spirituality, if that itself isn’t

40 Purser, Ron, McMindfulness : How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (London: Repeater Books, 2019), pp. 10–11. 41 Ibid., p. 17.

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an inherent contradiction. Capitalism is a depersonalized, commodityproducing system that is predicated on the necessity of commodifying all things to become transactional and marketable. The mindfulness industry refashions what is otherwise an ancient practice and integral part of the Buddhist system of ethics into a commodity. As with all commodities in the contemporary economy, it must be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and stripped of its spiritual authenticity so it can be sold for mass consumption. If the effort to achieve mass consumption is successful, it also means mass revenues for the industry. This will certainly invite venture capital and investment funds to capitalize the industry and condition it for maximizing investor value. As that occurs, the mindfulness industry becomes financialized. Financialization creates the expectation that investors will enjoy a steady and reliable stream of income as returns to their investments. Returns are tracked in terms of the percentage growth rate of the fund. To satisfy this expectation and to keep investor in place, the returns must compound. That means the funds are expected to continually grow exponentially. Exponential growth is achieved by market expansion which will necessarily involve marketing gimmicks and advertising ploys which will serve to further cheapen mindfulness as a serious spiritual practice. Mindfulness thus experiences mission drift like so many other aspects of modern business that is professed to have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of people and the environment. As with other faddish or cheapened trends such as organics, sustainability, greenwashing, microfinance, etc. Mindfulness thus stands perilously close to the vast graveyard of cultural fads that have come and gone. Another implication of the mindfulness industry is that it perpetuates the notion that people are helpless when it comes to changing the social conditions that surround. Purser argues that “with the onus of responsibility placed on individuals to manage their own bodies, emotions, health, the ideological subtext of modern mindfulness is that changing the world starts with changing oneself. And this change is seen primarily as a personal lifestyle choice, rather than directly engaging with society and politics.”42 Like so many other aspects of “responsible” trends, we are all being convinced that we can shop and lifestyle our way out of

42 Ibid., pp. 77–78.

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pathological system conditions because this is what is considered normal way of life in capitalist culture. The so-called marketplace of possibilities stands as a trope which suggests that a movement need not be a movement at all. Movements such as socially engaged Buddhism embody the idea that solutions to social or environmental crises are put are achievable by collective action. But in the marketplace, all one has to do is choose between competing products that one feels would be best for themselves and their future. In capitalist commodity culture, shopping is the only means by which people can change their social or environmental circumstances. Or as Andrew Szasz puts it in his book, Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves (2007), by “shopping their way to safety.”43 Dealing with the major crises facing humanity requires institutional change. That means becoming informed, joining an organization of likeminded folks, and pressuring for institutional change in the political or cultural spheres. This activity for Szasz is “responding to trouble in the modality of a citizen in a democratic society. A person who buys some product because those products promise to shield the from trouble is not at the moment a political actor. He or she is, instead, in the modality of consumer… buying certain goods that promise to satisfy that need.” Szasz places his criticism of consumerism as a social change modality in the context of what he calls an “inverted quarantine.” Traditionally, a quarantine happens when there is an outbreak of disease amid an otherwise healthy population. The quarantine isolates those infected with the disease as a measure to keep the disease from spreading among the whole of the population. An inverted quarantine reverses the relation between the healthy/unhealthy. It assumes the whole human environment is “toxic, illness-inducing,” and it is not possible to quarantine it. This is the condition of global warming as it is a ubiquitous pathological system condition. Under this condition the consumer sees no alternative but shopping in more ecologically sound ways as an individualized self-help strategy. It is the opposite of a social movement and stands as an “individualized

43 Szasz, Andrew, Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), p. 4.

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response to a collective threat,” which again pulls us back into the neoliberal institutional-ideological matrix that gave rise to these problems in the first place.44 Similarly on this Purser concludes, The conspicuous absence of a path for ethical development in the secularized mindfulness movement creates a moral vacuum. A belabored form of self-surveillance— being in the present moment—displaces ethical reflection, severing the chain from past to future. Forethought and care, vigilant awareness of the consequentiality of one’s actions, and striving to eradicate unwholesome mental qualities… all take a back seat to just ‘being mindful,’ ‘being present,’ and other platitudinous edicts like ‘radical acceptance.’ Lacking a noble vision and purpose, the mindfulness movement seems adrift, resigned to a do-it-yourself, make-it-up-as-you-go-along mentality. The ambiguity of Kabat-Zinn’s umbrella term ‘mindfulness’ has become a new “’Brand X’ inviting commodification and pilfering. The lowest common denominators of mainstream Western consumerist culture— corporate capitalism, crass instrumentalism, and scientific materialism—are sadly becoming the new ‘place-holder for the entire dharma.45

From the socially engaged Buddhist perspective, there is a social aspect that needs to be addressed as much as the inner motivation. Buddhist teacher, Gregory Kramer informs us that “A great deal of our suffering in life is in relationship to other people. We cannot reasonably expect individualistic philosophies and solitary practices to directly address the pain that arise between two people or in society at large.”46 When we give the meditation practice a social dimension, it becomes a dual process that begins with looking deeply into ourselves and extending outward into the stream of living society. Mindfulness meditation, therefore, is also a social practice in the sense of opening up and becoming aware of our surroundings and our institutions. The more we become self-aware of pathological motivations and addictions, the more we become socially aware of the same things as they are reified in our social structures. At the same time, as we still our minds individually, we become more aware of the misery others’ experiences, and to the misery we can bring to others by our actions. With mindfulness, we become increasingly aware of how 44 Ibid., p. 3. 45 Purser, McMindfulness , p. 82. 46 Kramer, Gregory, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom (Boston:

Shambhala, 2007), p. 3.

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we habitually fabricate many of our own problems. With this awareness we begin to see how we not only fabricate problems for ourselves, we do for others as well. With better awareness, we can also see that everyone shares similar stresses, peeves, doubts, fears, and joys. We are not alone in our misery, nor are we alone in our wellbeing. With mindfulness, we enter into a state of being in which we are no longer socially or karmically oblivious and from this wisdom flows compassion. The broader social meaning of mindfulness is explained by David Loy, “Buddhism encourages mindfulness and awareness, and especially today it’s necessary for that awareness to extend beyond our seating cushions and dharma practice halls, to embrace a broader understanding of what is happening in our world, to our world—a world that cries out in pain.”47 There is no distinction between a personal practice and the world around us because true mindfulness is cultivating an awareness of everything which has any relation to our individual selves. On this basis of self and social awareness, socially engaged Buddhist economics can begin to take steps toward positive social change. The circle turns in a different direction away from pathology and toward wellbeing as clarity and kindness lead to positive actions in the world, which in turn give rise to further positive mental states. The vicious circle transforms into the compassionate circle.48

Dharma Talk Mindfulness meditation can be an empowering tool for social change. As we change ourselves and become more aware of the impact, we have on each other and our environmental habitat, we come to see that in a multitude of ways we are not hopelessly trapped by greed, aggression, and delusion. Even if it takes years to liberate ourselves and many years more to liberate our social structures from defilement, there is great hope and joy in knowing that we have started out on the path of transformation. As the wheels of karmic volition turn in a different direction, no matter imperceptible it may be, we can take comfort in knowing that we are moving in a different direction. Much hard work remains ahead, and we need not dwell on the results of this work as long as we stay on the

47 Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma, p. 81. 48 Paramananda, Change Your Mind, p. 5.

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rails with true mindfulness. There are concerns, however, being raised that mindfulness is getting pulled in a different and potentially destructive direction.

References Gunaratana, Bhante Henepola, Mindfulness: In Plain English, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2002). Bhikku Bodhi, http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma10/bbodhi10.html. Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library, 1930). Fromm, Erich, The Sane Society, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955). Gelles, David, Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business from the Inside Out, (New York: Mariner Books, 2016). Jones, Ken, The New Social Face of Buddhism: An Alternative Sociopolitical Perspective, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003). Kabat-Zinn, Jon, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, (New York: Bantam, 2013). Kramer, Gregory, Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 2007). Lears, T.J. Jackson, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review, June 1985, Vol. 90, No. 3 p. 570. Nyanaponika, Thera, The Power of Mindfulness: An Inquiry into the Scope of Bare Attention and the Principal Sources of Its Strength [1968–1997], Wheel Publications, Penang, Malaysia. Open source at http://www.buddhanet.net/ pdf_file/powermindfulness.pdf. Paramananda, Change Your Mind: A Practical Guide to Buddhist Meditation, (London: Windhorse Publications, 1996). Phra Prayudh Payutto, Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values for Life, Olson, Grant, trans., (New York: State University of New York, 1995). Purser, Ronald and Ng, Edwin “Corporate Mindfulness Is Bullsh*t,” Salon, 2015, http://www.salon.com/2015/09/27/corporate_mindfulness_ is_bullsht_zen_or_no_zen_youre_working_harder_and_being_paid_less. Purser, Ron, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, (London: Repeater Books, 2019). Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). Salzberg, Sharon, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace, (New York: Workman Publishing, 2014). Sheng Yen, The Method of No Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination, (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2008).

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Szasz, Andrew, Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves, (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Taigen, Daniel Leighton, trans., Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of the Zen Master Hongzhi, (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1991).

