The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Economic Ethics 9780192894328, 0192894323

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T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

R E L IG ION A N D E C ON OM IC E T H IC S

The Oxford Handbook of

RELIGION AND ECONOMIC ETHICS Edited by

ALBINO BARRERA and

ROY C. AMORE

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2024 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2024 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2023943788 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​289432–​8 DOI: 10.1093/​oxfordhb/​9780192894328.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Preface

Religions are long-​standing teachers on economic morality. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their otherworldly concerns, religions have been prolific in their admonitions on what constitutes right and good economic conduct. They are among the most responsive to shifts in socio-​economic life that require corresponding changes in the public ethos. Indeed, religions have long been acknowledged to play an important role in socio-​economic life. This should not come as a surprise. After all, most religions acknowledge that there is a constitutive economic dimension to human flourishing. There is literally a trove of materials from various religions on economic morality. Despite this bounty and religion’s pivotal role, there is no single volume to date that puts together the economic ethics of various religions. This is unfortunate and a major gap in scholarship for at least two reasons. First, history shows that religious thought and praxis do influence secular thinking and policy. Note, for example, the biblical inspiration behind the millennial debt forgiveness that culminated with the Gleneagles G-​8 summit (2005), the Judaeo-​Christian foundations of Western Europe’s social economy, and the importance of Chinese guanxi in business relationships. Global financial markets are increasingly introducing Sharia-​compliant investment products. Faith-​affiliated institutions and leaders have been influential in shaping the public’s economic thinking and ethos on many issues, from globalization to climate change. These examples not only demonstrate the power of religion to inspire, but they also provide a glimpse into these religions’ active engagement in and concern over socio-​economic life. Religion matters, and it matters enormously despite the tide of secularism in the West. A second reason for this study is that interreligious dialogue is needed, more than ever, in response to religious extremists pitting faith groups against each other. Such sectarianism is best fought with a genuine outreach of religions to each other. Economic ethics provides a fertile opportunity for such mutual conversation because of these religions’ common interest in and track record of instructions on socio-​economic life. Despite all these, it is surprising that not much has been done in the literature to present, much less compare and synthesize, religions’ teachings on what constitutes a good economic life. The little that has been done revolves around a comparison of two or three religions at best. This Handbook is a small contribution to filling this gap. Its goals are to present religions’ teachings on economic ethics and then to examine their points of convergence and divergence. In what ways are they similar or different and why? How have they evolved over time and why? How have they been received, and how have they been

vi   Preface lived? How do they compare with contemporary market practices? These are some of the questions that are addressed in this Handbook. Part I has survey chapters on religions that have spread worldwide as well as others that are mostly confined to a specific region or culture. These chapters deal with the economic ethics of religions from ancient to contemporary times. Part II of the Handbook is comprised of thematic chapters. While the survey chapters focus on particular religions and their teachings on economic morality, these thematic chapters concentrate on specific aspects of the marketplace and how religions differ or are similar in their views on these particular areas of socio-​economic life. Each thematic chapter focusses on two or more major world religions. The Handbook’s concluding chapter is an analytical synthesis that presents to readers the patterns that emerge from these survey and thematic chapters. Despite the wide differences in their historical context, beliefs, and practices, these religions converge in their teachings on economic morality. This is due to similarities in their respective cosmologies and anthropologies. Another pattern readers will discern is how these religious economic teachings are antithetical to contemporary economic thinking, policy, and market praxes. There is debate among scholars of religion on what constitutes ‘religion’. For this Handbook, we adopt the list from the PEW Research Center’s 2012 Global Religious Landscape. That survey finds that 84 per cent of the world’s population identify themselves with a particular religion. This Handbook covers nearly all the religions in the PEW report, and more. Although the Chinese do not categorize Confucianism as a religion, we include it in this Handbook because it has religious features, such as ancestor worship, belief in Heaven as the arbiter of rewards and punishment, and belief in a natural order that has objective normative requirements. We thank the contributors to this Handbook, Thomas Perridge (Commissioning Editor), Alexander Hardie-​Forsyth (Project Editor), the production and marketing staff of Oxford University Press, Barbara Ball for her copyediting, and Vigneswaran B of Newgen. We sincerely hope that this Handbook is a genuine contribution to the academe and to interreligious dialogue.

Contents

About the Contributors 

xi

PA RT I :   SU RV E Y C HA P T E R S A .   WOR L DW I DE R E L IG ION S Religions Arising In Asia 1. Hindu Economic Ethics  Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar

5

2. Jain Economic Ethics  Atul K. Shah

42

3. Buddhist Economic Ethics  Roy C. Amore

58

4. Sikh Economic Ethics  Pashaura Singh

88

5. Confucian Economic Ethics  Yong Huang

105

6. Daoist Economic Ethics  Rory O’Neill and Hans-​Georg Moeller

128

Religions Arising in the Middle East 7. Jewish Economic Ethics  Asher Meir

147

8. Christian Economic Ethics  Albino Barrera

181

viii   Contents

9. Islamic Economics  M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza

217

10. Bahá’í Economic Ethics  Hooshmand Badee

242

B.   R E G IONA L R E L IG ION S 11. Chinese Popular Religion and Economy  Mayfair Yang

263

12. Shinto Economic Ethics  Tomoko Iwasawa

283

13. Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy  Victoria Grieves Williams

301

14. Akan Traditional Religion and Economic Ethics  Rose Mary Amenga-​Etego

317

15. Aztec Religious Economic Ethics  Richard E. Blanton

333

16. Native American Spirituality and Economic Ethics  Joseph Scott Gladstone

349

PA RT I I :   T H E M AT IC C HA P T E R S A .   BU SI N E S S A N D P U B L IC P OL IC Y T H E M E S 17. Religion and Finance  Ahmad Kaleem and Saima Ahmad

369

18. Religion and Business Ethics  Edmund Newell

387

19. Religion and Non-​Capitalist Market Analysis  Ulrich Duchrow

405

20. Religion and Work  K. Praveen Parboteeah and Sahrok Kim

425

Contents   ix

21. Religion and Economic Cooperation and Competition  Katalin Botos

443

22. Religion and Basic Goods Provision  Kenneth A. Reinert

459

23. Religion and Agriculture  Todd LeVasseur

476

24. Religion and Development Work  Matthew Clarke

497

B.   S O C IA L T H E M E S 25. Religion and Altruism  Bruce Chilton

513

26. Religion and Consumerism  David Cloutier

531

27. Religion and Sociology of Wealth Accumulation  Anna Holleman and Lisa A. Keister

548

28. Religion and Ecological Economic Ethics  Sarah J. Melcher

562

29. Religion and Poverty  Jaco Beyers

579

30. Religion and Inequality  Richard Madsen and William M. Sullivan

596

31. Religion and Feminist Economic Ethics  Sumaia A. Al-​Kohlani

613

32. Religion and Socio-​Economic Injustice  Mehmet Ciftci

629

33. Religion and Socialism  Joerg Rieger and Aaron Stauffer

643

34. Analytical Synthesis: Religion and Economic Ethics  Albino Barrera

659

Index

715

Contributors

Saima Ahmad is Lecturer in Business at the Graduate School of Business and Law (GSBL), RMIT University. She is an award-​winning researcher and the author of journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters. Sumaia A. Al-​Kohlani is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government and Society at the United Arab Emirates University. Her research interests revolve around women’s issues. Rose Mary Amenga-​Etego is Head of the Religious Studies Department, University of Ghana, and is a Research Fellow of the Research Institute for Theology and Religion, UNISA. Her books on religion and economics in Ghana include Mending the Broken Pieces: Indigenous Religion and Sustainable Development in Northern Ghana. Roy C. Amore is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. His books include Religion and Politics in the World’s Hot Spots and three co-​edited Oxford University Press textbooks on world religions. Hooshmand Badee is an academic economist specializing in Baháʼí studies on spiritual economics. His many publications include Economics and the Bahá’í Faith. Albino Barrera is Professor of Economics and Theology at Providence College, RI. His books include Biblical Economic Ethics, Market Complicity and Christian Ethics, Globalization and Economic Ethics, Economic Compulsion and Christian Ethics, and God and the Evil of Scarcity. Jaco Beyers is Associate Professor in Science of Religion and programme manager for Religion Studies at the University of Pretoria. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Vienna and University of Porto. Richard E. Blanton is Professor Emeritus at Purdue University whose work focuses on pre-​Hispanic Mesoamerica. He co-​authored How Humans Cooperate: Confronting the Challenges of Collective Action (2016). Katalin Botos is Professor Emerita of Szeged University, Hungary. Her book publications include the Hungarian title, Keresztény gazdaság —​globális világgazdaság Kairosz kiadó [Christian economics—​global world economy]. Bruce Chilton is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bard College in New York. His numerous books include A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible and Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography.

xii   Contributors Mehmet Ciftci is the Public Bioethics Fellow at the Anscombe Centre, Oxford. He holds a DPhil in political theology from the University of Oxford. Matthew Clarke is Alfred Deakin Professor and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Australia. He has written widely on the intersection of religion and development. David Cloutier is Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. His publications include The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age. Satish Y. Deodhar is Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. He has authored Day to Day Economics and Economic Sutra: Ancient Indian Antecedents to Economic Thought. Ulrich Duchrow is Professor of Economics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has published numerous books, and is co-​founder of Kairos Europa, an ecumenical grass-​roots network striving for economic and ecological justice. Joseph Scott Gladstone, Associate Professor of Management at Washington State University, is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and a Nez Perce tribal descendant. He works on Native American and Indigenous cultural values. M. Kabir Hassan is Hancock Whitney Chair Professor in Economics at the University of New Orleans, and the 2016 Winner of the Islamic Development Bank Prize in Islamic Banking and Finance. Anna Holleman is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Duke Global Health Institute and Department of Sociology at Duke University. Her work explores how religious institutions both shape and are shaped by societal stratification. Yong Huang is Professor of Philosophy at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His main areas of research interests include ethics, political philosophy, and Chinese philosophy. Tomoko Iwasawa is Professor of Comparative Religion at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan. Her many publications include ‘Philosophical Implications of Shinto’ in The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy (2019). Ahmad Kaleem completed his PhD degree in Islamic Finance. He co-​authored Religion and Finance: Comparing the Approaches of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which is among the few comprehensive studies comparing faith-​based financing. Lisa A. Keister is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She has authored Faith and Money and Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender. Sahrok Kim is Assistant Professor of Management at California State University, Stanislaus. His research interests include the effects of cultural values on managerial outcomes.

Contributors   xiii Todd LeVasseur is a Senior Instructor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC. For 2022–​2024, he was a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies at Yale National University Singapore College in Singapore. Richard Madsen is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, San Diego. His numerous books include Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan. Asher Meir is a rabbi who has authored two books on Jewish ethics, Meaning in Mitzvot and The Jewish Ethicist as well as numerous articles. He is also an economist who serves as the Director of Economic Research at the Kohelet Policy Forum. Sarah J. Melcher is Professor Emerita of Hebrew Scriptures, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. She published World Religions and the Environment in 2018. Hans-​Georg Moeller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Macau. His research focuses on Chinese and Post-​Comparative Philosophy and on Social and Political Thought. Aishath Muneeza is Associate Professor at INCEIF and is considered to be the founder of Islamic finance in the Maldives. She was a former Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Ministry of Finance and Treasury of the Maldives. Edmund Newell is an economic historian, an Anglican priest, and Chief Executive of the educational charity Cumberland Lodge. He co-​authored Ethics in Investment Banking. He was formerly a member of the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. Rory O’Neill is a PhD candidate in Chinese Philosophy at East China Normal University, Shanghai. His research focuses on Daoist Legalist philosophy and competing interpretations of Daoist economics. K. Praveen Parboteeah is the inaugural COBE Distinguished Professor and Director of the Doctor of Business Administration program at the University of Wisconsin-​ Whitewater. His books include Multinational Management and Business Ethics. Kenneth A. Reinert is Professor of Public Policy in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He works in the areas of international economics, development policy, and economic ethics. Joerg Rieger is Distinguished Professor of Theology, Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair in Wesleyan Studies at Vanderbilt University. He is the author and editor of twenty-​two books and over 150 scholarly articles. Atul K. Shah is Professor of Accounting and Finance at City University of London and is co-​author of Jainism and Ethical Finance. He founded the Young Jains global movement and is the founding editor of Jain Spirit international magazine.

xiv   Contributors Pashaura Singh is Professor and J. S. Saini Endowed Chair in Sikh Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. His numerous publications include The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. Aaron Stauffer is the Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He works with the Wendland-​Cook Program in Religion and Justice and is the Interim Director of Lifelong Learning at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. William M. Sullivan, co-​author of Habits of the Heart, was senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, and currently at the New American Colleges and Universities. Hrishikesh D. Vinod is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy at Fordham University, NY. He is the editor of Handbook of Hindu Economics and Business and has many publications on quantitative methods. Victoria Grieves Williams is an Aboriginal Australian historian and adjunct Professor in the College of Design and Social Context at the RMIT University in Melbourne, Victoria. She works in interdisciplinary ways to progress the development of Indigenous knowledges in Australia. Mayfair Yang is Professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in the Anthropology of Religion, Modernity and the State; China Studies; and Gender and Media Studies.

Pa rt I

SU RV E Y C HA P T E R S

A.  Worldwide Religions

REL IGIONS Arisi ng i n Asia

Chapter 1

Hin du Ec onomi c Et h i c s hrishikesh d. vinod and satish y. deodhar

Introductory: Overview of Hinduism In the multi-​millennial history of the Indian subcontinent, there has been a continuous existence of religious thought, customs, and practices. The terms Hindu and Hinduism in themselves are of relatively recent origin. The presence of a thriving social and economic life in India’s Sarasvati-​Sindu civilization, also known as the Indus or Harappa civilization, dates back at least to 3500 bce. It had flourished along and in between the now extinct Sarasvati River (Danino, 2010) and the existing Sindhu (Indus) River, which covered the present-​day regions of the Indian subcontinent, including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Sindh, and parts of Afghanistan. Large numbers of seals excavated in this archaeological region were found attached to jars, baskets, and other types of containers which are the earliest known examples of brands and trademarks of goods shipped to the Persian Gulf and beyond (Moore and Reid, 2008). Indigo, tamarind wood, and other Indian products are also found in the Egyptian tombs, which show India’s pre-​existing trade relations with the land of the Pharaohs (Wilkinson, 1994, p. 237). A sense of continuity in the civilizational timeline from the Sarasvati–​Sindhu culture into the Vedic period shows up in many ways. Tablets and seals depicting engravings of auspicious signs and pictures such as the swastika, sacred banyan and peepal trees, elephants, humped sacred bulls, and yogis seated in padmāsana position are common both to the Sarasvati–​Sindu civilization as also the Vedic period (Kenoyer, 1998, p. 112; Avari, 2016, p. 58). A bust found in the Sarasvati–​Sindhu site of a ‘priest king’ has a cloak with a trefoil design over the left shoulder, which is much like the one worn by Indian monks (Robinson, 2016). Individual fire altars with ash, an apsidal temple with fire altar, and burial of urns containing ashes of the dead are found in the Sarasvati–​Sindhu civilization (Shinde et al., 2018). Moreover, the dockyard found in Lothal, Gujarat, indicates that thriving cotton exports supported their urban economy (Joshi, 2008). In

6    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar the post-​Sarasvati–​Sindhu period too, ritual fire altars, cremation, cotton-​growing, and maritime trade and commerce were quite common. Importantly, from the Vedic period, Hymn 75, Book X of the Rig-​Veda (Griffiths, 1886) which is also known as the Nadistuti Sukta (a hymn in praise of river), refers to both the Sarasvati River and Sindhu River. If Sarasvati and Sindhu are mentioned in the Vedas, later, in Book IX of Mahabharata (Ganguli, 1896), one finds a discussion between Sage Vaishampayana and King Janamejaya about the disappearance and change of course of the Sarasvati River. Vedas were created as a part of oral tradition by the second millennium bce and were formally written down by the first millennium bce in the ancient Sanskrit language. The word Sindhu means a mighty river in Sanskrit, and Nadistuti Sukta describes the Sindhu River in masculine terms as the ‘mightiest of all, rushing down like a thundering bull’. Hindu epics like Mahābharata and Vishnu Purana refer to the Indian subcontinent as Bhāratavarsha (Bhārata-​Varsha) after King Bharata’s reign over a large geographic region between the Himalayas in the north and the ocean in the south. The name Hindu for the inhabitants of Bhāratvarsha was given by foreign traders and invaders sometime after 600 ce. The Persians referred to the River Sindhu as Hindu. Greeks and Romans referred to it as Indos, and finally, the British called it Indus. Analogously, those living around and beyond the Sindhu River, therefore, were referred to as Hindus, Hindi, or Indians, respectively. The subcontinent was being referred to as Hind, Hindustan, or India, and their faith, in modern terminology, Hinduism. From the Sarasvati–​Sindhu civilization and up until now, Bhāratvarsha or the Indian subcontinent has experienced a more or less continuous and uninterrupted existence of social, religious, and economic life, a phenomenon that finds few parallels elsewhere. It has also had a significant share of the world population and gross domestic product (GDP) over millennia. While the world population was about a hundred million in 1000 bce, three-​fifths of it lived in Asia, with an overwhelming number in the Indian subcontinent. Works by Angus Maddison (2003), Gita Dharampal (2000), and Kanagasabapathi (2012) show that by the first millennium ce, India’s GDP had acquired at least a third and close to half of the total world GDP. The Golden Age of Hindu India was during the Gupta dynasty circa the sixth century. From thereon, India witnessed invasions by the Huns, the barbarian hordes from Central Asia. They ransacked and destroyed Takshashila, a thriving ancient university in the north-​western part of India, where international students would also come to study (Marshall, 1918, pp. 17–​18). By the beginning of the second millennium ce, many other universities, including the famous Nalanda university in the present-​day state of Bihar, were burned down by the invaders (Ambedkar, 2014, p. 232). From there on, precious Hindu literature was lost, and many Sanskrit texts went into oblivion. And the decline continued with the subsequent conquests over the centuries and the capture of the Indian polity by the British in the nineteenth century. British and German Indophiles developed an interest in the vast ancient Hindu literature during the British Raj. An appreciation for the literature increased after India’s independence in 1947. Today, Hinduism is one of the major religions of the world, with

Hindu Economic Ethics    7 more than a billion Hindus living primarily in the Indian subcontinent. As per the Pew Research Centre (2015), the estimated current population of Hindus is 1,161,440,000, accounting for 15.2 per cent of the world population. Of the total number of Hindus, 1,093,780,000 reside in India alone, amounting to 94.2 per cent of the Hindus worldwide. In terms of country-​specific populations, about 80 per cent of the people of India and Nepal are Hindu, followed by Mauritius (48.4%), Fiji (27.9%), Guyana (23.3%), Bhutan (22.5%), Trinidad and Tobago (22.3%), and Surinam (18.8%). In absolute numbers, if Mauritius has 640,000 Hindus, the numbers for the US and UK are 2.51 million and 1.03 million, amounting to 0.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent of their population, respectively. Having given the civilizational backdrop of the faith, its broad historical contours, present nomenclature, and the strength and distribution of its adherents across the world, we will discuss the basic tenets of Hinduism, including its relation to fundamental human nature, the absence of a founder personality, and the five tiers of Hindu gods, followed by an exposition of Karma theory and the Hindu idea of liberation, a few features of Hinduism as visible to the non-​Hindus, including the greeting Namaste, yoga, and a few illustrative narrations from Puranas. We describe sixteen categories related to ethical economic life, including the varna system of occupational classification, caste system of social classification, and social welfare. We discuss the evolution of Hindu ethical and socio-​economic thought through three time periods (i) pre-​Kautilya, (ii) Kautilya to the Industrial Revolution, and (iii) the modern times. We end with final remarks followed by our bibliography.

Tenets of Hinduism The earliest articulation of sacred values by ancient Indians is found in the Vedas. The Vedas were created as a part of oral tradition in the Sanskrit language at least four millennia ago and formally written down a millennium later.1 Vedic Indians understood themselves as belonging to the tradition of sanātana dharma. The term sanātana means permanent or eternal. Dharma, for want of a better English word, gets loosely translated as ‘religion’. However, the term dharma originates from the Sanskrit root word dhra, which means to sustain, to hold together, and focuses on duties. Sanātana dharma implies a body of thought and precepts consistent with the natural world and human nature, designed to preserve human society together by enforcing self-​evident ethical laws within a larger cosmic order. Sanātana dharma or Hinduism prescribes that everyone should follow his or her duties. A distinguishing feature of Hinduism is the belief that 1  . According to Vedveer Arya (2015) newer archaeological, astronomical, and other evidence indicate

that Hindu texts are a lot older. In fact, he also refers to earlier works by Hermann Jacobi (1909) and Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1893) which date Rig-​Veda to a period not later than 4500 bce. Raj Vedam (2018) considers the antiquity of Ayurved. Srini Kalyanaraman (2021) describes the antiquity of the Mahabharata war. Steele (2003) comments on the use of astronomy for dating.

8    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar the soul is immortal or immutable and transmigrates from the body after death. The souls of those individuals who lead an utterly dharmic life and achieve moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death) join the one true god. We turn to the description of god next.

About the Founder(s) of Hinduism Ancient Indian Sanskrit literature can be divided into two—​Shruti and Smriti. Shruti means that which was revealed to and heard by the Vedic sages and shared with others later. Smriti, on the other hand, are texts written by knowledgeable men and women giving interpretations of Vedic texts and rules of behaviour. The knowledge revealed, heard, and shared with others by the sages is contained in the Shruti literature, such as the Vedas. If we must name a founder of Hinduism, he or she would have to be the unknown Vedic sage (or sages) who wrote the following mahā vākya (a great profound statement) from the Rig-​Veda (Griffith, 1896)—​“Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti” (1:164:46).2 The statement means that ‘there is only one truth though the wise describe it in various ways’. As faithful followers of sanātan dharma, the un-​named founding sages of Hinduism were called rishis in Sanskrit. Rishis (seers) would be a collective term for a group of sages who wanted to avoid a personality cult. They did not claim any supernatural knowledge, except to say that they only heard (shruti) the great statement uttered by the true god, similar to the other statements in Rig-​Veda and the other sacred texts. Thus, the founding sages of Hinduism were merely following their duty or dharma as humble and selfless teachers and devotees, not seeking any personal fame or glory. Therefore, the sacred Shruti literature of the Rishis and the faith originating from the literature is apaurusheya—​that is, the knowledge revealed is impersonal, not founded by any mortals. Of course, the Vedas were composed by rishis who expressed the revealed knowledge into shabda (words). However, the shabda were composed of Sanskrit phonemes, where the rules behind the combination of phonemes were divinely predetermined.

Five Tiers of Divinity The layers of divinity in Hinduism can be viewed through five tiers. All creation in samsara or life has three unique attributes or properties called gunas in Sanskrit. The Satva guna means goodness, Rajas guna means ambition and achievement through action,

2  We have followed the notation (book:chapter:verse) to give a specific reference from any of the ancient treatises. In Sanskrit, a book is variously referred to as a kanda, parva, or adhikarana; a chapter is referred to as an adhaya or a hymn; and a verse is referred to as a shloka.

Hindu Economic Ethics    9 and Tamas guna means sloth, ignorance, and evil. Human beings are expected to strive to achieve the greatest possible proportion of Satva guna for spiritual growth. Hinduism does not have the concept of the Devil per se. Hindu rishis imagined that no one is evil all the time. Of course, they recognized that evil persons are an embodiment of too much of Tamas guna. Ancient texts called such entities by the name rakshasa, allowing for the possibility that they too may have a small proportion of good Satva guna and Rajas guna. This concept of gunas also establishes the contours of the divine hierarchy. At a philosophical level, the Vedic scriptures define one true god for followers of sanātana dharma (i.e. Hindus) through four Sanskrit characterizations, namely: (i) sat: that which is always true, (ii) chit: that which has a universal consciousness, (iii) ānand: that which is eternal bliss, and (iv) brahman: that which is the creative principle behind all cosmic manifestations. The top tier or Tier-​1 god of Hindus is called Parameshwar in Sanskrit, where Param means supreme, and Ishwar means the true god. Hence literally speaking, Hindu Tier-​1 Supreme god is represented by sat-​chit-​anand-​brahman. The true god is intangible, devoid of any shape, form, name, actions, movements, attachments, pride, likes or dislikes, ambition, decay, growth, beginning, and end. And, importantly, the true god is also completely devoid of the three unique attributes or properties, that is gunas—​Satva, Rajas, and Tamas. Therefore, Tier-​1 god is Nirguna, where the prefix Nir means ‘missing’. All other lower-​tier gods, as described in what follows, have specific forms and gunas. There are thousands of revered texts in Hinduism, but no single holy Bible-​type book. One of the most respected Hindu books is Gita, a Sanskrit song from an epic named ‘Mahabharata’. In India, the British Raj started using Gita in place of the Christian Bible or Muslim Quran when administering oaths in a court of law. The basic knowledge from the Vedas is elaborated upon in the Upanishads. The Gita further distils the message of the Upanishads into a singable (rhyming with alliterations) and somewhat easy-​to​remember song. However, Gita too is pretty long, with 700 Sanskrit shlokas (or verses) divided into eighteen chapters. Modern-​day Hindus may find it difficult to understand, but then there are thousands of commentaries on the Gita in all Indian and many European languages. Since each author provides a distinct emphasis, Hindus do not expect any dogmatic view of its message. The main message of the Vedas was delivered to common folks without specialized training through the Itihasa literature. For example, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the Puranas were written with the specific intention of making the essence of Vedic knowledge accessible to the uninitiated. Itihasa (Iti-​ha-​asa) means an elaboration and expansion of historical happenings, and Puranas (Pura-​api-​nava) means old narratives being newly told to pass on the message. It is through these texts that the hierarchy of divinity from Parameshwar down to animals is laid out.

10    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar David Brooks (2021) quotes the eighteenth-​century economist David Hume who emphasized the importance of stories in any culture. The people must be taught to feel the proper kind of outrage at injustice, proper reverence, civic pride, and affection. This cultural knowledge is conveyed not through facts but emotional experiences—​stories. Homer taught the ancient Greeks how to perceive their reality. Exodus teaches the Jews how to interpret their struggles and their journey. Brookes opines that great nations thrive by constantly refreshing two great reservoirs of knowledge. The first is propositional knowledge based on reason and logic. The second is the cultural knowledge based on prolonged conflicts that bind people together; and illustrates who they were, how they got there, and what they found admirable and dishonourable. Puranas and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have preserved such narratives of Hindu culture and ethics over the millennia. Importantly, modern-​day Hindus can relate to the continuity of the narration through quite a few geographic anchors of the Indian subcontinent referenced therein. The Mahabharata refers to Afghanistan as Gandhara (Kandahar) and also mentions Krishna’s capital city, Dwarka, recently found by archaeologists as a huge, submerged city on the west coast near Gujarat state. The region near the modern Assam state was the Kingdom of Kamrup, also known as Pragjotisha. Mahabharata names north-​eastern King Bhagadatta as an opponent of the Pandavas. Ramayana mentions the island nation of Sri Lanka as the Kingdom of Ravana. Almost one-​to-​one correspondence between ancient locations and parts of the Indian subcontinent attests to the historical reality of Hindu epics, Brockington (1998). Although there is only one parameshwar, there are quite a few Tier-​2 Hindu deities. The gods and goddesses, narrated in the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas, possess the three gunas listed earlier, and hence they are called saguna gods. Each god has mostly, say 99.9 per cent, satva or goodness, very little, say 0.05 per cent, rajas or ambition, and very little, say 0.05 per cent, tamas or anger. Since it is impractical for most folks to worship a form-​free Tier 1 god, Hindus worship many saguna gods with specific shapes or sākār because they are attracted by the special forms, powers, and qualities of different gods. Since the Hindu trinity of Brahmadev (creator), Vishnu (sustainer), and Shiva (controller) are all saguna and sākār, they are a tier below Sat-​Chit-​Anand-​ Brahma. Whenever humans stop behaving according to the precepts of dharma and fail to do their duties (dharmasya glāni bhavati), Hindus believe that Lord Vishnu is born as an Avatar to set things right on Earth. Rama and Krishna are two Avatars deserving special mention. Lord Rama, the protagonist of the epic Ramayana, specializes in three qualities, ‘Eak vāni, Eak patni, Eak bāni’: (i) Rama always keeps his promises or is a man of his word; (ii) Rama believes in monogamy having only one wife, Sita; and (iii) Rama is highly skilled in all his endeavours, illustrated by needing only one arrow to reach his target. Lord Rama is saguna with some human limitations, but is close to being an ideal human. The other protagonist from the epic Mahabharata, the saguna deity Krishna is considered ‘poorn āvtār’, meaning a self-​complete reincarnation of Vishnu. Krishna possesses all the qualities needed by a human being for ethical living on this Earth. The

Hindu Economic Ethics    11 life of Lord Krishna goes beyond Rama’s three qualities and includes (i) rasam or embodiment of life’s enjoyments; (ii) a strategist, as a military advisor to Arjuna during the great Kurukshetra war described in Gita, where he shows how to make appropriate compromises; and (iii) a shrewd negotiator who occasionally uses cunning to defeat evil and achieve the greater good for all. Another important appeal of Lord Krishna is that he responds positively to a devotee’s loving worship (Bhakti). When a Hindu prays for god’s help in life’s daily struggles, he/​she may prioritize his problems. The choice of god or goddess depends on the personification of their specific strengths. For example, if a person faces unknown generic obstacles, the god specializing in removing obstacles (Vighna Hartā) is Ganesh, with the elephant face representing memory and wisdom. Thus, even though Hinduism believes in only one Tier-​1 true god, it admits specialization between various divine tasks, allowing Hindus to worship a particular saguna god for providing (giving) solutions. Two commonly used Sanskrit words for saguna god are Deva (literally a divine giver, based on his mastery over something) and Bhagwan (meaning able to change someone’s Bhagya or fate). The female goddesses are called Devi and Bagawati. A mundane way to understand the Hindu plurality of saguna gods is that they are like medical specialists. Just as we need many medical specialists for different diseases, at different times, and in different circumstances, Hinduism has allowed people to conjure different Tier-​2 gods who respond to human prayers. For example, if a farmer is worried about drought, he can pray to Varuna Dev, the master of water or rain. The master of knowledge is Devi Saraswati, and the master of wealth is Devi Laxmi. Arthur Macdonell (1898) notes that the god of death named Yama was the first mortal who died. The Sanskrit word Yama means to control, entirely necessary for ecological balance. The Lord Shankar of the Hindu trinity (mentioned above as belonging to Tier 2) is also the Lord of balancing control, who likes performing arts, including dance and music, albeit at a cosmic level. Next in the hierarchy of divinity below saguna gods, the Tier-​3 gods, are all great human beings or saints and learned preachers or rishis. Most saints have written their ideas about what is the true nature of god and how to reach that god. These ideas have been debated freely in India for millennia. The Hindu precepts for proper behaviour have evolved through the teachings of great rishis and saints, including Valmiki, Vyās, Patanjali, Kautilya, Charvaka, Manu, Thiruvalluvar, Shankaracharya, Madhavacharya, Dnyneshwar, Guru Nanak, Tulsidas, Ramdas, Kabeer, Meerabai, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Vivekanand, and Gandhi among many others, all respected if not revered by a great many Hindus. The Tier 4 in the divinity hierarchy are ordinary parents and teachers. There is divinity in ordinary people willing and able to provide something of value to another needy person. For example, annadātā means a person who provides food. Hindus see divinity in everyone and everywhere and hence must respect all. Finally, in the Tier 5, Hindus accept divinity in animals and trees who selflessly give us something. For example, Hindus are encouraged to see divinity in cows, mimic their good nature (sātvik disposition), and non-​violent selflessness. Hindu sages understood the ecological role and importance of various creatures, including flora and fauna, and the preservation of natural habitats. Therefore, Hindus are encouraged

12    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar to honour even violent animals such as tigers and snakes. An ancient story of one king attempting to kill all snakes out of existence caused the rodent population to increase and destroy human food, an ecological disaster for an agricultural civilization. Thus, observing divinity in the natural world promotes an ecologically sustainable lifestyle for human beings. Hindu reverence for all biological species (recognizing their role in maintaining balance in nature) emanates from Hindus imagining Tier-​5 divinity in them. Hindu cultural and religious narratives instil a reverence for the preservation of nature. For example, trees such as Peepal (Ficus Religiosa) are revered because they last for many centuries, provide shade, attract rains, and prevent land erosion. The five-​tier divinity is also a reflection of the narration of evolution of life on Earth conveyed through the ten Avatars (incarnations) of Vishnu. Modern science suggests that life on Earth began in a primordial soup, and various living creatures evolved over millions of years by the Darwinian principles of (a) natural selection and (b) survival of the fittest. Hindu Purānas state that the god Vishnu (Narayan) takes ten Avatars. In the Hindu narration of creation, the forms of Avatars chosen in these Purānas for describing god’s sequential reincarnations are surprisingly close to the modern understanding of Darwinian evolution. Whenever there has been total anarchy on Earth, god has reincarnated to restore order by taking different life forms. The first five Avatars begin with aquatic life-​form (Matsya or Fish) followed by amphibious (Kurma or turtle), animal (Varaha or Boar), half-​animal-​half-​man (Narsinha or Man-​Lion), and Young Man (Vāmana or a Young Bachelor). The rest of the five Avatars are adult humans with godly qualities—​Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki (yet to come). Since life on Earth evolves while Tier-​1 divinity manifests in lower tiers, Hinduism emphasizes the ethical treatment of all life forms. Hence, Hindu economic ethics requires minimal harm to the natural order. See Vinod (2013a) for references.

The Karma Theory The Karma theory as the divine enforcer of morality has a profound effect on Hindu economic life and ethics. The word ‘karma’ in the English language is borrowed from Sanskrit. Karma theory says that ‘we reap what we sow’. It is central to the Hindu reward system under the infinite Tier-​1 god based on the moral principle of cause and effect of all human actions. The original meaning of the Sanskrit word karma is action. Like Newton’s third law of motion which posits that action and reaction are equal and opposite, Karma theory propounds something similar in the moral sphere of action and rewards. The approximate translation of sin in Sanskrit is Pāpa measuring the fruits of bad actions (demerits). On the other hand, the fruits of good actions are called Punya (merit). The Karma theory says that the almighty god will ensure that everyone must eventually experience fair rewards and punishments for both good and bad activities. The

Hindu Economic Ethics    13 accumulation of Pāpa and Punya up until the present birth is called Sanchita Karma. A part of the aggregate Sanchita of a person may materialize during the current lifetime, and it is called Prārabdha Karma. The stock that does not materialize during the current life will get enjoyed or suffered in future births (reincarnations). And, meanwhile, Karma (actions) of the present life will generate rewards (Pāp and Punya) that get added to the Sanchita Karma of the soul (Shah-​Kazemi, 2016, pp. 59–​60). The logic of Hindu beliefs in Karma and rebirth goes hand in hand. A modern description of Heisenberg’s 1933 quantum physics (Rovelli, 2021) calls it an ‘ephemeral, thin, and fragile veil’ needed for many things, including nuclear fusion that powers the Sun and mobile phone technology, to exist. Hindus believe that Tier-​1 god’s enforcement of Karma laws is similar. In Hinduism, therefore, there is no omnipotent dictatorial god who punishes you for your sins and that you must surrender to in order to get absolved. In fact, De Fouw and Svoboda, (2003, p. 25) give a very beautiful quote of Mahatma Gandhi in the context of Karma theory. Gandhi says, ‘After inventing the law of karma, God was able to retire.’ Thus, Karma theory, enforced by Parameshwar, holds one responsible for one’s actions, Vinod (2013b). An alternative to Karma theory states that there is only one life to live (no rebirths). In game-​theory parlance, life is a ‘one-​shot game’, where a person who commits sins all his/​her life but surrenders to god wins the pay-​off (is saved). And, there is no pay-​off (soul not saved) to a person who did good deeds all his/​her life but failed to surrender to god. Karma theory, on the other hand, posits that human life is more like a fair ‘dynamic game’, where moral rules of actions and rewards play out over an infinite (multiple) period game. If Sanchita is a stock concept, Prārabdha and Karma are flow concepts. Prārabdha is a pay-​off in the current life partly from the stock one has generated through previous births and partly from current actions. One may wonder that if bad things keep happening to do-​gooders, what is the incentive to keep doing good things in life? Part of the answer is that occurrence of bad things may be the result of wrong deeds in the previous births; and, importantly, the other part of the answer is that the game of life retains an incentive for continued good behaviour, for one would like to seek rewards in future lives if not necessarily in the remaining current life. In this context, consider the ‘moral hazard’ problem from the economics literature where the principal (employer) cannot monitor all actions of his agents (employees) in real-​time, period after period. Hence, agents may shirk from work. A solution to this moral hazard problem is to adopt a scheme of higher wages for efficient work coupled with a threat of retrenchment for inefficient workers. Raising the opportunity cost of shirking minimizes shirking without a need for regular monitoring. Similarly, although Parameshwar does not monitor everyone’s every good or bad action, it has set the Karma scheme in operation. Good deeds add merit (Punya) to the stock of Sanchita Karma to be enjoyed in the remaining present life or future lives. Therefore, there is no reason to engage in bad deeds (even if one has been treated unfairly), for if one ‘shirks’, the opportunity cost is high in one’s remaining life or in future lives.