CHAPTER 9

Right Livelihood Institutions

In a previous chapter, we took a critical look at the multitude of promises made over the last three or four decades that our economic system can simultaneously produce sustainability, climate change mitigation, and hefty incomes for all. Books and articles with such promises continue to get trotted out will a certain regularity with doing well while doing good as the core message. While we have been telling ourselves this for a very long time, yet the conditions for creating global warming have worsened steadily and unabated. Proponents of so-called green capitalism argue that the reason for this is that the suggestions have never been properly implemented. The reason for that, however, is that they are contradicting goals. Capitalism is a system that is programmed for continuous growth, and continuous growth is the opposite of sustainability. In the previous three chapters, we explored the problems of a declining resource base and environmental destruction, rising inequality, and financial market instability. To a significant degree, these problems are the destructive consequences of the capitalist system’s relentless drive for profits and growth. We saw that environmental degradation and resource depletion are the direct consequences of the growth imperative that is inherent in the capitalist system, and any serious reflection on continuous growth must inevitably lead to the conclusion that it cannot be sustained. We saw that stark inequalities of wealth and income are also inherent © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0_9

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features of a capitalist economy, and any serious reflection on principles of social justice, fairness, or democracy must lead to the conclusion that such inequalities are also not sustainable. Finally, we saw that a chief cause of financial market instability is speculative buying and selling, which are inherent features of capitalism, and any serious consideration on how to avoid another financial crisis must lead to the conclusion that this speculation cannot be sustained. That these problems are both systemic and unsustainable indicates that comprehensive change will be inevitable. Given that such change is inevitable, we must consider whether we want to bring about change in a thoughtful and careful way, or have it thrust upon us in the form of a continuous series of massive economic and environmental crises. In a mindful economy, we seek to avoid debilitating crises and set out to follow a thoughtful and careful path toward change. Throughout the years between 1980 and 2005 there was a general assumption that technology was going to transform economic production in ways that would require fewer resources. This included the so-called “New Economy” years of the 1990s in which the U.S. economy was supposed to be shifting to a resource-light “information economy.” Computers and the internet were supposed to make us efficient and help us save on material resources, but the result was the opposite. During that twenty-five-year period, the consumption of materials in North America increased many times over whereas increased by a much slower rate. This means that material consumption per person has steadily risen without regard for the carrying capacity of the planet. Information technology served to pick up the pace of globalization and economic expansion such that consumers were able to devour ever-larger quantities of our planet and spewed ever-larger quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Endless growth on a finite planet is not possible. Among the first to raise this issue in economic discourse was Kenneth Boulding with his 1966 essay, “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth.” Boulding warned that the relationship we have with the planet is going to change.1 1 His message was primarily directed at his fellow economists who see the national economy as a super machine that rolls out ever larger quantities of things for consumers to buy. The economists have been correct about this machine up to now. Aside from recessions that occur now and then, the machine has been running nonstop. Boulding’s warning was that such a perpetual growth machine will eventually 1 Boulding, Kenneth, “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth,” http://www. geocities.com/RainForest/3621/BOULDING.HTM.

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slam against a wall of limitations to growth imposed on us by the laws of nature and physics. He concluded that a rather more sobering and realistic image would be to see ourselves as passengers on a spacecraft, which implies that our survival depends on how we use the finite and limited provisions that are stored on the ship. One aspect of the scenario Boulding missed in the spaceship metaphor is that we are not only using up our provisions we are toxifying the ship’s internal atmosphere. But that was when scientists were just beginning to form their hypotheses about the effects of elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Over five decades have passed since Boulding wrote his essay and the economics profession remains captured by the myth of the everlasting growth machine. Though economists acknowledge that resources are scarce and finite, they assume that the machine will always be kept running with the support of new technologies. This is like believing in magic or the transmutation powers of alchemy. Ancient alchemists were obsessed with discovering the elixir of longevity. In addition to their fascination with trying to turn lead into gold, they sought tirelessly to find a substance that could keep restoring the human body to youth so that they could live forever. In a similar way, economists hold on to the belief that technology is a magic elixir that will allow the growth machine to defy the immutable laws of physics and expand forever. The general belief is that as we bring one important resource to exhaustion, we will always be able to concoct new resources with new technology, and when those resources are exhausted, others will be invented to replace them, and so on into infinite growth. Whenever they are called on to address the physical limits to economic growth, economists inevitably turn to the technology-willsolve-it arguments. Most economists would admit that things like turning lead to gold or eternal life are scientifically not possible, but for them such science apparently does not apply to economic growth. In the Buddhist view of the three fires of greed, hatred, and delusion this could very well be the premier delusion of our time. It is a delusion defended fiercely with a certain wrath as it the last line of defense for the argument of why there is nothing wrong with greed—institutionalized or otherwise. Technology will be an important part of our efforts to cope with the economic and ecological issues that confront us. It provides hope and possibilities. Not many of us would advocate that we should allow our productive technology to regress back to premodern standards. Technology can and does lead to effective solutions and this should not be ignored, but technology is always fostered within a specific institutional

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context, and this should not be ignored either. If our institutions are warlike, then we will develop weapons technology. If our institutions are oriented toward economic growth for growth’s sake, then we will develop technology that serves that purpose. If they are oriented toward social provisioning and genuine sustainability, then we will develop technology that leads to provisioning and sustainability. Without a critical perspective, belief in technology becomes an irrational faith that every problem we face will always have a technological fix. Like a secular religion, blind faith in technology provides comfort and reassurance in the delusion that perpetual growth is possible. The appropriateness of technology should be assessed mindfully, and with a critical understanding of kinds of institutions fosters its development. Recall the IPCC 2018 report in which it warned that to avoid the worst-case scenario “would require rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land, urban and rural infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems.” The message is that we have no choice now but to move toward a very different type of economic system from what we have, and one that will foster technologies that are yet to be imagined. If the IPCC is correct, the biggest obstacle is to mitigate global warming’s effects is institutional, then institutional change has to be the solution. This means creating new social structures that will script our social behavior with entirely different rules, norms, and codes. If done with insight, wisdom, and a wholesome set of beliefs about our relationships with nature and each other, then our survival as a species is possible. This will also require a transformation of our mindset, expectations, and what we consider to be the good life. This is a tall order. But as Paul Rogat Loeb reminds us, “the impossible will take a little while,” and in fact the process is already happening.2

Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics and Right Livelihood At the heart of Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics are four basic elements. The first is the pragmatic philosophy of action in the world. Recall that for George H. Mead the interplay between people’s actions in

2 Loeb, Paul Rogat, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, (NY: Basic Books, 2004).

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daily life and the flux of the social firmament was a central focus. Among the pragmatists, he was the most preoccupied with problem-solving in society and social change. His constructivist approach to pragmatism is a philosophy of action in the world with the full intention of making the world a better place. Action in the world for Mead using conscious volition to define the contours of human habitat in all ways. As people adapt to circumstances, they change those circumstances, which subsequently become new circumstances and so on through a karmic process of cumulative change. Form and environment are subject to cumulative change and moral awareness of the karmic impact of actions can determine the path of this change. For Mead, in the coterminous field of space and time there does not exist a one-directional extension with one level shaping the other. Rather, the effects of all are simultaneous, whole, and multidirectional, “…if we admit that the evolutionary process consists in a mutual determination of the individual and his environment—not the determination of the individual by his environment—moral necessity in conduct is found in the very evolutionary situation.”3 As we apply this to the transformation of economic institutions, the evolutionary situation is the karma of social and economic change. The second element is institutional economics. Consistent with pragmatism, institutionalists see economics in this evolutionary context. Social evolution is seen as non-teleological, so the direction of change depends on the work people do that brings about change. Through the process of invention and diffusion, people can introduce new technology, production systems, or craft new institutional structures that can diffuse among the population. Once diffused to the point of a critical mass, then real social change gains its own momentum. All become part of the evolving firmament while the old habits fade in a continuous process of renewal and change. But this also presents the moral necessity to make the right changes so the population is adaptive rather than maladaptive. A central issue in institutional economics is the extent with which adaptive institutions are able to serve the livelihoods of the population, or social provisioning, in just and stable ways. Karl Polanyi made the just and stable pursuit of the livelihoods of people a central theme of his work on economics. He came to Columbia University just as institutional economist Wesley Mitchell, founder of the 3 Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 86–87.

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National Bureau of Economic Research, was leaving for retirement in the late 1940s. Although Polanyi is not typically categorized as an institutional economist, his work shares much in common: placing importance on the role that institutions play in economics, his criticisms of the laissez faire ideology that the totality of a market system is the natural order of things, and his holistic view of economic embeddedness. He also shared with most institutional economists the misfortune of having his work ignored during his lifetime as he was pushed into the shadows by the post-World War Two movement of neoliberalism and the Mont Pelerin’s sphere of influence. Polanyi not only challenged the notion of the market system as a natural tendency for economic activity, but he also argued that it was a system that was forced on the population violently and destroyed livelihoods. In his posthumously published book, The Livelihood of Man (1957), Polanyi completed the concept of the “economistic fallacy” which had been a central theme in all his work. The concept refers to the delusion fostered by neoliberal economics that conflates economics with the institution of the market system. From the time Polanyi was at Columbia on free-market neoliberal ideology was asserting dominance. As a political ideology, neoliberalism challenges any form of market control or regulation as violation of a natural right to freedom. “Free enterprise and private ownership,” Polanyi writes, “are declared to be essentials to freedom. No society built on other foundations is said to deserve to be called free.” He drives home the message that the neoliberal shibboleth of economic “freedom” is only meaningful for those “whose income, leisure and security need no enhancing, and a mere pittance of liberty for the people, who may in vain attempt to make use of their democratic rights to gain shelter from the power of the owners of property.” Gaining just, fulfilling, and stable livelihoods for people was for Polanyi something that stemmed from institutional integration or embeddeness in communities and the natural environment. Disembeddeness in the name of a delusive “freedom” comes “at the cost of justice and security.”4 The third element is the meta-economics of the Anglo-American visionaries. Together they sought to create healthier ways of being and that involves changing how we meet our basic needs, cultivating a spiritual life, developing a deeper sense of aesthetics and the meaning of good 4 Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944), pp. 254–257.