14    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar

Concept of Swarga (Heaven) and Moksha (Liberation) Innately linked to the Karma principle and the cycle of birth and death is the idea of Swarga (Heaven) and Moksha (Liberation). In Hinduism, Swarga is a place in the cosmos similar to the Earth where all bodily desires are readily and automatically fulfilled. It is a place where most deities reside. However, going to Swarga is a temporary reward given to humans for their good deeds. When their stock of good deeds is exhausted, humans are required to return to the Earth and join the ongoing eternal cycle of new birth and death. Moksha, on the other hand, is eternal. Hindus are encouraged to seek Moksha or ultimate freedom from having to experience endless cycles of birth and death through engaging in lifelong good Karma. True freedom for Jeevātmā or the individual soul means reaching or being one with the infinite divinity of Paramātmā or Sat-​Chit-​Anand-​Brahma. Adi Shankaracharya, in his treatise Vivekachoodamani (Verses 137–​142), explains moksha. Verse 137 of the treatise has a beautiful example of a silkworm whose saliva yields fine threads used to build a strong cocoon around itself. Unfortunately, that cocoon becomes its prison, and it is unable to free itself from it. The bodily desires of humans are like the self-​built cocoon prison. Human desires make endless demands, preventing us from freeing ourselves. The false notion that ‘I am the body’ prevents our achievement of true freedom of moksha. Our true self is already one with the Sat-​Chit-​ Anand-​Brahma. We have to remove the ignorant distinction between the true self and parameshwar. Verse 138 warns that just as it is dangerous to carry a poisonous snake as a harmless rope on one’s shoulder, it is fatal to be carried away by bodily demands. Verses 140 and 142 respectively describe how the constant pursuit of power through ambition (rajas) and ego (swayam) are like clouds preventing us from seeing the Sun and achieving true freedom. However, Hindus may choose Swarga, not moksha. They can worship precisely the way they want. There is no requirement to go to the temple or pray in a certain way on certain days with ascetic yoga, meditation, rituals, etc.

Features of Hinduism Visible to Non-​Hindus Consider the logic behind a few visible features of Hinduism, including the greeting, Puranic allegories, absence of blasphemy, cafeteria of faiths, yoga, and the Hindu medicine Ayurveda.

Namasté Greeting versus Handshake A familiar Hindu gesture that non-​Hindus notice is greeting others by folding one’s hands together and saying Namaste. The literal meaning of Namaste is that I am bowing

Hindu Economic Ethics    15 (namaha) to the true infinite divinity residing in you (tay), or Sat-​Chit-​Anand-​Brahma. Namasté may appear similar to a handshake. Extending empty right hands to strangers could show that the meeting parties were not holding weapons and had no ill intentions. The forceful up-​and-​down motion of a handshake ensured that if there were any hidden daggers, knives, or pistols up the sleeve, they might get dislodged. The Covid pandemic revealed the ill effects of touching each other’s hands, even with friendly intentions, by spreading infectious diseases, National Geographic (2020). Namaste is a safer and friendlier alternative.

Many Allegories and No Blasphemy To convey the essence of Vedic literature, the Itihasa and Puranas weave elaborate narrations around the dharma principles. Many stories end with an explicit take-​home message called tātparya. Rather than focusing on occasional contradictions, readers should view them as allegories and educational material for the masses, including children. The rishis who authored them have crafted the stories to hold the interest of the uninitiated, both adults and children. For example, there is an interesting narration about Churning of the Cosmos to extract Amrit (Elixir/​Nectar). Celebrated Muslim novelist Salman Rushdie (2021) recalls that as a boy growing up in Mumbai, India, he was inspired by the Hindu narration called Samudra Manthan. In the Vishnu Purāna, there is a narration about the magical nectar of immortality called Amrut getting extracted through the churning of the cosmos. A version of the story in children’s books describes gods churning the broad white strip of stars (Milky Way galaxy, visible to the naked eye in the Bombay night sky of Rushdie’s childhood). Gods used a mountain named Mandara as the churning rod. Rushdie states: ‘I imagined the rod dripping with magic nectar. Maybe if I opened my mouth, a drop might fall in, and then I would be immortal too.’ Rushdie notes that humans can be judged by the stories they love. He further says that readers should focus on the ‘profound truth’ in such narrations. In the above-​ narrated allegory, since the (Tier-​2 saguna) gods were not strong enough to perform cosmic churning, they needed help from their traditional opponents called Dānavas. In addition to the magic nectar, the cosmic churn yielded precious stones, the goddess of wealth, Laxmi, as well as the deadly poison called Halāhal. Some profound messages behind the story are: (i) one needs extraordinary effort, even cooperation with traditional enemies to achieve great rewards, and (ii) one should expect that some bad may accompany the good. It is well known that India is the only place where Jews were treated with proper respect and no persecution (WJC, 2021). Even Zoroastrians found the land of the Hindus a safe refuge to escape from the oppression in Persia. Hindus never used physical violence against those questioning the validity of karma and rebirth (blasphemy). An example of this is found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (circa 700 bce). A female sage, Maitreyi, debates over the issue of rebirth with sage Yadnyavalkya. She asks

16    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar Yadnyavalkya whether he denies rebirth when he says, ‘There is no consciousness after death.’ He explains that death removes ‘consciousness of the pulse’, but ‘transcendental consciousness’ lives on. Similarly, an ancient openly atheist sage named Charvak has a famous hedonistic quotation: Bhasmibhootasya dehasya punara gamanam kutah? rhun’am krutwā ghrutam pibet. It roughly translates as ‘a cremated body can never come back, (karma theory is false, therefore feel free to), borrow money and enjoy expensive food’. Hindus respected thoughtful dissent and settled differences by argument and not by the sword or allurement.

Cafeteria for Faiths Since Hindus do not accept only a particular reference book representing their faith, there is already no room for dogma. The Hindu god, sat-​chit-​ānand-​brahman, being without form, shape, or tangible qualities, is not describable within the confines of dogma. Infinite brahman has already endowed humans with a natural ability to distinguish right from wrong. The ancient rishis named this innate ethical sense, sanatan dharma, which means permanent principles behind everyone’s duties from one’s innate sense of right and wrong. Hinduism asks everyone to behave according to timeless moral principles. The Hindu code of conduct incorporates the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative or golden rule: ‘Treat others the way you wish to be treated.’ Scriptures ask Hindus to do their earthly duties consistent with that innate sense of dharma. The unnamed founder(s) of Hinduism seems to have fully expected that the practical meaning of right and wrong will evolve as humans adapt to the ever-​ changing natural world and physical circumstances of all creatures, individuals, and societies. Hence, they did not prescribe any dogma. There is complete freedom to choose the spiritual path one likes. One can compare a Hindu’s freedom of choice to the wide selection of dishes in a cafeteria. Similarly, Lord Chitragupta, who keeps track of all karma of everyone, can be imagined as using a supercomputer with open-​source software. Since Hindus are free to choose any Saguna god for praying, there are many sects under the broad umbrella of Hinduism. Two sects were prominent during the Middle Ages. Ardent Shaivaites are devotees of Shiva who wear three broad horizontal lines on their foreheads, and ardent Vaishnavaites are devotees of Vishnu who wear two U-​ shaped broad lines on their foreheads. While Bhagwat Purana (4.2.27 to 35) refers to a sage named Daksha who was very angry at Shiva and even cursed him, one seldom finds sectarian violence between these groups. There are many instances of mutual respect between Shaiva and Vaishnav adherents. For example, Lord Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu, had obtained the divine axe, ‘Parashu’, by praying to Shiva. Similarly, in Mahabharata, we have Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, reciting a thousand names of Shiva. Since Hinduism has a cafeteria approach to lower-​tier gods, and since there are so many common beliefs among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, many Hindus tend to treat these as sects of Hinduism or reform movements within

Hindu Economic Ethics    17 Hinduism. After all, Hindu saint Adi Shankaracharya asks Hindus to regard Gautam Buddha as a reincarnation of Vishnu. But, of course, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs may consider their faiths as independent of Hinduism.

Yoga Exercises A physically fit body is needed for spiritual growth. Sage Patanjali, who codified the yoga routines, meant the exercises to be done in a meditative mood. While doing exercise, the mind had to be focused on the part of the body being exercised or on one’s own breath. This prevents the mind from wandering into unhelpful distractions. Thousands of yoga studios worldwide and ubiquitous yoga mats are familiar almost everywhere. Recognizing the need for a seamless connection between mind and body, heart and soul, the United Nations (UN) has declared 21 June as the International Yoga Day. Yoga Day now gets celebrated throughout the world by holding mass yoga sessions to highlight the importance of yoga in our lives.

Ayurveda The discipline of ancient Hindu medicine is called Ayurveda. It takes a holistic approach to all diseases and tries to attack root causes and not the symptoms. The ancient Hindu system of health care ascribes Dosha or health problems to three fundamental sources called Vāt (Wind/​Air), Pitta (Bile), and Kapha (Phlegm). Ancient Indian medicines needed elaborate recipes, some of which used various minerals and herbs. Ancient health care, including surgery, was organized for various subgroups (children, women, elderly). Sushruta, considered the father of surgery, is referred to in the epic Mahabharata as one of the sons of the sage Vishwamitra. His treatise Sushruta Samhita gives details of many surgical instruments and surgical processes, including plastic surgery. Recently, a 1.2-​metre tall marble statue of Sushruta was installed in the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, Melbourne (RACS, 2018). Ayurveda doctors were interested in medical education, and Indian kings had chief medical officers called Rāj Vaidya responsible for health care planning and epidemic prevention.

The Hindu Concept of Ethical Economic Life Sixteen Categories) Hindu rishis before Kautilya had a comprehensive world view of economic activities and ethics in terms of (i) the canvas of knowledge (Vidyas) within which human life operates, (ii) the dimensions of their life objectives (Purusharthas), (iii) biological

18    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar stages or ways of their life (Ashramas), and (iv) the types of life occupations (Varnas). Interestingly, they had a four-​fold classification for each of these four aspects of life, giving us a detailed view of the evolving ethical and economic life divided into sixteen (four times four) categories.

Four Vidyas (Knowledge Types Relevant for Economic Life) The first knowledge type was Anwikshiki, or the philosophical sciences, both theistic and atheistic, which deal with logic, reason, and the inquiry of the inner soul (Vidyabhushan, 1921). The knowledge of Veda-​Trayi, or the first three Vedas that invoke the spiritual good was the second type. The third type of knowledge was Vārta, or the economic livelihood, which included agriculture, animal husbandry, trade and commerce, and banking. And, the fourth was Dandaniti, or political administration and enforcement. Note that (macroeconomic) management of economic life or Vārta was considered one of the four sciences in Kautilya’s treatise Arthashastra, written around 400 bce. Shankar Abhyankar (2013) highlights the positive role of entrepreneurial ego in creating wealth extant in Hindu literature.

Four Purusharthas as Facets of Utility Standard neoclassical economics describes utility maximization as a unidimensional objective of life. The arguments of the utility function may be many in terms of consumption of material goods and services, but the resultant maximized utility or satisfaction is unidimensional. However, recent advances in the behavioural economics literature imply that human well-​being, satisfaction, or happiness may be a multidimensional construct. In a Gallup study conducted in 150 countries representing diverse cultures and ethnicities, five dimensions emerged associated with overall human well-​being. These dimensions were related to career, social relations, financials, health, and community well-​being (Ghisellini and Chang, 2018). And often, these competing dimensions may lead to struggles in striking a balance among them and living one’s life to the fullest (Frank, 1999). Interestingly, the proto-​economic ponderings about the multidimensionality of well-​being had emerged in Hindu literature in ancient times. An individual’s well-​being was associated with a four-​fold classification of purusharthas or the life objectives—​namely, Dharma (Righteous Conduct), Artha (Material Prosperity), Kama (Pleasure and Love), and Moksha (Liberation). References to purushasrthas appear in Ramayana and Mahabharata written after the Rig-​ Veda. Sage Valmiki, the composer of Ramayana (IITK, 2020), informs readers very early in the epic that he would like to convey the merits of purusharthas through his narration of the life story of Rama (1.5.4). There are many examples. (1) When Prince Bharata goes to

Hindu Economic Ethics    19 meet his brother Rama in the forest to give the news of their father’s death, Rama advises Bharata not to overindulge in any one of the three purushārthas, namely dharma, artha, and kāma (2.100.62–​63, 73). (2) At the far end of the same epic, Kumbhakarna, the brother of the main villain Ravana, pleads to Ravana that one who follows the purushārthas appropriately would never face misfortunes in this world (6.63.9–​11). (3) Similarly, in the other epic, the Mahabharata, which covers the history of two warring cousin families, Kauravas and Pandawas, sage Vyasa, the narrator of the epic, mentions the four purushārthas in the very first book (1.56.33) and also in the last book (18.5.38).3

Dharmic Acts Go beyond Self-​Interest If Adam Smith reasoned that self-​interest leads to the common good, Ken Boulding (1981, p. 6) further added that benevolence could be considered as self-​interest. According to this logic, bequests and religious charity can be viewed as self-​interest. One gets higher satisfaction from the benefit accruing to offspring and the higher satisfaction during afterlife, respectively. Amartya Sen (1977, p. 322), however, says that by this logic, any action of an individual can be claimed as coming out of self-​interest. Bowie and Simon (1977, pp. 194–​195) also argue that if every benevolent act can be seen as coming out of self-​interest, then this linkage gets trivialized and suffers from tautology. While Hinduism endorses that the common good can emerge out of self-​interest, it nevertheless also emphasizes that dharmic or righteous actions go beyond self-​interest. Parents should take care of children not simply because they love them but because it is also parents’ moral duty to mould them into good human beings. One should pay income tax not out of fear of attracting government penalties on non-​payment but because that is the right thing to do. One should pay for charity not as a religious tax enforced by clergy but because helping others is borne out of moral principle. Sen (1977, pp. 326–​327) referred to such actions emanating from values and principles as the moral ‘commitment’ of an individual. Such commitments point to one’s preferences arising out of the dharmic tenets and not utility-​maximizing self-​interest. Thus, dharmic acts are not a ritualistic dogma imposed by religion but an innate personal value with economic consequences.

Four Ashramas of the Consumption Life-​Cycle Theory One attains the above purusharthas in a life cycle of four ashramas or stages. The four stages are—​ Brahmacharya (student life), Gruhastha (householder), 3 The fourth purushartha, moksha, is not separately discussed in Ramayana, Mahabharata, or Arthashastra. As discussed before, it is a metaphysical concept where the objective is to free one’s soul from the cycle of birth and death and unite with Parameshwar, the cosmic soul. A judicious conduct of the first three purusharthas may lead to moksha.

20    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar Vanaprastha (retired life), and Sanyās (renunciation). The Mahabharata makes frequent references to ashramas (Olivelle, 1993, p. 103). Typically, a student would lead a very spartan life while learning; a householder would earn wealth and enjoy the pleasures of family life; in retirement, one would live off the savings; and, finally, at a very old age, one would again lead a spartan life of renunciation. This Hindu classification is perhaps an early proto-​economic idea of the life-​c ycle hypothesis propounded by Modigliani in the 1950s.4 Kangle (1965, Part III) states that while one can always go through the biological sequencing of stages of life, one could also freely choose a particular way of life as ordained by a particular ashrama stage irrespective of age.

Varnas Conceived as Job Classifications The purusharthas are also conditioned by the four-​fold classification of Varnas or vocations. Varnas include brahmin (knowledge seeker), kshatriya (warrior/​politician), vaishya (trader/​businessman), and shudra (artisan/​cultivator/​serviceman). The job classifications emerged towards the last phase of the Rig-​Veda (Nadkarni, 2012) and were motivated by specialization and division of labour. Adam Smith (1776) states that the difference between a philosopher and a street porter arises from education, habits, and customs they develop (1.1). Hindu teachers (gurus) observed pupils staying with them 24/​7 for twelve years. Hence, gurus intimately knew each pupil’s knowledge, habits, talents, and shortcomings, thereby allowing them to suggest to each pupil his area of specialization. The Gita has a clear reference to what Varna means. In hymns 4.13 and 18.41–​18.44, Krishna says that he has created the four divisions of human society based on aptitude and vocation. His division of labour is based on their inherent qualities (guna–​karma), or aptitude and deeds. A discussion between sages Bharadwaj and Bhrigu in Book 12 of the Mahabharata (Smith, 2020) corroborates this view (12.188). Sage Bharadwaj tells Sage Bhrigu that all the four Varnas mingle together and could possess lust, wrath, fear, cupidity, grief, anxiety, hunger, and toil. They also cannot be distinguished from one another, for all emit sweat, urine, faeces, phlegm, bile, and blood. Though Parameshvar has created all humans as equal, different actions (karma) cause all differences. Buddha himself used ‘Brahmin’ to mean an able, earnest, and disciplined person (Nehru, 1946, p. 177). In his treatise Sutta Nipata, Buddha states, ‘No brahmin is such by birth, no outcast is such by birth. An outcast is such by his deeds, and a brahmin is such by his deeds’

4 

Modigliani’s hypothesis is about consumption smoothing over the life cycle, where a student may borrow money to study, keep earning enough during his productive age, and use savings during the retirement period (Deaton, 2005). Similarly, the ashrama system incorporated brahmachāri (student) living on alms; gruhastha (householder) making money and saving; and vānaprastha (retirement). Finally, sanyās meant relinquishing the material needs at the far end of life.

Hindu Economic Ethics    21 (Avari, 2016, p. 114).5 Brahmins belong to the Hindu four Varna groups. However, such statements by the Buddha may have inadvertently helped create a fifth Varna group of outcasts or untouchables, distinguished from outcast individual sinners.

Varna and Hindu Social Divisions (Jati/​Castes) Now, we consider the social classification of Hindu life related to Varnas in greater detail. Muir (1879, pp. 260–​264) and Daniélou (1993) confirm that in Mahabharata, actual conduct, qualities, and virtues determined one’s merit. Individuals within each Varna might deserve superior or inferior status based on individual actions. There is no evidence that Hindus regarded all persons of any particular caste as superior to all persons of another caste. Among many other sacred texts, Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in Gita, discussions in Mahabharata between the rishis Brigu and Bharadwaja, and the philosophical discussion in Vajrasuchi Upanishada (Deodhar, 2019, pp. 67–​74), show that the Guna-​Karma, that is, aptitude and deeds dictate a person’s Varna. India’s freedom fighter and author of the Indian constitution, Ambedkar, belonged to the caste of untouchables. Bhimrao Ambedkar (2014, Vol. 3, p. 287) acknowledged that Varna was not a hereditary concept, either in status or occupation. The law of just rewards for all karmic actions applies to everyone equally. If Saguna gods (of Tier 2) perform wrong actions, they too must face appropriate punishments. There are many stories in Puranas where Saguna gods suffer a great deal over long periods. The original four Hindu Varnas are (1) Brāhmins, who have rights and obligations to study but are discouraged from amassing wealth; (2) Kshatriya, fighters, rulers, and politicians responsible for the internal and external security of the people; (3) Vaishya, the merchants, and entrepreneurs who are expected to create wealth; and (4) Shudra, the artisans who are farmers and service professionals essential for society. Now we describe the logic behind the Hindu system of four Varnas or castes.

Separation of Powers through the Varna System Mangesh Nadkarni (2003, pp. 4789–​4790) and Subramanian Swamy (2009) argue that Hinduism distributed power among different Varnas and installed checks and balances. Four sources of power in any society are knowledge, weapons, material wealth, and land. The varna system assigns these four sources to the four Varnas, respectively. Brahmins 5  The varna system based on guna-​karma and education did transform into the jati system based on birth in medieval times. This was due to the advantage of quick in-​house skill training, short life span, necessity of social capital, and signalling of reputation in markets with no formal protection of intellectual property rights. There was still fluidity between varna and jati as evidenced by many prominent examples. During the colonial rule, William Jones picked up the orthodox Manu Smriti as the religious text of the Hindus, rather than giving preference to the liberal Yadnavalkya Smriti or a digest on it with widest liberal interpretation by the learned lady Lakshmidevi. Later, racial classification of Indians based on nasal index by Sir Herbert Risley concretized varna into jati, the remnants of which linger in India today (Deodhar, 2019, pp. 86–​87).

22    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar specialize in knowledge by leading an academic life of learning and teaching. But brahmins could not amass capital and had to depend on alms or donations from others. Kshatriya specialized in weapons but had to protect all citizens and consult brahmins for policy decisions. Vaishyas specialized in acquiring capital and trading but had to gain social respect by voluntary and generous charity. Finally, tilling, and specialized skills of various kinds, including arts, crafts, and construction, were the source of power for the fourth Shudra caste. They can, as individuals, earn social respect by offering free services or producing food and artefacts on their land for others. Hindu sages assigned four powers and duties to four Varnas to ensure distributive justice in society. Kautilya advised Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Kautilya wrote his political economy text called Arthashastra, which suggests government enforcement of each Varna’s duties to ensure public welfare. He states that the happiness of the ruler (1.4.16, 1.19.34) lies in the happiness of the subjects. Thus, the varna system implemented a relatively modern idea of ‘separation of powers’. One’s education, aptitude, deeds, and habits determined one’s varna. After Kautilya was gone and Buddhist ideas dominated India, the varna system turned into castes which became birth-​based divisions. Slowly, a fifth class also emerged in society, which was outside the purview of the four-​fold division of the varna system. Buddhist and Jainism’s extreme views about non-​violence helped create the fifth caste of untouchables, discussed next.

Buddhist Rulers Enabled Creation of Untouchable Caste The fifth caste Untouchables (aka Dalits) is not mentioned in the Gita or any other sacred text of the Hindus. Hindu society circa 500 bce treated the authors of Ramayana (Valmiki, raised by bandits) and Mahabharata (Vyas, raised by a fisherman) as sages, even though they would have been ‘untouchable’ if the concept had existed. Their contemporaries must have freely touched and mingled with these authors. After all, their ideas were widely discussed, circulated, and touched the hearts and minds of numerous Hindus. Their examples show that untouchability per se did not exist during their lifetimes. Individual sinners may have been outcasts, not entire groups. Buddha’s dhamma (dharma) forbids activities involving arms, flesh, living beings, wine, and poison (Dasgupta, pp. 17–​18). Some fundamentalist Buddhist rulers such as Ashoka and others imposed punishments on those who participated in forbidden activities as an outcast group. Jawaharlal Nehru states that extreme adherence to Buddhist dhamma prohibitions hurt Hindu society. Farming was the backbone of Hindu economic life and yet tilling of soil became an undesirable (if not forbidden) occupation since tillers may inadvertently kill living creatures in the soil (Nehru, 1946, p. 178). Communities like Chandalas dealt with flesh, leather, and other forbidden activities. Chadalas who kept their violence-​based (illegal to Buddhist rulers) occupations were banished to the outskirts of towns (Savarkar, 1971, p. 140). Thus, fundamentalist adherence to Buddhist non-​violence may have helped create the fifth new Varna (caste) of untouchables. Like Chandals, Dalits performed unclean but important tasks such as disposing of dead animals, making leather, and clearing human and animal waste.

Hindu Economic Ethics    23 While no Hindu texts refer to the fifth Varna, Buddha states in Sutta Nipata that no outcast is such by birth, but an outcast is such by his deeds. Jonathan Silk (2020, pp. 140–​160) states that by saying this, there is no denial of the validity of this extreme polar category. He asserts that there is considerable evidence in Indian Buddhist literature displaying intense antipathy towards Chandals. In particular, Mulasarvastivada sources reveal explicit prohibition against the ordination of Chandal community. Yuvraj Krishan (1986, p. 77) also illustrates a similar disdain from Ashtadasa Sahasrika Prajnaparamita. The taboo against dealing in flesh, wine, and alcohol was taken to such an extreme that those engaged in their trade were considered an outcast, beyond the purview of four Varnas. The thousand-​year domination of India by Buddhist thought, coupled with legal sanctions against outcast groups, degenerated into the notion of untouchability which had severe negative economic consequences for India.

Hindu Capitalism’s Constrained Profiteering Hindu social structure did have many aspects of capitalism, including private property and inequality of outcomes. An American bestseller of 2021 is entitled White Fragility. Its author, Robin DiAngelo, reacting to the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer, said, ‘Capitalism is dependent on inequality, on an underclass.’ DiAngelo also states, ‘If the model is profit over everything else, you’re not going to look at your policies to see what is most racially equitable.’ By contrast, Hindu capitalism did not need any Dalit underclass. Hindu sages insisted that profits have to be righteous and employees satisfied within the constraints of dharma. Sanskrit meanings of character names in Shiva and Ganesha Purana contain economic messages. Ganesh, the Tier-​2 god of knowledge and remover of obstacles, had two wives named Riddhi (growth) and Siddhi (effort-​based success), two sons named Shubha (auspicious), and Labha (profit), and a daughter named Santoshi (satisfaction). A relatively modern concept in economic theory posits that both parties to a commercial transaction are better off by trading. Riddhi and Siddhi represent mutual growth through the usual give and take in a transaction. The words Shubha and Labha require that profits be auspicious or earned righteously. The sister’s name Santoshi suggests a need for consumers’ satisfaction while making righteous profits. Constrained profits are implicit when Indian businessmen draw a Swastika (Su Asti, i.e. let good happen) sign on the doors of their shops and accounting books. They also write Shubha and Labha on both sides of doors, reminding themselves and others that profits are to be made in dharmic, that is, honest manner, and consumer satisfaction has to be part and parcel of their business. The Varna system became a rigid caste system during the first century ce. There is no evidence of caste-​based lynchings or extreme violence at any time in Hindu India. Though Muslims and British rulers tried to divide and rule Hindu society, many Hindu saints spread throughout India helped prevent inter-​group hostilities. Caste-​based

24    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar social discrimination was vehemently opposed by the Bhakti movement that began as early as the thirteenth century and was carried forward by many saints. Recall that the saints belong to the Tier-​3 category of divinity. Hence, saints significantly influenced Hindu life.

Status of Hindu Women Women have had exalted status in the sacred texts. In Hinduism, there are many powerful goddesses, which represent different facets of intellectual activities. For example, Devi Sarasvati is an embodiment of learning and arts. Devi Lakshmi is an embodiment of wealth, and Devi Durga is an embodiment of primal energy. According to a comprehensive study of women’s status in India by Tharakan and Tharakan (1975), there were twenty female seers or authors of Rig Veda. There were plenty of female scholars in ancient India. Scholars such as Gargi, Maitreyi, and a mathematician named Lilavati are a few such examples. Since girls reach puberty earlier than boys, the girl’s age at marriage was generally lower than that for boys. In ancient texts, marriage before puberty was discouraged. These authors state that Vedic marriage was ‘a religious sacrament which made the couple joint owners of the household’. They list ancient prayers for a beautiful and intelligent daughter and references to love marriage (or Gandharva Vivaha in Sanskrit). Some Vedic men and women chose life partners of their own accord, revealing a high level of freedom and equality between the sexes. There are references to polygamy and polyandry (two or more husbands for one woman). Manu Smriti (second century bce to first century ce) says, ‘Yatra nāryasta pujyate, tatra remante Devatā.’ It translates as ‘Gods reside in those places where women are respected.’ Hindu fathers must protect girls, Hindu husbands must protect wives, and Hindu sons must protect their ageing mothers. In the context of protection, Manu states: ‘Na stree swatantryam arhati’, which translates as, ‘Women do not deserve complete freedom (of movement).’ Indian feminists have rightly denounced this statement by Manu, though the context remains relevant. Manu did not advocate child marriages. Quite a few women around Manu’s period acquired higher education. A female scholar Lakshmidevi (not the goddess Lakshmi), states how Yādnavalkya Smriti, written a few centuries after Manu Smriti, advocated a liberal attitude towards women (Deodhar, 2019, p. 78). Since Hindu fathers, husbands, and eldest sons had the sole responsibility of caring for women, men alone were granted (by law) the financial and property resources for these tasks. Lax enforcement of men’s moral obligation to care for women, including widows, resulted in some abuses. Vedas, Upanishads, and other Shruti literature do not mention voluntary self-​immolation by a wife on her husband’s funeral pyre called Sati. Some upper-​class women practised Sati to show unconditional love. The analogous practice of johar meant collective self-​immolation by women whose husbands had died fighting the enemy. Since occasional greedy family members forcefully pushed a widow on the funeral pyre, the British Raj banned Sati in 1829.

Hindu Economic Ethics    25 John Burns (1998) remarks that child marriages came to India only after Muslim conquests after around 900 ce, intended to protect women from rapes and abductions by conquerors. Some Hindu kings (e.g. Shivaji clan and Holkars in central India) encouraged women’s education during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, legal barriers to Hindu women owning property remained intact until the middle of the twentieth century.

Economic Ethics of the Pre-​K autilyan Period Olivelle (2011, p. 174) notes that many pre-​Kautilyan political economy treatises have been cited but lost. However, we can illustrate Hindu economic ethics by using the Isha Upanishad, which belongs to Hindu core theological or philosophical belief, written centuries before Buddha. Among other things, Isha Upanishad dwells upon materialism, renunciation, and the ethics of no thievery. Its importance can be gauged by Mahatma Gandhi’s statement about this Upanishad. He said, ‘If all the Upanishads and all the other Scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live forever.’ The Isha Upanishad contains the great sage Datyang Ādarvanar’s teachings on the right balance between material pursuits and the attainment of self-​realization. His son was a prosperous householder who had enjoyed material success and happiness in the grihastha stage of his life. Upon reaching a mature age, he wanted to learn about his father’s more profound spiritual happiness by a form of self-​realization. The father told him about the true self as a part of the one true god of Hindus called sat-​chit-​ānand-​brahma. The first verse begins by asking him to renounce materialism by understanding that ultimately everything belongs to the true god, and your true self is already a part of the true god. Thus, the first three-​quarters of the first verse of Isha Upanishad emphasizes that there is more to life than egotistic ownership of material possessions, which are not truly owned by any mortal anyway. It states that one can enjoy material goods with a spirit of renunciation. The last quarter of the first verse of Isha asks everyone to avoid the acquisition of wealth by stealing someone else’s possessions.6 It is a Hindu equivalent of one of the ten Judeo-​Christian commandments: ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ The Hindu teachings also suggest that if you steal, you will commit sin or bad karma, and you will have to suffer the consequences of your action eventually. There is no notion of eternal damnation or suffering in hell. Instead, Hindu sages argue that it is not right to steal and is not in your own long-​term interest. The sage author of Isha tells his son that thievery is not consistent with your dharma, and remember that even if you temporarily possess the stolen wealth, it is not truly owned by you anyway. The eighteenth or last verse of the Isha 6  The

four quarters of the shloka in Sanskrit are eeshā vāsyamidam sarvam, yat kinchya jagatyām jagat, tena tyaktena bhunjeethā, mā gridhah kasya sviddhanam.

26    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar Upanishad specifically asks the Lord Agni for help in achieving material success and protection from deceitful individuals. Thus, Isha Upanishad retains an essential positive role in materialism. It contained explicit ethical taboos against stealing or cheating in business transactions, asking everyone to achieve a balance between material and spiritual pursuits.

Hindu Ethics and Economic Theory The Sanskrit word dharma connotes moral values and ethical conduct. The earliest reference to dharma appears in Rig-​Veda (Griffiths, 1896) in Book 10, where the sage invokes befriending Indra and requesting him to lead them unto a righteous path (10.133.6). Later, both Ramayana and Mahabharata convey the dharmic choices protagonists of the epics have to make in their lives. Although the meaning of dharma cannot be captured fully by economic theory, its comprehension can be attempted by stretching economic arguments and its attendant vocabulary. Economic theory assumes rational utility-​maximizing behaviour on the part of an individual. Guided by self-​interest, one is expected to maximize satisfaction (utility) or profit. While self-​interest may account for an individual’s desires, not all desired things by default qualify as desirable. What is desired may be free from ethical and moral commitments. As one moves through the ashrama life cycle, one’s responsibilities change, and, therefore, one has to condition one’s desires accordingly. Clearly, a student, a householder, and a retired person would have different dharmic responsibilities. In fact, one’s occupation also conditions one’s righteous acts. For example, scientists from India’s space research organization, ISRO, may be sending space missions to Mars; however, one will scarcely find them leading a flamboyant lifestyle. On the other hand, the chief executive officer of United Breweries has always been in the limelight for his ostentatious way of life.

Ethical Infrastructure for Business Kane (1941, pp. 1–​11) discusses various constituent elements of dharma in ancient literature. Among other things, they include principles such as truthfulness, forthrightness, and non-​injury to other beings in thought, words, and action; and, he also writes about charity as an act of dharma that is mentioned in Mahabharata. Ancient Indian society seemed to have developed a mature world view on charity. We paraphrase Book 10 of Rig-​Veda’s statement about charity (10.117.1–​5): ‘Death comes in various ways even to a well-​fed person and riches come to her like the rolling of a cartwheel; hence, the rich should give alms to the poor who become her friends in future troubles.’ Thus, not the sheer accumulation of profit and wealth but the circulation of a part of it as a unilateral transfer within the society was considered necessary by Vedic society. The Gita (Telang, 1882), which forms part of Book 6 of the Mahabharata, describes right and wrong forms of dāna (charity) in hymns 17.20 through 17.22. If a charity is done for good

Hindu Economic Ethics    27 causes and comes without any expectation of return, it is defined as sattvic (pure/​good). If the charity is ego-​driven and given grudgingly with expectations, it is termed as rajas (given to passion), and the one given with contempt, to wrong causes, and at inappropriate times, is termed as tamas (ignorant, destructive). In this context, there is a pertinent story in Katha Upanishad of the Shukla Yajur-​ Veda written circa tenth century bce, regarding Sage Vajashravas giving all worldly possessions in alms (Müller, 1879). Vajashravas’s son, Nachiketa, points out to his father that he should not donate aged, barren, and worthless cows. To impress upon this point further, he asserts, ‘Father, I am also your wealth. Whom are you going to give me to?’ The conceited father tells Nachiketa in anger that he will give him to the god of death, Yama. The story takes a profound philosophical turn later. For our purposes, this narration provides examples of less desirable charity forms. While Vedic literature does not formally discuss positive externalities, the sages understood the consequences of all actions, including charity, on the environment and the needy. Since Hindu kings never claimed any ‘eminent domain’ right to acquire citizens’ private property, Hindu India was a capitalist bastion of private property. Like the economist Henry George, ancient Hindus believed that land (natural resources) was the source human beings did not create. The Sanskrit words for the Earth or the lands are Vasudha and Vasundhara, which mean something that is wealth-​producing or wealth-​ holding but is not wealth in itself. It is for the same reason that property in the form of ashtha Lakshmi (eight forms of wealth) included sources such as cattle, grains, money, and progeny, but not land. This distinction had led to the innate respect for and sustainable use of natural resources, a concept that has become so pertinent in modern times. Hindu sages accepted charging interest for the use of money. Panini the grammarian (circa 700 bce) had defined expressions for daily and monthly compounding of interest. In contrast, religions in Greece, Rome, and West Asia considered charging interest a sin. Aristotle believed money was barren, and charging interest was denounced ‘as bad as murder’ by Cato the Elder (Deodhar, 2019, p. 123). We have shown that even before Kautilya, Hindu sages had relatively modern economic concepts of capitalism.

Economic Ethics from the Kautilya Period to the Industrial Revolution We have cited Kautilya, whose book Arthashastra was written around 350 bce. The Sanskrit word Artha means material prosperity, and Shastra means science. He wrote for the benefit of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, a well-​known contemporary of Alexander who had attempted to conquer India. Kautilya’s economic policy was for a pre-​industrial (feudal) government in an agricultural society of northern India. He advises careful management of natural, animal, and human resources, preventing corruption, enforcing regulations against cheating, and the need for formal contracts and payment systems. Kautilya discusses import, export, taxation, and production of coins. Kautilya also talked of interest rates that varied with the riskiness of borrowings.

28    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar For example, secured loans attracted a base rate of 1.25 per cent per month, and local trade and commerce rates were 5 per cent. Rates would be higher for travel through forests and sea to compensate for higher risk. Kautilya mentions public goods like dams, canals, internal and external security, minting government coins, and penalties for counterfeit coins. Hindus always acknowledged the role of guru or teacher in acquiring skills and building human capital. Kautilya was himself a teacher and advisor to the Maurya kings. Being people-​centric, Kautilya wrote about the concept of ‘human security’. His writings, two millennia before the United Nations was founded, were comprehensive and ahead of his time. He asked the emperor to grant the citizens freedom from fear plus freedom from wants. Besides large armies and fortifications, he suggested intelligence gathering and diplomacy for predicting the enemy’s hidden intentions. Balbir Sihag (2013) shows through examples from Arthashastra that Kautilya knew the fundamental intellectual underpinnings of economic concepts, such as public goods, opportunity cost, the law of diminishing returns on land, demand–​supply apparatus, value-​added, and simplicity of customs duties. During Kautilya’s time, Buddhism was ascendant in the subcontinent and Indians faced rather extreme ideas of non-​violence. As a king’s advisor, Kautilya rejected non-​violence and supported national defence for the regime’s survival. His ethics, called Kautilya Neeti, openly advocated rejecting extreme forms of non-​violence. It illustrates how Hinduism evolved to suit the necessities of current situations. During the pre-​industrial era after Kautilya, India lived through famines, pandemics, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, and multiple foreign aggressions. Socio-​economic life was often turned upside down, and yet there is no evidence of the social structure breaking down or the country turning into extreme lawlessness or civil wars. On balance, India remained highly prosperous. Indian handicrafts were highly prized in Europe, and India retained a reputation as a very rich and fertile land. After all, the Italian sailor, Christopher Columbus, set out to seek an alternate route to the spices, textiles, and gold from India, though he ended up discovering America. The Muslim invasions of the subcontinent during the pre-​industrial era created many socio-​economic problems. For example, Mughal kings imposed a head tax called Jizya on non-​Muslims and forced conversions occurred. Hatred for ‘idolator’ kafirs had resulted in the destruction of temples, universities, and sculptures, including gigantic ones such as the Bamiyan Buddhist Sculptures. Paranavitana (1962) illustrates sculptures with messages. The Inquisition period in regions dominated by the Portuguese since the 1500s was no different. Heathens had no place in their scheme of things. To counter this, many Hindu saints such as Dnyneshwar in Maharashtra (13th century), Meera and Kabir (15th and 16th century) in northern India, and Purandardasa in southern India emerged to guide the masses through bhakti yoga or the path of devotion to the god as espoused in Gita. Through the bhakti yoga movement, these thought leaders in all parts of India encouraged Hindus to persist in their faith and try to be happy and contented. In the sphere of business, Kalyanaraman (2013) describes a precursor of the modern multinational corporation in pre-​Industrial Revolution India. The Hindu guild-​type entities called ‘sreni’ had detailed laws, together with a complete structure for executive

Hindu Economic Ethics    29 officers. It operated within a rational, materialistic economic ethos and yet suggested equality, trusteeship, and the development of social capital. He cites a remarkable example of a committee of elders of civil society in the Uttaramerur district in South India. It is no surprise that Hindu culture had spread through seafaring trader guilds throughout South East Asian civilizations by the turn of the common era. This spread of Hindu culture from Cambodia to Indonesia, Thailand to Malaysia, and Afghanistan to Sri Lanka was not through armed invasions but via mutually beneficial trade and commerce.

Economic Ethics between the Industrial Revolution and the Present The Industrial Revolution, which first came to England, changed economic life worldwide, including in India. The rule of East India Company and the subsequent imposition of the colonial British Raj brought national unity, railways, the rule of law, stock markets, insurance companies, predictable tax structure, and many important changes to the economic life of Indians. Enforcement of laws against cheating became strict. At the same time, however, if Muslim rulers practised forced conversions, British rulers encouraged Christian missionaries in converting the Hindus. Poor and low-​caste Hindus were offered various allurements in exchange for adopting Christianity. English education of the victors emphasized the perceived shortcomings of Hinduism, causing a feeling of inferiority among educated Hindus. Some Hindu reformers established Hindu missions copying Western practices. By contrast, leaders like Lokmanya Tilak, a founder of the political party Indian National Congress, urged a deeper study of Gita and Hindu scriptures to achieve political freedom from the British. A few issues relevant for modern India are interrelated and deserve to be discussed separately. (i) The current situation of the low-​ caste people, including tribals and untouchables, (ii) The current situation of women, especially those whose husbands are not alive, and child marriages, (iii) The current status of poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality. The leaders before the nineteenth century did not acknowledge the preponderance of such issues. A possible explanation is that the karma theory allowed people in power to ignore the suffering of the unfortunate because perhaps god was punishing them for their past sins. The people in power assured (brainwashed?) them that only after cheerfully enduring the suffering as well-​deserved punishment would they clean their slates. Since all saints emphasized the need to help reduce the suffering of others and earn kudos in the Karma ledger, these issues were addressed at the individual humanitarian level but not at the community level or governmental level. See Vinod (2013b).

30    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar

The Current Situation of the Disadvantaged Communities Vaidyanathan (2013) describes the caste system in India as supporting the development of social capital. Although the entrepreneur and trader caste of Vaishyas were predominant in those fields, other castes have learned risk-​sharing and entrepreneurship from them in recent years. The sense of affinity among caste members has allowed such risk-​ sharing in recent years. After independence in 1947, the reduction of caste discrimination was taken up by the Government of India. Mahatma Gandhi and many leaders of the struggle for independence brought attention to these social issues. A new solution to the caste system injustice in democratic India has been a reservation, or quota, system allocating seats in selective educational institutions, government jobs, and public-​ service positions at all levels. The quota system grants jobs to lower-​caste members, including Dalits whose ancestors suffered from caste-​based discrimination. Some of them have entered the middle or upper-​middle ‘income classes’ with an already strong voice in elected councils of power. The quota benefits have to be made available to those who can prove that they belong to a particular lower caste. Unfortunately, the need for proof showing that a person belongs to a lower caste has heightened the caste divisions. Of late, the government has mandated reservation to some of the backward classes but excludes the ‘creamy layer’ of the disadvantaged community from receiving the reservation benefits. This is a recognition of the fact that a sub-​group of the historically disadvantaged communities has moved up the income ladder. Shoumojit Banerjee (2017) describes the battle of Koregaon that ended the Maratha Empire in January 1818 and established British sovereignty over all of India. Among others, the battle was fought by 500 members of the Dalit caste called Mahars against Hindu kings. Dalits had also fought on the side of the Indian kings. However, the fact that Dalits fought against Hindu kings was singularly highlighted by the British, illustrating their long-​standing successful policy of ‘divide and rule’ by exploiting divisions within Hindu societies. The process of helping the lower-​caste Hindus had begun since the British wanted to return the favour to low-​caste Hindus. Chinmay Vaidya (2013) refers to the Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850 in this context. However, between 1818 and 1947, things changed. Before independence in 1947, all castes were united in their struggle to end the British Raj. The caste identification was starting to be forgotten among urban and educated Indians. Even inter-​caste marriages were happening. However, the quota system intended to combat caste-​based injustices had the unintended effect of re-​emphasizing castes to obtain government-​mandated quota benefits. The other impact of quotas in free India is that it has encouraged a feudal system of (lower) caste-​based privilege instead of meritocracy. It replaced the ancient equality of opportunity (guna-​karma) meritocracy with government-​sponsored unjust quotas. In fact, quotas have entrenched and even expanded over the decades. If the quota limit has been raised over time to 50 per cent in the central government educational institutions, in some state governments it has gone up to 69 per cent. However, one must appreciate the fine trade-​off between meritocracy and historical social injustice the

Hindu Economic Ethics    31 democratically elected governments are trying to balance. It also must be understood that the disadvantaged community’s patience has been running out. Successive Indian governments during the last seven decades have failed to provide universal primary and secondary education to all. This lacuna has affected even the communities that were not considered socially disadvantaged historically. Therefore, the government has initiated a small but separate quota of 10 per cent for economically backward classes as well. The quotas are meant to address the lack of social mobility and create role models among the backward classes. One expects the quota system to continue in government institutions in the foreseeable future. Subramanian Swamy (2013) takes a novel approach to India’s economic development. He advocates sustainable and ecology-​friendly economic development of India based on Hindu ideas combining good aspects of communism, socialism, and capitalism. Swamy also proposes an education system aimed at inculcating a five-​dimensional concept of intelligence that includes cognitive, emotional, moral, social, and spiritual elements. Suresh Tendulkar (2013) describes modern Indian elections as involving ‘identity politics’, a code for voting based on the caste of the candidate. He discusses the challenge of relieving Indian poverty and mentions the dynamic interplay of ‘one-​man-​one-​vote’ political equality with the Hindu caste hierarchy, helping to crumble the latter. Drawing a distinction between the equal and equitable distribution of income, Tendulkar focuses on incentives, productivity, and rapid growth. Rising inequality might not be a serious problem if India also has income mobility and rapid economic growth.

The Current Situation of Women’s Rights We have already seen that women had near-​equal status during Vedic times, which changed after Manu and again after Muslim rule. The age of marriage for Hindu girls became only about 9 years due to a social taboo against marriage after puberty. Hindu marriages mainly were arranged transactions by family elders. After marriage, a bridegroom must care for his wife until her death. The bride’s father would generally look for a worthy groom who could provide a good lifestyle for his daughter after marriage. Some rich bridegrooms enjoyed the luxury of having many wives. For grooms who were not so rich, Hindu fathers were willing to share the responsibility by paying a dowry. The dowry size varied from caste to caste and region to region. It usually consisted of a reasonable sum of money and other valuables, including jewellery (called streedhan in Sanskrit). While having more than one wife was not a taboo, neither was it praised. Following the example of Lord Rama, having only one wife was considered praiseworthy and was the standard practice as well for Hindus. Since women had no property rights (except for their wearable jewellery), a widow became the responsibility of the oldest living brother according to Hindu inheritance customs. Since a widow might attract potential sexual abusers, Hindus made widows deliberately unattractive (if not ugly) by shaving their heads and forcing them all to wear distinctive red sarees. It was considered to be inauspicious to merely see at a distance a

32    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar red-​saree-​clad shaved-​head widow in some places. Hence, widows were not allowed to attend any festive activities. Their life was often sad, dependent, dull, and sometimes they became unpaid domestic servants. When a prepubescent girl of 9 became a Hindu widow, her situation was fierce and heart-​wrenching. A very popular musical entitled ‘Sharada’ by Deval, in the regional language Marathi, depicts the plight of an underage girl forced by her greedy parents to marry a 75-​year-​old rich man. The musical raised the spectre of the girl soon becoming a widow, which woke up Indian social reformers. They demanded action against child marriages resulting in the Sharda Act of 1929, which set the minimum age for marriage at 14 for girls and 18 for boys. These age limits were raised later. The Hindu Widow’s Remarriage Act of 1856 made widow remarriage legal, but it was still socially taboo. An elite family social reformer, Dhondo Keshav Karve, made widow remarriage socially acceptable by marrying a widow. He started a vocational school for women’s economic independence, particularly relevant after the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act of 1937. For his service to the nation, Karve received the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour in free India. Chinmay Vaidya (2013) notes that after independence, the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act, 1956 Hindu Succession Act, 1956 Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, and 1956 Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act granted equal rights to women. Today, women occupy several high positions in all fields in India. There are currently 79 female members of parliament among a total of 540 members or about 15 per cent. The corresponding number for the US is 27 per cent, counting members both from Congress and Senate. Today, Hindu women have made a name for themselves in sports by earning medals in international tournaments in weightlifting, tennis, badminton, and archery. If there are a few women fighter pilots in the Indian Air Force, there are several female scientists in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Women scientists played critical roles in India’s Moon and Mars missions. In terms of income inequality, ceteris paribus, women scientists in ISRO, and the women in armed forces do not encounter wage differentials due to standardized government salaries. However, in the private sector, the picture is different. A survey by Paycheck India (2021) in 2011 showed that while the gender pay gap was remarkably low at 4.37 per cent for the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, overall, the pay gap was as high as 40 per cent. The pay gap was the highest at 65 per cent among health care professionals. These numbers indicate that while women may be contributing significantly to the nation’s economy, the gender-​based income distribution is still quite unequal. There is still some distance to go to achieve parity in incomes between the two genders.

Democracy and Capitalism In post-​independence India, policy changes have addressed Hindu women’s rights and the interests of the disadvantaged Hindu communities. These policy changes were not introduced by any benevolent dictator but by the people’s democracy. The committee

Hindu Economic Ethics    33 for the formation of India’s modern constitution was headed by a Dalit—​Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. The republican ideals and reforms in the Hindu legal code in India are a reflection of the innate ethical values of Hinduism, respecting diverse opinions and changing social practices with time. Manu Smriti, Yadnavalkya Smriti, and the widest interpretation of them by Lakshmidevi, are examples of periodic updates in the Hindu legal texts. The modern constitution of India is the latest updated version of these legal texts. Despite Hinduism being a majority religion in India, the modern constitution guarantees absolutely equal rights to all religious denominations. Despite the multiplicity of languages, ethnicities, and faiths, India is a vibrant democracy that never had a theocracy, a dictatorship, or a military coup. This is a rare feat among countries of the world in general and developing countries in particular. Considerable credit goes to Hinduism, which instils a democratic ethos by avoiding dogma and blasphemy and allowing freedom to choose one’s rituals and deities. Moreover, as reported by Ambedkar (1946, 1.6.5), in the Vedic and post-​Vedic periods, the coronation of a king was, in reality, an offer of sovereignty by the people to the king. The representatives of the people called ratnis, who played a crucial part in the king’s inauguration, did this. The Shweta-​Chhatra or the white umbrella held over the protagonist of the epic Ramayana, Lord Rama, represented the duty, responsibility, and power to rule bestowed upon him by the people. He did not seize the power. Brown (1964, pp. 17–​18) mentions that while a Hindu king had to perform his Raj Dharma, that is, king’s duties, the state never was a theocratic one, for, unlike the European priesthood, the priestly class (Brahmins) did not establish a formal church organization by which to contend temporal power. There never were ‘Papal Bulls’ issued to conquer lands in the name of religion. The seventeenth-​century Hindu King Chhatrapati Shivaji’s royal seal also mentioned that his kingdom was for the benediction and welfare of all citizens. These innate ideas have helped Hindus develop and adhere to democratic values in modern times. Hinduism also offers a friendly environment for the modern capitalist mode of the economy, including free bargaining. An ancient Rig-​Veda anecdote had a devotee seeking offerings for his deity. He approaches a seller who is also a priest. The buyer complains that temple sellers ‘milk out the udder’, that is, they bargain hard over the deal (Griffith, 1896, 4.24). Similarly, in Mahabharata, Arjuna advises his elder brother, Udhishthira, that capital begets capital just like domesticated elephants are used to capture wild elephants (Ganguli, 1896, 12.8). We have also reported earlier that, unlike in the Western tradition, charging interest was not a sin in the Indian subcontinent. Kautilya talks of interest varying with the riskiness of borrowing. The varna system had also identified propensities to trade, commerce, and manufacturing, and the king was to facilitate the same. India’s elite Managing Agency System (MAS) was prevalent during the British Raj and later. Hindu business communities like the Marwaris, Parsis, and Gujaratis were some of the groups belonging to MAS. George Akerlof (1970, pp. 497–​ 498) cites the example of the MAS as an entry point for promoters of new businesses who would benefit from their reputation. The rise of Goundars and Nadars as enterprising communities and the modern establishment of the Dalit Indian Chamber of

34    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar Commerce and Industry (DICCI) are examples of such enterprising communities and associations that benefit from their networking, social capital, and social insurance (Vaidyanathan, 2013). In the early decades of India’s independence, however, industry and commerce did not flourish as expected. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was enamoured by Fabian Socialism and took India on the road to central planning and omnipresent government controls. A few leaders had resisted this Soviet-​style policy framework. Noted among them was an Economist B. R. Shenoy who was trained at the London School of Economics and published his research in the reputed Quarterly Journal of Economics. He favoured the free-​enterprise capitalist model in line with the Hindu dharmic conduct by all stakeholders (Balasubramanian, 2021). Similarly, India’s last Governor-​General, C. Rajagopalachari, objected to Nehru’s excessive government controls (aka License Raj) and favoured Japanese and German-​style industrial reconstruction. While Nehru’s Soviet-​style License Raj prevailed for about four decades, it failed to bring rapid economic growth. By early 1990, India’s financial position had become precarious, and from then on, India chose the path of economic liberalization. Shenoy and Rajagopalachari were finally vindicated. Today, India is one of the fastest-​growing economies in the world. Some of the new economic policies do reflect dharmic nudges. For example, when the government had to withdraw the blanket subsidy given on the cooking gas (liquid petroleum gas or LPG), it did not do it in a knee-​jerk fashion. For some time, the government nudged the upper classes to give up the subsidy voluntarily by appealing to their dharma. Eventually, the market was allowed to function freely. Today, only the destitute receive direct cash transfers to their Jan Dhan bank accounts after they pay the market price for their LPG.

Coexistence and Sustainability The modern world is grappling with violence, exploitation of natural resources, and environmental degradation. Everyone looks up to their respective faiths to seek guidance. The idea that one’s own religious belief is the only right path leads to the absence of mutual respect, intolerance, and eventual violence. The Hindu Rig-​Veda statement mentioned earlier, ‘There is only one truth though the wise describe it in various ways’, encourages mutual respect for all religions, leaving no reason for religious violence. This philosophical statement also explains why Hinduism lets everyone choose any Tier-​2 god for satisfying material or spiritual satisfaction. Similarly, the Tier-​5 divinity of animals, trees, and nature in general, encourages Hindus to be sensitive about the sustainability of our ecosystem. Accordingly, Kautilya (15.1.1–​2) emphasizes that the sustenance and livelihood of people depend upon the wealth acquired from natural resources [earth]. His Arthashastra treatise suggests sustainable acquisition of wealth as the only way for societal welfare. The sacredness associated with animals in general and cows, in particular, has both ethical and practical reasons. A newborn calf needs the protein from the cow’s colostrum for a few days only.

Hindu Economic Ethics    35 Soon, the calf survives well on regular feed. Later, however, as told by Bhishma, patriarch of the Kuru clan in Mahabharata (Agoramoorthy and Hsu, 2012), a cow gives milk for a lifetime and hence is called a surrogate mother. On the other hand, bullocks are useful draft animals. The fats in the dewlap, hump, and horns of the Indian cows and bullocks are an insurance mechanism against droughts. Therefore, Manu Smriti states that there is no sin in eating meat, but abstention brings great rewards (Buhler 1964). Moreover, unlike bullocks, diesel-​guzzling tractors pollute the environment, cannot reproduce themselves, and give no manure for the farm. Albert Einstein’s letter (Ponnu, 2021) to C.V. Raman, another Nobel laureate, states, ‘Tell the people of India, that if they want to survive and show the world [a]‌path to survive, then they should forget about tractors and preserve their ancient tradition of ploughing.’ For decades now, water conservation, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions have become serious environmental concerns for the world. Both pulses and meat supply the protein needed by humans. Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2012) report that the water footprint per 100 grams of protein from pulses is only 1,900 litres. Respective water footprints in litres for meats are huge, pig (5,900 litres), sheep/​goat (6,300 litres), and bovine (11,200 litres). Moreover, increased meat production has led to two-​fold deforestation—​first through pasture expansion for livestock grazing and second for feed production for meat livestock. A study by De Sy et al. (2015) shows that in South American countries, pasture expansion was solely responsible for at least 35 per cent of forest loss and associated carbon losses. Furthermore, of the total methane emissions in the US in 2018, ruminating livestock designated for meat production accounted for 28 per cent (EPA, 2020). Clearly, there is scope to reduce meat consumption worldwide and substitute it with vegetable proteins such as pulses. Honouring the innate divinity in animals expressed in Hinduism suggests minimum harm (cruelty) to animals. Thus, ancient Hindu ideas can help reduce meat consumption to achieve ecological balance and a sustainable lifestyle.

Final Remarks Hindu teachings are not dogmatic, centrally organized, or enforced. They are viewed as evolving over time and not too binding. There is some room for disagreement or non-​ conformity with some leeway in the observance. For example, there is no ban on banks charging an interest (as is common in Islamic finance). Sharing wealth with the less fortunate is encouraged without any mandatory requirement to donate a certain percentage of income. Hindus tolerate strong disagreements over core beliefs. For example, a respected sage named Charvak questioned the basics of karma theory and rebirth. Therefore, along with the strong mainstream Hindu teachings, heterogeneity, where there is room for some disagreements, is welcome.

36    Hrishikesh D. Vinod and Satish Y. Deodhar According to Pew Research Center (2021), ‘Not only do a majority of Hindus in India (80 per cent) believe in karma, but an identical percentage of Muslims do, too.’ Thus, India has considerable unity in diversity. Since Hinduism has few explicit commandments, any non-​observance is barely noticed. India being a rather vast country, Hindu practices vary from region to region. Such variations are not regarded as non-​observance. There is a range of religious traditionalists and liberals, which is itself changing over time. Though Hindu traditionalists used to be opposed to granting equal treatment of women and persons from lower castes, the views have changed in recent decades. The urban–​rural divide in economic behaviour persists, with traditionalists influencing rural folk a bit more. With the growth of materialism in modern times, widespread non-​ observance of ancient precepts is evident. Various international comparisons suggest a willingness to forget one’s duty (dharma), give or take bribes, and indulge in other economic crimes. There has been a considerable deliberate misrepresentation of the true nature of Hinduism by members of Muslim and Christian missionaries proselytizing in India. Yet, the entertainment industry based in Mumbai (called Bollywood) has had a tremendous cultural influence throughout India and abroad. Since Bollywood thinks of members of all religions as a potential market, they cannot sell tickets by offending any one religion. Accordingly, Bollywood depicts members of all religions as loving, caring people, which has helped remove the impact of misinterpretations and solidified the already tolerant Hindu culture. The divisive views of some Hindu, Muslim, or Christian scholars have generally been rejected or ignored by the Indian masses. The blatant materialism and global capitalism of Bollywood celebrities discourage both passivity and otherworldliness by reinterpreting and updating some ancient Hindu teachings. The future seems bright because the yoga, Ayurveda, Namaste greeting, and cremation practices of Hindus are followed by a great many members of other religions. Any conflicts with non-​Hindu ideologies are likely to be short-​lived in India while non-​dogmatic Hinduism evolves. Hinduism’s innate propensity for diversity in its fold and its expectation of mutual respect among various faiths offers hope for sustaining democratic values and plurality among the comity of nations. Its focus on dharma or righteous conduct gives a moderating effect on the otherwise congenial norms it offers for a free capitalist society. Finally, its tiered divinity, which also bestows reverence on plants, animals, and natural resources, offers hope for maintaining Earth’s ecological balance and sustainable lifestyle for humanity.

Suggested Reading Das, A. (1986). Economic Philosophy of Ancient India. Delhi: Agam Kalsa Prakashan. Dasgupta, A. (1993). A History of Indian Economic Thought. London: Routledge. Deodhar, Satish (2019). Economic Sutra: Ancient Indian Antecedents to Economic Thought. Gurgaon: Penguin Random House. Kangle, R.P. (2010, Reprint). Kautiliya Arthashastra, Vol. I, II, and III. Mumbai: Motilal Banarsidass. Second Edition, 1969.

Hindu Economic Ethics    37 Spengler, J. (1971). Indian Economic Thought: A Preface to Its History. Durham: Duke University Press. Tilak, A., D. Jawane, N. Chitnis, and R. Vaishampayan, R., eds. (2018). Socio-​Economic Dynamics of Indian Society: A Historical Overview. Mumbai: Hindusthan Prakashan Sanstha. Vinod, Hrishikesh, ed. (2013). The Handbook of Hindu Economics and Business. Scotts Valley, CA: Creatspace Pub. ISBN: 148398088X ISBN13: 9781483980881.

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Chapter 2

Jain Ec onom i c Et h i c s atul k. shah

Introduction As one of the oldest living cultures of the world, and also one of the most astute and enduring global business communities in the twenty-​first century, the Jains make a fascinating case study of ethical economic practice that is rooted in a philosophy of kindness and in a profound understanding of interdependence (Cort, 2001; Jaini, 2002; Rankin, 2006). Having a tradition that understands bio-​diversity as foundational, the Jains have also developed a mindset and character of assimilation and respect for all peoples and cultures, including the lives of plants and animals. It may surprise some that they saw the Anthropocene as a significant threat, thousands of years before the environment became a real and present danger. The origins of the Jain tradition are in India, with research evidence proving the existence of the twenty-​fourth Tirthankara or ford-​maker, Mahavira, who was born in 599 bc and a contemporary of Buddha. There were twenty-​three previous Tirthankaras, so some scientists believe that at the very least, this tradition is possibly 5,000 years old (Dundas, 2002; Jaini, 1998; Tobias, 1991). Mahavira was born in the north-​east of India into a royal family and renounced his wealth and status at the young age of 30 to meditate in the forest in search of the purpose and meaning of life. He roamed in the forest for twelve years, fasting at times for months, observing nature in its raw form, and reflecting on death and life. Along the banks of the Rijuvalika River, he attained enlightenment or Kevalya Gnana—​his soul became pure knowledge—​and thereafter built a community of monks and nuns to practise and promote Jain science and wisdom (Dundas, 2002; Cort, 2001). There are two major Jain sects, the Shvetambara and the Digambara, with essentially similar principles and practices. Digambara monks are distinctively ‘sky-​ clad’ (naked) and Shvetambara monks and nuns wear white cloth. Today there are some ten million Jains all over the world, with the majority 95 per cent in India, but a highly successful and enterprising diaspora in North America, Europe, East Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, and other Asian countries. Given

Jain Economic Ethics    43 the emphasis on non-​violence, business and industry became the mainstay of the community and the ethics of public service also attracted Jains into the professions, with accounting and medical science being the most popular. Jain International Trade Organization (JITO—​www.jito.org), is a new global movement which is growing very fast, and brings together Jain entrepreneurs and business professionals to network, learn, and support one another and also provide valuable charitable and public service. It helps conserve and enhance social capital within the diaspora, and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. This chapter is organized as follows—​the core principles and beliefs are explained first. The focus then moves to the roles played by the monks and nuns who are the role models or exemplars, who teach and protect the culture and traditions, and who are given the highest respect. We then focus on the economic principles and practices, and show how these interconnect with the community festivals and rituals. Themes like growth, risk, honesty, human relations, and profit motive are then explored in more detail, demonstrating that business is seen as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Diversity and pluralism are explained as keys to lasting success. The West may see Jains as one culture, but actually, they are also further sub-​divided within different regions, languages, and customs. Corporate social responsibility and practices of sustainable business are then elaborated. Finally, the concluding section demonstrates what Jains can contribute to our knowledge of economics, which urgently needs to embrace a diversity of theories and practices.

Core Beliefs There are five core vows or principles Jains must embrace—​Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Brahmacharya, and Tapas. The primary philosophy of the Jains is Ahimsa (a-​ himsa: non-​violence) or respect for all living beings. This respect includes non-​human animals, plants, and insects—​in this sense, it is holistic and inclusive of all life on Earth (Rankin, 2019). The respect is in thought, word, and deed—​even unconscious harm is to be avoided as far as possible. There is a detailed psychoanalysis of the roots of violence, and a corollary of rituals and practices which help to curb and control human thought and action (see e.g. Acharanga Sutra—​Amar Muni, 1999). There is a vast treasury of scriptures and texts which cover a wide range of themes from morality to the nature of the soul, to the path to liberation (Mardia and Rankin, 2013; Balbir, 2006). Introspection and remorse are central to the tradition, and the calmness and control that emanate from such action, and the discipline required in living a life of compassion, often make Jains natural leaders in whatever they do. The understanding of interdependence also means that creating and nurturing communities, wherever they live and work, becomes a natural act (Cort, 2001). As a result, relationships, trust, and mutual service become norms, which shape vital social capital in the locations where they operate (see Shah, 2023).

44   Atul K. Shah The commitment to truth or Satya is also central to the faith. Truth is not just honesty, but a genuine and selfless pursuit of wisdom or gnan, in the journey towards liberation and enlightenment. The practical manifestation of this is through reading, listening to wise teachers, and questioning claims and counter-​claims, without a requirement to believe everything that the scriptures or even a Jain monk or nun says. In modernity, this can be interpreted as a scientific approach to knowledge and understanding, without the need for devotion to a particular faith or belief. Asteya (a-​steya: non-​stealing) requires adherents not to cheat, exploit, or deceive in their character and conduct. We might interpret this today as not committing a crime or breaking the law, but in reality, it is far deeper and enhances the virtue of non-​ expropriation of nature. Nature may not have recourse to avenge its theft, but that does not mean that the human species should expropriate its bounty or injure its essence. Brahmacharya (Brahma-​acharya: disciplined sense-​control) means restraint of sensual pleasures and desires. Jain monks and nuns have to vow to live a celibate lifestyle. Humans possess a variety of senses—​touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight. These senses should be understood and not indulged in excessively, especially sexual desire. It is explained that man should be a master of his senses and not a slave to them. In the pursuit of truth and liberation, such restraint is seen as critical. This goes against contemporary views that encourage sensual pleasure and promote it as a path to happiness and fulfilment. Another central tenet of the faith is self-​discipline or Tapas, and the need for restraints on food, movement, a balanced environmental footprint, and greed. A regular habit of prayer and meditation leads followers to balance and equanimity in their lifestyles and actions (Cort, 2001; Flügel and Qvarnström, 2015; Vallely, 2002). This discipline and simplicity have helped Jains become successful and trusted leaders in a range of vocations, including business and public service. Death and its reality are embraced by the Jains, and not ignored, denied, or trivialized. The finality of death leads to a focus on purpose and life beyond the mundane and the material. Happiness is not attained through greed and indulgence, but instead through meaning and self-​discipline. It is also not a life goal. The aim of life is liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth, and such a goal is trans-​generational and therefore incorporates sustainable practices. Ahimsa encourages a light footprint in life, where consumption is to be simplified and minimized, where the weak and the underprivileged are to be supported rather than exploited, and where materialism is understood for its vices and limits, and contained through contentment and philanthropy. The understanding of death also helps in reducing greed and the related prejudices and insecurities. Nature is not ‘othered’ by the Jains. We are nature and nature is us—​that is a very different ontology from the Abrahamic faiths and secular economics. The worship and respect for nature can be found in the daily practices and rituals—​for example, in the food that is consumed, which is vegan or vegetarian, without any meat or fish, the reduction of movement and preference for walking, and limited consumption and waste. Even in business and commerce, Jains refrain from any industry which involves killing,

Jain Economic Ethics    45 like the meat industry or forestry. Farming is practised in an organic and sustainable way—​it is understood that nature did the hardest work in making the harvest, and sharing this harvest through nourishing others is the primary and lasting purpose. The price and profits from the harvest are secondary. Such a mindset also cultivates humility and restrains arrogance and the expropriation of resources. The principle most relevant to economics is Aparigraha—​non-​possession (Jaini, 2002; Shah, 2020). Living a simple life requires detachment from possessions. This is a mental attitude which understands that lasting fulfilment and happiness cannot come from owning or possessing material objects, which have to be left behind at the time of death anyway. Whilst objects are owned and used, there is an understanding that this is not the be all and end all of life. Such an attitude leads to a minimizing of possessions in the first instance and even when it comes to personal friendships and relationships, there is a respect for the freedom of others. Jains are taught that the more you possess, the more you become possessed. This principle rejects material happiness as an end goal, and emphasizes that instead of this providing freedom and fulfilment, it will lead to bondage and insecurity. This is a major difference from neo-​classical economics. Creative purposeful enterprise is not in any way discouraged by Aparigraha. It is important for Jains to provide useful products and services through enterprise. However, the conduct and character of this pursuit need to be disciplined and contented, and unnecessary risks and speculation are to be avoided. Business is also encouraged as it is one of the professions where one can do the least harm to animals and the environment if the right products and services are provided. Over hundreds of years, business has become a ‘natural’ vocation within the community, leading to an accumulation in knowledge and skills which are then passed on to future generations. Furthermore, business-​related professions like accountancy and finance, have also been very popular among the Jains—​they combine public values with an understanding of commerce and industry. Charity (as philanthropy) is important. The Tattvartha Sutra declares—​‘Charity consists in offering alms to the qualified person for one’s own benefit. The giver gives for his own benefit with a sense of gratitude to the recipient’ (Tatia, 1994, p. 183). Here the ego and arrogance that can come from successful business are checked, and charity is explained as a duty and an opportunity, and the dignity of the recipients must be maintained throughout the action. One interpretation of this spirit implies that the business owner is always a kind of social entrepreneur, ensuring that whilst profits are made, society is also uplifted and supported, rather than exploited and undermined. The accumulation of wealth for its own sake is strongly discouraged in the Jain tradition. There is extensive charity and philanthropy done by the community all over the world (see e.g. B. Shah, 2019). The Jain philosophy of Anekant (or Anekantvada) is an ideal of non-​absolutism or respect for a plurality of views on truth (Rankin, 2010). There is a profound understanding that truth depends on the perspective of the observer, and therefore multiple interpretations can prevail at the same time. This is not an argument against the pursuit of objective truth, but instead a deeper understanding of the nature of truth and the

46   Atul K. Shah reality of diverse experiences of human beings who are all unique. This philosophy and practice cultivate a significant tolerance among Jains for different cultures and beliefs, and has enabled them to flourish in international business in a very short span of time. Jains never like to impose their values on others and prefer to be private in matters of culture and belief. They are well known in fitting in outwardly and not changing within. In their pursuit of trade and commerce, they respect the customer or the supplier, and are flexible in the pursuit of the transaction. As business leaders, they set their own high standards of service and quality, and prioritize the importance of building lasting relationships as opposed to short-​term profits. Thus, their respect for the customer or any other stakeholder is much deeper than common practice. The three core jewels of Jainism (tri-​ratna) are gnan (wisdom), darshan (faith and vision), and charitra (character and conduct). These are repeatedly emphasized in the scriptures and the prayers as the guiding moral and spiritual vision for individuals. Material goals are not part of this core aspiration. They are holistic in their combination of mind, body, and spirit. Parasparopagraho Jivanam explains that all living beings are connected and inter-​dependent, and this is a universal science which should be used to guide human action and nurture family, community, and society.