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work, realizing a sense of true justice and personal empowerment, and fostering a sense of belonging in communities. They were committed to social change through civic participation, though their emphasis was not on national politics. Rather, they sought to change our circumstances in their communities. One city at a time. As Randolph Bourne put it, to create a “beloved community is the cultivation of that ripening love of surroundings that gives quality to a place, and quality, too, to the individual life.”5 Finally, the fourth element is the Buddhist systems of the inner work of mindfulness or silent illumination and the outer work of social change guided by a system of ethics. Recall that in the Buddhist economics view of Payutto and others there are two types of motivations: tanha, which is the motivation that stems from self-obsession and ego gratification, and chanda is broader sense of wellbeing for the broader community or even the whole of humanity. Chanda returns, then are returns that are not narrowly defined as financial gains from investments as they would be in corporate dominated economics. Rather such are objectives as inherent aspects of wellbeing for a broader community that result from the orientation of right livelihood principles. With these elements in place, we have a theoretical basis for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, from which the work of crafting new institutions for social change and adaptation to the realities of global warming and other issues facing us in the twentyfirst century. The most effective place to start is at the local level where people stand the best chance of making real and lasting change for the better. Seen in this four-dimensional way, as people act in the world, they invent and change things and project them into the other dimensions in the social firmament. This invention or change could be a new form of technology, a new weapon, a new skillful means, or, for our purposes, new institutional forms for people to pursue their livelihoods. In the institutionalist tradition, there is a concern about a growing separation between economics as a system for securing a decent livelihood for the population, or social provisioning, and economics as a system geared toward ceremonial self-aggrandizement and accumulation for the elite (Fig. 9.1). Eventually, if they take root these new projections become diffused through social interaction and eventually new habits are formed around 5 Bourne, Randolph, “Trans-national America,” in Hansen, Olaf, The Radical Will: Randolph Borne Selected Writings, 1911–1918 (NY: Urizen Books, 1977), p. 264.

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Fig. 9.1 Sources of socially engaged buddhist economics

them. With this in mind, the process of institutional transformation begins at the local level where we have a better chance of making the infusion palpable and able to diffuse.

Localism For over a century the world has been on a trend of expanding the power of the corporate-dominated system. Most communities in the United States rely on large transnational corporations to make key decisions about where to locate manufacturing facilities and corporate headquarters. Transnational corporations move their financial and real investments from one location to the next, and communities that are economically dependent on these companies find themselves in a constant state of

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uncertainty and insecurity. They have no loyalty to any specific location and are indifferent to its own destruction of local environments and to people’s sense of place. Entire communities live under a constant threat of losing their economic vitality when a major employer decides to shut down and move operations elsewhere that promises a higher rate of return to investors. Workers are advised to be continuously upgrading their job skills to avoid having their livelihoods dissolve as the system no longer considers them useful. As the most powerful economic institutions in existence, corporations have the capability to create or destroy livelihoods without democratic accountability. Corporate decisions are not based on what is good for the people in those communities, but on what will bring the most profits to business. Corporations exert enormous pressure on local legislatures with the effective method of job blackmail—the threat of sacking workers while pulling up stakes to move elsewhere. With this kind of power, they control statehouse ability to democratically govern and force everyone to bend to their terms. They also have the capability to bend the arms of state and local government officials to get preferential treatment, tax abatements, subsidies; as well as cooperation in shredding land use planning laws, blocking regulations on controlling health insurance requirements, attacking minimum wage and living wage ordinances, and clawing back local resource conservation efforts and state environmental laws. The power of the corporate class works to undermine the will of residents by preempting laws which restrict their treatment of cities and towns as their fiefdoms. Corporations also provide no guarantees that they will not be bought out by another company, decide to relocate to another location or move offshore where costs are lower throwing scores of people in the community out of work. By being controlled by distant corporations, and by the fundamental separation of ownership and work, people have very little control over their economic lives. One of the main objectives of localism is to strengthen communities with resilience and self-reliance. The emphasis is on reshaping and strengthening local institutions in ways that give people and communities more democratic control over their economic lives. This does not imply reverting to provincialism or local nationalism. Local economies can become more self-reliant yet remain connected to the rest of the surrounding economy and world. Economic localism also does not mean focusing on a narrow segment of the economy like a single commodity or crop.

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Rather, the effort is on evolving into complete and diverse economic systems that are locally based. The institutions that people create to coordinate local production and distribution cannot exist as islands isolated from one another. They must cohere as compatible elements of a localized system with the aim to create economic communities that are more self-reliant and less dependent on global corporations. By taking local and democratic control over economic activity, communities make their own decisions and direct activity for their own benefit. By designing them in this way localized economic systems can be seen as critical steps toward broader systemic change, which local action and vision for the broader social firmament. The community orientation of local institutions provides checks and balances on each other to mitigate the potentially destructive development of greed-inspired actions. In addition, the process of creating community-based institutions that serve the needs of local populations involves a certain amount of legal wrangling to rewrite the charters and bylaws of enterprises in such a way that the activities of those enterprises are anchored to the local community. Following the tradition established by Karl Polanyi, we see locally structured institutions as embedded or rooted in a localized community culture.6 As embedded institutions, locally structured institutions are more likely to be accountable to the social needs and the cultural characteristics of the community. Going local in this sense goes beyond just shopping and producing locally, it entails building coalitions and networks that connect communities around the country and even internationally. This also, therefore, stresses a holistic, systems frame of reference. Recall that social systems are made up of networks of integrated institutions that work together to serve a broader social purpose. An economic system is an integrated network of economic institutions that direct the processes of production, distribution, and consumption. As people in a self-defined local community can do multiple tasks and produce a multitude of goods and services to meet their foundational needs, the structure of the community becomes more complex. With complexity,

6 There is a substantial body of work on the promise of community-based economics. See The Handbook of Diverse Economies, J. K. Gibson-Graham and Kelly Dombroski, eds., (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2020).

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there occurs a reweaving the web of relationships among people and organizations as they perform variegated functions on different levels. By contrast, if the entire community revolved, say, around corn production, and depended on others on the outside for everything else, then there is little complexity—there are the landowners and farm workers and little else. As the web of complexity is weaved, feedback structures emerge within the connections. A more localized and diversified economic community will have shorter distances between producer and consumer and the communication of what is working or not working is more direct and effective. In a globalized corporate system, communication is dysfunctional and impersonal. Tighter connections among producers and consumers naturally leads t more accountability and this can serve the need for fairness as well. As re-localized economies evolve into fully functioning systems, they will give rise to fostering the development of new financial institutions, manufacturing systems, retail establishments, food cooperatives, and so on. Each of these elements will be tied to every other element in the system with tighter and more well-observed feedback mechanisms. Every individual and every business model will be contributing directly to the evolution of the new system. With strong and diverse local systems that are networked with other local systems, a platform is established from which citizens can push upward for national reform legislation. Seemingly disparate local initiatives can have broad national consequences as local strength begets national reform. For such a model to evolve, people must play an active role in the same way they must play an active role as citizens in any political democracy. In such a system, democratic institutions can be created to reintegrate ownership and work and to foster sustainability and stability. Citizens can use their constitutionally granted powers of procedural and substantive democracy and see to it that such values become legally written into corporate charters for businesses in their communities. Basic economic institutions can and do work toward eliminating the long-standing antagonisms between owners and workers or buyers and sellers, and by embedding the institutions into the local community, citizens can achieve more stability and direct community-based democratic control. By doing so, the individual’s role in the economy expands and becomes more active and complex as the pragmatists and institutionalists envisioned.

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By becoming an integrated member of an economic community, much more responsibility is placed on the individual. This burden is, in part, the price one must pay for democracy. People will become not only employees and consumers, but also owners who must actively participate in the governance of their local economic institutions.

A System of Lived Ethics Returning to the core mission of socially engaged Buddhist economics, economies function primarily to provide for the foundational needs of the population, and to safeguard the natural environment with ecological regeneration. People not only need these for living, but they also need to know that these are secure, stable and that they should not have to worry that they will suffer because the economy does not sufficiently provide. This leads to a normative position in economics that are anchored to foundational principles for those who are inspired by socially engaged Buddhist economics and seek to embark on a project of social change. The suggestions that follow are a mere starting place, or template, upon which people and communities of the like-minded can add to, or subtract from, to keep their activities whole and on the rails. With that in mind, consider the four noble truths as applied specifically to right livelihood institution building. The first noble truth is to recognize that suffering in our economic world exists. The second noble truth is that as we learn from these experiences and identify the underlying root causes were largely the result of institutionalized greed, hatred, delusion, and self-attachment that have become dominant and highly destructive. Greed-inspired growth for growth’s sake has led to a host of environmental problems, not least of which is global warming. The third and fourth noble truths are about transforming suffering into wellbeing. The primary impetus for change is through extricating ourselves from greed, hatred, delusion, and selfattachment by doing the inner work of mindfulness meditation. Then there is the outer work of social change guided by a set of ethics through the application of the Noble Eightfold Path. Right View Right View opens from a thorough understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the reality that there is such a thing as suffering that can be

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transformed into wellbeing. It is the groundwork for all ethical action and economic behavior as it is free from discrimination and attachment. Right view is predicated on faith and confidence that we can make such a transformation. To do this, however, requires that we have the ability to distinguish between certain root causes. Some things at the root are healthy, wholesome, and adaptive as they arise naturally from insight and nonattachment. Others are unhealthy, unwholesome, and maladaptive as they arise from attachment and craving. Right View is the skill to discern between these and to recognize which need to be cultivated and which need to be dissolved from our minds with practice. From there we can develop healthier motivations and intentions. Right Thinking With Right View cultivated and in place, we can foster Right Thinking around which intentions are formed. Right Thinking arises from insight and represents the existential core of emptiness and interbeing. In the tradition of silent illumination, from this existential core healthy emotions of compassion and understanding naturally flow. It is a train of thought that is nondiscriminating and is quite distinct from thoughts trapped in divisions such as us versus them, mine versus yours, etc. Thinking is a form of volition and by thinking we can will developments through trains of thought that are healthy and constructive or unhealthy and destructive. Right Thinking is the skill of maintaining the former and gives rise to certain forms of speech. Right Speech Right Speech is an important ethical code for socially engaged Buddhist economics. As we communicate with Right Speech, we are doing so with awareness of understanding, compassion, and nondiscrimination nurtured through Right View and Thinking. This entails communicating truthfully, respectfully, accurately, and consistently. Building new adaptive institutions cannot be done in the genuine way without Right Speech, just as manipulative or hate-filled expressions are maladaptive. Right Speech is a way of engaging with those around us that expresses acceptance, forgiveness, humility, and support from which wellbeing can be nurtured. It is also a healthy practice for the inner work with healing power, which gives us resilience in our actions.

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Right Action Right Action is closely tied to karma such that the action and the results of the action are inseparable. As mentioned above, thinking is action, but so are actions of speech and actions of the body. What is generated from thinking, speech, and physical action constitute karmic continuation. How we think, what we say, and what we do are actions the individual carries within the context of the social firmament. This means that there will always be some degree of consequences for those actions—good or bad. We own the actions and the continuations that flow forth. It is our contribution to the healing wellbeing of the firmament or our contribution to its destruction. Practicing mindful awareness of all three modes of action is a potent exercise and an effective way of taking responsibility for the way things are around us, including the nature of our economic system and how we gain our livelihoods. Right Livelihood Right Livelihood is another important ethical code for socially engaged Buddhist economics and is the crux of the topic. E.F. Schumacher introduced most of us in the West to Buddhist economics with his eponymous essay in which he opened with the passage; “‘Right Livelihood’ is one of the requirements of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. It is clear, therefore, that there must be such a thing as Buddhist economics.”7 Ideally, Right Livelihood is the kind of trade or profession that allows for the expression of compassion and concern for others. Even if it is not felt directly, a job done with care it brings wellbeing. The counter to this is greed-inspired, money making that either directly or indirectly brings about illbeing. Whereas Right Livelihood is hard to find, Wrong Livelihoods abound spreading toxins, consumerism, jealousy, and so on. Overcoming this is perhaps the greatest challenge for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. The authentic pursuit of Right Livelihood requires diligence.

7 Schumacher, E.F. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (NY: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 53.

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Right Diligence It is not enough to being working hard to achieve right livelihood, the institution must also make assurances that the specific projects themselves are not harmful to the community or nature. Someone may characterize themselves as hard working, yet the question is working hard on what? If we are diligently working to make guns, narcotics, or fraud, this is wasted effort as it does not contribute to wellbeing. Right Diligence is the effort and commitment to making sure that our hard work is an effective means toward the end of community wellbeing. This requires being attentive, aware of our motivations, and assiduously avoiding malicious intentions such as greed to creep into our efforts. Such awareness and attentiveness are key for a mindfulness practice. Right Mindfulness Mindfulness is a form of energy. It is a living, conscious phenomenon best described as present-moment awareness that takes place in the here and now. It is alertness and concentration, but without mental narrative or judgment. It is a form of energy that exists on its own in the sense that it takes place without reference to a self or the person who is holding the mindfulness in concentration. It is participatory, yet the participation is without ego or self. Right Mindfulness is bare attention and when we practice it, it brings back to our bodies where we can experience fully the present moment. This is vitally important for Socially Engage Buddhist Economics because it empowers us to mindfully observe the interplay between our thoughts and our conduct in the community that arises from those thoughts. This implies a keen awareness of the continuous impact we are having on our surrounding social milieu. Closely linked to this awareness is the ability to concentrate. Right Concentration Right Concentration is about staying the course and staying focused. It is easy for a project like creating a new economic institution to be swept away from its original purpose as circumstances in society or communities change. The community organization must say vigilant with reminders as to why they are doing this hard work of creating alternative economic

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institutions, and to that end, must continuously be examining their motivation and whether their motivations are true to their original purpose. Right Concentration is carried by Right Mindfulness and they allow us to look deeply into the nature of the things we are facing an develop insight for action and vision, which brings us back to Right View.

Dharma Talk Building new economic institutions at the local level and having the work infused with a set of ethics to guide us is where the rubber meets the road for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. Without these, there is only theorizing. The project ultimately is about redrawing the institutional map of the economy. By this, we mean actively mapping out a new set of institutions that are fully integrated and cohere systemically. This involves envisioning systemic change from both the bird’s-eye view of the whole system and the worm’s-eye view of the specific institutional parts. Such change will require not only changing how we see our economy, it will also require fundamentally changing how we go about our daily work of producing, distributing, and consuming goods and services. Bringing this vision to reality requires a willingness to accept the fact that the economic activity going forward will be radically different from the one we have now—which is what the IPCC is telling us we have no choice but to do. Proposing an economy that is radical different is not the same thing as proposing revolutionary ideology. It is practically inconceivable that a massive Twenty-plus-trillion-dollar economy can be fundamentally altered in a peaceful or meaningful way through a sudden revolutionary catharsis. Bringing our vision of a mindful economy to a reality will also require much hard work and patience. What is more conceivable and practical than cathartic revolution is a process of implementing real economic change in small incremental steps beginning with the development of locally based alternative institutions. Capitalism and all other major economic systems that have existed historically were originally small and localized systems. In a mindful economy, smaller-scale local economic systems are not enclaves of economic utopias or communes, they are merely the starting places from which a broader and more comprehensive system can evolve and grow. John Dewey argued that participatory democracy is more than just an exercise in political governance. He saw that an individual’s personal

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development is intimately connected to the creation of a democratic society. For Dewey, people are naturally endowed with an instinct to actively shape the world around them. As we follow this instinct and become engaged in the democratic process, we can create better institutions that advance our social intelligence and foster the development of education, art, health, technology, and purposeful economic activity. By doing so, we create the opportunities for individuals to develop their own unique powers and capabilities. These powers and capabilities, in turn, will allow a person to become an effective participant in the life of the community and can advance the project of building new and better institutions. In this way, communities and the individuals who live in them can coevolve. In this process, we break the chains that have kept us dependent on this collapsing system and become more self-reliant. This empowerment that comes from being a willful agent of change is the essence of true participatory democracy. Pragmatism, however, does have a shadow side. If we become cynical and turn our backs on democratic participation as so many have done, the project of building better social institutions grinds down, the fabric of community ties becomes frayed, and we lose our sense of the common good. Things fall to pieces. Dewey’s message will be increasingly important in the years to come. Like ancient Rome in its twilight, our current system that is built on an unstable foundation of fossil fuels and the idolatry of money is in decline. As it passes its time of glory and gives way to something else, we will have an opportunity to begin making our system into something entirely different. That is, the direction and form of our great transition will be up to us to determine. Our current lives are the link between our past and our future. For those involved in social movements or working for social change, the past is what we are changing from and the future is what we envision changing into. This implies that our work for social change requires that we both look inward into our habits of thought as well as outward to our community. Cultivating a vision for change means questioning everything including our values, mindset, attitudes, and our expectations about what our economic institutions are supposed to do. If we cling to our old habits of thought and action, then we’ll continue to drift toward more destruction and instability. Fostering change requires that we not only question and break out of our habitual ways of acting and thinking, but also to be open to which now seems unfathomable. We evolve by stretching ourselves outward and questioning all that is familiar and comfortable, and by working through

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experiences that challenge our intellect and abilities. We are in a continuous state of becoming and that implies an ever-expanding consciousness. As Dewey saw it, being engaged socially is the way we develop personally. The real promise of political engagement will not come from another stimulus plan, bailout, or more “sweeping” pieces of Congressional legislation. At least not for some time. Nor is it limited to putting pressure on local officials or businesses. The real source of progress will come from creating something new. It will come from a network of grassroots activists, citizens, and visionaries who are willing to start building new, decentralized institutions at the community level where people have the best chance of democratic control. Perhaps the most important outcome would be that as people become active in their communities and develop institutions that will allow them to become more self-reliant, they can break free of the dysfunctional and dependent relationship they have with their corporate overlords and their vassals in Washington. Once we have demonstrated that we no longer need them for jobs or stability in our livelihoods citizens can build a power base in their communities from which they can demand more accountability from their political leaders. Maybe then politicians and lobbyists will lose some of their hubris and become more accountable. It is vital to stay hopeful and not to get overly frustrated or impatient in this process. We need to be reminded that the human species is continually evolving—from being to becoming. Much of that process is fraught with difficulty and conflict. When we reflect on the rights and protections that people fought hard for such as the abolition of slavery, banning child labor, the right to vote or collectively bargain, or the protection for our water and forests, it is important to note that others were fighting against these changes. The political, cultural, and systemic forces that resist change are always more powerful as they have the advantage of being the established way on their side— the status quo. But if activists had always become discouraged by this then most of us ordinary citizens would still be sweating in servitude, poverty, and stripped of any democratic enfranchisement. We will not know for certain whether we are creating something better until we get there. For this reason, it doesn’t help to be overly preoccupied with the end results of our current action. We must live and work, mindfully, in the present moment and trust that we are agents for positive change.

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References Boulding, Kenneth, The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, http://www. geocities.com/RainForest/3621/BOULDING.HTM. Bourne, Randolph, “Trans-National America,” in Olaf, Hansen, ed., The Radical Will: Randolph Borne Selected Writings, 1911–1918, (NY: Urizen Books, 1977). Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct (NY: Modern Library, 1930) Gibson-Graham, J. K. and Dombroski, Kelly, eds., The Handbook of Diverse Economies, (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2020). Loeb, Paul Rogat, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, (NY: Basic Books, 2004). Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1944). Reck, Andrew, ed., Selected Writings: George H. Mead, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964). Schumacher, E. F., Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (NY: Harper and Row, 1973). Wheatley, Margaret and Senge, Peter, “Toward a Theology of Institutions,” Seeing (things) Whole, December 6, 2010, http://www.seeingthingswhole. com/PDF/STW-toward-theology-of-institutions.pd.