Teachers and Role Models: Jain Monks and Nuns Jain monks and nuns are living exemplars of this timeless culture still being practised today, in spite of huge transformations in society (Chapple, 2002; Mardia and Rankin, 2013; Rankin, 2019; Flugel, 2006). They are not allowed to carry any money or possessions, are celibate and have to live nomadically, and need to seek alms for their daily food (Vallely, 2002). This act of alms-​seeking helps to keep them grounded and connected with the local community—​developing a symbiotic relationship of exchange between wisdom and food. The food that is offered must not be specially cooked for the monks and nuns but surplus to the household, and taken in limited portions. Among the Digambara monks, when the monk is ready to eat, he walks with one arm on his shoulder, and householders keep begging him to stop, and he says no until he feels the right energies outside a house, where he stops. The ceremony of offering the food is very musical and colourful, and something special to witness. It shows the sanctity of food and its sacred nature, which should only be taken by the body at a certain time, and in limited portions, with the utmost respect for nature. They eat less and fast a lot and walk barefoot, living a life which is very light on the planet, and rooted and grounded in the local communities where they happen to reside at that time. The diet is strictly vegetarian—​so compassion is practised in every which way, and there is no separation between diet and lived economic ethics. In many sects and communities, even the eating of root vegetables is prohibited as they are the seed

Jain Economic Ethics    47 of life and also tamasic (foods which arouse the senses). Many a time when Jains travel abroad for business, they struggle to get strict vegetarian food—​so they carry their own from home. The discipline must be maintained at any cost and is not seen as a sacrifice. A monk or nun has been said to be the greatest philanthropist because he or she leaves nature’s wealth to itself. It is only when we interfere with nature that we earn, and in the process forget the true owner of our profits. This Jain reverence for nature and an understanding of its overwhelming role in life makes sustainable thinking and action also natural and not forced or a compromise. It also explains how critically important it is that business and economic leaders understand the dimensions of sustainability fully before they decide to practise and apply its principles. The scale of activity for Jain saints is limited and restricted to their locality—​they are not allowed to use any transport like cars, trains, or planes. Their lifestyle is quite organic and natural, and regular study, prayer, and meditation help them enhance their self-​ discipline and reduce any tendencies towards violence, greed, or aggression. Among their followers and congregations are many Jain entrepreneurs and professionals, who revere them and also seek their guidance on business problems and leadership challenges. They are spiritual mentors in a world that is enveloped by materialism and selfishness—​dialogue and listening to monks and nuns help Jain lay followers maintain their restraint and focus. Some very well-​known and successful entrepreneurs have renounced their life to become monks—​not only do these people see the limits of business or economics, but they actually go on to transform their life to total simplicity and non-​possession (Shah and Jain, 2015). In this way, there is a continuity of a tradition that is not removed from everyday life and society, but plays an active part in it, promoting knowledge, understanding, and detachment. One can regularly see Jain monks and nuns walking barefoot on the busy streets of Mumbai and Delhi, and the contrast of their simple life against the canvas of modernity is very visible and striking. This is transparent and grounded leadership and humility with a light footprint. ‘Walking the talk’, so to speak, is more important for Jains than preaching. The nomadic lifestyle of Jain saints prevents them from attachment to any particular time or community. However, during the rainy season, they are asked not to travel as this is risky and injurious to a lot of living beings who depend on water. This is when the biggest Jain festivals of Paryushan and Daslakshana are celebrated. It gives a chance for the community to congregate in one place with the monks and nuns, and receive a very big injection in learning and wisdom. This is a time for a lot of prayer and fasting and for deep inner reflection and ‘soul’ development.

Jain Economic Ethics in Practice Jains do own properties and equipment, wealth, and investments. However, their goals are more organic, and the limits of possession are understood. A majority of Jains operate in family-​owned businesses. This encourages them to take the responsibilities

48   Atul K. Shah of ownership seriously, including engaging with all stakeholders.1 Given such self-​ discipline and high standards of inner accountability, Jain businesses grow and have longevity. The social and trust capital built through active membership and participation in communities, whether in India or abroad, have given Jains a real boost in terms of obtaining personal and professional success. The relationship capital that they have nurtured has often been transferred from one generation to another, helping them to grow over multiple generations (see e.g. Laidlaw, 1996). They provide a fascinating case study of sustained growth and success, alongside a respect for nature and a simplicity and humility, which would seem surprising (Shah and Rankin, 2017). Far from the ambition and drive propagated in courses on entrepreneurship, with a constant focus on wealth creation and material growth, Jains have developed their own unique approach to economic development that is strongly centred on sincerity and integrity. Jains place relationships and organic growth at the very heart of life, something that modernity is searching for in response to the challenges of inequality, social friction and unrest, and climate change.2 For example, a common method of fundraising for the Jains is auction or public bidding. This is steeped in tradition, and sometimes used to raise millions of dollars for new temples, community centres, or educational institutions. During this act of ghee-​ boli, as it is commonly known, merchants congregate and place their bids loudly in front of the congregation. It is a competition in philanthropy, but also accords social status, raising money for a good cause in a very efficient way. It also helps remind the community that religious giving is very important, and one should be open and generous, especially if one is well endowed. There are also smaller auctions where people of limited means can bid so that there is equality of participation.

Organic Growth Jains tend to avoid equity financing (that is, selling shares) or significant and onerous debt financing (that is, borrowing funds). Rather, they grow their businesses organically. They are reluctant to give up power and control to anonymous shareholders through the stock market. Thus, there are many multi-​billion-​dollar Jain family-​owned enterprises, like the Times of India or Rosy Blue, neither of which are quoted in stock markets. Capital is critical for business growth. However, borrowing other people’s money is seen as a burden best avoided, even if it means loss of valuable tax relief. Thus, most Jain 1  .

In the field of corporate governance, there is vast evidence to show that the moment ownership is separated from management, exploitation and expropriation of state, employee, and ‘other people’s money’ becomes normalized and rife (Kay, 2015; Korten, 1995). 2  . Shah and Rankin (2017) document a variety of principles and case studies that show how this philosophy is practical and accessible to the wider world. See also Shah (2023)

Jain Economic Ethics    49 business people avoid debt financing, even for those in property development, an industry which is highly dependent on borrowed money. Instead, the requisite financing is generated organically, from within the family or community or from the earnings of the business itself, rather than borrowed externally. This is in sharp contrast to contemporary practice in which debt is seen as critical to wealth creation, and finance theory encourages borrowing as a way of spreading risk and also maximizing on the tax efficiency of loan interest reliefs (Hillier et al., 2016). This transactional and instrumental approach detaches any sense of obligation and responsibility caused by debt, and there is almost no concept of ‘waste’ in finance. When good opportunities for expansion are ignored, a firm is viewed as not maximizing shareholder value. In contrast, Jains do not engage in multi-​billion-​dollar mega-​mergers of businesses, in the name of growth or in an effort to gain monopoly power.

Risk Management Good risk management is central to business success and longevity. Faith also plays a significant role in risk management, helping to manage and reduce anxiety in times of stress or difficulty. One way Jains have managed risk and uncertainty is through ownership and limits on scale and capacity—​they rarely pursue wealth for its own sake, and have a patient capital approach to enterprise. This makes it easy for them to adjust and adapt to risk events. It also means that they have sufficient reserves to cope with contingencies, a practical prudence which is a lasting way to live with uncertainty, and to acknowledge its reality and likelihood. Jains understand the nature of risk through this culture of prudence, discipline, and perseverance. They generally refrain from engaging in businesses that they do not understand, even if the potential returns appear quick and effortless. Having an organic approach to business, their attitude is one of steady growth, partly dictated by a lack of greed, but also enhanced by a culture of contentment and an appreciation of the limits of money and profits. Happiness and fulfilment are understood as beyond the material, so there is no desire to gamble or speculate, and instead to hold, nurture, and sustain. Family ownership leads to shared decision-​making and management, which also helps to regulate risk-​taking. There are anecdotal cases where Jain businesses act as a barometer of ethics for the whole town, maintaining the standards of honesty and merchandise quality and reliability. Having had a long history and tradition in business, combined with a close-​knit community, largely restricted within the geography of India, Jains have over time been able to develop a significant level of tacit knowledge and understanding of commerce. Living communities become microcosms of experience, social capital, and trust, whose influence and resilience grow through time (Shah, 2023). They also become unique and trusted resources for information and economic resilience. When a business is facing difficulty, Jains are able to go to community members for support and guidance. Jain business success illustrates how economic practice driven by values

50   Atul K. Shah and moral responsibility produces sustainable growth and prosperity. Their enterprises demonstrate how faith is a key driver for moral character and action (Graeber, 2014; Armstrong, 2006), something that rational philosophy can never replace. It creates an inner accountability which is far beyond laws and regulations, and encourages responsible conduct and character, including virtuous leadership.

Social Capital Neo-​liberalism embraces a market fundamentalism, where markets have an ‘invisible hand’ that allocates scarce resources in the most efficient manner (Tett, 2010). Jains appreciate the importance of markets in allocating scarce resources efficiently while avoiding their problematic features. For example, where possible, they deal with their suppliers and customers as humans rather than remote stakeholders. Their strength has been in nurturing long-​lasting and reliable personal relationships. Great effort is expended in nurturing mutual trust. Even where Jains are in a position to throw their weight around, they respect and support small businesses, such as paying them on time. Good skills, knowledge, and information are critical to risk management. Economics and finance have tended to abstract it from the real world and develop models and techniques for measurement and management. In contrast, Jains value such knowledge and skills at the practical level, and nurture them through networks and relationships with stakeholders, and other businesses in the community. The trust within these networks helps them obtain quality information quickly, and even methods and techniques for risk measurement and management are shared. Competition is often not seen as a threat, as the market and opportunities are viewed as vast, like the ocean. Jains do not see the marketplace as zero-​ sum, in which one benefits only at the expense of others. There is room for all. When trust is developed with stakeholders, the supply and demand chain become resilient to external shocks, and customers keep coming back because of the reliability of their product or service. Jain businesses generally do not make significant investments in marketing or promotion. Location, quality product, and service have often done their own organic promotion. Market research comes from observation on the ground and listening to customers and monitoring what sells and what fails. Such close personal business relationships are possible in an organic family business, but not easy in a large multinational, where the motives of management may be selfish, focusing more energy on the cosmetic reporting of financial performance, than serving and nurturing relationships with customers.

Honesty and Trust Organic approaches to business have a tendency to bring management closer to stakeholders and to improve the quality and reliability of information. They also help shape management

Jain Economic Ethics    51 structures which are built on trust and relationships, rather than distrust and monitoring. They can lead to greater employee empowerment, leading to more stability and business resilience. Business success is deemed to be largely due to the honesty and trustworthiness of the local staff, who are hard-​working, honest, loyal, and contented. There is an honest admission of shared success. Instead of claiming personal credit for their wealth and success, there is a humility to acknowledge the employees without whom the business could not grow. Take the case of the jewellery industry. Jewellery is a business that depends on trust and integrity, otherwise it cannot grow to scale. Jains are world leaders in this industry, though this success is often understated and tacit. Jaipur is one of India’s largest jewellery cities, and it has had a long history of Jain influence in the trade. Given the industry’s overwhelming reliance on honesty, the highly self-​disciplined Jains were endowed with this trade and patronized by kings and royalty throughout history. Today, they operate globally in this trade, in businesses of various sizes, with a significant presence in the diamond polishing and wholesaling industry which has its world headquarters in Antwerp, Belgium (Lum, 2014). Unlike numerous global scandals in banking, which is also a trust business, there have been no parallel scandals in the diamond industry for a long time. This is most likely because when communities like the Jains or the Jews dominate the industry, both have a system of very effective self-​regulation, which is more powerful than any legal rules or enforcement. Losing one’s name and standing in the community can lead to the loss of business and reputation for life. Norms of monitoring and enforcement may be very tacit but can be much more effective than legal systems and penalties.

Corporate Social Responsibility When business is conducted on the basis of relationships and trust, the bond between entrepreneurs is strengthened, and it is not easy to ‘escape’ or break away from a transaction. In this way, interdependence becomes a lived experience, and there may even be times that one has to sustain losses in order to preserve the trust or social capital. Such strong networks of relationships are also beneficial for large numbers of community institutions like temples, schools, hospitals, and community centres (see Shah, 2023). These are dependent on regular philanthropy and funding from businesses in order to meet their costs. Most of this is often done by community leaders visiting business leaders to seek their support. Benefactions are given out of goodwill or sometimes even honour, as it is felt that membership in the community depends on shared burden-​ bearing. Often business leaders are also active in the community and will go knocking on the doors of various entrepreneurs to fund-​raise for the community. There is often no clear separation between charity and business enterprise. Jain entrepreneurs use their commercial relationships to benefit the community. Corporate social responsibility is deemed to be a duty, not a choice. They also find joy in such giving. For Jains, the economy is not just an idea or theory or a remote event, but a lived experience and a practical cultural expression (Shah 2017, 2023). Through active

52   Atul K. Shah participation, they are able to ‘feel’ the impact of their decisions on others and understand the role of wider stakeholders in business growth and success. In a similar way, interdependence is not an ideological construct, but something that has been part of their childhood and upbringing. Whilst corporate social responsibility may be a modern notion, Jains have practised it for millennia, without the need for a label, a legal obligation, or any publicity or fanfare. In understanding the nature and limits of business, they are able to harness it for the betterment of society and their own freedom and liberation. Jain economic ethics and praxis stem from the living community, in addition to the philosophical texts, rituals, literature, poetry, and oral tradition that Jains grow up with. For example, Mahatma Gandhi’s guru was a Jain entrepreneur and gems trader called Shrimad Rajchandra whom he met and corresponded with during the formative years of his thinking on non-​violence and civil disobedience (Gandhi, 1927). The moment he shut his office at the appointed hour, Shrimad would open his philosophical reading, or write his poetic verses on the essence and purpose of life, which are now timeless pearls of wisdom. To this day, Mahatma Gandhi’s guru, Shrimad Rajchandra, has a huge and growing following among Jains, over a hundred years after his demise. As a gem trader, he saw that the real jewel in life is wisdom and self-​reflection, not economics. Similarly, many Jain professionals or businessmen are spiritual, intelligent, and very articulate in explaining Jain wisdom to a mass audience. For them, the practice of business and industry is a day job, but the real joy comes from introspection, reading, and reflection in the pursuit of higher goals in life, beyond material existence or profit. They have a profound understanding, not only of the limits of money, but also of the limits of business and economic life. Sustainable leadership requires an understanding of the margins and limits of worldly existence. If not, the leaders will fail to leave a lasting legacy. Such conduct is consistent with what has been observed in business ethics on the importance of conscience (Hare, 1996). Conscience gives business leaders an innate and intuitive sensitivity and awareness of duties and responsibilities, and a self-​regulating mechanism of accountability which technocratic systems and methods often fail to provide. Having faith and belonging to a faith community helps in cultivating conscience and sustaining an inner conversation with the leader’s soul and intuition. It is beyond rational thinking and calculation, and acts as an early warning of wrongful actions or risky transactions, or of relationships that may turn sour. It allows human consciousness to influence decision-​making and has the potential to embrace a wide variety of factors, known and unknown, in the practice of enterprise.

Building and Strengthening Civil Society Living communities require quality leadership to sustain the culture and advance children and young people and the poor and marginalized. As an example, the Jains came

Jain Economic Ethics    53 to Kenya around the turn of the twentieth century, but from the very beginning started to build community networks and institutions, focused on the needs of the people, and implemented strategic visions for progress and advancement. Much of the leadership for these initiatives came from business entrepreneurs, who often saw in community service the highest honour, and served selflessly with mind, spirit, and philanthropy to ensure that schools, hospitals, and temple and community centres with facilities for weddings, festivals, and sports activities were open to everyone. These institutions transformed the lives of the young people who went on to become outstanding national and global leaders, carrying the cultural legacy and spreading the values through lived example. The community was the ‘business school’ and leadership developer. Many of the children and grandchildren of these pioneers are now professionals or teachers or academics or entrepreneurs, often living and trading globally. The Kenyan diaspora example shows how Jains truly understand the meaning of economics—​the practice of commerce and industry in order to maintain society and raise prosperity for everyone. Such examples show that faith-​based communities practise equality and sustainability through the pioneering leadership and education they provide within these communities. If in addition, the minds are open through pluralism and anekant, there is no problem with wider social and cultural integration. We have seen this empower them towards leading large organizations and living and working in different parts of the world. Neo-​classical economics has little to say about inter-​generational equity, something that is key to a sustainable society. Living communities give people an experience of inter-​generational mingling and through this, an awareness of the need to invest in future generations, give them ethical education, and empower them to progress and succeed in life. The boundary between economics and society that has been subtly covered up by economic science, with extremists even arguing that there is ‘no such thing as society’, is actively disrupted by the living experience of Jains. When leaders belong to a society, they experience the whole variety of challenges generations face, and often that experience influences the decisions they make and the actions and strategies they implement. For example, one of Kenya’s most successful and visionary entrepreneurs, Mr Meghji Pethraj Shah, also became one of its greatest philanthropists, giving generously to the building of schools and hospitals in different parts of the country. He spent his money in the land where he earned it, and he saw in philanthropy a great social investment for the rise of future generations. Rather than the business success limiting his vision, it opened it even wider, such that the business became a fund-​raising vehicle for the advancement of the community. Jain economic ethics show how the act of ‘belonging’ to a community enables entrepreneurs and professionals to learn about and meet all kinds of people, rich and poor, young and old, male and female, disabled and challenged. It helps equalize and build a rich set of experiences and awareness about life in all its dimensions. For leaders of powerful enterprises, such engagement is critical in grounding them and reducing their egos, and understanding the nature and limits of power and wealth. Even Jain gatherings for memorial services and funerals are very well attended by economists and

54   Atul K. Shah professionals, giving them a direct engagement with the loss suffered by the grieving family, and an experience of the limits of materialism and possessiveness. When in addition, leaders consider community service as their highest honour, they are acknowledging the limits of business, economics, and wealth creation.

Diverse Jain Sub-​Cultures and Communities Jains today originate from many different parts of India and speak a variety of languages depending on their origins—​gujarati, tamil, malyalam, kannada, marvadi, and hindi. There are Jains from Gujarat who tend to be exceptional traders (Economist, 2015), and those from Rajasthan are good at industry and precious stones, and the Digambar Jains in the south of India are often very learned and skilled in professional work and services, including as senior public servants. There are also a variety of castes that have their own historic communities, and some of these specialize in certain trades. For example, the Jains from Cutch in Gujarat tend to dominate the retail trade in big cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad, or the Marvadis from Rajasthan dominate the jewellery trade in Bangalore and Chennai. In this way, these groups over time develop knowledge and mastery in the entire industry, and share skills, networks, and finance with one another. As the economy grows and the demand increases, the groups become natural beneficiaries, and often increase their community philanthropy as a result. In this way, a virtuous circle of economic and social prosperity is nurtured which develops significant trust capital and resilience. In understanding the limits of business and wealth, Jains provide a whole new dimension to economic leadership. It is one that is characterized by modesty, humility, and contentment, where leaders see a wider picture of life, duty, and the true meaning of success. It is a leadership that is imbued with purpose. Sustainable economics urgently needs this moral depth among civic leaders for an equitable and harmonious society, respectful of nature and its preservation.

Conclusion Economics has lost the understanding that comes from living communities, whose faith becomes a resource for trust, social capital, finance, and risk management. Most damaging is its abstraction from morality and the concept of human responsibility and accountability. Whilst holistic economics can be theorized and conceptualized, this knowledge will remain an abstraction unless it is lived and experienced. In this chapter, we have shown the example of the Jains, and how despite the changing pace of

Jain Economic Ethics    55 modernity, many of their values and disciplines are still practised today, with admirable achievements in the fields of sustainable business and ethical economic leadership. Furthermore, faith communities have traditions and historical context and memory which shape their identities and loyalties, and give them strength and resilience. There is an active engagement with risk, rather than a delegation or ignorance of it. In this way, moral capital and family nurturing and upbringing become a key resource for business enterprise. Instead of its depletion by commercial greed and transactionalism, trust actually gets enhanced for the benefit of wider society. The Enlightenment and neo-​liberalism focus on material prosperity and individualism, often at the expense of ethical concerns and obligations. Even human rights language has reduced the importance of human responsibilities and their duties to animals and nature. Secularism has diminished the space for religion and faith in society. In contrast, Jains provide an example of what a living community is like—​one that embraces the wisdom of living lightly and understands the limits of materialism and greed. They value social and trust capital very highly, and often improve it through the relationships they nurture, both within and outside the community. Respect for different cultures and beliefs is woven into their philosophy, such that they are able to work cross-​culturally with sensitivity and patience. The importance of trust and relationship capital to successful enterprise is very well understood by them. There is a deeper appreciation that economy is a key part of society, but that it need not take over every aspect of life. Prudence and faith help Jains manage risk and uncertainty and give the Jain entrepreneurial leaders a rare inner strength and resilience in times of stress or economic crises. The fact the world knows so little about Jains is partly deliberate—​Jains do not seek to impose their culture and values on others, and they know full well their own limitations and imperfections. Even when ‘successful’ the leaders prefer humility to publicity or self-​promotion. One of the central reasons for this is that they have developed a very sophisticated understanding of death, and through that, unlocked the lasting purpose and meaning of life. Economics is a means, but never the end. Much can be learned from the ancient and yet timeless living philosophy and culture of the Jains.

Suggested Reading Cort, J.E. (2001). Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaini, P.S. (2002). ‘Ecology, Economics and Development in Jainism’. In Jainism and Ecology, edited by C. Chapple, 141–​158. Boston: Harvard University Press. Laidlaw, J. (1996). Riches and Renunciation—​Religion, Economy and Society Among the Jains. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rankin, A. (2006). The Jain Path—​Ancient Wisdom for the West. Winchester, UK: O Books. Shah, A. and A. Rankin (2017). Jainism and Ethical Finance. London and New York: Routledge. Shah, B. (2019). ‘ “Helping People Is Real Jainism”: Class Privileged Diasporic Jains Affirm Citizenship and Multiple Belongings through Transnational Philanthropy to a Jain

56   Atul K. Shah Faith-​Based Organisation in India’, South Asian Diaspora 12, no. 2: 129–​144. doi:10.1080/​ 19438192.2019.1679464

Works Cited Amar, Muni (1999). Acharanga Sutra Books 1 and 2. Translated by Surendra Bothara. New Delhi: Padma Prakashan. Armstrong, K. (2006). The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah. US: Atlantic Books. Balbir, N. (2006). Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts of the British Library, Volume 1: Introduction, bibliography, appendices, indexes, plates. British Library, UK. Cort, J.E. (2001). Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dundas, P. (2002). The Jains. Routledge: London and New York. Economist (2015). ‘Going Global –​Secrets of the World’s Best Business People’, 16 December. Flügel, Peter (2006). ‘Jainism and Society’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69, no. 1: 91–​112. Graeber D. (2014). Debt: The First 5000 Years. New York, NY: Melville House. Hillier D., S. Ross, R. Westerfield, J Jaffe, B Jordan. (2016). Corporate Finance, Third edition. London, UK: McGraw-​Hill. Kay J. (2015). Other People’s Money—​Masters of the Universe or Servants of the People? London: Profile Books. Korten D. C. (1995). When Corporations Rule the World. London: Earthscan. Flügel, Peter and Olle Qvarnström, eds. (2015). Jaina Scriptures and Philosophy. Routledge Advances in Jaina Studies. London: Routledge. Gandhi, M. (1927). The Story of My Experiments with Truth. London, UK: Penguin. Hare, R.D. (1996). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us. New York: The Guilford Press. Jaini, P.S. (1998). The Jaina Path of Purification. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Jaini, P.S. (2002). ‘Ecology, Economics and Development in Jainism’. In C. Chapple. Jainism and Ecology, edited by C. Chapple. Boston: Harvard University Press: 141–​158. Laidlaw, J. (1996). Riches and Renunciation—​Religion, Economy and Society Among the Jains. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lum, K. (2014). ‘The Rise and Rise of Belgium’s Diamond Dynasties’. theconversation.com An Ethical Science. Winchester, Mardia, K. and A. Rankin (2013). Living Jainism—​ UK: Mantra Books. Rankin, A. (2010). Many-​Sided Wisdom—​A New Politics of the Spirit. Winchester, UK: O Books. Rankin, A. (2006). The Jain Path—​Ancient Wisdom for the West. Winchester, UK: O Books. Rankin, A. (2019). Jainism and Environmental Philosophy—​Karma and the Web of Life. Routledge Focus on Environment and Sustainability. Oxford: Routledge. Shah, A. (2018). Reinventing Accounting and Finance Education—​For a Caring, Inclusive and Sustainable Planet. Oxford: Routledge. Shah A. (2020). ‘Aparigraha—​Jain Theory and Practice of Finance’, Working Paper. www.acade​ mia.edu Leadership, Ethics and Culture. Shah A. (2023). Inclusive and Sustainable Finance—​ Oxford: Routledge.

Jain Economic Ethics    57 Shah, A. and A. Rankin (2017). Jainism and Ethical Finance. London and New York: Routledge. Shah, B. (2017). ‘Religion, Ethnicity and Citizenship: The Role of Jain Institutions in the Social Incorporation of Young Jains in Britain and USA’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 32, no. 2: 299–​314. Shah, H. and B. Jain (2015). ‘Record Number of Jains Choose Diksha This Year’, Times of India. 19 October. Tatia, N. (1994). That Which Is: Tattvartha Sutra. Harper Collins US. Tett, G. (2010). Fool’s Gold—​How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe. UK: Abacus. Tobias, M. (1991). Life Force—​The World of Jainism. California: Asian Humanities Press. Vallely, A. (2002). Guardians of the Transcendent: An Ethnography of a Jain Ascetic Community. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Chapter 3

Bu ddh i st Ec onomic Et h i c s roy c. amore

Early Buddhism Economic Setting at the Rise of Buddhism The history of thriving cities and international trade in South Asia dates back over 4,000 years ago to the era of the Harappan Civilization, which carried on trade with coastal regions of what is now Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, and elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. By the time of the rise of Buddhism in the Ganges region in the sixth century bce, important developments in politics and the economy were transforming both the rural and urban areas. The rural areas of the Gangetic region, known to early Buddhists as the Middle Country, were being transformed by the introduction of widespread use of iron implements. Iron tools were making it possible to clear forests more easily and iron ploughshares were making it possible for farmers to expand their areas of cultivation. Several large towns had emerged, and large cities became the centre of political rule over sizable city states. Various smaller kingdoms and republics had, by Buddha’s time, been consolidated into four larger kingdoms or republics. One Buddhist text talks about the ten noises of these cities, made by elephants, chariots, and so forth. Trade routes linked these cities within India and beyond. The thriving trade brought wealth to the merchant class. Coinage was in use and there seems to have been a thriving banking industry. The practice of money-​lending was one of the regulations covered in the important Indian law book known as the Laws of Manu (Manusmriti). It spelled out acceptable interest rates while condemning excessive ones. These rates varied according to which of the four hierarchically ranked social classes the borrower had been born into. Those classes were, in descending order of prestige, the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. The

Buddhist Economic Ethics    59 lower the class prestige, the more interest could be charged. From a modern perspective the acceptable rates were extremely high for all social classes. At the lowest rate, a Brahmin could be charged 24 per cent interest, while at the highest end a Shudra could be charged as much as 60 per cent. Even though the Brahmins were by definition the priestly class, it did not mean that all, or even most of them were priests. A male born into the Brahmin class could, if he chose, undertake the long period of training required to serve as a priest at the various sacred rituals. Many Brahmins were landowners rather than functioning priests. This unequal system of interest charges may help explain why many Brahmins were able to accumulate large landholdings, while the lower classes were reduced to working the Brahmin’s lands, while those now known as Dalits, the ‘Oppressed’, barely scraped out a living as day labourers or in occupations considered to be defiling, such as washing clothes, making leather, or handling corpses. The social status of the merchants, including the money lenders, was below that of the Brahmins.

Shramana Versus Brahmin Spirituality There were two major competing forms of spirituality in the Ganges plain during the sixth century bce, the era of the rise of Buddhism. One form was led by the Brahmin priests. Their training involved learning to chant various sacred prayers and hymns to the various gods and goddesses of the extensive pantheon. Indra was one of the major gods. As a god of war, Indra was lauded in the oral hymn collection known as the Rig Veda, as the mighty deity who helped the Vedic people conquer their enemies. Indra’s many other deeds included freeing the clouds from clutches of a demon who was holding the vitally needed rainclouds in the mountains. The god Brahma was credited with playing a major role in creation. There were goddesses as well. As was typical in other cultures, the priests taught that humans had a duty to make sacrifices to please the gods. There was a feeling that the gods would go hungry without earth-​level sacrifices, which were therefore vital to gain the blessings of the gods. The role of the priests was to officiate at these sacrifices. Only the three upper classes (Brahmins, Vaishya, and Sudras) were allowed to attend at these sacrifices, to the exclusion of the masses of Shudras. The sacrifices were held out of doors, in a spot that had been ritually prepared for the sacred fire and the animal sacrifice. Kings and large landholders were encouraged to sponsor major sacrificial rituals that went on for days. Many animals would be sacrificed, and at the end the priests would be given valuable presents in gratitude for their services. Some texts talk of priests being given cattle, or even cows with gold attached to their horns. This was a polytheistic religious system that was led by a hereditary class of male priests who used animal sacrifices and the chanting of hymns in the Sanskrit language as their main rituals. Except for the polytheism, it was a form of spirituality similar to that among Jews at that time. This Brahmin spirituality was the forerunner of what is now known in English as Hinduism.

60   Roy C. Amore The other major form of spirituality in old India differed radically from that of the Brahmins. This rival form was practised by ascetics known as shramanas. A shramana was someone who was said to have departed the world, meaning that the shramana had left behind the householder life, with its security of a dwelling and family as well as worldly pleasures including sexual relations. These ascetics were like the hermit monks of later Christianity. Some engaged in ascetic practices on their own, while others lived in open-​ air camps headed by a spiritual master. The shramanas lived very simply. Many went past homes early each morning in the hope of householders putting some food into their alms bowl. They did not beg, but merely stopped if someone came to give them food. The spiritual values of the shramanas were in sharp contrast to those of the Brahmin-​ led Hindu values. Rather than positioning animal sacrifice as a crucial religious practice, the shramanas taught ahimsa, which literally means no-​harming and is usually translated as non-​violence. In the shramana spirituality, persons should avoid as far as possible bringing any harm to others, including animals and even insects. Many avoided travelling in the rainy season so as to not step on the worms and insects on the paths. Some strained their drinking water to avoid harming any small life forms that might be in the water. Some wore face masks for the same reason. Most were vegetarians, and as ahimsa proponents they denounced the practice of animal sacrifice. They also did not subscribe to the class restrictions practised by the Brahmins. A person from any social class could become a shramana. Women could also follow this path. The contrasting values of the priestly and the shramana spiritualities shaped their respective economic ethics in sharply contrasting ways. The Brahmin-​based ethical values were firmly based in preserving the interests of the privileged upper classes, bolstered by a creation hymn in the Rig Veda according to which the sacrifice of a primordial Person (purusha) established the class hierarchy. Based upon that way of seeing society, the economic oppression of the lowest classes was not seen as merely acceptable but as divinely ordained. This is reflected in the variance in permissible interest rates according to social class already discussed. Even if by some chance a Shudra became wealthy, they would not be allowed to achieve some status by paying for a Brahmanic ritual due to not being from one of the upper three classes, which were referred to as aryan, meaning noble. As we will see, the Buddhist economic ethic in contrast is egalitarian. Two of the leading shramana masters attracted so many disciples that their particular teachings continued after their deaths. One, Mahavira, is seen as the latest spiritual master (Jina) in the Jaina (Jainism) religion. The other was Gautama, best known by his spiritual titles, Shakyamuni (Sage of the Shakya clan) or the Buddha (Enlightened One). His Buddhist followers now number over 500 million worldwide, according to estimates by the PEW Research Centre.

Life of Shakyamuni Buddha The dates of his birth and the passing of Shakyamuni Buddha are in dispute among the branches of Buddhism, although all follow the tradition that he passed into final nirvana

Buddhist Economic Ethics    61 (parinirvana) at age 80. The Theravada Buddhist tradition found in Sri Lanka and South East Asia dates his birth as 624 bce, while the Mahayana traditions of East Asia hold to a later date, 563 bce. The Buddha, as he would later be known, was born as the firstborn son of the king of a small kingdom in what is now the Terai region in southern Nepal, very near the Indian border. The capital city was Kapilavastu. The ancient city was abandoned long ago and now exists as an archaeological site with only the foundations left to suggest its former status. As a prince, the future Buddha had the high status of having been born as a Kshatriya, the social class of warriors and royalty. According to the Buddhist story, some court Brahmins, acting in their role as soothsayers who based their statements on bodily signs of the infant, predicted great things for the infant. They said he would achieve the highest status. If he remained as a worldly person, he would be the greatest there is, becoming a great monarch. If he ‘departed the world’ in order to live an ascetic life, he would also rise to the greatest in that arena, a buddha. Besides the court Brahmins, it is said that a holy man came to the court, observed the infant, and then predicted that the infant would become a great buddha one day, rather than a great monarch. Since the king strongly preferred his son to become a great monarch rather than a great holy man, his father is said to have ordered that his son would not be taught about such things as sickness, old age, and death. The king’s assumption seems to have been that humans may turn to a religious path if they encounter great suffering or fears. In his classic study of the Trobriand Islanders titled Magic, Science and Religion, Bronislaw Malinowski famously noted that the islanders were much more likely to turn to religious rituals before venturing out to fish in the more dangerous open ocean as opposed to fishing in the lagoon. Despite the king’s protective efforts, it is said that the prince, having grown up, married and fathered a son, did learn about the causes of suffering when he happened to see a sick man, a (suffering) old man, and a dead man while riding in the park outside the city walls. These were the first three of his Four Sights. His final sight was a monk, which led to his decision later that night to leave behind the worldly life, as well as his family, in order to become an ascetic, a shramana. After studying under yoga masters who taught him how to enter into deeper and deeper states of unconsciousness, just short of flat lining, he abandoned yoga on the grounds that it did not solve the problems of suffering or lead to a breakthrough into a new state of consciousness. He then lived in and around a cave, practising severe forms of asceticism along with some other ascetics. He chose fasting as his main ascetic practice and went so far in depriving himself of food and water that he almost died. Buddhist texts say he was saved by the intervention of the four minor deities known as World Protectors, each associated with one of the cardinal directions. They played a role during his fasting along the same lines as the angels who are said to have helped Jesus during his period of fasting in the wilderness. Realizing that severe ascetic practices were also not leading him to a more enlightened state of consciousness, he left the hillside cave region and walked down to a nearby town, Gaya, located on the banks of a river. There he accepted food again and regained his strength. He recalled a tranquil state of consciousness that he had entered while quite

62   Roy C. Amore young. He remembered entering into a mediational state called jhana in the Pali language used by many early Buddhists. He sat under the shade of a large pipal tree on the banks of the river, with the plan of trying that jhana style meditation and with the determination to stay under the tree until he had a breakthrough. In this form of meditation, the goal was to become more awake, more aware, more conscious, as opposed to the withdrawing into unconsciousness as taught by his former yoga teachers. His efforts were interrupted by Mara, the Lord of Death, who plays a role somewhat to that of Satan in Christianity. Mara first tempts him with worldly pleasures in the form of Mara’s attractive daughters. When that fails, Mara tries to scare him with threatening monsters, said to be Mara’s sons. Then Mara claims that he, Mara, should be the one sitting on the destined place on the destined night. Mara claims to have earned this by doing meritorious works in the past. Mara turns it into a debating contest, with his sons and daughters as his supporting audience. The future buddha responds by calling upon the earth herself to affirm that he, rather than Mara, deserves to be in the seat of the enlightened on this, the night of enlightenment. He touches the earth as he makes this claim. The resulting earthquake ended the discussion. This event is often depicted in Buddhist paintings and images, with the Buddha sitting in a meditational pose while reaching down to touch the earth with one hand. The pose is known as ‘calling the earth to witness’. The future buddha then meditated through the night, gaining deeper and deeper understanding of the universe, the workings of karma, his own past lives, and so much else. At dawn his seven-​year efforts culminated in the breakthrough known as nirvana, a state of ultimate knowledge and bliss. Thereafter he is a buddha, a fully enlightened one. After his enlightenment the Buddha travelled around among the four main kingdoms of the Ganges plain, and also returned to his home city. He established an order (Sangha) of monks as well as an order of nuns. He was approached by various men and women in the region, including kings, for spiritual advice. Buddhism would later develop a set of criteria for what a good king should do. Those criteria give us insights into the economic ethics of Buddhism to be discussed in the following section.