Appendix

Thailand and Bhutan The Kingdoms of Bhutan and Thailand have a few important aspects in common. They have distinct differences to be sure. Thailand is a large, industrial, and globalized country while Bhutan is a small, rural, somewhat isolated country and have taken different paths toward economic development. Yet they are both Southeast Asian countries with constitutional monarchy political systems, the majority of their populations are Buddhists, and they both maintain a strong Buddhist heritage and culture. As they are both constitutional monarchies, they are also both kingdoms. In both countries, the kings have played instrumental roles in defining the characteristics of their economic systems in the last several decades. As of 1989, the two countries have formed diplomatic relations that have grown stronger in recent years. This has led to economic, cultural, and educational connections. In 2009, the government of Thailand launched the Bhutan-Thailand Friendship Park in the heart of Thimpu, Bhutan’s capital city. It is a small park that is intended to symbolize the friendly and compassionate relationship between the two countries. Its inauguration was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations and to celebrate the coronation of the fifth King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesa Nambyel Wangchuck. It was also to celebrate the 82nd birth anniversary of the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0

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Thailand’s King Bhumibol and the Wangchuck dynasty in Bhutan left indelible marks that give these countries Buddhist characteristics to their economic systems. Thailand’s Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) The relationship between Thailand’s monarchs and Buddhism goes back centuries. The first known example of the Dharmaraja, meaning “dharma king” or “righteous king,” was the famous Indian king Ashoka of the Maurya Empire that stretched across the Indian subcontinent and reached its zenith around 250 BCE. In the early years of his rule, it was characterized by much violence and treachery. But after a particularly bloody battle with the state of Kalinga, Ashoka became sickened by the carnage he saw and began to change. In his early 40s, he underwent a kind of spiritual transformation and wholeheartedly embraced his Buddhist practice. He spent the remainder of his time in power shaping the principles for living a virtuous life and one according to the teachings of the Dharma. Ashoka was said to have exemplified the ten virtues of a true Dharmaraja: charity, morality, altruism, honesty, gentleness, self-controlling, non-anger, nonviolence, forbearance, and uprightness. This legacy lived on in on form or another in various places throughout Southeast Asia. But it wasn’t until the nineteenth century with the reign of King Mongkut (1804–1868) of the Chakri dynasty in Thailand that the contemporary model of the Dharmaraja took form. The Chakri dynasty has reigned in Thailand since the late nineteenth century. Before ascending the throne at the age of 47, King Mongkut had spent 27 years living as a simple Buddhist monk in a monastery. Though endowed with nobility from birth, he lived as did all the monks, surviving on the alms given to them by practicing Buddhist laypersons in the community. Mongkut learned humility and had nearly daily contact with ordinary Thais before taking his position as king, which he held for 17 years. King Mongkut brought Buddhism to its roots and his power derived from the people—the Sangha. He assiduously led with principles derived from the Dharma, which was the path followed by his great grandson, King Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016). Power struggles, coups, and the everlasting threats of revolution is an unfortunate and seemingly inevitable characteristic of Thai politics. Prior to 1932, Thailand was ruled under an absolute monarchy. Following a

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bloodless coup that year in which a small coalition of military officers and government officials overthrew the monarchy and reorganized the Thai system as a constitutional monarchy. King Prajadhipok (1893–1941) who was king at the time, remained so until his death from heart failure in 1941 at the young age of 47. Because he was so young, his oldest son Ananda Mahidol came to be his successor at the age of 9 and was living in Switzerland with his mother at the time. Ananda returned to Thailand and ruled under the tutelage of regents. In June 1946, Ananda was killed in his bed in the early morning by a single gunshot to the head. It has never been proven definitively if it was murder or suicide and his death remains a mystery to this day. He was 20 years old. Bhumibol Adulyadej became the next king following the sudden and unexpected death of his brother. He was the ninth monarch of Thailand from the Chakri dynasty and was given the title Rama IX. He remained king for seventy years, which made him the second longest reigning monarch in history behind Louis XIV of France. The power of the monarchs of Thailand was limited after the coup of 1932. This changed in 1949 when a movement to change the constitution led to restoring many of the powers of the king, including the ability to select a privy council that took over the authority to sign all laws into effect. Bhumibol followed in the steps of his great grandfather with a steadfast commitment to a Buddhist practice. He did the inner work as a monk, then spent decades doing the outer work of countless social and economic development projects known as Royal Projects. From this legacy, he was heralded as the “development king.” Nonetheless, political instability in Thailand continued with multiple coup attempts and seemingly endless redrafts of the Thai constitution, including a major overhaul in 1996. The new constitution was ratified in 1997 though was done so without a charter or theoretical foundation, which rendered Thailand’s future somewhat chaotic. Most significantly was the economy. Despite the fact that Thailand’s export sector was booming, it was incurring trade deficits throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. As such, Thailand was running out of capital and its debts to foreign banks soared. The foreign loans were back by real estate, which created a localized bubble of skyrocketing debt and land prices. Aware of Thailand’s economic problems, international currency speculators were certain that the government would devalue the currency, the Thai baht, and the stage was set for a massive crisis.

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Thailand’s Economic Crisis of the Late 1990s Throughout the 1990s, investors poured over $1 trillion of capital into the financial systems of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and others. Much of these capital flows were in the form of bank loans and purchases of stocks and bonds in the local financial markets that paid high rates of return compared to returns on investments in U.S. markets. Before such investments could be made, however, the regulations on flows of foreign investments imposed by these countries’ governments had to be dismantled. The result was that as these countries followed the recommendations of the Washington Consensus, they also became bound to American investment companies. Part of this binding entailed fixing currencies to the U.S. dollar. Starting as early as the 1980s, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries began committing to a fixed exchange rate with the dollar so as to maintain stability in international trade and investments. However, by fixing their currencies to the dollar, these countries lost much of their control over the value of their currencies and their economies. In effect, the Asian economies came under the control of policies set in Washington—policies that were designed primarily to benefit American banks and Wall Street firms, not Asia. In April of 1995, the U.S. began negotiating a process whereby the dollar would rise in value against the Japanese yen in order to assist Japan out of its recession. By weakening the yen relative to the dollar, Japanese exports would become more competitive in U.S. markets. With a boost in its export sector, it was believed that Japan would pull out of its recession. As the U.S. dollar became stronger relative to the yen and other currencies, including the Thai baht (THB), also strengthened as they were fixed to the dollar. Just as weakening the yen boosted Japan’s ability to export to foreign markets, strengthening the baht compromised Thailand’s ability to export. This was a significant problem for a country like Thailand, whose economic growth was almost entirely driven by its export sector. In their earlier years of development, Thailand and other Asian countries patterned their export-led growth after the Japanese model which was based on a pluralist system of careful government planning and management and private enterprise—a model which is antithetical to America’s push for a global system of pure capitalism. After adopting a more free-market approach, and after tying its currency to the dollar, Thailand’s export sales plummeted, and trade

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deficits began to soar. To make matters worse, China burst into the world trading system as the premier producer of low-cost exports and Thailand lost much of its share of the world export market. Losing its export earnings, Thailand began borrowing large sums of money by selling bonds to Wall Street banks and investment firms at relatively high-interest rates. With the borrowed money, Thai banks, in turn, made loans to local businesses for economic development projects (a policy that was also recommended by the Washington Consensus) including commercial real estate development in hotels and resorts to augment tourism, and in export-oriented manufacturing infrastructure. Much of this development was directed toward restoring Thailand’s earnings of foreign currency needed to pay their high-interest debt obligations to Wall Street. As Thailand agreed to follow open-market policies set by the , its financial sector became vulnerable to instabilities that come with currency speculation. As with the Dutch tulip bulbs centuries before, the Thai baht became an object of speculator interest and was quickly destabilized. Speculators observed Thailand’s mounting deficit and debt problems and began to place bets that Thailand would not be able to sustain its fixed exchange rate with the dollar. But the speculators were not anticipating that the baht would rise in value, rather that it would fall. In other words, they were “short-selling” Thailand’s currency, and they were doing so in huge volume. The process of short selling the Thai currency goes something as follows. Thailand had for some time been maintaining a fixed exchange rate of about 25THB to the dollar. Speculators who believed that the currency would fall in value began borrowing baht and then used the baht to buy dollars. They would then wait for the currency to devalue, buy the baht at a cheaper price, pay back the loan and walk away with a profit. Say for example, a speculator borrows 25 million bahts and with that money immediately buys $1 million U.S. dollars at the $1 = 25 THB exchange rate. The speculator sits on the million dollars and waits for the baht to devalue, to say $1 = 30 THB. At that point, the speculator can buy the 25 million bahts it needs to pay back the loan, and at a $1 = 30 THB, the speculator only needs about $833,000 to buy the 25 million bahts and pocket the remaining $167,000.1 1 Magnuson, Joel, Mindful Economics: How the US Economy Works, Why It Matters, and How It Could Be Different, (NY: Seven Stories Press, 2008), pp. 321–324.