The Buddha’s Social and Economic Teachings Soon after his enlightenment, the Buddha journeyed to the Deer Park at Lumbini on the outskirts of Varanasi, where his former ascetic friends were living. The Buddha’s first dharma talk in the Deer Park is known as the Wheel Turning Sutra, drawing upon the image of starting the Dharma (teaching) wheel in motion. His Dharma talk included the important Four Noble Truths. The first, the Noble Truth of Suffering, calls attention to the fact that sooner or later all humans experience suffering. Buddhists sum up the suffering inevitable in life by the three-​fold experiences of sickness, old age, and death, reflecting the first three of the four sights he experienced as a young prince. The second, the Noble Truth of Origin, calls attention to the role that craving plays as an underlying cause leading to suffering. The third, the Noble Truth of Cessation, holds out the

Buddhist Economic Ethics    63 prospect of putting an end to suffering by ceasing one’s cravings. The fourth, the Noble Truth of the Eightfold Path, lays out eight specific goals that should be followed. They are right understanding, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. Some of these eight guidelines to moral life are especially relevant to economic ethics from a Buddhist point of view. Right speech includes avoiding saying things that are untrue or hurtful to others, whether human or animal. Right action involves working for the good of others. Right livelihood includes the goal of earning a living in ways that minimize harm to other humans or animals. The five basic Buddhist moral teachings are called precepts that one volunteers to follow, in contrast to commandments thought to issue from a god. While affirming the five precepts, the Buddhist undertakes to avoid five wrong practices: killing or harming, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrongful speech, and intoxicants or harmful drugs. Buddhist thought understands there to be three evil roots in the human mind. These are deep-​seated motivations from which bad thoughts and actions arise. The three are greed, hatred, and delusion. Greed involves wanting something too much. Hatred is the opposite. Delusion means not understanding things in a clear way. Delusion is a state of mind that contrasts with spiritual wisdom. These three evil roots of consciousness are important in the discussions of economic ethics among contemporary Buddhist thinkers, as discussed later. The main focus of the Buddha’s dharma, teachings, was on spiritual advancement through purifying one’s mind and acquiring spiritual wisdom. He was focused on spiritual rather than socio-​economic improvements. Nevertheless, there are social and economic principles discernible in his movement. The most important one is surely his resistance to class and caste discrimination. In the Indian context, class (varna) refers to the four large social divisions, while caste (jati) refers to the thousands of subdivisions that are understood to fall under one or another of those four classes. The class structure is very archaic, deriving from the way that ancient Indo-​Europeans tended to distinguish three social groups: a grouping that included royalty and warriors, a group that included priests, and a third that included merchants and others. In India those original three were collectively considered to be Aryan (noble), and the commoners were lumped together as a fourth class called Shudra. Then there were many other people who were considered to be lower than even the Shudras. They have historically been called outcastes because they were outside the caste system, or untouchables because contact with them was thought to defile a higher-​caste person. Today many of them prefer to be called Dalits, oppressed persons. In Buddha’s era the term ‘Chandala’ referred to a people that would now be part of the Dalits. To make a living they handled corpses and other foul things, and so contact with a Chandala was considered to be defiling to an upper-​class person. As in many ancient cultures, accepting food and drink from a person implied social equality, and so upper-​ class Indians would not accept food or water from a Chandala. Even in more modern times, Dalits were not allowed to drink water from the wells used by upper-​class Indians. To combat this social injustice, Buddhists told a story about the Buddha accepting water

64   Roy C. Amore from a Chandala woman at a well. This story has been compared to the later story about Jesus accepting water from a Samaritan woman. Buddhism took a stance against caste discrimination. Another Buddhist story makes fun of a proud Brahmin who learns a magic charm from a Chandala. The charm produces fruit out of season, which wins the Brahmin great favour with the king, but the magic goes out of the charm when the Brahmin is too proud to admit that he learned it from a Chandala. The Buddha’s resistance to the rigid social hierarchy was institutionalized in Buddhist practice. All social classes were accepted as equals in Buddhism. When a new man or woman took the vows to become a monk or nun, their caste status became irrelevant. Status within the sangha was based on seniority; that is, the time since one’s ordination. We know from the names of early Buddhist monks that persons of all social ranks joined the sangha. A newly ordained Brahmin might therefore find himself or herself ranked below a more senior person with a Chandala background. This equalitarianism applied to eating as well. The new Brahmin monk would be eating together with a Chandala one and would be expected to accept food and water from them. Besides stories lauding the contributions of Chandalas, the Buddha challenged the concept of an inherited holiness of the priestly class. He taught that true holiness came from one’s purity and actions, not from one’s birth status. What should count is one’s character, not one’s birth status (jati).

The Economic Ethics of the Middle Path Besides teaching about the Four Noble Truths, in his first Dharma talk the Buddha explains to his fellow ascetics that he achieved his breakthrough by following a middle path between self-​indulgence as a pampered prince and self-​torture while he practised extreme ascetism. The teaching of a middle path shows up in so many Buddhist teachings that the religion is sometimes referred to as the Middle Path. One modern monk summed this up this way: Enough is better than too much. As it applies to money, the middle path lies between having enough money and being obsessed with riches. The Dhammapada, meaning Fundamentals of the Dharma, is a popular Buddhist text containing over 400 poetic verses summing up various points of Buddhist teachings. Dhammapada 355 relates to our topic. It uses the (Pali language) word bhogā, which can be translated as riches, wealth, possessions, or (things that lead to) enjoyment. The verse may be translated this way:

Riches bring harm to the unwise, But not to those striving for that which is beyond. Through craving for riches, the unwise harm themselves and others.

Another Dhammapada verse (203) begins with the statement that hunger is the greatest disease, a verse that inspires some of the contemporary Buddhist development movements such as Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, to be discussed in a later section. A verse

Buddhist Economic Ethics    65 from the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta of the Pali canon elaborates on this by pointing out that poverty leads to such things as violence, unrest, immorality, and crime. The Buddhist ethic of non-​violence (ahimsa) required monks and nuns to totally avoid harming animals and insects, at least as far as possible. The ahimsa ethic also meant that some occupations such as hunting or butchering were discouraged for the laity as well. Even farming was problematic because one could not plough a field without harming worms and insects, but lay Buddhists were not expected to practise ahimsa so rigorously that it would bring harm to their families through a shortage of food or other necessities of life.

The Sangha and its Relationship to Society Early Buddhism encouraged a reciprocity of giving. Lay persons were encouraged to give food, clothing, medicines, and other necessities to the monks and nuns. The Sangha for its part provided moral instruction and guidance. Sangha members also officiated at rituals by chanting to bring blessings on various occasions, whether for celebrations or for bereavements. Some Sangha members became skilled at natural medicines, and medical clinics were sometimes operated near monasteries, such as the clinic at the foot of Mahinda Hill, the site of a monastery complex near the capital in ancient Sri Lanka. The Mahavagga section of the Vinaya (Discipline books) presevered by the Theravada sect of early Indian Buddhism contains a section on medicine. The Vinaya of the Sarvastivada sect, which became widely used by Buddhists in early Central Asia and China, also talks of proper foods and medicines.

The Asian Spread of Buddhist Values Within four centuries after the life of Shakyamuni, Buddhism had spread from its origins in northern India throughout much of South Asia, including regions now known as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Nepal, as well as throughout India. By the early centuries ce it had begun to spread by land and sea into South East Asia as well as along the trade routes leading from north-​west India into Central Asia. Buddhist communities were established in the major cities along the trade route in Central Asia. Buddhist monks made their way along the famous Silk Road all the way to its end in Xi’an, China. In later centuries, Christians and then Muslims reached Xi’an along with traders on the silk route. Different schools (ordination traditions) of Mahayana Buddhism entered Korea beginning in the fourth century. As in China, Confucian and Buddhist values competed at both the popular and state levels. There were periods when Buddhism was the state religion. Yet in parts of the Joseon period (1392–​1910) the state closed temples, confiscated the surrounding lands and workers that supported the temple. During the period

66   Roy C. Amore (1910–​1945) of control by Japan, Japanese Buddhist sects were introduced into Korea, along with the Japanese system of temples being privately owned by a monk who was typically married, with his oldest son succeeding the father as the priest. After the end of Japanese control, Buddhism in Korea turned away from Japanese practices. Buddhism arrived in Japan by 538. Buddhism was established there mainly under the influence of Korean Buddhists. The rising power of the Yamato clan led their leaders to embrace Buddhist values and emulate the imperial traditions of China. Prince Shotoku, acting as regent, introduced the Seventeen Article Constitution in 594. Its articles are a statement of moral principles enshrining both Confucian values such as harmony and obedience to superiors as well as Buddhism and its values. Article 2 calls for respect for the three gems of Buddhism: the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, as the final refuge for all beings. Several of the values in the constitution, such as not being envious of others, could be seen as reflecting both Confucian and Buddhist influence. Buddhism arrived in Tibet comparatively late, having been introduced by the monk Padmasambhava in the eighth century. Later, during the period of the Mongol Empire, the Mongols ruled China directly but appointed the abbot of the Shakya monastery to the position of viceroy of Tibet. Then in the sixteenth century, the Mongol ruler was converted to Tibetan Buddhism, leading to the establishment of a line of heads of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism to rule Tibet with the title Dalai Lama. Although the Mongol Empire later fell, Tibet continued to be ruled by a succession of Dalai Lamas. This system ended when the Chinese army took control of Tibet in 1959. The Dalai Lama and many of the leading monks and officials went into exile in India. Thus ended a unique period in which a Buddhist monk held both religious authority and temporal power. The social and ethical teachings of Buddhism came to play an important role in most Asian countries. The following topics focus on several of those Buddhist values that relate to economic ethics, such as monasticism, hydrology, social equality, feeding the poor, and most importantly, the principles to be followed by a good king.

Buddhist Contribution to Hydrology The Buddhist appreciation of water resources dates back to early Buddhist texts. One passage in the Vinaya, the collection of books that defines the moral principles of monasticism and how they came to be formulated, forbids monks and nuns from discarding trash and similar things into water sources. Such water sources should be kept clean and pure for the benefit of the fish who live there and all others who depend upon them. The Buddha’s stress on maintaining good sources of water to sustain all living beings seems to have led to the development of hydrology expertise that disseminated with the spread of Buddhist monastics. The region of Ajanta in central India was one of the important Buddhist sites in the last centuries bce and early centuries ce. Many of the caves carved into the tall cliffside above the Waghora River served as living quarters for Buddhist monks. Other caves were carved out of the rock to create worship sites resembling buildings normally made of wood. Some caves are thought to have been

Buddhist Economic Ethics    67 resting places for merchants and other travellers. These caves now attract tourists to the region and have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When my students and I visited the Ajanta caves during the hot, dry season before the onset of the monsoon rains, the surrounding land was sand-​coloured, parched, and devoid of green vegetation. However, after the rains come, the region springs to life, with various shades of green vegetation covering the sand and rock so prominent during the dry season. To support the large monastic population that lived in the many caves carved out in the cliff overlooking the river, as well as the sizable population of the city of Vidisha just a few kilometres away, some expert hydrologic expertise was required. Here as elsewhere there is reason to conclude that Buddhist monks played a role in that hydrology. Someone knew how to oversee the construction and maintenance of both large and smaller dams for the purpose of creating irrigation ponds—​or tanks, as they are called in India. The impressive Great Stupa at Sanchi and adjacent Buddhist structures, located on a large hill overlooking a river in Madhya Pradesh, date back to King Ashoka in the third century bce and is very well known, but the various hydrological achievements that supported the Sanchi complex have not received the attention they deserve. In an article titled ‘The Sanchi Dams Project’ by archaeologist Julia Shaw et al., the authors date the earliest dam construction in the Sanchi region of Madhya Pradesh from the third century bce. They link Buddhism to the extensive irrigation systems that stretched along the river. They go on to suggest that the wider archaeological evidence leads to the conclusion that there was ‘a cultural package that accompanied the spread of Buddhism, urbanisation and the development of centralised state polities during the late centuries BC’ (Shaw et al., 2010). In that same article the authors also note the similarities between the water management structures at Buddhist sites in both India and nearby Sri Lanka, where Buddhism is thought to have been introduced during the reign of King Ashoka, the same king who likely commissioned the Great Stupa at Sanchi. They suggest that the Sanchi dams and related Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka were underlain by a similar system of exchange between Buddhist monks and local agricultural communities. The techniques for efficient water management in old Sri Lanka are indeed impressive. The site where Buddhist monks are said to have arrived from India, by magical flight according to the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), is called Mahinda Hill and is located just a few kilometres from Anuradhapura, the old capital. The name is in honour of King Ashoka’s son Mahinda, the monk who led the party of monks charged with introducing Buddhism to Sri Lanka. For many centuries the steep slopes of Mahinda Hill were the site of a monastic complex which used a clever water management system. A series of small, shallow ponds carved out of rock served as cisterns to store water for use during the dry season. Those ponds were linked by a drain system that allowed for water to be released to the next lower pond. It seems that in this manner the lowest pond could be used first, and so on up to the top. The monks could shower by standing in a pond while water from the higher pond ran through a channel carved through the stone. The ends of the stone channels, functioning like a modern shower head, were elaborately carved to resemble an animal.

68   Roy C. Amore Perhaps under Buddhist influence, a clever way of storing water for crop irrigation was also employed in ancient Sri Lanka. Rather than constructing one large irrigation reservoir, known as a tank in Sri Lanka, the reservoir area was divided into numerous smaller reservoirs in a grid pattern. During the dry season when irrigation water was needed, the small reservoirs were drained one at a time. Since the evaporation rate of water corresponds to the water’s surface area, this system conserved water that would have otherwise evaporated. For example, when half the water had been used, if it was one large reservoir the surface area would still be the full size, whereas in the grid system the surface area was only half that amount. An additional advantage was that repairs could be made to the little dams that formed the grid pattern even before all the water was used.

The Economics of Monasticism Kings or local rulers who supported Buddhism sometimes granted lands to a particular monastery for its support. Those who farmed the land were required to give a portion of the income from the land to the monastery rather than paying taxes to the government. This system, combined with donations to the monasteries of land or other wealth made by pious Buddhist families, led some monasteries to have large landholdings and other forms of wealth. There is -​evidence that as some Buddhist monasteries developed into well-​endowed institutions, rulers began to challenge their tax-​exempt status. Ulrich Pagel (2014) calls attention to the controversy about revenue collection from Buddhist monks in early Buddhist history. Pagel’s research is based upon his reading of the Vinaya books as preserved in one of the eighteen early sects of Indian Buddhism known as Mulasarvastivada. That sect was active in the area of Bactria, a prosperous Central Asian kingdom in the region north of the Hindu Kush that included parts of modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The sect also spread from Central Asia all the way to China. The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya evolved from the Vinaya shared by all forms of early Buddhists. For centuries Buddhist works were preserved by and recited from memory and were not written. As time passed, additions were made to both the Vinaya and Sutra parts of the canon, which later was put in written form. So the texts of one sect share a common core but are not identical. The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya mentions the famous King Kanishka, who ruled Bactria in the second century, so it reflects discipline-​related matters up until at least that time. The disputes Pagel describes were about whether Buddhist monks were or were not obliged to pay such things as taxes, tariffs, and duties while travelling with merchants. The background law derived from Indian laws which exempted ascetics from paying fees at ferry crossings, custom duties at borders, and taxes. The Vinaya also deals with the issues arising from cases in which monks were alleged to have been involved in evading such financial obligations. It must have been tempting for merchants to ask monks to carry valuables while the travelling merchant group crossed a customs checkpoint. Among other things, this shows us how common it was for monks to travel with merchant caravans for security and as a means of finding their way to distant locations.

Buddhist Economic Ethics    69

The Conflict between Buddhist and Chinese Values When Buddhist monks travelled along the silk road to Xi’an and then spread into other regions of China, they brought a concept that was quite foreign to China. They introduced the idea that it was a very high calling to leave the householder life and live a celibate life in a monastery with other monks. The concept of monasticism was regarded as a threat to traditional family values among the Chinese. Whereas Buddhist values urged sons to depart from family life and enter monastic life, Chinese families expected their sons to marry, live in the family compound, raise a family and provide the youthful labour that would support their ageing parents and grandparents. To make matters even more repugnant to the Chinese, Buddhist monks were expected to shave their heads, which was perceived to be an insult to one’s ancestors in Chinese culture. Continuing the family lineage and carrying out the rituals honouring one’s ancestors were crucial parts of Chinese expectation, and Buddhist values could not have been less supportive of those values. Despite the clash in values, Buddhist monasticism did eventually become accepted in China, and many of the different vehicles and ordination lineages (schools) took root on Chinese soil and elsewhere in East Asia. Although the Chinese population was heavily influenced by Buddhist values, governments were not. Most emperors looked to Confucian values as the guiding moral system, especially because Confucianism put great stress upon obedience to one’s social superiors, with the emperor deserving total obedience and respect. Also, monasticism was seen as a drain on the economy. Such fears about Buddhism led the court to ban Buddhist monasticism in 845, leading to the closing of monasteries and the forced return of monks to lay life. In more recent times, the government closed many monasteries in the former Tibetan region and forced monks to return to lay life.

Buddhist Views of the Afterlife In its formative years, Buddhism was not especially associated with rituals, including death rituals and the veneration of ancestors, but as Buddhism became the spiritual tradition embraced by large portions of the population in many countries, Buddhist teachings and monks became more and more involved in matters of death, dying, and especially conceptions of the afterlife. The Buddha had stressed that everything that arises will pass away, meaning that all things and all living entities come into being and eventually die. Even the ritual act of putting flowers on the flower altar at a stupa can be the occasion for recalling this fact of life. The Buddhist might first say that even as these flowers are beautiful and fragrant today, they will soon be wilted and foul smelling, and then continue the thought with the realization that the person offering the flowers will also someday have a similar fate.

70   Roy C. Amore Monks typically did not directly officiate at funerals, but they were often asked to chant scriptures as a way of bringing peace and blessings to the deceased, the grieving family, and friends. After attending such Buddhist chanting rituals, listening to Dharma talks, or doing other meritorious acts, a Buddhist could transfer the merit, the good karma, of those actions to their ancestors for their benefit in the afterlife. One ritual at the end of a session in which the sacred scriptures are chanted is for all those in attendance to say that they transfer the merit of their participation to all sentient beings. In this ritual, the recipient is not just one’s own deceased ancestors, but all living beings, including animals. At the popular level, Buddhist teachings had a great influence on the Chinese conception of the afterlife. The Chinese assimilated the Buddhist concepts of various heavens presided over by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and the many-​layered hells. Along the lines of Dante’s inferno, Chinese popular Buddhism envisioned particular levels of hell where souls were punished in accordance with their particular sins. Similarly in Japan, Buddhism became especially associated with death and dying. Buddhist leaders did prayers and chants, and the burials took place in cemeteries associated with Buddhist temples. Even today, when tourists ask a Japanese person why they go to both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, the answer is often that we Japanese go to shrines for happy things, such as child rituals and especially weddings, and to temples for sad things, such as funerals and memorials. The close association of Buddhism with funerals, memorials, and cemeteries spread throughout East Asia. This association led to a flow of donations, including land titles to Buddhist monasteries. When the land donations were such that the temples seemed to hold an excess of land, it sometimes provoked a forced economic reform by governments.

Buddhist Guidance to Kings The Buddhist teaching is that a good king should strive to be emulate the Chakravartin, an idealized ruler. In this term the word chakra means wheel, which was a symbol of kingship dating far back in India history. The wheel on the flag of modern India is often associated with Gandhi’s spinning wheel, but it is really the ancient symbol of government. The second part of the term, vartin, suggests motion. In ancient India one implication may have been that a great king could move his chariot anywhere he liked, including into other realms. In Buddhism the term does not imply militancy and the expansion of a kingdom. Rather it is an ideal towards which a good Buddhist ruler should strive. It’s the wheel of Dharma, not the wheel of a war chariot, that the good king should turn. The Buddhist teachings about what a good government should do are reflected in the Zen Buddhist story about an encounter between King Wu and the monk Bodhidharma. This is the same monk who is credited with bringing the Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism to China and teaching a form of exercises that most schools of

Buddhist Economic Ethics    71 martial arts in East Asia look upon as their origins. Today his home area, Shaolin, has numerous schools where young boys and girls combine academic study with martial arts training. The story tells of a day when Bodhidharma had been invited by King Wu to visit his palace. The king had embraced Buddhism and had followed Buddhist guidance about what a good king should do. He proudly shows the monk the new wing built on the palace to house the work of translating Buddhist scriptures from Indian languages and making copies of the Chinese translations for distribution. The king says that he has set up places around his kingdom where the poor can come for food, and he has mandated that the major Buddhist holidays be celebrated with public festivals featuring ceremonies, free food, and the reading of Buddhist texts. Then the king asks about how much merit the monk thinks the king has earned from all these good Buddhist works. Bodhidharma’s famous answer is ‘None’. The king is shocked, of course, and then Bodhidharma explains that merit comes from purifying one’s mind. King Wu did the right things, according to Buddhist teachings, but seems to have done them for selfish reasons. Despite King Wu’s allegedly self-​centred motives, what comes through the story is that in Buddhist economic ethics, the government should take responsibility for providing food and other necessities, including medicines, to those desperate enough to require assistance. One especially pious Buddhist king in old Sri Lanka added another dimension to the responsibilities of being an ideal king. As in many other traditional regions, the king was expected to hold court periodically to rule on disputes that arose. In modern terms, the institution of kingship embraced the judicial as well as the legislative and executive branch of the government. The typical king held court in a courtyard in front of or within the palace walls in order to hear concerns and rule on disputes early each morning, but this king thought that justice delayed was justice denied, it would seem. He ordered that one end of a rope should be attached to a bell in his sleeping quarters, with the other end extending over the palace wall such that it hung down within reach of the people. He announced that if anyone had a concern that needed immediate attention, they should pull on the rope to ring the bell and awaken him so that he could hold court even in the middle of the night. There does not seem to be any indication of whether anyone actually interrupted the king’s sleep with a case to be heard, but the king set a good precedent for justice systems!

Modern Developments in Buddhist Economic Ethics During the past century numerous individuals, both Buddhist and non-​Buddhists, have striven to articulate a Buddhist economic ethics and put it into practice through development and educational activities. The following is a selection of these individuals and

72   Roy C. Amore organizations, arranged in approximate chronological order, although for most of them their endeavours spanned several decades and continue.

Dr Ambedkar, India’s Dalit Economist Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in 1891 into the lowest social level in India, then known in English as untouchables but now known collectively as Dalits. He was a brilliant student and his teacher, who was a Brahmin as was typical, became a mentor to the young boy. The Brahmin teacher knew that the bright student deserved to go on to higher education but would not be admitted due to his family name which made him identifiable as an untouchable. The teacher arranged to adopt the boy, thus giving him the family name, Ambedkar. He was indeed admitted to higher education and received financial help from the regional ruler, who was a Muslim. The brilliant and hard-​ working Ambedkar went on to earn master’s degrees from Columbia University, a doctoral degree in economics at the University of London, and a law degree. Upon returning to India as a highly educated economist and lawyer, he struggled to be accepted because his Dalit status was known. He became increasingly active as a lawyer representing cases involving the rights of the lower castes. He founded periodicals to promote Dalit rights and tried to correct the ages old injustices involved in caste discrimination. Meeting great resistance, he came to realize that Dalits were not likely to break out of caste discrimination as long as they remained as Hindus, since Hinduism continued to foster the prejudice that people born into lower castes deserved their inferior social and economic status due to bad karma from past lives. He led marches intended to overturn the traditional discriminations such as the prohibition against Dalits getting drinking water from the same well used by high-​caste Hindus, or against Dalits entering a Hindu temple even though they considered themselves to be Hindu. He advocated for more Dalit representation in legislative bodies, and under the terms of the Poona Pact of 1932 seats were reserved exclusively for Dalits. Ambedkar went on to found a political party representing the Dalits. When independence came, he became the main author of the new constitution which incorporated very modern social values. Having met continuing resistance among high-​caste Hindus to his efforts to uplift the Dalits, he made a determination to embrace some other religion. After acquainting himself with Christianity, Sikhism, and Islam, he turned to Buddhism. He began writing a book on Buddhism, which was published posthumously. He saw Buddhism as a religion that taught both social and economic equality, and had from its inception denounced caste discrimination. Another point that appealed to him was that it was Indian, and after research he concluded that Buddhism was the original religion of the Dalits, before they were treated as second-​class Hindus. In 1956 in Nagpur, the heart of conservative Hinduism, he formally converted to Buddhism and led a mass conversion of thousands of Dalits to do the same. As an economist, in his earlier career he advocated for more efficient use of India’s agricultural lands, more industrialization to help alleviate poverty, and a more stable

Buddhist Economic Ethics    73 basis for the rupee, such as using gold coinage. As a Buddhist politician and economist, he advocated for an economic ethics that would uplift the lower classes to both social and economic equality. Several other mass conversions by Dalits to Buddhism have taken place since his death, and now some states in India are passing laws restricting mass conversions away from Hinduism, whether to Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam. Today the reservation system has continued to allot more spaces for Dalit and tribal groups in education and civil-​servant positions, but millions remain in poverty.

U Nu’s Buddhist Socialism in Burma U Nu, the first prime minister of independent Burma, now known as Myanmar, once explained in an interview with a Western journalist that for years he had been only a nominal Buddhist. That is, he had been born into a Buddhist family and raised as a Buddhist but was not much influenced by Buddhism. He was, it seems, more of an independent-​minded person who turned to reason rather than religious tradition for his world view. Then he came across a passage in the Kalama Sutra in which the Buddha himself had encouraged people to only believe what they could confirm for themselves. Inspired by that approach he withdrew from worldly life for a period of meditation, lasting about a month. He emerged from this as a committed Buddhist, while remaining true to only accepting those truths that he could confirm for himself. U Nu was a socialist who was committed to uplifting the social and economic welfare of the whole Burmese society, and he did not see a conflict between this socialist stance and his newly found Buddhist values. He therefore tried to guide Burma along a path he called the Buddhist Way to Socialism. That path was intended to avoid the pitfalls of the more individualist and profit-​driven Western approach to economic development by tempering unbridled economic schemes with basic Buddhist values such as compassion for all sentient beings, whether human or non-​human. For complex reasons, including his failure to crack down on insurgences among Burma’s many large ethnic communities in the north, confidence in his political leadership fell. He had to resign, and invited General Ne Win to lead the country. Ne Win also embraced a form of socialism but found U Nu’s Buddhist stance to be too soft. Ne Win revised the slogan to read, ‘a Burmese Way to Socialism’. Later U Nu took another term as prime minister, which also ended when he was replaced as leader after Ne Win staged a coup and resumed power.

Schumacher’s Buddhist Economics ‘Buddhist Economics’ is the title of Chapter 4 of E.F. Schumacher’s influential book Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. Having been born in Germany, Schumacher moved to England and worked as an economist. His interactions with

74   Roy C. Amore development leaders from India and Burma, and especially his visit to the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka (discussed later) led him to rethink his economic stance. He begins by noting that, at least in the time of its publication in 1973, the leaders of some predominantly Buddhist countries were eager to both keep true to Buddhism while at the same time wanting to advance and modernize the country’s economy. To achieve that they were looking to get advice from the economists of developed economies. Schumacher’s prime example of this tendency came from the first prime minister of independent Burma, U Nu. Schumacher challenged the concept that a Buddhist country could maintain its more egalitarian approach while uncritically imitating Western economic policies. His claim was that the more materialist-​based economics of modernity was not suited to fostering Buddhist values. Schumacher goes on to point out some of the problems that have arisen as a result of economic development in industrialized nations, such as the loss of a vibrant rural economy, rising unemployment, or general dissatisfaction among the urban masses. At this point in his argument he draws upon the Buddhist concept of the middle path: ‘It is a question of finding the right path of development, the Middle Way between materialist heedlessness and traditionalist immobility, in short, of finding the “Right Livelihood” ’ (Schumacher, 2010, p. 66). He points out that for Buddhists, Right Livelihood includes following the five precepts: abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual wrongs, lying, and intoxicants.

Neville Karunatilake’s Call for a Buddhist Economics The late Neville Karunatilake, a Sri Lankan economist and former head of the central bank of Sri Lanka, looked upon Dharma Asoka as providing a model for Buddhist economics. As suggested by the title of his book, This Confused Society (The Regeneration of Man) (1976), he felt that modern economics was failing to provide a good model for economic development. Instead, he embraced the concept of a Buddhist economics as a better way to promote social harmony and overcome the drive to acquire more and more.

Sarvodaya Village Development in Sri Lanka As a young high-​school teacher in Sri Lanka, A.T. Ariyaratne, affectionately called Ari, taught students who had an urban and relatively affluent background, at least compared to their village counterparts. As a way of acquainting them with the poverty of rural villages, Ari took his students on field trips to poor village communities. As a follow-​up he would encourage them to consider devoting themselves to projects intended to help their rural compatriots. Then it occurred to him that rather than merely encouraging his students to do that, he should take up his own challenge. Inspired by his Buddhist values and Gandhi’s Sarvodaya movement, Ari founded the Sarvodaya Shramadana

Buddhist Economic Ethics    75 Movement in 1958. Gandhi’s term sarvodaya refers to the ‘awakening of all’, and the addition of the term shramadana refers to the giving of labour. The organization elaborates on the Shramadana as ‘Sharing of One’s Time, Thoughts, Labour and Energy’. Ari’s approach is quite different from that of some traditional large-​scale development projects funded by external agencies. His approach involves first asking residents of a particular village what they need most. It might be better drinking water, better storage for their crops, a better road to the village, or something else. Based on that, he asks them if they are willing to work collectively to improve their situation. They usually are, so he or his trained leadership team help the villagers organize themselves into labour parties. Interspersed with the work sessions are educational sessions during which villagers learn the values of generosity, cooperation, and sharing of resources so that the economy of the whole community can improve. Since the villagers dig the well, build the road, or construct better grain-​storage bins from local materials, they therefore have the skill and materials to maintain what they have built. This approach avoids two problems that sometimes cause development programmes to end badly, either by some local individual benefiting from the project at the expense of others or by a failed technology such as a lack of parts or knowhow to fix such equipment as a broken pump. When I studied the Sarvodaya project in the late 1970s, Ari had announced the very ambitious goal of achieving development projects in 1,000 villages. He did achieve that goal and Sarvodaya now has projects in over 3,000 villages. Sarvodaya is based on Gandhian and Buddhist values, but from the early days its board of directors included Hindus and Christians as well as Ari and other Buddhists. Because Sarvodaya had a history of Tamil Hindus and Sihala Buddhists working side by side on projects for the good of both Tamils and Sinhalese, when the civil war conflict broke out, Sarvodaya workers were able to undertake marches in the streets calling for peace and cooperation. Sarvodaya’s people-​based approach is apparent in a story Ari tells about an unplanned project. In the earlier days of his work, his car broke down and he was forced to stay in a village previously unknown to him as he awaited parts for the car. A family welcomed him to their home, and as evening approached, he asked if they were going to the temple for evening services, as Sri Lankans historically did. They confessed that they didn’t usually go any more, but he talked them into going with him. After the service he and others lingered and talked to the local monk (bhikkhu), who lamented that few villagers came any more, and that there was not a group spirit as there had been previously. Ari was motivated to try to do something about that, and so he got the others there that night to agree to a new approach for the following night. That approach was to bring an offering of rice, as usual, but to stop on the way at homes of their neighbours to invite them to touch the container so that they too might participate in the merit from the offering. They did, and some even added some rice to the container as well. A few also decided to come along to the temple. Each night more and more villagers came to the temple and most stayed to talk with Ari about the needs of the village, in terms of both spiritual and economic improvements. The people became more aware that the spirit of group cooperation had been lost in the modern era and that there were also development projects that would benefit the whole community. In a few days the car parts arrived,

76   Roy C. Amore and he left a village inspired to receive Sarvodaya leaders to help the village undertake some projects for the benefit and awakening of all (sarvodaya). The underlying ethics of Sarvodaya is that economic development should be done for the benefit of the whole community and that the whole community should be involved in one way or another. The evaluation metric has little to do with the project’s contribution to GNP. Rather the goal is to have it be a sustainable benefit for everyone and encourage cooperation among the villagers. As summed up on their website, Sarvodaya ‘seeks a no-​poverty, no-​affluence society in Sri Lanka through community-​based efforts and volunteerism’.

Bhutan’s Concept of Gross National Happiness The former government of Bhutan, a predominately Buddhist nation situated between India and China, developed a Buddhist-​inspired policy to promote what it called Gross National Happiness (GNH). Adopted in 1972, it was meant to measure success in human terms rather than by the widely used Gross National Product (GNP) metric. The king proclaimed that Gross National Happiness was more important for Bhutan than Gross National Product. The GNH metric was based on four pillars and nine domains. The four pillars are sustainable and equitable social-​economic development, environmental conservation, preservation and promotion of culture, and good governance. The nine domains of happiness are more specific, measurable factors; namely, psychological well-​ being, health, use of time, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and standard of living, including balance of work and leisure time. Despite its small population and small economy, under its GNH policy Bhutan manages to provide both free health care and free education. The policy is meant to be guided by values, and those values are based on Buddhist teachings. Bhutan is located in the southern part of the Himalayan Mountain range, and preserving that pristine environment is one of the most important of those values. Over 70 per cent of the land is covered with forest, and the constitution enshrines that the percentage of forested land must not go below 60 per cent. That is not the sort of article one normally finds in constitutions. Whereas many other countries are striving to move towards a goal to become carbon neutral within a few decades, Bhutan claims to already be carbon neutral. Even better, it claims to be carbon negative. Given all the forested areas, Bhutan can claim, as a geographic region, to function as a carbon sink. To reduce the amount of smoke released into the air in rural areas when wood is burnt for cooking, the government provides free electricity to some rural areas. That electricity is produced through power-​generation stations along Bhutan’s many fast-​flowing rivers. Expecting it to take at least fifteen years to fully fund its ambitious environmental programmes on its own, Bhutan’s government started an ambitious funding programme called ‘Bhutan for Life’. With funding from the World Wildlife Fund as well as other

Buddhist Economic Ethics    77 donors, enough funding was raised to start the environmental projects quickly, rather than more slowly if Bhutan had to fund them on its own (Tshering Tobgay, 2016). Having successfully raised the money for its Bhutan for Life projects for a sustainable environment, Bhutan then challenged other nations to follow in its Bhutan for Life environmental initiative, under a scheme it suggested could be called ‘World for Life’. The United Nations has taken some steps to support the GNH concept. The General Assembly passed a resolution in 2011 calling for nations to follow Bhutan’s example. Beginning in 2012 the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published a ‘World Happiness Report’ annually. Although the GNH approach arose in the context of specifically Buddhist economic ethics, the metric is now being used outside Bhutan and without specific mention of Buddhist values.

Sulak and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists Sulak Sivaraksa is a scholar of Thai and Chinese cultural history who has, over the past decades, been the leading social critic in Thailand. Sulak is a Buddhist advocate for economic and social change in his country and beyond. Among his numerous accomplishments, Arjarn (Professor) Sulak was a co-​founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). That organization works in developing leadership training and is a partner in development projects in numerous countries. Those projects cover a wide range of concerns. Some seek to defend the traditional catch regions of fishing villages from the fishing trawlers owned by large corporations concerned with their bottom line and not with any negative impact on the livelihood of local villagers. Another concern is the way that clear cutting a forest, again by large international corporations, causes long-​term environmental disasters and also disastrously impacts the livelihood of the nearby villagers who, like their ancestors have for centuries, depend on the nearby forest for food, building materials, fodder for animals, and so much more. One approach to stop irresponsible logging has been for Buddhist activists to organize resistance efforts that take the form of symbolically ‘ordaining’ the trees by tying some of the saffron-​coloured cloth associated with Buddhist robes around the trunks of trees slated for cutting. This approach has had some positive impact in Myanmar and Thailand because the local tree cutters are Buddhists and so are then reluctant to cut down the tree, resulting in at least temporary work stoppage. A related approach involves a ‘forest walk’ in which an environmental activist monk leads a walk through the forest, gaining a wider public awareness of the way long-​term damage is being done for the sake of short-​term corporate profits. The loss of traditional farmland and local crops as a result of large tracts of land being purchased by international corporations for the purpose of establishing large pineapple or other plantations is another issue of concern to these Buddhists.