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Like other forms of speculation, short selling has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Large hedge funds and other U.S. investors were positioning to short sell the Thai baht. By doing so, they were siphoning dollars out of Thailand’s banks. As more speculators decided to short sell, more were demanding U.S. dollars and therefore placed more stress on Thailand’s reserve of foreign currency. Eventually Thailand ran out of dollars. Those who were not short selling began a panicked sell-off of the baht, and the currency went into a free fall. In a vain attempt to stabilize its currency at its agreed fixed rate, Thailand’s government borrowed huge amounts of dollars in order to buy enough baht to raise its value. But those dollars immediately fled back out of its banks as speculators sold off their holdings of baht. The self-fulfilling prophecy for the speculators was realized, and Thailand’s currency collapsed. Within a matter of months, Thailand’s currency lost half of its value, and at its lowest point it was trading at 56THB to the dollar. As the currency collapsed, the panic spread to other sectors of Thailand’s financial markets. U.S. banks and investment firms that purchased Thai stocks and bonds stood to lose as these securities, priced in baht, collapsed in value along with the currency. The collapsing currency dragged the stock and bond markets down with it. Free and open markets in Thailand came to mean that Wall Street firms were free to openly move their money into Thailand’s markets for speculation, and were freely to openly pull it back out, en masse, leaving a tsunami of financial wreckage behind. In a wave of panic selling, these Wall Street firms sold out their holdings of Thai securities, which contributed heavily to the destabilization of Thailand’s stock and bond markets. In 1997, Thailand’s stock market dropped by a staggering 75 percent. Sufficiency Economy Philosophy Throughout the 1980s and the years leading up to the financial crisis, Thailand was obsessed with being one of the Asian Tigers. A kind of economic fervor swept across the nation with unbridled borrowing, real estate development projects coupled with speculation, and a manic plunge into a growth trend at all costs. Thailand’s economy was among the most rapid growing in the world and with this growth, there was a drop in poverty and the general living standard of the people. But even so, there

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were a few intrepid voices raising concerns regarding the cost of overheated growth and what that would mean for long-term stability. One of those voices belonged to the king himself. When the economy crumbled upon itself, the dangers posed by the forces of economic globalization and unfettered movements of speculative capital came into full view. The disastrous consequences from which were what King Bhumibol had been warning about for years and they had finally come to pass. The time was right for the king to unveil his Sufficiency Economy model. He famously spoke to a televised audience about the next steps moving forward, Recently, so many projects have been implemented, so many factories have been built, that it was thought Thailand would become a little tiger, and then a big tiger. People were crazy about becoming a tiger… Being a tiger is not important. The important thing for us is to have a sufficiency economy. A sufficiency economy means to have enough to support ourselves. Those who like modern economic theories may not appreciate this. But we have to take a careful step backward.2

It was a bold statement to advocate taking a step backward, but he emphasized that the model was not about self-sufficiency, autarky, and isolation like North Korea. Rather, he was advocating a Buddhist Middle Way between manic craving and deprivation. The king’s vision evolved into an economic development paradigm, Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP). The core principle in which is the notion that putting the wellbeing of people first before profit maximization. He used graduation speeches and other venues to caution the nation regarding the collapse of the agricultural sector as a result of an over emphasis on export-oriented cash crop production. The manic pursuit of exports led to topsoil ruination, deforestation, and loss of watersheds. This led to floods, mudslides, drought, and pollution. Problems in agriculture also led to the widening income gap between rural and urban sectors. There was also an investment gap. As the country embarked on an aggressive industrial growth model, capital investment shifted away from agriculture to manufacturing. These combined into a crisis of food production 2 Broderick, Richard, King by Virtue: Reflections on the Life-long Endeavor of King Bhumibol of Thailand, (Bangkok: Amarin, 2013), p. 193.

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The king was adamant about pursuing a more gradual development path. His was a bottom-up approach emphasizing agricultural development and food security as the first grassroots priority. He was careful to emphasize that the SEP model was not isolationist. He explains in a royal address in 1998, …full sufficiency is impossible; if a family or even a village wants to employ a full sufficiency economy, it would be like returning to the Stone Age… Sufficiency means to lead a reasonably comfortable life, without excess, or over-indulgence in luxury, but enough… This means standing on our own two legs planted on the ground, so we can remain without falling over, and without asking others to lend us their legs to stand on.3

The emphasis here is on the Buddhist Middle Way of moderation. Moderation became one of the three pillars of SEP: Moderation, Reasonableness, and Prudence. Moderation: A focus on enough production and consumption by way of avoiding extreme. It is economics without craving or deprivation, without overindulgence and poverty. Reasonableness: A widespread understanding of the karmic cause-and-effect relationships between economic decisions, the actions that follow, and the consequences of those decisions and actions. Prudence: An emphasis on resilience to be able to withstand the future impact of unforeseen changes such as the effects of global warming and to secure this resilience with a measure of self-discipline.

These pillars stand within two other conditions necessary for SEP, knowledge and integrity. Knowledge: In Thai culture knowledge in this context is synonymous with wisdom. In the Buddhist view of things, this wisdom comes from mental training and insight combined with practical understanding and putting that understanding to prudent use. Integrity: An emphasis on honesty and hard work, perseverance, and mindfulness. This is seen also in the context of Right Livelihood in the sense

3 Ibid, p. 199.

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that it is pursing economic planning with the presence of mind to avoid exploiting or doing harm to others.

The model is holistic and is a clean break from social atomism and the idolatry of self-attachment in Western economics. It is a framework that sees economic development in terms of how it affects society as a whole. It is cut from the cloth of Buddhist philosophy of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, particularly emphasizing Right View, Right Livelihood, and Right Mindfulness, as well as the principle of interconnectedness. In that sense, it is a model of sustainable development. In recent years, the SEP framework has been aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). On this Nobel Peace Laureate and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan writes, [The Sustainable Development Goals] have expanded the international agenda from a global vision to nationally deliverable action applicable to every country. The political divide that hampered international development efforts has become instead a genuine partnership for development among all nations. Thailand was ahead of the global scene on this front. Throughout His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 70-year reign, sustainable development of the nation and the well-being of the Thai people went hand- in-hand as countless rural development projects in every corner of the country that benefit millions of Thais can well attest. His Majesty’s philosophical framework of ‘Sufficiency Economy philosophy’ has played an important role in framing global dialogue towards the achievement of sustainable development.4

Thailand’s “development king” was not the only monarch in Southeast Asia to play a role in shaping economic development discourse. His voice was joined by the kind of Bhutan and high-level members of the Bhutanese government that encouraged the world community to adopt a new human-centered development paradigm.

4 Anan, Kofi, Sufficiency Economy Philosophy: Thailand’s Path Towards Sustainable Development Goals, (Bangkok, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017), p. 26.

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Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Recall that the mission of engaged Buddhists is to garner inspiration from Buddhist philosophy and practice to become agents of change in a society or community. Such was the inspiration for the concept of (GNH) by the Fourth King of Bhutan, H.M. Jigme Singye Wangchuck. King Wangchuck became Bhutan’s “dragon king at the very young age of 16 in 1972, though was crowned in 1974, about the same time E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful was published. According to Dasho Karma Ura, President of the Center of Bhutan Studies (CBS), Thimphu, Bhutan, “GNH should be considered as a Buddhist society’s equivalent of the social contract, where citizens pursue collective happiness.”5 The pursuit of collective rather than individual happiness places emphasis on the wellbeing of the social whole, and this became codified into Bhutan’s law of the land. According to the constitution of Bhutan, the government is responsible, “… to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness.” Gross National Happiness as a measure of overall wellbeing of Bhutan’s society became institutionalized with four principles of governance: equitable economic development, environmental preservation, cultural resilience, and good governance.6 In other words, socially engaged Buddhism in Bhutan is not just another anecdote, it is a national movement, and its goals and priorities stand in stark contrast to those of Western capitalistic societies. These principles became what the Bhutanese call the “four pillars” on which subsequent government policy would be built with the aim of making a healthier and genuinely happier population. The starting place for the happiness-based framework was based on a continually evolving rubric of genuinely sustainable wellbeing that is embedded in four pillars of foundational principles that mirror the original pillars of GNH: (1) Happiness and wellbeing rooted in human health, secure livelihoods, diverse spiritual practices, and vibrant cultural traditions. (2) Ecological sustainability in the true sense of keeping economic activity contained within the capacity of the planet to sustain it. (3) Fair

5 Karma Ura, Sabina Alkire, Tshoki Zangmo, in “Gross National Happiness and the GNH Index” in John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds., World Happiness Report, Columbia University, 2012, p. 109. 6 Alejandro Adler Braun, “Gross National Happiness in Bhutan: A Living Example of an Alternative Approach,” The Wharton Asia Review, Spring, 2011, Vol. 2, No.2.

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distribution of wealth and resources both within and among nations, and a particular commitment to improving conditions of those living in abject poverty. (4) Efficient use of resources as a model of global resource stewardship. These principles became what the Bhutanese call the “four pillars” on which subsequent government policy would be built with the aim of making a healthier and genuinely happier population. These principles are inseparable from Bhutan’s Buddhist heritage and GNH was identified by its king as a way to create a more enlightened Buddhist society in which the happiness and wellbeing of all people is the ultimate purpose of governance. King Wangchuck’s view first generated international attention in 1986 when he was reported in the Financial Times as saying, “Gross National Happiness in more important than Gross National Product.”7 The King’s comments highlighted the country’s commitment to building an economy that would elevate Buddhist spiritually inspired values over of western values based on materialism and consumerism. Ura notes that GNH “… measures the quality of a country in a more holistic way [than GNP] and believes that the beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occurs side by side to complement and reinforce each other.”8 The Constitution of Bhutan makes clear that there is a distinction between happiness in this sense grounded in genuine wellbeing and the fleeting, pleasurable ‘feel good’ often associated with that term in the Western conception. The Constitution says, “We know that true abiding happiness cannot exist while others suffer, and come only from serving others, living in harmony with nature, and realizing our innate wisdom and the true and brilliant nature of our own minds.”9 Resonating with Nhat Hanh’s conception of interbeing, Ura contends that compassion is an emotion that springs naturally from a mindset in which people generally see themselves living in a world where everything is connected to everything else. “By being convinced and informed about interdependence, compassion should naturally arise as a person recognizes that his happiness is dependent on all other creatures’ welfare. Without

7 Dasho Karma Ura, “GNH as a Buddhist Social Contract” in Dharma World, http:// www.kosei-shuppan.co.jp/english/text/mag/2007/07_101112_10.html. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid.

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this basic understanding, the individual sinks into poor motivation and weaknesses.” Poor motivations in the tradition of Buddhist economics are those that are defiled by greed, aggression, and delusion. Ura concludes that by “… recognizing the true nature of interdependence, one can see that all karma is collective, that all enlightenment is collective, and therefore that happiness and the policies required to promote it must be oriented toward collective achievement.”10 It is from the Buddhist sensibilities of interdependence, wholesome motivation, and the responsibility of government to help alleviate suffering among its people that the Center Bhutan Studies (CBS) continues to evolve their Gross National Happiness metric using data from questionnaires and statistical sophisticated statistical modeling. The goal of the work was to develop and maintain a metric that more accurately reflects the values of Bhutanese way of life. It is built on the principle that the development of people and their society cannot be limited to material interpretations of wellbeing derived from economic growth. Rather, it takes a more comprehensive, holistic view that balances standard economic needs with social, cultural, and environmental needs. GNH is further conceived from the principle of karma. With karmic volition, either healthful or pathological qualities can suffuse the world and future generations depending on our actions we take now. As such, the GNH model holds the economic activity of a country should not come at a cost of suffering of future generations, other societies, or other sentient beings. Expressing this sensibility, Bhutan’s Minister of Education, Thakur Singh Powdyel, comments, “It’s easy to mine the land and fish the seas and get rich… Yet we believe you cannot have a prosperous nation in the long run that does not conserve its natural environment or take care of the wellbeing of its people, which is being borne out by what is happening to the outside world.”11 With these sensibilities in place, the architects of the GNH evolved their metric beyond the original four pillars of the social contract to include things like health, education, use of time, psychological wellbeing, and community vitality. Between 2005, when Bhutan conducted

10 Ibid. 11 “Gross National Happiness in Bhutan: The Big Idea From a Tiny State That Could

Change the World” The Guardian, December 1, 2012.

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Fig. A.1

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Gross national happiness in Bhutan

its first GNH survey, and 2010, when the most comprehensive report was compiled (as of this writing) the concept of GNH finally developed into a GNH Index. It functions as a composite indicator covering a wide range of socioeconomic data, which together provide a spotlight on to the wellbeing of the population clustered into nine domains: psychological wellbeing, use of time, vitality of community, cultural diversity, ecological resilience, material living standards, health, education, good governance, and time use. These nine domains are further broken down into 33 more specific subcategories, which themselves are divided further into 124 variables upon which information is collected through survey research. Each of the variables is weighted differently numerically according to their estimated impact: the more subjective the data, the lighter the numerical weight (Fig. A.1).12 To create the final composite indicator, GNH sets a cutoff at 66 percent. This means that the population must have demonstrated sufficiency in 66 percent of the 124 variables in order to be certified as “happy.” The primary objectives of the GNH survey are to use the information gathered from these nine domains, weigh the information according to significance based on both subjective and objective factors, and derive a composite number between 0 and 1. The CBS uses sophisticated statistical modeling techniques and sufficiency thresholds for each category that is measured to derive this composite. But once derived it provides a basic statement about the level of Gross National Happiness in which 0 would indicate a state of perfect unhappiness and 1 would indicate perfect happiness. Of course the number is always going to be somewhere between the two polar extremes.

12 All of the following elements are summarized in the World Happiness Report, pp. 110–120.

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The 2010 GNH Index for Bhutan was .743. This indicates that within the 9 domains and all the subcategories of all the domains, the respondents reported that their state of happiness is above what would be considered a sufficiency threshold. Putting the complexity of compiling and crunching the data aside, it means that on a gauge between 0 and 1, where 0 is the polar extreme of perfect unhappiness and 1 is the opposite extreme of perfect happiness, the people of Bhutan are at .74 on the scale of happiness—far closer to perfect happiness. The key significance of this number is that it serves as a benchmark for trend data over time. But there is much more to the surveys in terms of trend data. For example, the 2010 survey also shows that men tend to be happier than women, urban dwellers are happier than rural though rural areas scored higher on community vitality, educated people are happier than uneducated, certain professions generate more happiness than others, and certain towns have happier inhabitants than others. In time, as the index either rises, falls, or stays the same, it provides policy makers with information about setting policy guidelines to replicate success or for channeling resources into areas that need work. Bhutan’s policy making branch of government, the Gross National Happiness Commission, uses GNH data to craft policies that are intended to give physical expression to ensuring that our development is on the GNH path. Beyond its implications for policy, GNH is a symbol of cultural and institutional significance. It is an embodiment of the expression of the former monarch’s statement that Gross National Product is less important than Gross National Happiness. GNH is a statement that both sublimates and institutionalizes the preservation of cultural forms, natural environment, health, accountable government, not the endless expansion of national output. The values embodied in GNH cannot be reconciled with hamster wheel economics and the cynical rationalizations of greed that are so deeply established Western institutions. In 2009, the OECD unveiled the Global Project that seeks to help develop similar, alternative indicator of wellbeing “beyond GDP.” The project aims to develop such an indicator with mindful reflection on the subjective question about whether or not “life is getting better.”13 That same year, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy gathered a Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social

13 Ibid.

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Progress. As chair of the commission, Nobel laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz, emphasized alternative metrics that will question and evaluate traditional GDP measurements, develop other frameworks for broader measurements, and incorporate environmental sustainability. The underlying assumption of these and similar initiatives is that by changing what we measure, we will change what we do—hopefully for the better. Stiglitz notes, “We look at numbers that tell us what we are doing. If those numbers don’t reflect what we care about, we make decisions that actually make us worse off.”14 Stiglitz’s logic, however, could be like putting wagons before horses. The assumption among so many advocates of alternative indicators is that alternative indicators will inspire alternative policy measures, which will move society toward wellbeing. But institutional economist Simon Kuznets, one of the original architects of national income accounting, observed how national income accounting was mangled before his eyes as the social metric he wanted to create was not consistent with the “acquisitive society.” Greed and wellbeing are not compatible ends, and in an economic society in which greed is held to be the prevailing mover of activity, alternative indicators will always be pushed into the margins—and this is where they currently are. By changing our institutions and transforming how we think and act economically, we will establish new priorities. We will redefine what it is that “we care about,” as Stiglitz puts it. It is undeniable that alternative indicators can bring useful information to light and direct policy. But policy changes, in order to be substantial and not merely symbolic, must be structured around real institutional changes with different priorities that will give the alternative indicators relevance. Otherwise, the HPI, GPI, and GNH, will continue to remain standing bashfully on the sidelines. Institutional changes bring impetus to alternative systems of measurement, which in turn will reinforce the mission of the institutional change. This is the key difference with Bhutan. Bhutan’s particular culture and legal institutions were such that the GNH project was already conceived, implemented, and established to make collective wellbeing as a national priority. Collective wellbeing is something that the Bhutanese already

14 “Sarkozy Attacks Focus on Economic Growth,” The Guardian, September 14, 2009.

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cares about, which contrasts with Western economic systems’ prioritization of endless growth, money making, and consumer culture. Bhutan’s government, nonetheless, is socially engaged, and it appealed to the world community by gently encouraging nations everywhere to continue reflecting on their priorities. Dharma Talk There is a great deal we can learn from both Thailand and Bhutan in terms of setting economic priorities and dealing with the looming disasters presented to us with global warming. For the future we want to be realized—if there is to be a future—it would depend on a vastly different set of institutions that govern the global economic processes. In Veblenian terms, this would be turning the economic priorities away from business as usual steered by corporate executives, speculators, and their servants in government; and, rather, toward creative workers, and entrepreneurs who see the possibility of healthier futures through institutional and systemic change would redirect economic activity. That future is still a long way off. In the meantime, according to historian Dirk Philipsen, “the economy has taken on a life of its own…. Separate from us yet also, in a strange twist of logic, presumably best expressing our needs and wants, the economy becomes both alien and dominant in our lives.”15

References Amir, Samir, “Millennium Development Goals: A Critique from the South,” Monthly Review, 2006, Vol. 7, Issue 10. Anan, Kofi, Sufficiency Economy Philosophy: Thailand’s Path towards Sustainable Development Goals, (Bangkok, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017). Braun, Alejandro A., “Gross National Happiness in Bhutan: A Living Example of an Alternative Approach,” The Wharton Asia Review, Spring, 2011, Vol. 2, No.2. Broderick, Richard, King by Virtue: Reflections on the Life-long Endeavor of King Bhumibol of Thailand, (Bangkok: Amarin, 2013), p. 193.

15 Philipsen, Dirk, The Little Big Number (Princeton University Press, 2015) pp. 45–46.

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Dasho Karma Ura, “GNH as a Buddhist Social Contract” in Dharma World, http://www.kosei-shuppan.co.jp/english/text/mag/2007/07_101112_10. html. Dasho Karma Ura, Sabina Alkire, Tshoki Zangmo, in “Gross National Happiness and the GNH Index” in John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds., World Happiness Report, Columbia University, 2012. Holstrom, Nancy and Smith, Richard, “The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism,” in Monthly Review, 2000, Vol. 51, Issue 9. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202 015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf. Klein, Naomi, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, (NY: Picador, 2008). Magnuson, Joel, Mindful Economics: How the US Economy Works, Why It Matters, and How It Could Be Different, (NY: Seven Stories Press, 2008). Philipsen, Dirk, The Little Big Number, (Princeton University Press, 2015).