78   Roy C. Amore Sulak, as well as INEB, undertakes sessions to train young leaders as activists for economic and social improvements to poor villages. In one instance that I observed, young leaders from the Myanmar’s Kachin ethnic group, who are Baptist Christians, participated in a training session that spanned several months. It involved training in how to incubate and sustain village development projects as well as participating as worker–​observers in several ongoing projects. The goal was for the trainees to return to their home villages in Myanmar in order to organize village-​level development projects. Besides his organizational leadership activities, Sulak is a prolific writer on a wide variety of subjects such as Thai and Chinese culture and history, Buddhist history and thought, and current issues in Thai politics and society. He has been a guest professor or invited speaker at numerous universities and conferences worldwide, so he is well known beyond Thai and Buddhist circles, and this wide readership has allowed him to be an important contemporary voice on the topic of Buddhist economic ethics. His sharp critique of consumerism is the theme that runs through many of his lectures and writings. He reminds his audience of Descartes’s famous phrase, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Then he says that for too many people today, the descriptive statement should be, ‘I shop, therefore I am.’ Sulak’s critique of a popular culture that idealizes accumulating more and more possessions, that discards last year’s models for the latest one, or that is obsessed with possessing the latest designer clothes is rooted firmly in basic Buddhist doctrine and ethical principles. He reminds us that according to Buddhism the three evil roots of the mind are greed, hatred, and delusion. The consumerism culture is based on greed, Sulak says. Also, the first principle of the Four Noble Truths is that suffering arises from excessive craving, or ‘thirst’. The Buddhist stress on compassion for all sentient beings, whether it be the humans or the animals who need the forest for their livelihoods, is also important in Sulak’s thought. He points out that the second of the five precepts that Buddhists affirm is to restrain from taking what is not mine. He takes this beyond the realm of the individual, saying, ‘Do we allow the rich countries to exploit the poor countries through the workings of the international banking system and the international economic order (Amore, 2020)? He further criticizes rich, industrial countries for exploiting poorer, agrarian nations; much as large international corporations have exploited Third World regions of their needed resources. Social equality is very important in Sulak’s version of economic ethics. Once at a conference in the late 1970s, after Sulak had spoken adamantly about the problems arising from modern developments and exploitation, he was asked, ‘But what about all that poverty in Burma?’ He replied that yes, sadly, the Burmese were very poor and were suffering, before adding: ‘But at least they are all poor together!’ His economic ethics, like that of other Buddhists is not anti-​development but is pro-​equality. He stresses that equality also should apply to women as well, and that is a principle that is followed in his development projects, both in the sense of what they wish to accomplish and the roles that women play.

Buddhist Economic Ethics    79

The Dalai Lama’s Call for a Secular Economic Ethics The current Dalai Lama, the fourteenth, has resided in India since his exile from China in 1959. It was, at least from a Tibetan rather than Chinese point of view, a tragedy that as Tibet was brought under the control of China he had to leave Tibet and the Tibetan people who remained behind. Fortunately, India accepted him and the other Tibetan refugees, and he has made his home in a place now called Dharmsala, ‘Dharma Place’, in north-​east India near the border with China. During the more than six decades of exile he has travelled the world on numerous occasions, giving talks at many conferences, universities, Buddhist centres, and more recently on social media. He has met with numerous political and religious leaders. His many books are read worldwide. The Dalai Lama has become by far the most important and influential Buddhist in the world. The Dalai Lama’s many books deal mostly with his guidance on how to achieve inner peace and spiritual advancement based on Buddhist understanding, but he has also addressed topics related to a Buddhist approach to economic ethics. For example, he tells this story about what occurred on the occasion of a dedication ceremony for a new Buddhist temple in Bihar, India. He was introduced by the state’s political leader, who proclaimed that with the opening of this new Buddhist temple the Buddha would bring blessings on the state of Bihar. When it was his turn to speak, the Dalai Lama politely but firmly rejected the chief minister’s optimistic claim. The Dalai Lama said that Buddhism had long been associated with Bihar, it being one of the regions where the Buddha himself had visited and where he had achieved his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. If, he continued, the Buddha were to bring a special blessing to Bihar, then that would have happened long ago. Prayer and other spiritual practices have, he suggested, psychological benefits and results, but prayers alone will not achieve the desired results. Rather, the Dalai Lama went on to say, the people of Bihar needed to take concrete actions to improve their lot. Science, technology, and effort were more effective for achieving results. He illustrated this by recounting his own experience of being quite ill previously, saying he appreciated the prayers and well wishes of so many people at the time, but that his doctors and medical staff were the ones to restore his health. He then returned to his main theme—​his growing confidence that developments in psychology and especially neuroscience had the potential to being about a scientific understanding of the role of spiritual practices for the mind’s health. In his book Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama calls for an approach to ethics, including economic ethics, that is not based in any one particular religion. He explains why he wants solutions to the world’s problems that go beyond religion. He points out that historically it was often the case that most people in a particular region followed only one religious tradition. This was especially true for isolated regions such as Tibet. So, an ethical system could be based on that religion. That would not work in the modern world, where there are multiple religious traditions in many countries, and in many countries, there are a lot of people who do not adhere to any organized religious tradition.

80   Roy C. Amore So, rather than a specifically Buddhist economic ethics, the Dalai Lama’s approach is to advocate for an economic ethics that is universal and secular. For him the term ‘secular’ does not imply a stance against religion, but rather an approach that is tied to a religion. The human-​based values in such an economic ethics would also be those taught by Buddhism and other religions, but to be effective it needed to be articulated in secular terms.

Clair Brown’s Buddhist Alternative to Free Market Economics Clair Brown is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who embraced Buddhism as an adult after becoming aware of Buddhist teachings and Tibetan style meditation. She has become an advocate for Buddhist economics as a better alternative than free-​market economics. Her book Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science articulates her reasons for that position. She argues that free-​market economics is built on three false assumptions. The first assumption is that people are very self-​centred and care only about themselves and their family. The second is that people use their income that exceeds their bare necessities to support fancy lifestyles. The idea that the environment exists for human domination is the third false assumption. In contrast to what she sees as the underlying starting points of free-​market economics, Brown writes that Buddhist economics is based on three very different principles. First, Buddhism sees human nature as kind and altruistic rather than self-​ centred. Second, people are interdependent with others. And third, people are interdependent with nature. The underlying Buddhist teaching that Brown brings to her holistic approach to a Buddhist economic ethics is interdependence. It has three applications, she writes. Resources are to be used to enhance the quality of life for oneself and others, because we all are interdependent. The goal of caring for nature and the environment follows from the realization that we are interdependent upon those as well as upon humans. The third dimension of interdependence is the realization that the suffering of one is the suffering of all. Here, she seeks to make us aware that many of the fancy shoes, clothes, or other consumer goods we enjoy are available cheaply to us because of the suffering of exploited workers. Brown suggests that the Buddhist practice of awareness (mindfulness) can replace consumerism as the way humans find satisfaction. She feels that this approach is the path towards solving our two main problems: global warming and inequality. Brown suggests some steps towards solving those two problems. The metric for measuring economic performance according to Buddhist economics should be the ability of an economy to deliver well-​being to everyone and not just to the

Buddhist Economic Ethics    81 affluent elite. This approach makes more income available to the lower-​income families, who can then use the increased buying power to afford better food and a healthier lifestyle. In contrast, she holds, in an economy where the rich just get richer, they just do things such as building bigger houses, buying bigger boats, and taking more expensive vacations. She recounts how disturbed she had been in 2015 to read that over a thousand superyachts had been purchased in the latest five-​year period, despite an economic downturn for so many people. In a society based on Buddhist economics, she expects that people would be better able to care for each other as well as the environment. Brown acknowledges that many religions besides Buddhism teach compassion and caring for others, her concept of Buddhist economics does not require the adherent to either embrace Buddhism or be an economist. People, she argues, need to find a way to overcome their busyness, denial, and ignorance in order to make positive economic changes in their lives and in the lives of others.

Vaddhaka Linn on Buddhist Economic Ethics After earning degrees in economics and industrial relations, Ian Linn spend over two decades as a pro-​labour activist and author in the UK. He was motivated by the desire to do something about the rising unemployment in the UK. During that period, he published books on civil liberty and on discrimination in employment by the state. Then, having spent over two decades as an activist, he turned to Buddhism through meditation and an association with the Triratna (‘Three Jewels’, referring to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) organization. By 1994 he was involved in Buddhist leadership and took on the Buddhist name, Vaddhaka. The Pali word Vaḍḍhaka refers to someone who augments or increases something, in this case the welfare of others. Vaddhaka Linn later relocated, at first temporarily, to Talliin, Estonia, where he still serves as a leader in the Triratna Centre there. With the publication in 2015 of his book The Buddha on Wall Street, Vaddhaka Linn emerged as an advocate for a Buddhist economics that would be more ethical than the current capitalist and neoliberal alternatives. He begins by calling attention to the problems arising from a neoliberalist approach. He calls attention to the way that neoliberalist capitalism focuses on increasing production efficiency and GDP without considering such things as the value of work to human beings or the rise in unemployment and inequality. He then contrasts that to a Buddhist economics approach based on values such as generosity and altruism. He further criticizes neoliberal economics for leading to a decline in community as well as leading to environmental disasters and excessive waste. Writing about Bhutan’s effort to replace the GDP metric with a Buddhist-​based Gross National Happiness metric, Linn is critical of the way it was structured. He notes that a large portion of the GNH metric, fully one-​third, was allotted to the area called psychological well-​being, which in turn was measured by interviewing people about their spiritual life. To score high on that category one was expected to practise Buddhism in

82   Roy C. Amore ways such as prayer, meditation, and consideration of the role of karma in one’s life. Linn does not think a good happiness metric should be based on the degree to which the person adheres to a particular religion. He further calls attention to the problematic way that Bhutan has treated the economic migrants who entered from neighbouring Nepal. Rather than the explicitly Buddhist-​based GNH happiness metric, Linn prefers the dashboard approach of the Organization for Economic Development (OECD). He also likes the New Economics Foundation’s metric called the five ways to well-​being, which are connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, and give. Linn writes about the Buddhists that he admires for their efforts to transform society into a more economically ethical place. He begins with his own mentor, Ven. Sangharakshita, who developed the concept of a ‘new society’. Sangharakshita envisioned a form of communal living that would put into practice such goals as encouraging each other to live on the basis of Buddhist values, to provide a model for the larger society, and to promote contact between the larger society and the Buddhist community. The second of Linn’s list of admired Buddhist leaders is Dr. Ambedkar, already discussed. Linn notes that Indian census data have shown that the social and economic status of Dalit groups that have converted to Buddhism is better than among those castes continuing to identity as Hindus. He believes this to be due to the increase in their confidence and their increased ability to assert themselves in society. Linn further calls attention to the way that Ambedkar realized that caste discrimination was deeply embedded in the Indian mindset and changing that would require replacing it with an alternative mindset. For that alternative he chose Buddhism for its economic and ethical values. The Triratna movement now has centres in India for training Dalits in ways to uplift their community, socially and economically, through Buddhist values. David Loy, to be discussed later, is the third thinker on Linn’s list of Buddhists he admires for their approach to a Buddhist economics. He calls attention to the way that Loy makes use the Buddhist teaching about the three evil motives (or roots of consciousness) among humans: greed, hatred, and delusion. He credits Loy with critiquing large corporations for so institutionalizing greed that they operate on the basis that no profit is enough, and people can never consume enough. The later point connects with Sulak’s critique of consumerism. Bhikkhu Bodhi is the third Buddhist on Linn’s list. Linn calls attention to the way that Bhikkhu Bodhi, after years of meditation and work as a translator of Buddhist texts from Pali to English, has now turned to economic improvement work. He helped found the Buddhist Global Relief organization, which now has numerous projects designed to relieve hunger in various nations. Bhikkhu Bodhi has developed an understanding of Buddhist thought that involves addressing the economic and social inequalities so prevalent throughout the world. Vaddhaka Linn concludes his book by calling for a Buddhist-​inspired middle way between neoliberal economics and communism. Towards that end he articulates five endeavours that Buddhists should undertake. Buddhists should transform themselves,

Buddhist Economic Ethics    83 educate themselves in economics, get involved in solving social issues, exemplify good values, and avoid eating meat.

David Loy on EcoDharma Before publishing the book Ecodharma (2019) David Loy had written about the dissimilar world views of Buddhism and those tracing back to Abraham. He noted that the ‘ethical monotheism’ of the Abrahamic traditions promotes a dualistic view which tends to categorize actions as either good or evil, depending upon whether they are perceived to be in accordance with or against God’s will (Loy, 2014). Drawing upon the writings of prophets such as Amos, he suggested that this approach has, in addition to ethical stances for individuals, led Abrahamic-​based thought towards movements striving for social reform. He then states that the traditional Buddhist view centres more on the individual’s goal of lessening the three evil roots, which he terms ‘fires’ of consciousness: namely, greed, hatred, and delusion. He writes: ‘Even the best possible economic and political system cannot be expected to function well if the people within that system are motivated by greed, aggression, and delusion—​the “three fires” or “three poisons” that Buddhism identifies as unwholesome motivations that need to be transformed into their more positive counterparts: generosity, loving-​kindness, and wisdom’ (Loy, 2014). The motivation underlying Loy’s Ecodharma book and his personal involvement in environmental action groups arises from his strong fear that the Earth is moving towards an ecological disaster, as evidenced by alarming changes in so many dimensions of the environment, such as freshwater aquifers, increasing radioactive waste, polluted oceans, human population pressures, nuclear accidents, and increasing extinctions of species. He stresses that global warming is only one dimension of the whole ecological picture. He puts the blame on a mechanistic approach to the natural world, which to him suggests that what we have is a spiritual crisis. His goal is to bring Buddhist insights to the problem, even though he readily admits at the outset that traditional Buddhism has been much more concerned with alleviating individual suffering than saving the planet. Loy celebrates the way that several Buddhist leaders have begun an ‘Ecodharma’ movement intent upon bringing Buddhist dharma—​ both the teachings and the practice—​together with concern for the ecology. One contribution Buddhism can make, he suggests, is to build upon its meditation practice, which deconstructs the ego so that individuals feel more connected to others and the world, in such a way as to help both Buddhists and others to deconstruct the world and develop a spiritual sense of being connected to the world. He points out that one good place to start is to get out into the natural world. He reminds us that the spiritual breakthrough experiences of many of the world’s great religious leaders took place in natural surroundings. One goal would be to stop seeing the things in nature as just annoyances, such as some insects, or objects to be exploited by us.

84   Roy C. Amore Loy contends that there are several components of the Buddhist dharma that if appropriately followed would be helpful for ecology efforts. The Five Precepts discussed earlier are a good start. The first one, the avoidance of killing, includes not harming any living creature, as far as practical. Its application can easily be understood to apply to the avoidance of causing the extinction of a species. Similarly, the avoidance of stealing can be extended to apply to corporations which exploit other humans or animals for excessive profits. Loy also draws upon the Buddhist dharma’s teaching about making progress towards each of the Six Perfections: the perfection of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. Loy acknowledges that the main thrust of Buddha’s teaching was for the individual to lessen suffering, but now that the whole planet is suffering, so to speak, he calls for an Ecodharma intended to address the suffering of the whole world. Mahayana Buddhism stresses the concept of a Bodhisattvas, persons who, while alive, vowed to work seriously towards enlightenment, Buddhahood, but who then postpone full Buddhahood in order to help others. In the Mahayana there is a concept of the Bodhisattva path, referring to the road to enlightenment. The belief is that there are Boddhisatvas who, having progressed on that path and after passing away as humans, now reside in a heaven or on earth where they can share their merit with others who turn to them for help. He writes, ‘ “How can I get out of this situation?” the Bodhisattva asks, “What can I contribute to make this situation better?” Today, more than ever, we need to understand the Bodhisattva path as a spiritual archetype that offers a new vision of human possibility.’ The Bodhisattva path stands for the ideal taking steps towards compassionate help to all others. So, Loy coins a new term, ‘ecosattva path’, meant to refer to progressive steps along the way to saving the planet.

Paul Hawken’s Buddhist-​Inspired Search for Viable Business Practices Paul Hawken grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. His early exposure to Chinese and Japanese traditions was through his father’s employment as a university librarian who worked on the East Asian collection. Hawken became a Buddhist and for a time lived and practised Buddhism in Japan. He credits Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful with inspiring him to undertake a career of applying Buddhist values to business economics. In an interview by Earth Dharma he said, ‘Schumacher posited a worldview that dealt with practical economics without forsaking values. He was also creating a systemic approach to real issues, which I found compelling’ (Winston, 2005). His first concrete step was to buy a small business in Boston and turn it into a major supplier of natural foods sourced from environmentally friendly fields. He then moved on to found other ecology-​friendly businesses. Having proven himself as an entrepreneur, Hawken became famous and influential as a writer and lecturer on topics related to running businesses in a responsible way. His 1987 book, Growing a Business, was widely read and led to a PBS series. His Ecology

Buddhist Economic Ethics    85 of Commerce (1993) became a classic on ways to run a business in an environmentally friendly manner. That book has had an impact on bringing ecological concerns to the attention of both students and professors in business schools. Hawken has worked to help diverse organizations link and grow together. His book Blessed Unrest (2007) called attention to how a wide variety of organizations had sprung up around the globe in efforts to make social changes to better the role of women, children, the poor, legal systems, or the environment. Although these organizations were not necessarily connected, he has helped numerous organizations realize that they all were motivated by a feeling of ‘unrest’ about some social or environmental problem. This is captured in the book’s subtitle, ‘How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World’. He now estimates that this mega-​ movement includes over a million such organizations, both large and local. Hawken’s book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (2017), is a collection of essays on environmental approaches to drawing down the level of greenhouse gases. There are sections on topics including energy, food, women and girls, buildings and cities, and land use. Although he does not use Schumacher’s term ‘Buddhist economics’ and he seldom mentions Buddhism in his books, Hawken credits Buddhism with being his inspiration. His goal is to alleviate the suffering of other humans, animals, and the whole planet. With his many books being read in several translations worldwide, his work in encouraging umbrella organizations, and his numerous public lectures, one could make a strong case that he has had more influence on economics than any other Buddhist alive today.

Ernest Ng’s Introduction to Buddhist Economics Ernest C.H. Ng has been especially influenced by two professors of economics who work in the field of Buddhist economics; namely, L. Zsolnai at Corvinus University of Budapest, where Ng did doctoral work, and Clair Brown. Ng has a background in investment banking and asset management but has left the world of finance to become the CEO of a Buddhist NGO in Hong Kong. Ng also teaches at the Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong, where his undergraduate course on Buddhist Economics attracts many students. Ng’s book, Introduction to Buddhist Economics has been published in the Palgrave Studies in Buddhist Economics Series. It strives to introduce both Buddhist thought and economics to the reader, while suggesting several ways in which aspects of Buddhism can inform economic thinking. Like others writing on Buddhist economics, he stresses that the drive for financial gains needs to be tempered with concerns for social justice, equality, and the environment. He advocates for sustainability for individuals, society at large, and the environment. He also suggests that the Buddhist view that things are always in flux can be helpful to people living through the ups and downs of economic cycles. Learning to be content without the need to continue accumulating material goods or financial gain is one of the Buddhist values he stresses. Buddhist values call for

86   Roy C. Amore what he terms non-​instrumental uses of various resources, combined with a concern to keep caring for others and the environment.

Conclusion We can discern several themes that emerge in Buddhist economic ethics, both in the early Buddhist texts and among modern Buddhists who have written on the topic. The Buddhist economic ethics themes are grounded in overarching Buddhist principles. One is that Buddhism stresses the goal of putting an end to suffering, as much as possible. Another is the Buddhist preference for moderation, for a middle path that avoids excesses and extremes. A third theme is the long-​standing Buddhist concept that a government has some obligation to provide people with basic food and necessities. This understanding dates back to the Buddha himself, to the examples set by King Dharma Ashoka, and to those Buddhists who advised various kings throughout Asia. One way to reduce human suffering is to lessen inequalities among humans. The Buddha saw that the economic and social discrimination against the Chandalas, now part of those who identify as Dalits, caused great suffering among them. In the modern era, Dr. Ambedkar and the many Indians who have converted to Buddhism under his continuing influence have denounced caste discrimination in its many forms. Greed, or wanting things excessively, is one of the three evil roots of the mind according to Buddhist thought. So, a common Buddhist theme, found in all the modern thinkers discussed in this chapter, is to critique the way that the modern lifestyle promotes greed among humans, as well as excessive exploitation of natural resources. Sulak especially denounces the modern culture of consumerism for these reasons. The consumer mindset that always wants the latest in technology, fashion, or lifestyle, is one driven by greed rather than the moderation advocated by Buddhists. Many recent Buddhist writers and activists have turned their efforts towards environmental issues, leading to what Loy and some other Buddhists call an Ecodharma movement. They speak of the suffering of the planet and the ways to help bring it back into a harmonious balance. They stress the need for cooperation among all, regardless of religious identity, in the effort to save the environment, including its plants and animals. The Buddhist goal of alleviating suffering extends to animals as well as humans. Buddhists stress compassion towards others, where ‘others’ is understood to include all sentient beings. Finally, Buddhists often stress the need for mindfulness, or awareness, in everything people do, including matters of economic ethics. Many Buddhists turn to some form of meditation to help them be more mindful and aware of themselves and of ethical issues.

Buddhist Economic Ethics    87

Suggested Reading Brown, Clair (2017). Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science. London: Bloomsbury Press. Dalai Lama, His Holiness The (2012). Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. Boston: Mariner Books. Hawken, Paul (2017). Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Linn, Vaddhaka (2015). The Buddha on Wall Street: What is Wrong with Capitalism and What We Can Do about It. Cambridge, UK: Windhorse Publications. Loy, David (2019). Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis, Volume 1. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications. Ng, Ernest C.H. (2020). Introduction to Buddhist Economics: The Relevance of Buddhist Values in Contemporary Economy and Society. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Payutto, Phra Thepwethi, Bruce Evans, Jourdan Arenson, and Nunnithi Phutthatham (1996). Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market Place. Miramomte, CA: Torchlight Publications.

Works Cited Amore, Roy C. and Amir Hussain (2020). A Concise Introduction to World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press. Karunatilake, Neville (1976). This Confused Society (The Regeneration of Man). Colombo, S.L: Buddhist Information Centre. Loy, David (2014). ‘Why Buddhism and the Modern World Need Each Other: A Buddhist Perspective’. In Buddhist-​ Christian Studies, Volume 34, edited by David Loy, 39–​ 50. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press. https://​ www.jstor.org/​ sta​ ble/​ 24801​ 350, accessed 22 July 2021. Pagel, Ulrich (2014). ‘Buddhist Monks in Tax Disputes, Monastic Attitudes toward Revenue Collection in Ancient India’. In Buddhist Asia 3, edited by Ulrich Pagel, 1–​174. Naples, Italy: Università degli Studi di Napoli. Schumacher, E.F. (2010, Reprint). Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Harper Perennial. Shaw, Julia and John Sutcliffe (2010). ‘Ancient Irrigation Works in the Sanchi Area: An Archaeological and Hydrological Investigation’, South Asian Studies: 55–​75, https://​doi.org/​ 10.1080/​02666​030.2005.9628​641, accessed 22 July 2021. Tobgay, Tshering (2016). ‘This Country Isn’t Just Carbon Neutral—​It’s Carbon Negative’. TED Talk, 1 April. https://​www.ted.com/​talks/​tshering_​tobgay_​this_​country_​isn_​t_​just_​ carbon_​n​eutr​al_​i​t_​s_​carb​on_​n​egat​ive, accessed 22 July 2021. Winston, Diana (2005). ‘Interview with Joseph Goldstein and Paul Hawken: A 10,000-​Year Perspective—​Who Are You Going to Be?’ Earth Dharma, Fall: 22.1.

Chapter 4

Sikh Ec onomi c Et h i c s pashaura singh

Introduction Geographically and culturally, the Sikh tradition originated more than five centuries ago in the Punjab (‘five rivers’) region of north-​western India, a frontier zone where interaction between different segments of the society and cultures of the Middle East, Central Asia, and India was commonplace. It was rooted in the religious experience, piety, and culture of that period and informed by the unique inner revelations of its founder, Guru Nanak, who declared his independence from the other schools of thought in his day. He kindled the fire of autonomy and courage in his first disciples (Sikhs) who gathered around him at Kartarpur (‘Creator’s Abode’), a village which he himself founded in 1519 on the right bank of the River Ravi. His creative ideas and strategies triggered the process of institutionalization in the early Sikh tradition during the last two decades of his life. His specific ethical formulations based on the fundamental values of ‘truth, love, humility, justice, and equality’ became a viable model of a new social organization beyond the grip of the hierarchical caste system in India. Guru Nanak’s rejection of the prevailing orthodoxies of both Islamic and Hindu tradition provided an alternative spiritual paradigm that became the basis of social reconfiguration according to divinely sanctioned normative principles. The very survival of Guru Nanak’s message over many generations and historical periods is a testimony to its unique qualities of continued relevance. Based initially on religious ideology, the distinctive Sikh identity was reinforced with the introduction of distinctly Sikh liturgical practices, ceremonies, holy sites, and the compilation of an authoritative scripture. The Fifth Guru, Arjan (1563–​1606), played an extremely important role in this process of crystallization of the Sikh tradition. The ideology based upon ethical values and cultural innovations of Guru Nanak and his nine successors ultimately engendered the first of three main elements on which the evolution of the Sikh tradition depended. The second was the rural base of Punjabi society, comprising mainly of peasantry with its martial traditions. The third significant element was the period of

Sikh Economic Ethics    89 Punjab history during which the Sikh tradition evolved in tension with the Mughals and Afghans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All these three elements combined to produce the mutual interaction between ideology and environment in the historical development of Sikh religion, making ‘militancy’ an integral part of its tradition of self-​ defence in the face of persecution. This militancy is rooted entirely in the tradition’s humanitarian ethos, exemplified by the institution of the Khalsa created by the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh (1666–​1708). With unflinching faith in the Oneness of divinity, the Sikh tradition stresses the ideal of achieving spiritual liberation from self-​centeredness (haumai) within a person’s lifetime through the practice of meditation on the divine Name (nām simaran). It is oriented towards action, encouraging the dignity of regular labour to fight against economic inequities. Family life and social responsibility are important aspects of Sikh teachings. The Sikh tradition is the youngest of the independent religions in India, where the Sikhs are about 2 per cent of India’s more than one billion people. What makes Sikhs significant in India is not their numbers but their contribution to the cultural, political, and economic spheres. The global population of the Sikhs is about twenty-​five million, making Sikhism the fifth most populous religion in the world. About twenty million Sikhs live in the state of Punjab, while the rest have settled in other parts of India and elsewhere. These include substantial communities of Sikhs established in South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, East Africa, the United Kingdom, mainland European countries, and North America through successive waves of emigration. At the end of the second decade of the twenty-​first century more than half a million Sikhs were in each of the three most favoured countries for Sikh immigration—​the United States of America, Canada, and the UK. The primary scripture of the Sikhs is the Ādi Granth (‘Original Book’), commonly referred to as the Gurū Granth Sāhib (‘Honorable Scripture as Teacher’) to reflect its authoritative status within the Sikh community (Panth) as the living embodiment of the Guru. For Sikhs, it succeeded Guru Gobind Singh who terminated the line of personal Gurus before he passed away in 1708, installing the Sikh scripture as ‘Guru Eternal for the Sikhs’, along with the collective body of the Khalsa, which help to make decisions in light of its teachings. The Gurū Granth Sāhib (GGS) has always been the perennial source of guidance for Sikhs on moral discernment, and it is treated with the most profound respect when it is installed ceremonially in a gurdwārā (‘Guru’s house’) to preside over the congregation. The formation of the Gurū Granth Sāhib text, and its transformation into scripture, illuminates trajectories of production, circulation, and dissemination from orality to manuscript to print and from the place of its origin into the world. It enjoys a special place in the world literary sphere. Given the global presence of the Sikh community due to large-​scale migration, it is a text with a worldwide readership, providing ethical guidance on economic morality in response to changing historical contexts and local situations in India and the diaspora. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Sikh values and economic morality affecting the evolution of the Sikh Panth in different historical periods. Its

90   Pashaura Singh ethical methodology is to engage in a three-​tiered task that can be likened to the process of climbing a three-​step ladder. The first step refers to the concrete–​experiential level where we address ethical dilemmas relating to economic viability and engage in decision-​making procedures. The second refers to the theological–​philosophical level where we examine the interpretive framework based upon the teachings of the Sikh Gurus brought to bear at level one. And the third calls for examination and justification of the epistemological roots of that interpretive framework of Sikh world view. This three-​step analytical framework is quite useful in terms of explaining the purpose and approach of this study. In this process of reflection, we will look at some of the modern ethical dilemmas confronting the Sikh Panth and identify a standpoint for Sikh ethics from the perspective of the Sikh world view which seeks the welfare of one and all (sarbat dā bhalā). We will consult other textual sources such as the Janam-​sākhīs (‘Life Narratives’) and the Rahit-​nāmās (‘Manuals of Code of Conduct’) to address the issues of economic sustainability, human rights, restorative justice, and the particularity of the Sikh Panth in historical perspective vis-​à-​vis the universal norms of Sikh economic ethics.

Foundational Principles of Sikh Economic Ethics The origins of Sikh ethical values go back to the socio-​historical timeframe and context of Guru Nanak’s life and teachings that shaped the Sikh community’s moral action and reflection. In his role as a charismatic leader who understood his teachings as an expression of the divine will, Guru Nanak advocated important departures from the contemporary dominant understanding of moral and social life and proposed a new, rational model of normative behaviour, based upon divine authority. It was his immediate experience of divine reality that informed the power and veracity of his spiritual message. This direct access to the divine Truth (sach) constituted the ultimate strength of his message and furnished him with a firm conviction and the basis by which he could more fully comprehend, interpret, and adjudicate the various elements of received religious traditions. Guru Nanak, as founder, was the central authority for the Kartarpur community. He prescribed the daily routine, in which communal devotions in the early morning and evening hours were balanced with a typical day’s agricultural work for sustenance. He defined the ideal person as a Gurmukh (‘one oriented towards the Guru’) who practised the threefold discipline of nām—​dān—​ishnān, ‘the divine Name, charity and purity’ (GGS 942).1 Corresponding to the cognitive, the communal, and the personal aspects of 1 

All the citations from the Gurū Granth Sāhib are taken from the standard version of the 1,430–​page text. For instance, ‘GGS 942’ refers to the citation on page 942 of the standard volume. In the extended scriptural references, the code word ‘M’ [Mahallā, ‘King’] with an appropriate number is used for the Sikh Gurus. The translations are my own but sometimes adapted from Sant Singh Khalsa’s online version of the Gurū Granth Sāhib.

Sikh Economic Ethics    91 the evolving Sikh identity, these three features—​nām (relation to the Divine), dān (relation to society), and ishnān (relation to self)—​established a balance between the development of the individual and the community. For Guru Nanak, the realization of the divine Truth depended upon the ethical conduct of the seeker. An immoral person was neither worthy of being called a true seeker (Sikh) nor capable of attaining the spiritual goal of life. Any dichotomy between spiritual development and moral conduct is not approved in Sikh ethics. In this context, Guru Nanak explicitly said: ‘Truth is the highest virtue, but higher still is truthful living’ (GGS 62). Indeed, truthful conduct (sach achār) is at the heart of Guru Nanak’s message. For him, the true spiritual life required that ‘one should live on what one has earned through hard work and that one should share with others the fruit of one’s exertion’ (GGS 1245). This is what constitutes a good economic life in the Sikh tradition. It stresses the dignity of regular labour as an integral part of spiritual discipline. This is summed up in the most popular triple commandment: engage in honest labour for a living (kirt karo), adore the divine Name (nām japo), and share the fruits of labour with others (vaṇḍ chhako). This formula stresses both the centrality of meditative worship and the necessity of righteous living in the world. It is a feature stereotypically associated with Sikh economic enterprise throughout the world. It is also the secret of the economic success of the global Sikh community. In sixteenth-​century Punjab, the Khatris comprised an urban-​based mercantile community, following various occupations of trade, administration, clerical employment, and industry. Being an educated middle class, they were frequently moving to various cities and towns in India to avail themselves of trade opportunities provided by the economic policies of the government of the day. Some of them settled in Punjab villages to run their petty shops and small-​scale trades, while others worked in administration, such as serving as revenue officials (paṭvārīs). Guru Nanak’s family belonged to this last group, a select few who held a position of authority among land-​owning classes. Notably, Guru Nanak had first-​hand knowledge of administrative policies in his stint at the government granary (modīkhānā) at Sultanpur Lodhi, where he worked for the local nobleman Daulat Khan Lodi. During this period, there is a reference to a ‘general order issued by Ibrahim Lodi for collection of revenue only in grain’ (Banerjee, 1984, p. 15). As a storekeeper, Guru Nanak gained first-​hand information of the repressive nature of the land-​revenue system of the Lodi regime. That is why he left his job at the age of 30 after his enlightenment experience and set out on a series of journeys to both Hindu and Muslim places of pilgrimage in India and abroad. He was accompanied by his lifelong companion, Mardana, the Muslim bard, who used to play rebec (rabāb, a string instrument) while the Guru sang the praises of Akāl Purakh (‘Eternal One’, God): ‘I have seen places of pilgrimage on riverbanks, including shops, cities, and market squares. I have seen all nine regions of the world, weighing as a merchant the merits and demerits of each place in the scale of my heart’ (GGS 156). On his journeys, Guru Nanak encountered the leaders of different religious persuasions and tested the veracity of his own ideas through dialogue with them. His

92   Pashaura Singh travels exposed him to diverse cultures and societies that helped him evolve in his unique lifeworld. Before Babur’s invasions of India in the 1520s, however, Guru Nanak had already settled at Kartarpur. He personally witnessed the devastation caused by the Mughal army during the sack of Saidpur in 1520–​1521. Babur’s final victory over the Lodis in the battle of Panipat on 20 April 1526 led to the establishment of Mughal rule in India. Guru Nanak’s works, collectively known as the Bābar-​vāṇī (‘Arrow-​like utterances concerning Babur’), provide us with a detailed description of the senseless carnage caused by the Mughal invaders (P. Singh, 2020, pp. 1–​19). Guru Nanak’s settlement in the village of Kartarpur became the rural headquarters for the nascent Sikh community. It was founded amidst a wide expanse of cultivable land that the Guru managed to purchase for himself. It is highly instructive to understand his affiliation with the rural population as the result of a familial connection to matters of land ownership. His father, Kalu Bedi, and his father-​in-​law, Mula Chona, were both revenue officials (paṭvārīs) of comparable socio-​economic background. In Punjabi culture, a paṭvārī held a position of authority in the social hierarchy of the village because of his education in Persian and the basics of accountancy. The fact that Kalu Bedi owned land would have further enhanced his family’s status. Similarly, Mula Chona lived in the town of Batala, but he worked in Pakho Ke Randhawe, a nearby village in the fertile area of upper Bari Doab in the Gurdaspur District of Punjab. The proximity of Kartarpur to the native town of Guru Nanak’s father-​in-​law indicates that Mula was instrumental in locating and then acquiring the land for the new village. Notably, the establishment of the first Sikh Centre at Kartarpur was a bridge between the urban culture of Khatris and the rural culture of peasantry. The leadership role was in Khatri hands, while the increasing number of followers came from a rural background. The establishment of a community kitchen (laṅgar) at Kartarpur with its inter-​dining convention which required people of all castes to sit in status-​free rows (paṅgat) to share a common meal, was the first reification of Guru Nanak’s spiritual concerns to reorganize society on egalitarian ideals. In this manner of partaking food, anyone could be sitting next to anyone else, female next to male, socially high to socially low, and ritually pure next to ritually impure. The institution of laṅgar promoted a spirit of unity and mutual belonging, and struck at a major aspect of caste, thereby advancing the process of defining a distinctive Sikh identity. From the perspective of cross-​cultural anthropology, open commensality is the symbol and embodiment of radical egalitarianism, of an absolute equality of people that denies the validity of any discrimination between them and negates the necessity of any hierarchy among them. From the perspective of economic morality, the food in the community kitchen is always prepared by volunteers through self-​less service (sevā), and it is served free of cost to one and all. Further, sevā is always rendered to others in the form of mutual help and voluntary work, without any desire for self-​glorification or setting up oneself as a judge of other people. The doctrine and praxis of sevā plays an important role in the spiritual economy of an individual and the community. Guru Nanak strongly rejected the practice of living by alms or begging by the followers of ascetic traditions of both Hindu and Muslim origins: ‘Do not ever touch

Sikh Economic Ethics    93 in reverence the feet of the one who calls himself a gurū (teacher) or a pīr (Sufi master) while he goes around begging for alms’ (GGS 1245). Notably, the Sikh world view is distinctively different from the dharmic world view of other Indian religious traditions, particularly those based on specialized virtues to be followed by particular castes as part of their moral obligations. Although stemming from the reflections of Guru Nanak and his nine successors, Sikh moral values were not formulated in a cultural vacuum. The Gurus were fully aware of their Indian context of Hindu, Muslim, and Nath traditions. In the social context, for instance, Guru Nanak always advocated the virtue of justice (niāu) in its legalistic sense and made it the principal characteristic of the ruler and the administrator: ‘For the king, purifying ritual (chulī) is justice; for the scholar, it is meditation on the divine truth’ (GGS 1240). He censured the contemporary Muslim jurist (qāzī) who had become morally corrupt by selling justice and having no concern for the truth: ‘The qāzī tells lies and eats filth’ (GGS 662). In Punjabi culture, the phrase ‘to eat filth’ referred to ‘unlawfully earned food’ in those days when the qāzī used to take ‘bribes’ in order to deprive people of justice (GGS 951). Guru Nanak proclaimed that ‘to deprive others of their rightful shares must be avoided as scrupulously as Muslims avoid the pork and the Hindus consider beef as a taboo’ (GGS 141). Guru Nanak regarded the violation of human rights as a serious moral offence on religious grounds, considering both the dharmic world view of the Hindus and the juridical–​political world view of the Muslims. The Sikh view of justice is based on two fundamental principles related to economic morality: first, respect for the rights of others; and second, the non-​exploitation of others. To treat everyone’s right as sacred is a necessary constituent of economic justice. A just person will not exploit others even if possessing the means and opportunity for doing so. The most significant development in the revenue system in India took place under the Mughal administration in the sixteenth century. In order to establish firm ground for a heightened sense of dependence on its authority, the Mughal imperial policy introduced the ‘cash economy’. Being itself the product of relatively developed commercial or mercantile economy, ‘the cash nexus provided in its turn the real basis on which the structure of the Mughal imperial system, with its insistence not on the possession of land, but on the transferable right to collect the land revenue, was founded’ (Habib, 1999, pp. 279–​280). In Max Weber’s theoretical framework, the move toward a capitalist economy is the prime motivating factor behind a system of higher ethical rationalization. In essence, the cash evaluation of goods and services involves a symbolic system in which the assessment of value becomes a socially negotiated process that creates a desire for a higher degree of ethical predictability. In simple terms, a bushel of wheat is a bushel of wheat, but when a bushel of wheat becomes represented by a symbolic token of exchange in ‘cash’ the desire to see this assessment of value ethically standardized will arise. In the absence of faith between the parties, a cash economy, while increasing dependence on social interaction, is seen to decrease mutual trust. Given the imbalance of power in Mughal India, however, the advent of a cash economy could only have served

94   Pashaura Singh to further polarize society, leaving an otherwise relatively independent peasant population indentured and indebted to a power structure that could manipulate the assessment of value in its own favour. In this changed historical situation, Guru Nanak expressed a sense of urgency regarding the maintenance of ethical behaviour in commercial transactions, a motif that is reflected throughout his works: O trader and merchant, your earnings are written. If your dealings are fair, your profit is assured through divine will. If your capital is true, you will meet with the Guru who is above desire and greed. No deception in this. (5) The Guru-​oriented (gurmukh) will measure in correct balance with correct measure. Desires and expectations were high, but the Guru thwarted [desires] with truth. When he himself asks to measure, correct measure is measured. (6) (M1, Sirī Rāgu Aṣṭapadīāṁ 9, GGS, p. 59)

If we read this passage in the context of the discussion concerning the transition to a cash economy, it gains an added significance. Undoubtedly, during the Mughal rule of Emperor Babur, the peasant population was compelled to enter a commercial domain. For this reason, the idea of a divinely sanctioned commercial ethic would have had a particular appeal for them. With the collection of revenue in cash, rather than in kind, the individual producers would have to depend upon the relative honesty of the shopkeepers who bought their produce. Unsurprisingly, the transition to a cash economy would have put the mercantile class in more direct contact with the agricultural class. In the rural base at Kartarpur, the currency of Guru Nanak’s ideas must have gained momentum in light of the increased economic interaction between the peasants and the mercantile classes. This cooperation based on certain universal principles of equity must surely have carried a timely appeal to new converts from a rural background. Indeed, such ideas of equitable relations may have created a platform for the establishment of goodwill between the Khatris and the Jats, the former being the dominant mercantile class in the Punjab and the latter, the dominant peasant class. Guru Nanak’s own status as a landlord may have served to further cement the ties between the leadership of the Panth and its rural constituency. Throughout his works, Guru Nanak portrays the peasantry, along with shopkeepers and traders, while describing the ethical world of virtuous living. In fact, itinerant traders, artisans, small shopkeepers, peasants, servants, and occasionally a rich magnate, were the socially recognizable groups among the early followers of Guru Nanak. In the Soraṭhi hymn, Guru Nanak exhorts his audience to perform the duties of various occupations with utmost integrity, working with hands and feet while focusing one’s consciousness on the meditation on the divine Name: Make your mind the ploughman, your actions cultivator’s vocation, modesty the water and your body the field. Sow the seed of the divine Name in this field and make contentment the leveling-​contraption and maintain the garb of humility. By

Sikh Economic Ethics    95 devotion and grace this crop shall sprout—​you shall see that home blessed where it grows. (1) O Bābā (father), Māyā (worldly wealth) would not accompany anyone to the next world, the lure of Māyā has bewitched this world, only rare ones realize this! (1) Refrain. Make your shop the passage of time [by realizing your mortality]; therein, make the true Name commodity. Make attentive devotion the warehouse—​ wherein this commodity is kept. Deal with fellow-​traders in devotion, thereby, enjoy your profit and smile within. (2) Make listening to scriptures your merchandise, start on the way with horses of virtues. Take with you travel expenses of merits, and do not depend upon tomorrow for this business. Thus, proceed to the country of the Formless One (Niraṅkār), then you shall enjoy the comforts of the divine Mansion. (3) Discharge your duties devotedly as a servant, make faith in the divine Name your vocation. Restrain your mind running towards evil—​only then you will win approbation. Thus, O Nanak, the Lord shall cast his gracious glance on you, and you shall glow in splendor manifold! (4) (M1, Soraṭhi 2, GGS, pp. 595–​596)

Here, Guru Nanak has underscored the dignity of regular labour as part of spiritual discipline whether one is working in the agricultural field in the rural setting or doing business in the shop, or even going on long routes for trade in different cities. He redefines the minute details of each profession from a higher spiritual perspective. For Guru Nanak, the merchandise in which he deals is the divine Name, and the objective of business is liberation from self-​centeredness (haumai). Nevertheless, the imagery assumes a highly developed pattern of trade that must have existed at that time. The mercantile imagery of Guru Nanak’s Soraṭhi hymn communicates ‘a brief glimpse of a warehouse, a stock of commodities, distance sufficient to require the use of horses, and a system of travel expenses’ (McLeod, 1976, p. 87). The expansion of the Sikh Panth beyond the Punjab was essentially due to the Khatris’ trading enterprise. However, the significant appeal of Guru Nanak’s ‘ethical considerations’ was not limited to the urban community. It also gained currency in the rural population of the Punjab, consisting mainly of peasants, artisans, shopkeepers, servants, and landless labourers from lower castes who were in bondage to the landowners through debt. Since labour was the dominant factor in the production and distribution of services in all walks of life, Guru Nanak stressed the notion of a moral economy in which there was no place for the exploitation of any kind of the bondservant or forced labour. Guru Nanak’s contemporary observations are most instructive in which he severely condemned the economic exploitation of poor workers by the ruling class and big landlords who were described as ‘blood-​suckers’: ‘If one’s clothes are stained by blood, the garment becomes polluted. Those who suck the blood of human beings—​how can their consciousness be pure?’ (GGS 140). Guru Nanak’s teachings on economic ethics are quite explicit on the issues of exploitation of the poor, on the evils of profit-​making and on class relations in general. He proclaims: ‘For the sake of this wealth, so many were ruined; because of this wealth, so many have been disgraced. It does not come without evil, and it does not go along with the dead’ (GGS 417).

96   Pashaura Singh One of the Janam-​sākhī narratives of Guru Nanak’s life illustrates this point explicitly, relating an anecdote concerning a wealthy man who flaunted his riches by means of a display of symbolic pennants. Encountering him, Baba Nanak gave the moneylender a needle and said: ‘Brother Shah, keep this needle safe. I shall ask you to return it in heaven.’ Having said this, he arose and departed. Later the moneylender began to worry: ‘How can I take the needle with me when I die.’ He arose and ran after Baba Nanak, and after a while he caught up with him. Prostrating himself he said: ‘Take back your needle. There is no point in my keeping it.’ ‘Shah,’ replied Baba Nanak, ‘if there is no point in keeping this needle of mine, then how can the four treasure-​chests accompany you when you die?’ Then the portals of the moneylender’s understanding opened. Error was swept away! Joining his hands in supplication he stood before Baba Nanak and begged for forgiveness. Baba Nanak was overjoyed. The moneylender then returned, gave away his possessions to the poor, and applied himself to the threefold discipline of repeating the divine Name, giving charity, and regular bathing. He became a Sikh and found real happiness (McLeod, 1980, p. 125). In sum, Guru Nanak was a pioneer in developing the notion of spiritual capital alongside material capital. He was concerned with the fundamental problems of the prevalence of poverty, unemployment, the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and the uneven distribution of wealth. Under these circumstances he preferred an economic system that was just, free, equitable, and conducive to the material and spiritual well-​ being of society. The structure of the economy that existed during his time was largely agrarian where services played an important role (Rakhra, 2020, p. 20). By establishing a farming community at Kartarpur and advising his followers to use local produce to feed the community, Guru Nanak advocated farming as a way of making the early Sikh community self-​reliant.

Economic and Financial Development under the Successive Gurus Guru Nanak created the ‘office of Guru’ as the central authority in community life. Before he passed away in 1539, he designated his disciple Laihṇā as his successor by renaming him Angad, meaning ‘my own limb’. Thus, a lineage was established that would continue from the appointment of Guru Angad (1504–​1552) to the death of Guru Gobind Singh. This study is mainly focused on the economic strategies developed by the successive Gurus who built new towns for the emerging Sikh communities in the rural areas of the Punjab. A major institutional and economic development took place during the reign of the third Guru, Amar Das (1479–​1574), who established the new city of Goindval (‘City of God’) on the bank of the Beas River where three regions of Punjab (Mājhā, Doābā,

Sikh Economic Ethics    97 and Mālwā) converge. His successor, Guru Ram Das (1534–​1581), laid the foundation of the new town of Ramdaspur in 1577, requiring considerable financial and logistical mobilization for which the appointment of deputies (masands) became necessary to deal with complex administrative demands. The masands were required to collect voluntary offerings and other contributions from loyal Sikhs scattered throughout India and Afghanistan. The momentous achievement of Guru Arjan’s building programme was the construction of the Darbar Sahib (present-​day ‘Golden Temple’) amidst the sacred pool of Amritsar. It acquired prominence as the central place of Sikh worship, ‘imbued with a spiritual economy that touches in many fold ways the lives of the people in the region and beyond’ (Pr. Singh, 2014, p. 62). The fifth Guru invited people of all trades and professions to settle down in the flourishing town of Ramdaspur, by stressing the spiritual roots of the principles of economic justice, dignity, and fearlessness: ‘There is no other place like the beautiful and thickly populated Ramdaspur. The divine rule prevails in Ramdaspur due to the grace of the Guru. No tax (jizyā) is levied, nor any fine; there is no collector of taxes’ (GGS 430 and 817). The administration of the town was evidently in the hands of Guru Arjan. In a certain sense, Ramdaspur was an autonomous town in the context and framework of the Mughal rule of Emperor Akbar. Guru Arjan also founded three new towns of Tarn Taran, Sri Hargobindpur, and Kartarpur, attracting the urban poor and rural peasantry to join the Sikh fold. He encouraged his Sikhs to participate in the trade of horses to ameliorate their economic condition. The author of Dabistān-​i-​Mazāhib (‘The School of Religions’), a mid-​seventeenth-​ century Persian text, attests that by ‘the reign of Guru Arjan Mal, [the Sikhs] became very numerous. Not many cities remained in the inhabited region, where the Sikhs had not settled in some number’ (Grewal and Habib, 2001, p. 65). The same author provides us with an important insight into the regular system of voluntary offerings collected by the masands, the Guru’s deputies. He does so from a purely economic angle by comparing these contributions of loyal Sikhs, bheṭ (‘offering’) and nazar (‘gift’), with the bāj (‘tribute’) levied by the Mughal rule. He finds that masands were more successful in collecting voluntary offerings from the Sikhs than the Mughal officials in their efforts to collect tax from their subjects. Later historians seized upon this idea to suggest political motives in the religious work of the Sikh Gurus. They claimed that during the reign of Guru Arjan, the socio-​religious community of Guru Nanak’s followers had become a state within the Mughal Empire, with far-​flung congregations linked with the Guru through the masands who created financial autonomy for the whole organization. Equally important was the local autonomy of Ramdaspur, which was not merely a place of pilgrimage but also a self-​governing town without any financial or administrative link with the Mughal Empire. The growing economic strength of the Sikh movement attracted the unfavourable attention of the ruling authorities. It is mentioned in the compositions of Guru Arjan

98   Pashaura Singh that a series of complaints were made against him to the functionaries of the Mughal state, giving them an excuse to watch the activities of the Sikhs. On 4 November 1598, Emperor Akbar officially visited the Sikh court at Goindval. He was genuinely impressed with what he saw at Goindval and gave his explicit approval to the work done by Guru Arjan. At the Guru’s instance, Akbar remitted the annual revenue of the peasants of the district who had been hit hard by the failure of the monsoon. As a result of this tax remission, Guru Arjan’s popularity skyrocketed in the rural peasantry of the Punjab. The liberal policy of Emperor Akbar sheltered Guru Arjan and his followers for a while, but it could not remove the nefarious designs of the Guru’s enemies for good. Within eight months of the emperor’s death in October 1605, Guru Arjan was tortured to death on 30 May 1606, by the orders of the new emperor, Jahangir (r. 1605–​1627), crippling the rapidly growing Sikh movement. Guru Arjan’s execution empowered his followers to stand for the ideals of truth, social justice, and fearlessness more boldly. A radical reshaping of the Sikh Panth took place after his martyrdom. His son and successor, Guru Hargobind (1595–​1644), donned two swords symbolizing the spiritual (pīrī) as well as the temporal (mīrī) investiture. Under his direct leadership, the Sikh Panth took up arms to protect itself from Mughal hostility. He built a new city of Kiratpur in the Shivalik hills beyond the jurisdiction of the Mughal authorities. Much of the seventeenth century was marked by political and military conflict with Mughals, culminating with the execution of the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1621–​1675), in Delhi, on 11 November 1675, by order of Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–​ 1707), for refusing to renounce his faith in favour of Islam. Consequently, Guru Gobind Singh, created the institution of the Khalsa (‘Pure’), an order of loyal Sikhs bound by common identity and discipline. On Baisakhi Day, 1699, at Anandpur, the Guru initiated the first Cherished Five (pañj piāre), who formed the nucleus of the new order of the Khalsa. He abolished the institution of masands (deputies), who had refused to forward the collections to the Guru, creating an economic crisis and factionalism in the Sikh Panth. The institution of the Khalsa was unique in two senses: first, it invited all Sikhs to join the Order of the Khalsa regardless of their background, and second, it had a coherent vision of political sovereignty to establish the victory of the free kitchen and the sword (degh tegh fateh): ‘With your grace, O Lord, let the free kitchen and the sword (for protection of the lowly) ever flourish in the world’ (DG 627). All Sikhs were encouraged to become spiritual warriors of righteousness (dharam) engaged in a struggle against tyranny, social injustice, and economic exploitation. They were further inspired to establish the sovereign rule of the Khalsa. Before he passed away in 1708, Gur Gobind Singh placed spiritual and temporal authority (jāmā) within the collective body of the Khalsa, emphasizing the corporate sovereignty of the Sikh Panth. He terminated the line of personal Gurus and installed the Adi Granth as the eternal Guru for the Sikhs. Thereafter, the authority of the Guru was invested both in the scripture (Guru Granth) and the corporate community (Guru Panth), providing guidance to the Sikhs for all times to come.

Sikh Economic Ethics    99

Sikh Moral Economy in Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern Times In 1710, the Khalsa established the first sovereign Sikh rule under the command of Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–​1716), who had new coins struck in the name of Guru Nanak-​Guru Gobind Singh. The Persian inscription of his official seal reads: ‘The gifts of the cauldron (degh) to cook food for the hungry, the sword (tegh) as the symbol of power and protection, and unlimited victory (fateh), are ascribed to Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh.’ Although his rule was short-​lived, Banda Singh abolished the Zamindari system and made the tillers masters of the land by conferring upon them proprietary rights. This was the first economic victory of the Sikh rule over the feudal regime of the Mughals. During the eighteenth century, the twin doctrines of Guru-​Granth and Guru-​Panth successfully provided cohesiveness within the Sikh Panth. The compound term Sarbat Khālsā (‘Entire Khalsa’) originated in this period to describe the temporary unity accomplished by the linking of different misls (‘confederacies’) for some shared purpose, such as campaigns against the armies of Mughals and Afghan invaders. There developed the practice of holding biannual assemblies of the Sarbat Khālsā before the Akal Takhat in Amritsar. These meetings were held in the presence of the Gurū Granth Sāhib, and a formal decision reached after debate by the leaders of the misls was called a gurmatā (‘Guru’s intention’), representing the will of the eternal Guru and as such binding on the whole Sikh community. In order to consolidate his power, however, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–​1839) abolished political gurmatās in 1809 and downplayed the doctrine of Guru-​Panth to reconcile the growing social inequalities in the Sikh Panth. The literature of this premodern period, particularly the Rahit-​nāmās (‘Manuals of the Code of Conduct’), illuminate the economic morality of the Khalsa: ‘If a “Singh” (Khalsa Sikh) becomes a King, he must nourish the poor Sikhs.’ The Tanakhāh-​nāmā (1695–​1699 ce) states: ‘Keep a charity box. Give a tithe to the Guru. Before eating always set aside a portion for the Guru. Give when you see someone in need. A Khalsa gives gifts as charity and always supports the needy’ (McLeod, 2003, p. 84). According to the Chaupā Siṅgh Rahit-​nāmā (1700–​1745 ce): Every Gursikh (‘true Sikh of the Guru’) should regard a pauper’s mouth as the Guru’s alms-​box. If a Gursikh encounters a needy Sikh, he should provide him with shelter . . . From the proceeds of his labours every Gursikh should set aside a tenth part for the Guru. The Guru’s portion should be taken from each heap of winnowed grain. This offering should be used to feed other Sikhs in the Guru’s name, particularly those who are poor. (McLeod, 2003, pp. 99–​100)

The Chaupa Singh text continues: Gursikhs should have business dealings only with other Sikhs. Honest Sikhs should be permitted to conduct their business without interference. If two Sikhs are involved

100   Pashaura Singh in a business dispute, they must effect a reconciliation by nightfall. A Sikh who has suffered a loss in trading should not be required to repay outstanding debts in full. A Gursikh should never take a bribe. Never dismiss a Sikh servant and then employ a non-​Sikh in his place. Always pay a Sikh servant the wages that are his due. (McLeod, 2003, pp. 101–​102)

Four decades of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s reign (r.1799–​1839) provided the Sikh community with more settled political conditions and economic prosperity. With territorial expansion as far as Peshawar in the west, people of different cultural and religious backgrounds were attracted into the fold of Sikhism. The appearance of the Golden Temple today owes a great deal to the generous patronage of the Maharaja, who took keen interest in rebuilding some of the historical places associated with the memory of the Sikh Gurus, endowing these shrines with large jagīrs and estates. Although the Maharaja himself was a Khalsa Sikh, his rule was marked by religious diversity within the Sikh Panth. He forged an internal alliance with the Sehajdhārīs: Sikhs who lived as Nānakpanthīs but who did not accept the Khalsa code of conduct. After the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839, however, his successors could not withstand the pressure exerted by the advancing British forces. After two Anglo-​Sikh wars in 1846 and 1849, the Sikh kingdom was annexed to the British Empire. During the colonial period, Sikhs were no longer the masters of their own kingdom. The introduction of the British administration into Punjab at the time of annexation in 1849 brought profound changes in the Punjabi society. First, the colonial rulers introduced a large measure of bureaucracy and the rule of law, which established a new kind of relationship between the individual and the state. The ‘paternal’ rule of the early decades was eventually replaced by the ‘machine rule’ of laws, codes, and procedures (Grewal, 1990, p. 128). Second, the British introduced a world view grounded in the secular, modernizing ideology of the Enlightenment. Third, the British sought to cosset and to control the Sikhs through the management of the Golden Temple and its functionaries. They even sidestepped the dictates of statutory law, which required them to maintain ‘the separation of secular and religious matters, neutrality in the treatment of religious communities and the withdrawal from involvement in religious institutions’ (Kerr, 1999, p. 164). Finally, the British developed their theory of the ‘martial races’ of India in accordance with which they classified Sikhs as a martial race, thus favouring them as army recruits with the requirement of turban and Khalsa initiation. The impact of British rule especially through economic modernization, the development of canal colonies, the globalization of Punjab—​all these created new markets and a new kind of economic rationality. Production for profit for the market rather than for consumption surely had profound effects on the Sikhs. Under these circumstances, they found new opportunities as British soldiers to visit new countries in South East Asia and Europe. This triggered the process of Sikh immigration. With their work ethic based on the teachings of the Sikh Gurus, they easily succeeded in new lands, much like Max Weber’s description in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Sikhs’ religious values of honesty, hard work, and saving for the success of the nuclear family

Sikh Economic Ethics    101 helped northern European economies surpass the Mediterranean economies during the Industrial Revolution. Sikh economic morality has always been concerned with securing and regulating the creation and circulation of worldly resources, including monetary wealth. The postcolonial and postmodern world has offered new opportunities and challenges for the economic well-​being of the Sikh community. In independent India, the Green Revolution was set in motion when a high-​yielding variety of dwarf wheat was introduced in 1965 and within five years, the farmers of the leading districts of Punjab took entirely to this variety. The area under wheat doubled from 1969 to 1970, and the production of wheat increased five-​fold. As a result, the Akali regime came to be associated with agrarian prosperity. In the Punjab as a whole, the production of wheat and rice increased threefold from 1965–​1966 to 1971–​1972, wheat rising from 1.9 to 5.9 million tons and rice from 0.29 to 0.92 million tons. The output of cereals rose from less than 8 million tons in 1975 to nearly 12 million tons in 1980. Most importantly, in 1978–​1979, the Punjab contributed over 6 million tons of food grains to the all-​India procurement of about 11 million tons. Unsurprisingly, the economic development in the Punjab reduced the poverty ratio to the lowest in the country, although industrial production lagged behind agricultural production (Grewal, 1990, pp. 209–​210). The gap between the growth of the agrarian economy and the slow pace of industrialization in the Punjab became wider. A considerable number of the Sikhs from the towns and villages were moving to other parts of India or to foreign countries in search of better economic opportunities. The rich and middle-​class farmers who owned more than ten acres of land came to operate nearly 65 per cent of the area under cultivation. They were the ones who benefited the most from the Green Revolution. In the 1970s, a small class of rich peasants existed side by side with many small and poor farmers (Grewal, 1990, pp. 210–​211). The benefits of the Green Revolution did not reach a large body of poor farmers. Consequently, many young Sikhs, semi-​literate with a rural background became the motivating force in the movement of ethno-​nationalism led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–​1984). This provoked the army attack on the Golden Temple Complex in June 1984—​code-​named ‘Operation Blue Star’—​which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Sikhs, including Bhindranwale, as well as the destruction of the Akal Takhat and severe damage to the Golden Temple itself. A few months later, on 31 October 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards. For several days, unchecked Hindu mobs in Delhi and elsewhere killed thousands of Sikhs. Because of these events, 1984 became a turning point in modern Sikhism. The most recent crisis of the COVID 19 pandemic has brought Sikh ethical values to the fore at the global level. In a recent article, Dipanker Gupta writes that routinization of sevā primes the Sikhs to help others: ‘People from distant Croatia and Syria acknowledged the help Sikhs gave them during their nightmare moments, and neither did [the] US hesitate to rename New York’s 101 [Av.] as Punjab Avenue to honor the contribution of the Sikhs to the city.’ He continues to cite the service done in India: ‘From

102   Pashaura Singh providing oxygen, to ambulatory service, to feeding the poor, the Sikhs are nearly always the first to help. Even when relations quail to pick up a Covid corpse, Sikh volunteers willingly, and unhesitatingly, come forward’ (Gupta, 2021). The Sikhs’ spirit of giving of their time in selfless service (sevā) certainly influences their level of economic and social power. In addition to sacred religious practices, economic exchanges contain opportunities for meaningful relationships and the sharing of traditions, including knowledge and wisdom (Biondo, 2012, p. 327).

Conclusion Sikh economic ethics is rooted in the teachings of Guru Nanak and his successors, providing the basis of the Sikh world view and epistemology. Earning one’s living through honest means and sharing a portion of one’s earnings with the needy while expressing gratitude through meditation on the divine Name constitute a good economic life in the Sikh tradition. The key institution of the laṅgar (‘free community kitchen’) is best understood in terms of a gift-​economy, following the sociologist David Cheal, who sees gift-​giving as the ‘institutionalization of social ties within a moral economy’ (Singh and Waraich, 2020). It sets in motion the act of sevā—​with the gurdwara forming the backbone on which such selfless service becomes operative. More recently, it has transformed itself into new forms, such as ‘Food Bank’ and ‘Oxygen Laṅgar’ to provide free food and oxygen to the people suffering from the COVID 19 pandemic. The sovereign Sikh principle behind this selfless service is the ‘victory of the free kitchen and the sword’ (degh tegh fateh), providing food and justice for all while fighting against social iniquities and economic disparity. Sikh economic ethics promote the circulation of wealth to increase initiative and opportunity, thereby promoting stewardship and philanthropy to eradicate poverty. To address any economic crisis, one must move up and down the three-​levelled ladder, stepping out of the ethical dilemma at hand in order to gain perspective that will enhance the possibility of self-​reflective judgement. This inquiry at the practical level leads one beyond the realm of crisis to step two of the ladder, enabling one to reach out for direct contact with one’s interpretive framework, one’s world view, as one seeks value referents in order to give direction to thought. At this stage, one identifies certain values and the vision of life, seeking to appropriate and apply them to the problem at hand. The third step, designated the epistemological level, enables one to reach more radical levels of self-​reflection by taking notice of one’s knowledge about the now-​identified values and by seeking to justify them (O’Connor, 1979, pp. 86–​87). Level three allows for additional questions that deal with the meaning of moral concepts, as well as the justification of ultimate moral and metaphysical principles. In order to address any dilemma of economic morality from the subjective Sikh standpoint, therefore, one needs to bring the Sikh world view, Sikh history, Sikh values, Sikh metaphysics, and their sources to the fore, acknowledging them explicitly and deliberately.

Sikh Economic Ethics    103

Suggested Reading Ahluwalia, Sadhu Singh (1959). Economic Conditions of the Sikhs. Poona: Poona University. Kaur, Upinder Jit (1990). Sikh Religion and Economic Development. New Delhi: NBO. Kessinger, Tom G. (1974). Vilyatpur 1848-​1968: Social and Economic Change in a North Indian Village. Berkley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Leaf, J. Murray (1972). Information and Behavior in a Sikh Village: Social Organization Reconsidered. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Singh, Charan (2016). Religion and Economic Growth: Elements of Sikhism. Bangalore: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB –​WP No. 509).

Works Cited Banerjee, Anil Chandra (1984). Guru Nanak and His Times. Patiala: Punjabi University. Biondo, Vincent Francis (2012). ‘Economic Issues and Religion’. In Encyclopedia of Global Religion, edited by Mark Juergensmeyer and Wade Clark Roof, 325–​327. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC: Sage Reference. Grewal, J.S. (1990). The New Cambridge History of India II.3: The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge, New York, Fort Chester, Melbourne and Sydney: Cambridge University Press. Grewal, J.S. and Habib, Irfan, eds. (2001). Sikh History from Persian Sources: Translations of Major Texts. New Delhi: Tulka/​Indian History Congress. Gupta, Dipankar (2021). ‘Sikhs are Different. Routinisation of ‘Sewa’ Primes Them to Help Others. The Pandemic Demonstrated This’. The Times of India (11 June). https://​times​ofin​ dia.ind​iati​mes.com/​blogs/​toi-​edit-​page/​sikhs-​are-​differ​ent-​routin​isat​ion-​of-​sewa-​pri​mes-​ them-​to-​help-​oth​ers-​the-​pande​mic-​demon​stra​ted-​this/​, accessed 29 August 2021. Habib, Irfan (1999). The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556-​1707, Second Revised Edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kerr, Ian J. (1999). ‘Sikhs and State: Troublesome Relationships and a Fundamental Continuity with Particular Reference to the Period 1849–​1919’. In Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change, edited by Pashaura Singh and N. Gerald Barrier, 147–​174. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors. McLeod, W.H. (1976). ‘Trade and Investment in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Punjab: The Testimony of the Sikh Devotional Literature’. In Panjab Past and Present: Essays in Honour of Dr. Ganda Singh, edited by Harbans Singh and N. Gerald Barrier, 81–​91. Patiala: Punjabi University. McLeod, W.H. (1980). Early Sikh Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McLeod, W.H. (2003). Sikhs of the Khalsa: A History of the Khalsa Rahit. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. O’Connor, June (1979). ‘On Doing Religious Ethics’, Journal of Religious Ethics 7, no. 1: 81–​96. Rakhra, Amrik Singh (2020). ‘Vision of Guru Nanak’s Economy’. The Sikh Bulletin (April–​June 2020): 20–​31. Singh, Jasvir and Anmol Waraich (2020). ‘Guru ka Langar Is an Exemplary Institution of Moral Economy’. Indian Express (14 July). https://​indian​expr​ess.com/​arti​cle/​opin​ion/​colu​mns/​ seva-​in-​a-​pande​mic-​delhi-​gurdw​ara-​lan​gar-​6504​202/​, accessed 23 September 2021.

104   Pashaura Singh Singh, Pashaura (2006). Life and Work of Guru Arjan: History, Memory and Biography in the Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura (2020). ‘Speaking Truth to Power: Exploring Guru Nanak’s Bābar-​vāṇī in Light of the Baburnama’, Religions 11, no. 328: 1–​19. Singh, Pritam (2014). ‘Towards an Understanding of the Spiritual Economy of the Golden Temple in India’, English Studies in Humanities, Linguistics and Pedagogy (August): 50–​64.

Chapter 5

C onfuc ia n Ec onom ic Et h i c s yong huang

Overview In 1997, the American sinologist Lionel Jensen made a provocative claim that ‘Confucianism is largely a Western invention’ (Jensen, 1997, p. 4). While most things he said about it are controversial if not outright wrong, he is right that the term ‘Confucianism’ was coined by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century, as there was no corresponding Chinese term for it. The term is supposed to convey the same meaning as Ru 儒 or Ruism 儒家 in Chinese. The use of ‘Confucianism’ for Ru or Ruism, however, misleads people into thinking that Ru or Ruism started with Confucius (Kongfuzi 孔夫子 or Kongzi孔子, 551–​479 bce). While Ruism as a school is certainly inseparable from and would not exist as we know it today without Confucius, there are at least two senses in which Ruism preceded Confucius. On the one hand, there were ru or ruists before Confucius, and Confucius himself was a ru. The term ru means being soft, gentle, and elegant, or a person with such qualities. Ru, as a social class, existed as far back as the Yin dynasty, functioning as priests of Yin people. After the Zhou dynasty succeeded the Yin dynasty in 1046 bce, this class continued to exist, to run funerals, perform rituals, and, finally, to teach the six arts (liuyi 六藝) necessary for political leaders: rites, music, archery, charioteering, writing, and mathematics. It was a function that Confucius certainly had in mind when he advised his students to be superior ru instead of inferior ones (Analects 6.13). On the other hand, there are Confucian or, rather, Ruist classics, before Confucius. In the Confucian canons, there are so-​called five scriptures and four books. The four books are indeed Confucian. They include the Analects, primarily the sayings of Confucius collected and edited by his students after he died; the Mencius, primarily the sayings of Mencius, whose importance is second only to Confucius in the Confucian tradition; and the Great Learning and the Doctrine of Mean, originally two chapters in a later

106   Yong Huang edition of the Book of Rites, written by Confucius’s students. The five classics, at least their earlier versions, including the Book of Poetry, the Book of Documents, the Book of Change, the Book of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, however, all existed before Confucius, although Confucius did spend time editing them, to a great or lesser extent, in his later years. Confucianism has become one of the three main teachings or religions (jiao 教) in China, together with Daoism and Buddhism. It later spread to other East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In the contemporary world, it provided moral and spiritual resources for the economic miracles in Japan as well as the so-​called four little dragons: Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. While there has been debate about whether Confucianism can be properly regarded as a religion, several salient features of this tradition qualify it to be a genuine religion. It believes in Heaven as the ultimate reality that controls natural and human events, rewarding the good and punishing the evil. Its organization is constituted by the political institution of the state. The emperor is regarded as the son of Heaven and so is not only responsible for the political government, but also for the religious worship to Heaven. Ancestor worship, which is practised by everyone, is an important religious activity of Confucianism, as it is believed that there can be communication between the dead and the living. Sage (shengren 聖人) is the ideal person.

Introduction: Rightness versus Benefits A natural place to locate Confucian economic ethics is the so-​called yi li zhi bian 義利之 辨, the distinction (or the lack thereof) between yi 義 and li 利, in the Confucian tradition. Here li means benefits, which include economic gains and other rewards, such as honours, fames, powers, etc., that are constitutive of the external well-​being of a human life. In contrast, yi means rightness. It is originally one of the four cardinal Confucian virtues, the other three being benevolence, propriety, and moral wisdom. Moreover, just like the other three cardinal virtues, rightness is one of the four major components of human nature constituting the internal well-​being of a human life. When used alone, or when used together with benevolence, however, rightness often represents human virtue/​morality or human nature as a whole. Therefore, the Confucian discourse in question essentially explores the proper relationship between the ethical (rightness) and the economic (benefits). It was Confucius who set the tone for the Confucian view on this issue, which, however, is most fully developed by Mencius (or Mengzi 孟子, about 372–​289 bce). Later Confucians advance their own unique views on this issue, largely by proposing diverse interpretations of Confucius and, especially, Mencius. Depending on their respective understandings of yi, rightness, these interpretations may take either a deontological form, in which rightness is taken as a norm independent of benefit, or

Confucian Economic Ethics    107 a consequentialist, even utilitarian, form, in which rightness is taken as the instrument for benefit. This chapter examines these two competing views, both as interpretations of Confucius and Mencius and as philosophical positions in their own lights. In the end, I conclude by suggesting a virtue-​ethics reading as a more plausible alternative, also in both senses.