Index

A adaptive, 52, 115, 116, 225, 233 anthropogenic, 1, 4, 12, 34, 168, 173, 183, 189, 190, 213 Appropriate technology, 159 Aquinas, Thomas, 46, 47, 49 Arts and Crafts Movement, 140 Ash, Collin, 39 Ashoka, 242 Asian Tigers, 246 Ayres, Clarence, 57

B Barrett, William, 65 Bentham, Jeremy, 77 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, 82 Bhutan, 4, 8, 241, 249–252, 254–256 Bodhi, Bhikkhu, 17, 18, 198, 208 Boulding, Kenneth, 222 Braverman, Harry, 43 Brown, Clair, 2 Brundtland Commission, 172

Buddha, 2, 4, 11, 19, 20, 22, 23, 31, 61, 93, 94, 118, 119, 153, 157, 158, 163, 165, 181, 184, 198–203, 205, 208, 234 Buddhadharma, 28 Burtt, E.A., 64 C Chain of Being, 149 chanda, 117, 118, 120, 227 Christianity, 132, 157 Climate change, 166, 186 Commercial Revolution, 42, 61 complexity, 15, 85, 107, 149, 230, 231, 254 consciousness, 6, 9, 13, 33, 35, 38, 41, 54, 66, 85, 89, 97–103, 105, 108, 110, 111, 130, 149, 151, 153, 202, 204, 206, 207, 238 Cooley, Charles Horton, 179 corporations, 3, 32, 43, 52–54, 57, 128, 129, 177–179, 212, 228–230

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 J. Magnuson, The Dharma and Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, Studies in Buddhist Economics, Management, and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97224-0

259

260

INDEX

D Dalai Lama, 14, 117 Daoism, 164 Darwin, Charles, 80, 100, 142 delusion, 3, 4, 17, 19, 31–33, 35, 36, 38, 41, 53, 55, 58, 61, 94, 99, 116, 118, 138, 175, 178, 185, 186, 190, 192, 198–201, 204, 206, 207, 211, 212, 217, 223, 224, 226, 232, 252 dependent co-origination, 97, 110 Dewey, John, 3, 95, 103, 104, 107–110, 113–115, 145, 179, 180, 186, 190–193, 197, 236–238 Dharma, 2, 7, 15, 22, 27, 29, 33, 57, 88, 90, 93, 118, 123, 159, 163, 165, 182, 186, 217, 236, 242, 251, 256 dharma king, 242 dissipative structures, 82, 131 distribution, 1, 25, 62, 63, 108, 121, 122, 129, 166, 174, 175, 185, 230, 251 Dogen, 123 dukkha, 182, 183

E Ecodharma, 4, 7, 12, 163, 165, 179, 181–183, 185 Ecological Commerce, 176 ecosattva, 181, 185 Einstein, Albert, 80 embeddeness, 226 epiphenomena, 76, 97, 148, 150 evolution, 5, 66, 85, 95, 98, 99, 110–112, 115, 116, 120, 142, 145, 150, 151, 154, 186, 225, 231 Eye of the Heart, 127, 130, 132, 153

F Federal Reserve, 129 First Noble Truth, 93 folkways, 98, 105, 106 formation, 39, 42, 53, 83–85, 110, 147, 149, 203 foundational needs, 23, 121, 180, 230, 232 Fourth Noble Truth, 94 Friedman, Milton, 127 Fromm, Erich, 193

G Gadamer, Hans Georg, 109 Galbraith, John K., 56 Gandhi, Mahatma, 139 Gautama, Siddhartha, 20 Geddes, Patrick, 6, 141–146 Gelles, David, 210 Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, 81, 82 Glassman, Bernard, 25 Global warming, 4, 12, 165, 168, 170, 189, 191 Gramsci, Antonio, 195 green collar, 177 Greenspan, Alan, 129 Gregory, Deborah, 39 Greyston, 25–27 Gross National Happiness, 250–254 Gruchy, Allan, 106

H Hamilton, Walton, 105 Hare, R.D., 38 Hawken, Paul, 176 Hayek, August von, 127 Hershock, Peter, 29, 119–121, 180 holistic, 4, 6, 9, 29, 57, 80, 83, 85–87, 95, 97, 98, 102, 106, 108, 118, 121, 130, 141–143,

INDEX

145, 180, 194, 226, 230, 249, 251, 252 homo economicus , 104 Ho, Simon, 27 Hume, David, 5, 75, 76 Huxley, Thomas, 142

I individualism, 5, 7, 28, 29, 48, 61, 70–72, 76, 89–91, 96, 103, 127–129, 139, 181, 196, 212, 213 Indra’s Net, 86, 87 institutional, 3–5, 8, 9, 28, 39, 43, 46, 50, 56, 61–63, 65, 67–69, 73, 76, 84, 85, 89–91, 95, 96, 103, 104, 106, 107, 111, 118, 121, 128, 131, 168, 179, 180, 182, 185, 190, 196, 199, 201, 215, 223–228, 236, 254–256 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 168, 170, 171 invention and diffusion, 115, 124, 225 invisible hand, 62, 81 Islam, 132, 157

J James, William, 95, 97, 99, 102, 111, 132 Jevons, William Stanley, 77 Jones, Ken, 29, 31, 87, 93, 197 Judaism, 132, 157

K Kabat-Zinn, Jon, 209, 211 Kapleau, Philip, 15, 29 Kaza, Stephanie, 15, 24, 29, 33, 118 Keeling Curve, 171 kensho, 165

261

Keynes, John Maynard, 117 King Bhumibol, 241, 242, 247, 249 King, Sally, 25 Knight, Frank, 127 Kuhn, Thomas S., 64

L Laozi, 164 Letwin, William, 49 lived social ethic, 123 localism, 229 Locke, John, 5, 72–77 Lowe, Janet, 56 Loy, David, 7

M Macy, Joanna, 82, 86, 97, 105 Magnuson, Joel, 71, 245 maladaptive, 51, 85, 115, 225, 233 Marx, Karl, 77 Mate, Gabor, 37 McMindfulness , 4, 8, 211–213, 216 Mead, George H., 6, 95, 103, 110, 112, 113, 117, 144, 179, 197, 224, 225 The Mechanico-Corpuscular (M-C) paradigm, 69 meditation, 15, 20, 21, 25, 26, 158, 182, 184, 187, 198–200, 202, 204, 208–210, 216, 217, 232 metaphysics, 97, 112, 149, 163 Mill, John Stuart, 77 Mills, C. Wright, 56 mindfulness, 4, 7, 8, 15, 18, 19, 26, 33, 58, 86, 156, 158, 184, 187, 197–204, 206–214, 216–218, 227, 232, 235, 248 Mises, Ludwig von, 127 Mitchell, Wesley, 225 Mont Pelerin Society, 127, 129, 197

262

INDEX

Morris, William, 6, 135, 139–143, 145, 146, 148, 159 Mumford, Lewis, 6, 135, 144, 147

N Natural Capitalism, 176 New Economics, 176 Newton, Isaac, 72, 74, 79 Nhat Han, Thich, 22 Nicoll, Maurice, 154 Noble Eightfold Path, 8, 94, 157, 165, 184, 185, 213, 232, 234, 249

O organicism, 69 Ostrom, Elinor, 90 Ouspensky, P.D., 156

P pathology, 11, 12, 34, 36, 38, 41, 94, 119, 166, 179, 193, 194, 200, 201, 204, 211, 217 Payutto, Phra Prayudh, 14, 116, 199 Peirce, Charles S., 95, 97, 132 Polanyi, Karl, 62, 63, 71, 225, 226, 230 pragmatism, 3, 4, 65, 91, 95, 97–99, 102–104, 112, 118, 121, 179, 185, 225 Prigogine, Ilya, 130 production, 4, 6, 7, 54, 58, 62, 77, 87, 108, 118, 121, 122, 130, 140, 143, 146, 147, 159, 168, 173, 179, 181, 185, 190, 193, 195, 222, 225, 230, 247, 248 Puntasen, Apichai, 116 Purser, Ron, 8, 208, 211–214, 216

R Rand, Ayn, 128 Raworth, Kate, 79 Reagan, Ronald, 128, 129 Realm of Hungry Ghosts, 36, 37, 117 Rotwein, Eugene, 75 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 73, 74 Ruskin, John, 6, 134–146, 148, 159

S Salzberg, Sharon, 210 samadhi, 156, 182 Sardovaya, 139 Satipatthana Sutta, 202 Schumacher, E.F., 6, 87, 129, 131–135, 139, 140, 144, 146–154, 156–160, 175, 197, 198, 234, 250 Schumpeter, Joseph, 66 Second Noble Truth, 94 self-aggrandizement, 133, 158, 227 Shapiro, Michael, 68 Sheng Yen, 27, 153, 154, 182, 204, 205 silent illumination, 153, 156, 164, 182, 185, 204–206, 227, 233 Sivaraksa, Sulak, 29, 32, 54 Small is Beautiful, 131–133, 140, 147, 148, 157, 175, 250 Smith, Adam, 76 social atomism, 5, 50, 68, 77, 78, 91, 95, 97, 103–106, 108, 118, 128, 144, 178, 212, 213, 249 social firmament, 7, 107–113, 115, 118, 120, 121, 123, 124, 152, 155, 157, 180, 185, 186, 190, 193, 195, 198, 203, 212, 225, 227, 230, 234 Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics, 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 57, 80, 85, 91, 93, 94, 110, 117, 121,

INDEX

122, 136, 160, 186, 203, 224, 227, 228, 234, 236 social ontology, 2, 70, 89 Spencer, Herbert, 100, 101 Speth, James “Gus, 176 Stark, Werner, 69 Stiglitz, Joseph, 255 subformation, 83, 110 Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP), 242, 246, 247, 249 supraformation, 83

263

University of Chicago, 6, 64, 95, 104, 110, 129, 197, 225 Ura, Dasho Karma, 250, 251

V Veblen, Thorstein, 51, 104, 115, 122, 197 volition, 16, 18, 55, 76, 89, 107, 111, 112, 124, 151, 155, 156, 185, 203, 217, 225, 233, 252

T Tanha, 117 Tawney, Richard H., 49 technology, 6–8, 14, 51, 115, 121, 131, 135, 139, 140, 145–147, 149, 155–159, 165, 175, 187, 192, 222–225, 227, 237 Thailand, 4, 8, 24, 53, 241–247, 249, 256 Thatcher, Margaret, 128 Thera, Nuanaponika, 158 Third Noble Truth, 94 Thoreau, Henry David, 139 Tull, Deborah, 207 two million villages, 147

W Washington Consensus, 244, 245 Weber, Max, 49 wellbeing, 2, 3, 8, 12, 15, 17, 20, 33, 39, 51, 52, 55, 57, 94, 95, 100, 101, 110, 115, 117, 118, 120, 123, 139, 142, 154, 176, 181, 184, 185, 187, 190, 193, 198–200, 209–212, 214, 217, 227, 232–235, 247, 250–252, 254, 255 Whitehead, Alfred N., 65 whole man, 100–102 wuxin, 206

U United Nations, 58, 130, 168, 173, 174, 249

Z Zen, 12, 13, 15, 22, 25, 26, 29, 32, 40, 65, 123, 153, 200, 205