(The Virtue of) Rightness Benefits Its Possessor In appearance, both Confucius (551–​479 bce) and Mencius (372–​289 bce) promote rightness at the expense of benefits. Confucius famously says that ‘superior persons are conversant with rightness, while inferior people are conversant with benefits’ (Analects 4.16). Similarly, at the very beginning of the Mencius, King Hui of Liang asks Mencius, who comes to visit him as an advisor, what benefits Mencius can bring to him, to which Mencius replies: ‘What is the point of mentioning the benefit? All that matters is that there should be benevolence and rightness’ (Mencius 1A1). As a matter of fact, however, Confucianism does not see rightness and benefits as opposites as if we cannot have both. What it emphasizes is that benefits be acquired only through rightness, and rightness will naturally bring you the benefits sought, while wrongness will naturally bring you harm. It is in this sense that Confucius says that ‘a superior person seeks the moral way and not the food. . . . If one learns [to be a moral person], emolument will naturally accompany it. A superior person is concerned about the moral way and not the poverty’ (Analects 15.32). Here, Confucius is not saying that we are facing a dilemma between morality and poverty, where a superior person always chooses the former. Rather he is saying that when choosing the moral way, one tends to become rich, and that is why he says that emolument lies right in one’s effort to learn to be a moral person. This is also a point Mencius makes when he told King Hui of Liang to seek benevolence and rightness instead of benefits. If everyone in the state were to follow the example of the king in prioritizing benefits, ‘then people above and below will fight for benefits and the state will be in danger’, which will bring the king calamities instead of benefits, Moreover, officials who previously were content with having only one-​tenth of what the king has might follow the example of the king himself. And as these officials ‘put benefits before rightness, they will not be satisfied until they snatch all that the king has’ (Mencius 1A1). Hence, if the king does everything for the sake of benefits, which will lead everyone else to do the same, the state will be in danger. The king cannot continue to be the king, and all his existing material assets will be taken away by others. It is in this sense that Mencius compares the king’s seeking benefits through non-​moral means with seeking fish in a tree. When the king considers this analogy to be excessive, Mencius further explains: ‘When seeking fish in a tree, the worst scenario is that you will not get any fish, but there will be no harm; however, seeking what you desire [benefits] through

108   Yong Huang what you want to do [immoral things], exerting all your efforts, there will definitely be calamities’ (Mencius 1A7). In contrast, if the king puts rightness ahead of benefits, which sets an example for people to follow so that people become benevolent and morally right, then the king will reap benefits, including maintaining his position as a king. After all, ‘there have never been benevolent persons who will abandon their parents, and there have never been morally right persons who will be negligent [of] the interests of the king’ (Mencius 1A1). When commenting on this passage, the greatest neo-​Confucian in the Song dynasty, Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–​1200), contrasts Mencius’s benevolence and rightness as a heavenly principle, on the one hand, with desire for benefits as human desires, on the other hand. Nevertheless, this is not to say that benefits are dispensable. Zhu Xi says that ‘following the heavenly principle, nothing is not beneficial even if one doesn’t seek it; seeking human desires, one will not succeed in acquiring the intended benefits but will bring harm to oneself ’ (Zhu, 1994, p. 280). He further quotes what his predecessor, Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–​1107), says on this passage from the Mencius: ‘It is not the case that superior persons have no desire for benefits but they regard it harmful to concentrate their mind on such benefits. To be benevolent and morally right, they don’t seek benefits and yet such benefits will result as a matter of fact’ (Zhu, 1994, p. 280). Mencius similarly contrasts practising rightness, resulting in benefits, and seeking benefits, resulting in harm, in another context. On the one hand, if the king puts benefits ahead of rightness, then: [M]‌inisters will serve the king only for the sake of their own benefits, children will serve their parents only for the sake of their own benefits, and younger brothers will serve their older brothers only for the sake of their own benefits. Abandoning benevolence and rightness, the king and his ministers, parents and their children, and old brothers and their younger brothers interact with each other only in order for each to benefit from the other. There has never been a case in which the ruler does so and yet doesn’t bring ruin to his kingship. (Mencius 6B4)

On the other hand, if the king is pleased with benevolence and rightness, then: [M]‌inisters will serve the king, children serve their parents, and younger brothers serve their older brothers, all benevolently and with rightness. Disregarding benefits, the king and his ministers, parents and children, and older and younger brothers interact with each other with benevolence and rightness. There has never been a case in which the ruler does so and yet is unable to maintain the kingship. (Mencius 6B4)

Commenting on this passage, Zhu Xi states that ‘there is here a difference between a heart-​mind for rightness and a heart-​mind for benefits; consequently, there is a difference between prosperity and calamities. But you cannot put benefits first and cannot have a desire to seek them. This is because originally there is only one principle, which is benevolence and rightness, in addition to which there is nothing’ (Zhu

Confucian Economic Ethics    109 Xi, 1986, p. 1218). Here, the heart-​mind for rightness is to prosperity, as the heart-​mind concentrated on benefits is to calamity. Confucians have no antipathy towards benefits, as if they are intrinsically harmful. In fact, they consider benefits to be things that we all want to have, and there is nothing wrong in receiving them. What Confucians want to emphasize though is that we should receive benefits in moral ways, and, more importantly, being moral is the best way to acquire benefits. In other words, it pays to be moral. Put in another way, (the virtue of) rightness benefits its possessor. This is indeed an idea that has been prevalent during and even before the time of Confucius. In Guoyu 國語, Speeches from States, for example, there is a saying that ‘only by being moral can one acquire benefits. . . . And being immoral one will not become rich’ (Guoyu, Zhouyu B1). In another place, it states that ‘rightness is the foundation of benefits, and greediness is the source of complaints. With rightness abandoned, there cannot be benefits left; and with a love for greediness, complaints will sure arise’ (Guoyu, Jinyu B8). What is emphasized is that there must be first rightness and only then can benefits be brought out. Conversely, it is believed that acting immorally damages the benefits that would have otherwise come to us. Still very popular in everyday conversation among Chinese people today is a famous saying in the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn: ‘Having done too many immoral things, one will surely bring failure to oneself ’ (Zuohuan, Duke of Yin, Year 1). Confucianism puts rightness ahead of benefits, not because they are inherently contradictory, as if rightness can never produce benefits (which can only be acquired immorally), or that no benefits can come from moral rightness, with consequent damage to one’s external well-​being. Rather, as we have seen earlier, Confucianism sees rightness as the best way to bring out benefits. If benefits are concomitant to right/​moral action, it might be asked whether there is any significant difference between King Hui of Liang, who was concerned with benefits, and Mencius, who advised the king to set his eyes on rightness instead. After all, it appears that Mencius asks the king to be concerned with rightness precisely because it will bring him benefits. Despite the similarity with the end results (benefits), for Mencius and Confucius, there is nevertheless still an important difference, namely, the manner by which such benefits come about. After all, external benefits may also be obtained by being immoral. Moreover, being moral sometimes comes at the expense of one’s external well-​being. This Confucian view is well expressed by Rosalind Hursthouse, a neo-​Aristotelian virtue ethicist, when she explains the idea that virtue benefits its possessor. While she holds that virtue (rightness) is the best path towards benefits, such right action is nevertheless not a sufficient condition to gaining these benefits because some morally right actions may damage the agent’s external well-​being, sometimes precisely because they are morally right. At the same time, moral right action is not a necessary condition for reaping such benefits because evil actions can often bring the agent great benefits, sometimes precisely because they are evildoings. Thus, Mencius’s advice to the king can be likened to a doctor’s advice—​it is the best bet for health, though it is neither necessary nor sufficient for it (see Hursthouse, 1999, p. 172).

110   Yong Huang Therefore, for Confucianism, while there is nothing wrong in receiving external benefits, it is important to do so within the bounds of rightness. For example, Confucius states, ‘If seeking the rich is morally permissible, I will seek it even as a groom with whip in hand; but if it is not morally permissible, then I will follow what delights me [i.e. rightness])’ (Analects 7.12). In another place, Confucius says that ‘riches and honors are what we all desire, but if they can be acquired only by being immoral, we ought not to try to obtain them; poverty and lowliness are what we all desist, but if they can be avoided only by being immoral, then we ought not to try to avoid them’ (Analects 4.5). It is important then that when an opportunity for gaining benefits presents itself, we ought to determine whether or not it is right to acquire it (jian li si yi 見利思義) (Analects 14.12). Mencius holds the same view: ‘If it is against the moral way, one is not supposed to receive even a single cup of food, but if it is consistent with the moral way, even Shun’s receiving the whole world [by being the emperor] is not excessive’ (Mencius 3b4). It is clear that, for Confucianism, rightness takes priority over benefits when they do not cohere. Moreover, when they do not cohere, one ought not to feel sad for losing an opportunity to receive benefits: ‘Riches and honors acquired in an immoral way are like a floating cloud to me’ (Analects 7.16). Instead, as we have already seen, we still ought to find joy in being moral even if it is not beneficial to us or even if it causes us external harm. It is in this sense that Confucius praises his favourite student, Yan Hui: ‘With a small dish of food, a simple gourd of water, and living on a shabby lane, while no one else would be able to endure the distress, only Yan Hui does not cease to be happy’ (Analects 6.1). This is consistent with the way Confucius describes himself, immediately before the above-​mentioned sentence regarding riches and honours obtained immorally as a floating cloud: ‘With course food to eat and raw water to drink, and with bended arms as pillow, I still found joy in it’ (Analects 7.12). What Confucius says here is, of course, not that we should take delight in being poor but that we should take delight in having not diverted from the moral path even though it leads to poverty. If we should still maintain rightness even when it is not beneficial, then it seems that rightness has an intrinsic value independent of its instrumental utility in bringing about benefits. Moreover, this intrinsic value cannot be trumped by the great benefits its violation may produce. It is for this reason that this Confucian view on rightness and benefits is sometimes regarded as a deontological position. Lee Min-​ghuei 李明輝, for example, argues that the Confucian position is contrary to utilitarianism since Mencius recognizes that rightness has its meaning and value independent of the benefits it may (often) or may (sometimes) not produce. In Lee Min-​ghuei’s view, ‘It is one thing to realize that rightness can produce benefit, but it is entirely another to regard benefit as rightness. . . . Both Kant and Mencius agree that rightness can produce benefit but their ethics is not therefore to be regarded as an ethics of ends, to say nothing of utilitarianism’ (Lee, 2018, p. 189; see also Huang and Zhao, 1992, pp. 28–​37). Lee supports his view by the following famous saying attributed to the great Confucian in the Han Dynasty, as recorded in ‘A Biography of Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒’ in the History of Han Dynasty by Ban Gu 班固: ‘A benevolent person sticks to what is right without seeking benefits and brightens the moral way without considering the consequence’ (Ban, 2002, p. 801).

Confucian Economic Ethics    111 Zhu Xi may also be understood to hold this view when he says that ‘in any situation, you cannot have a heart-​mind set on seeking benefits. As soon as you have benefits in mind, the rightness will be harmed. When sages do things, the only concern they have is rightness. However, no moral rightness doesn’t bring out benefit’ (Zhu, 1986, p. 1218). In agreement with Lee, Zhai Zhicheng 翟志成 holds that, while the rightness that Mencius emphasizes is not necessarily harmful to benefits, gaining benefits is merely a byproduct of practising rightness; similarly, while immorality is not necessarily beneficial, losing external benefits is a byproduct of immorality. While the latter may be compared with intentionally growing flowers resulting in no flowers, the former may be compared with accidentally dropping willow sticks resulting in a forest of willow trees. After all, ‘Rightness, inevitably leading to benefits, highlights the intentional moral purposefulness and not the accompanying external benefits, and its value cannot be measured by the size of external benefits. In short, rightness is not benefits’ (Zhai, 1986, p. 244).

Rightness Benefits Others This deontological interpretation of the Confucian view on rightness and benefit, however, has been challenged. In the preceding section, we have been talking about how a moral action may bring benefits to its agent. While there is nothing wrong with receiving benefits for oneself, we ought to do so within the bounds of rightness. Why then should we not seek benefits for ourselves when doing so is against rightness? Is it because rightness, just like Kant’s goodwill, has its intrinsic value or is it because it is not beneficial to others, either by not bringing about benefits that others deserve or by taking benefits from others who are entitled to them? The latter alternative at least has some plausibility. We are certainly using the word ‘right’ properly when we say it is right to bring benefits to others and it is not right to take benefits away from others. If so, it seems that we have to make a distinction between benefits for agents themselves and benefits for others. While agents can legitimately receive benefits for themselves and since rightness is not equivalent to bringing about benefits for agents themselves, perhaps rightness means not to steal benefits from others and, further, to bring about benefits for them. We can certainly find abundant textual evidence to support this interpretation. The Commentary on the Book of Change, Yijing, one of the Confucian classics, states that ‘benefits are the harmony of all that is right . . . and by bringing benefits to all, superior persons exhibit the harmony of what is right’ (Yijing, Wenyan, Qian 9). By saying that ‘benefits are the harmony of all that is right’, the text apparently sees the connection between benefits and rightness as more than a contingent one, and by saying that the harmony of all, which is right, is to bring benefits to all, the text makes it clear that the benefits that the rightness involves are benefits not just for the agent but also for others. Zuo Zhuan, the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn, another Confucian classic, records a saying by Confucius about what he considers to be essentials of

112   Yong Huang government: ‘One follows rules of propriety in order to do morally right things, and one does morally right things in order to bring out benefits, and one produces benefits in order to satisfy people’s needs’ (Zuozhuan, Duke of Cheng, Year 2). The same two things are also clear in this passage: the connection between rightness and benefit is more than contingent, and the benefit here is not the benefit for the agent, the political ruler, but benefit for others, his people. A number of conversations between Mencius and King Hui of Liang are particularly telling in this regard. In one place, the king asks Mencius to explain why the park of King Wen, a legendary sage king, is as large as 70 square li, which is, however, still regarded as too small, while his own park has only 40 square li, which is, however, already regarded as too big. In response, Mencius says: ‘It’s true that King Wen’s park is as big as 70 square li, but he shares it with his people: people can come in to cut grasses [to feed their animals], pick dry stickers [as fuel for cooking], and catch pheasants and hares [for food]. Is there any wonder that people regard it as too small?’ In contrast, ‘In your park’, Mencius says to the king, ‘the killing of a deer is as serious a crime as killing a person, which turns the park into a prison of 40 square li in the center of the state. Is there any wonder that people regard it as too big?’ (Mencius 1B2). This sense of rightness as sharing benefits with others is consistent with a number of other conversations Mencius has with King Xuan of Qi, who is afraid that he cannot be a good king because of some weaknesses he has. In one place, he says that he has the weakness of loving wealth. Mencius says that loving wealth is not an obstacle to becoming a good king, as the ancient King Gong Liu also loved wealth, but he shared it with his people. So, Mencius says, ‘If your majesty loves wealth, as long as you allow your people also to be able to love wealth, then there is nothing in your way to becoming a good king’ (Mencius 1B5). Then the king says that he has another weakness: loving beauty. Mencius says that this is not an obstacle to becoming a good king, either, as the ancient King Tai also loved beauty, but because of that, he made sure that there were no women without husbands and no men without wives in his state. So, Mencius says, ‘If your majesty loves beauty, as long as you make sure that your people can also love beauty, then there is nothing in the way of your becoming a good king’ (Mencius 1B5). In another place, Mencius contrasts sage King Shun and wicked King Jie. Both of them had high towers and big ponds with birds, fish, and animals in them, but people were happy with the former and hated the latter, precisely because the former shared them with his people and the latter did not (Mencius 1A2). In still another place, Mencius advised the king who enjoyed music that ‘It is more pleasant to enjoy music with your people than to enjoy it [by] yourself ’ and ‘It is more pleasant to enjoy music with more people than with fewer people’, concluding that the king should always seek common pleasure with people (Mencius 2A1). It is in this sense that Chen Guyuan 陳顧遠 claims that the benevolent government that Mencius promotes can be characterized as a kind of co-​hedonism (tong le zhu yi 同樂主義). According to co-​hedonism, it really does not matter if you desire delicious food, beauty, and money, as long as you are also thinking of your people, making sure that their desires for these same things can be equally satisfied, and you do not benefit

Confucian Economic Ethics    113 yourself by harming their well-​being (Chen, 1926, p. 74). For this reason, in Chen’s view, Mencius criticizes the king for not sharing his pleasures with his people as being against rightness: Now you have fat meat in your kitchen and well-​fed horses in your stables, but your people look hungry, and there are people who drop dead from starvation in the outskirts. What you do is to lead beasts to devour your people. Even animals devouring each other is already repugnant to human beings, but if you as the parent of your people still cannot avoid leading beasts to devour your people in ruling them, are you really the parent of your people? (Mencius 1A4)

So, if moral rightness in relation to one’s external benefits, requires that, when we receive our own benefits, we should not sacrifice others’ benefits, it may be claimed that the rightness in relation to others’ benefits is nothing but to protect and promote others’ benefits. This point may have its support in the following saying by Mencius, especially in light of Chen Daqi’s 陳大奇 interpretation (Chen, 2012, p. 51): ‘If a ruler takes full care of benefits, then no one will die even in a bad year; and if the ruler takes full care of virtues, then no one will be confounded in an age of corruption’ (Mencius 7B10). Here benefits (li) are positively used in parallel with virtue (de 德), considering that rightness (yi) is also a virtue for Mencius. If this is true, then the deontological interpretation of the Confucian view on rightness and benefits is after all not right. Luo Jianren 駱建人, for example, argues that ‘the great benevolence and rightness for Mencius is nothing but the great benefits’ (Luo, 1995, p. 51), and thus for him, ‘[I]‌t is the biggest misunderstanding for scholars to think that Mencius advocates rightness at the expense of benefits’ (Luo, 1995, p. 52). To support his view, he quotes Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–​ 1986), a Song-​dynasty Confucian, who describes how Mencius learned from his teacher, Zisi 子思, Confucius’s grandson. Zisi told Mencius that the way to take care of people is to bring benefits to them, at which Mencius was puzzled as he thought the only thing needed is benevolence and rightness. Zisi explained to Mencius that rightness produces great benefits, and immorality causes great harm (Luo, 1995, p. 52); and he further quotes Qing Dynasty scholar Cui Shu 崔述 (1740–​1816), who says that sages always promote benefits. The only thing is that the benefits for them are always ‘benefits within moral rightness, not outside it, the shared ones and not private ones, and the long term ones, not momentary ones’ (Luo, 1995, p.53). It is in this sense that this Confucian view, especially its Mencian version, of rightness and benefits, is sometimes characterized as a type of consequentialism or even utilitarianism. Luo, for example, argues that Bentham’s utilitarian view that ‘the amount of social welfare created should be the main criterion in evaluating the value of an individual’s life is very close to Mencius’s notion of “great benefits” ’ (Luo, 1995, p. 56). Chen Guyuan 陳顧遠 also claims that Mencius’s view, which he characterizes as co-​hedonism, as we have seen, is also similar to the utilitarian notion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number (Chen, 1926, p. 76). Hu Shi 胡適 concurs: ‘There is no doubt that Mencius’s political philosophy has the take of utilitarianism’ (Hu, 1919, p. 301). Cai Xinan 蔡信安

114   Yong Huang takes a step further, claiming that Mencius is an act utilitarian in contrast to a rule utilitarian: when deliberating which actions to take, Mencius uses the overall benefits, not just benefits for the agent, as the criterion: When Mencius advocates benevolence and rightness as criterion for our choice, he is really using public benefit to evaluate the legitimacy and plausibility of ethical judgments. Guided by benevolence and rightness, private benefits can also be sought within the framework of public benefits. So ultimately, the criterion to evaluate action is the overall benefits. (Cai, 1987, p. 139)

Nevertheless, there is a clear difference between this Confucian view and utilitarianism in the West that is also noticed by those who characterize the former as the latter. While utilitarians claim that the greatest benefit is rightness (and so, in order to be morally right, all that you need to do is to maximize benefits), Confucians claim that rightness is the greatest benefit, and so, in order to produce benefits, all that you need to do is to be morally right. For this reason, it is sometimes claimed that Confucian utilitarianism is a character utilitarianism (see Ivanhoe, 1991; and Im, 2011). It is indeed this distinction, in their view, that lead people to mistake Confucianism as a type of deontological view, regarding rightness as of intrinsic value with benefits as its byproduct. In their view, however, rightness is the greatest benefit, not in the sense that rightness has its intrinsic value, which is seen as the greatest benefit, but in the sense that rightness consists of or is equivalent to great benefits. Confucianism emphasizes rightness only because of its instrumental value in producing great benefits. As Cai points out: ‘Mencius regards benevolence and rightness as moral principles, not as moral realms or ends. If they are the ends, their value cannot be their instrumental value’ (Cai, 1987, p. 139). In Luo’s view, Mencius is asking us ‘to seek benefits in the name of benevolence and rightness’ (Luo, 1995, p. 57). If this is the only difference between the Confucian view on rightness and benefits and utilitarianism in the West, it is still plausible to characterize the Confucian view as utilitarian, since rightness here merely serves as an instrument to promote benefits. However, there are two other differences. In the first place, utilitarianism is self–​other neutral in the sense that it is only concerned with the total utility or benefits, regardless of who reaps these. Hence, (a) if an agent’s great self-​sacrifice produces only a small benefit for others, utilitarianism will regard it as immoral. At the same time, (b) if an agent does something that brings more benefits to themselves than the harm it causes to others, utilitarianism will consider it to be moral. In contrast, for Confucianism, there is a clear self–​other distinction, and therefore it will regard (a) as moral and (b) as immoral, at least in most cases (with the exception mentioned at the very end of this chapter). Note that the distinction Confucians make here is between benefits for agents and benefits for others and not between private benefits and public benefits. The distinction between private and public benefits is not only a poor interpretation of the Confucian view but is itself problematic, as pointed out by some of the critics of the utilitarian interpretation of Confucianism. After all, a benefit that is private in one sense may be

Confucian Economic Ethics    115 public in another sense. For example, if I seek a benefit for my family, it will be a private benefit in comparison with benefits for other families, but it is a public benefit vis-​à-​ vis my own benefit. Furthermore, public benefit is often the aggregation of all private benefits (see Chen, 2012, p. 282; Ye, 2011, pp. 18–​19; and Lee, 2018, pp. 156–​157). In contrast, the distinction between the benefit for the agent and the benefit for others will not have either of these problems. The Confucian view that agents can receive their own benefits only within the bounds of rightness, that is, on the condition that benefits for others will not be harmed, and that agents should promote benefits for others can be consistently applied at all levels. For example, at the individual level, I can seek benefits for myself only if I do not negatively affect others’ benefits, which I should seek to promote to begin with. At the family level, I can seek benefits for my family only if I do not negatively affect benefits for other families, whose well-​being I should also seek to promote to begin with. At the national level, I can seek benefits for my own country only if I do not negatively affect benefits for other countries, whose welfare I should actively promote to begin with. A second further difference is that utilitarianism is only interested in the total amount of utilities but is not interested in how this sum is distributed among people. In Confucianism, however, benefits are regulated by rightness, and one of the ways rightness regulates benefits is precisely to distribute the benefits among people in a right way, which involves the Confucian view of distributive justice, to which we now turn.

Rightness in the Distribution of Benefits When discussing Confucian distributive justice, the following saying of Confucius naturally comes to one’s mind: ‘I have heard that what the head of a state or family worries about is not having little but its distribution being not jun 均’ (Analects 16.1). Since the character jun normally means ‘equal’, it is often claimed that Confucius is egalitarian in the distribution of benefits. Such claim, however, is a mistake because even Confucius himself clearly embraced the hierarchical society of his time. The greatest Confucian in the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179–​194 bce), explains that Confucius here is only cautioning against the disparity between the extremely rich and the extremely poor and does not advocate equality (Dong, 2010, 27.162). In his famous Collected Annotation on the Analects, Zhu Xi in the Song Dynasty explains that, by jun Confucius means that ‘everyone gets their deserved share’, with one’s deserved share not necessarily being the same as another’s (Zhu, 1994, p. 239). Therefore, instead of ‘equality’, jun may be better understood and translated as ‘equilibrium’. However, even if Dong and Zhu are right, and I believe they are right, Confucius still does not tell us what counts as unacceptable disparity between the extremely rich and the extremely poor that we should avoid. Neither does Confucius specify the different

116   Yong Huang shares that people deserve to receive. On this matter, we can get more concrete ideas from Mencius who emphasizes that people should have sufficient material goods. Thus, on the one hand, he praises the enlightened rulers, who, ‘when distributing properties among people, make sure that what they have is sufficient to serving their parents as well as taking care of their wives and children. In good years, people always have enough to eat, while in bad years they will never starve’ (Mencius 1A7). On the other hand, Mencius criticizes rulers of his time, who, ‘when distributing properties among people, give people less than sufficient to serve their parents and take care of their wives and children. In good years, people’s lives are already very hard, and in bad years they cannot escape death’ (Mencius 1A7). Moreover, Mencius, explains what he means by having enough and how to let people have enough: [T]‌o plant mulberry-​trees in every homestead of five mu so that people of fifty years old can wear silk clothes; to raise chickens, pigs, dogs, and swine without neglecting their breeding seasons so that people of seventy years old can have meat; to not take away time from people when they are cultivating the field of a hundred mu during the busy season so that a family of eight will have enough to escape starvation. (Mencius 1A7)

In short, Mencius concludes that things should be distributed in such a way that ‘old people can wear silk and eat meat, and no one suffers from hunger and cold’ (Mencius 1A7). Given this, it is sometimes claimed that Mencius holds a sufficientarian principle of distributive justice, which is not egalitarian, as characterized by Harry Frankfurt (see Chan, 2013, pp. 169–​171). According to Frankfurt, ‘Economic equality is not, as such, of particular moral importance. With respect to the distribution of economic assets, what is important from the point of view of morality is not that everyone should have the same but that each should have enough. If everyone had enough, it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others’ (Frankfurt, 1987, p. 21). As Mencius also allows some people to have more than enough when he emphasizes that everyone should have sufficient economic assets, we can indeed see some similarity between Mencius’ theory of distributive justice and Frankfurt’s sufficientarianism. Mencius’ theory, however, is much more complicated, addressing at least two issues that are not clearly addressed by sufficientarianism. On the one hand, what is the principle, if any, governing the distribution of economic assets among people who have more than what is deemed to be sufficient? On the other hand, in a society in which the sufficientarian principle has not been fully realized (i.e. there are still people who do not have enough), there are conceivably two ways to gradually realize the sufficientarian ideal. One can either bring as many people as possible to the level of sufficiency or one can bring all people as close as possible to the level of sufficiency. Joseph Chan claims that the second option is entailed by sufficientarianism (Chan, 2013, p. 173). In my view, however, the first option is as sufficientarian as the second one. Hence, sufficientarianism by itself does not tell us which way we should take.

Confucian Economic Ethics    117 Mencius says something on both issues. We start with the second issue about which of the two possible ways we should take to gradually realize the sufficientarian ideal. As we have seen, Mencius mainly has in mind the bread-​earner, the able-​bodied man, of each typical household: he should have enough to support his old parents, his younger children, and his wife. However, Mencius also considers four untypical households: ‘The old men who have lost wives are called widowers; the old women who have lost their husbands are called widows; the old people who don’t have children are called solitaries, and the young children who have lost their parents are called orphans. These four types of people are the most destitute, without anyone to turn to for help.’ Then, immediately, Mencius asks us to follow his ideal ruler, King Wen, who, ‘when practicing his benevolent government, made sure that these four types of people receive the first consideration’. He further cites two verses from the Book of Poetry to the effect that, instead of focusing on the happy life of rich people, we should pay attention to the helpless (Mencius 1B5). This view of Mencius may remind us of prioritarianism as a principle of distributive justice. Some scholars indeed regard Mencius’s position as such. When describing this view, Derek Parfit states that ‘benefiting people matters more the worse off these people are’. In other words, ‘it is more important to benefit the worse off ’ (Parfit, 1997, p. 213). Of course, for Parfit, prioritarianism is a stand-​alone principle, to be carried out throughout, including to those above the sufficient line (indeed such a line has no place in prioritarianism). For Mencius, however, prioritarianism is only applicable to people below the sufficient line. Hence, if there are two people under the line of sufficiency, one closer to it than another, and we have economic assets just enough to bring the former up to the sufficient line, Mencius’s view is that we should give it to the latter, even if this means that neither of the two will reach the sufficient line. This view of Mencius, to give preferential consideration to the poor, is consistent with Confucius’s view that a superior person ought to help the destitute and not to add wealth to the rich (Analects 6.4), even though Confucius himself does not draw a line of sufficiency. How about the distribution rule to follow in allocating available economic assets when everyone is above the threshold of sufficiency? Mencius does not think that we should always give the first consideration to the relatively worse off or, rather, the relatively less well off. Mencius expresses his principle of distribution above the sufficiency line when he describes the system of ranks and incomes under the house of Zhou. The system stipulates the distribution of salaries for officials in big state, medium state, and small state. Take the system for big state for example: [T]‌he emperor has incomes ten times that of a minister, a minister has incomes four times that of a counsellor, a counsellor has incomes twice that of a scholar of the first class, a scholar of the first class has incomes twice that of a scholar of the middle class, a scholar of the middle class has income twice that of a scholar of a lower class, and a scholar of the lower class has the same income as a commoner in public service, an income equal to the amount they would have if they till the fields. (Mencius 5B2)

118   Yong Huang Clearly, the distribution of benefits or economic goods for people above the sufficiency line does not follow the egalitarian or prioritarian principle, since it is hierarchical: the higher one’s official rank is, the higher is the salary. Such inequality, however, is not hereditary. Mencius calls these official ranks, with different concomitant benefits, human honours (ren jue 人爵), in contrast to heavenly honours (tian jue 天爵) such as benevolence, rightness, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, and delight in doing good without feeling tired. He praises ancient people, who ‘cultivated their heavenly honours, with human honours bestowed on them naturally’. At the same time, he criticizes people of his time, who ‘cultivate their heavenly honours just in order to receive human honours, and as soon as they receive human honours they abandon their heavenly honours’ (Mencius 6A16). From this we can see that, while people holding official positions earn more than those tilling the fields, and people holding higher offices earn more than those holding lower offices, people can hold offices only because they have cultivated their heavenly honours better than those tilling the fields. Moreover, people can hold higher offices only because they have cultivated their heavenly honours better than those holding lower offices. Mencius calls the former the great people and the latter the small people. One of his students asks why some people are great people and some people are inferior people, and Mencius responds: ‘Those who follow their great body [heart-​mind] are great people, while those who follow their small body [physical body] are small people’ (Mencius 6A16). Hence, while Mencius supports a hierarchical system of distribution of benefits according to ranks of offices, there is a mobility not only among the official ranks but also between people holding public offices and people tilling fields. In other words, if a person holding a high office abandons his heavenly honours, that is, becomes morally deficient, the person shall be demoted to a lower office or even to a commoner tilling fields. In contrast, if a person who tills fields cultivates his heavenly honours, a human honour, that is, a public office, should be bestowed on him. Similarly, if the heavenly honour of a person holding a lower office gets better cultivated, this person ought to be promoted to a higher office. To understand Mencius’s principle governing distribution of economic benefits among people above the sufficient line, it helps if we compare and contrast it with John Rawls’s difference principle, which, of course, is a principle governing the overall distribution and not just distribution among people above the sufficient line (and Rawls does not need to draw this line). Rawls allows social and economic inequalities, with which Mencius agrees, (1) as long as offices and positions with such unequal benefits attached to them are open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity, with which Mencius also agrees, and (2) such inequalities are for the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, with which Mencius disagrees. For Rawls, we allow some people to earn more than others only if their earning more can benefit those who are earning the least. In other words, if we do not allow them to earn more than others, those who earn the least will be even worse off. In contrast, for Mencius, the reason we allow some people to earn more than others is that they cultivated their moral virtues better than others. In this sense, Mencius’s

Confucian Economic Ethics    119 principle for distribution among people above the sufficient line can be appropriately characterized as meritarianism or meritocracy, a principle that Michael Sandel advocates (Sandel, 2009, p. 178). Moreover, Mencius’s meritocracy can escape John Rawls’s criticism of it. In Rawls’s scenario, those people who can hold offices and positions with more benefits attached to them are people who either have higher natural talents than others or whose natural talents are better developed than others, or both. For Rawls, how much natural talent people are born with is a natural accident, and how much one’s natural talents get developed is a social accident. Rawls argues that the distribution of economic goods, to be fair, certainly cannot be determined by such morally arbitrary accidents out of one’s control. In Mencius’s scenario, however, those people who can hold offices and positions with higher salaries are people whose moral virtues are better cultivated. How much moral virtues get cultivated is not a morally arbitrary thing but is something over which people exercise full control to a great extent. For this reason, Mencius believes that it is proper to distribute economic benefits according to the degree one’s virtues get cultivated.

Rightness Independent of Benefits We mentioned earlier that there are two unique features of the Confucian view: (a) it is not neutral with respect to benefits for the agent and benefits for others, and (b) it is concerned with the proper distribution of benefits among people. Because of these features, it is not appropriate to characterize this Confucian view as utilitarian. Still, it seems that rightness is inseparable from benefits. We have now examined the Confucian view of the priority of rightness over benefits in three senses. First, an agent ought to receive benefits for themselves only within the bounds of the rightness [Section ‘(The Virtue of) Rightness Benefits Its Possessor’)]. Second, rightness requires that an agent ought not to damage others’ external well-​being and in fact ought to promote it instead [Section: ‘Rightness Benefits Others’]. Third, rightness requires that benefits be distributed among people in a just way [Section: ‘Rightness in the Distribution of Benefits’]. Note that nothing we have said thus far has established any value of rightness independent of benefits. It seems that, despite its priority over benefits, rightness does not have any value independent of benefits. In other words, it seems that if there is no issue of benefits, there would be no issue of rightness. It is perhaps in this sense that Meng Peiyuan 蒙培元, for example, says that, for Confucianism, ‘There can be benefits without rightness, but there cannot be rightness without benefits’ (Meng, 2011, p. 6). Meng does not mean that rightness always leads to benefits, a point we discussed earlier. Rather, he wants to emphasize that ‘the whole point of rightness is to deal with issues arising from benefits for different parties. In this sense, rightness lies in dealing with such issues and is something that we ought to follow when seeking benefits’ (Meng, 2011, p. 6). However, this view that rightness has no value independent of benefits is problematic.

120   Yong Huang In the Analects, there is a conversation between Confucius and one of his students about the populous state of Wei. While it is a good thing to have a big population, his student asked Confucius what further thing should be done. To this Confucius responded that people should be enriched, that is, have more benefits. His student asked what further thing yet should be done afterward, and Confucius responded that people should be taught to be virtuous (Analects 13.9). Mencius has also said similar things. As we have seen, Mencius argues that people should have constant means of support, that is, benefits, for livelihood. Mencius then says that only after they have constant means of support for their livelihood can they have constant moral hearts. If they do not have the constant means of support for livelihood, they will not have constant moral hearts (Mencius 1A7, see also 3A3). Mencius explains that if they do not have constant means of support for livelihood, ‘they will be so occupied in doing things to avoid death that it is impossible for them to learn about rituals and rightness’ (Mencius 1A7). Thus, Mencius praises ancient sage kings: people cannot live without water and fire, which is of course abundant; so when ‘sages govern the world, they make sure that people’s grains are as abundant as water and fire. When their grains are so abundant, how can there be people without being virtuous?’ (Mencius 7A23). Obviously, if the only function of rightness is to serve as an instrument to promote benefits in an appropriate way, then when benefits are thus promoted, there does not seem to be a need for further moral cultivation. As we can see, however, it is the Confucian view that only after people have sufficient benefits can they be morally cultivated, and so, if anything, it seems that, for Confucians, benefits are the instrument for moral cultivation, not the other way around. It is, of course, possible for us to devise some clever arguments to show that what Confucius and Mencius say, as we have already quoted, is after all still consistent with the instrumentalist view of rightness for benefits. But if we examine their reason for moral cultivation, as we will do further on, we shall see that they do recognize the value of rightness independent of benefits. This, however, does not mean that the deontological interpretation of this Confucian view is after all correct. This is because rightness has its value independent of benefits, not because it is an inherent value, but because it is constitutive of human nature in the Confucian view. In other words, rightness is what distinguishes human beings from animals. Hence, while being morally right can contribute to benefits, it also makes a person a more authentic human being. In Mencius’s view, ‘The distinction between humans and beasts is very slight. The inferior people (shu min 庶民) abandon it, while superior people preserve it’ (Mencius 4B19). What is the slight thing that distinguishes not only between humans (that have it) and beasts (that do not have it) but also between superior persons (who preserve it) and inferior persons (who abandon it)? Mencius makes it clear that it is the four cardinal virtues, including rightness, that distinguish humans from animals: [W]‌ithout feeling of commiseration, one is not a human; without the feeling of shame, one is not a human; without the feeling of respect, one is not a human; and without the feeling of right and wrong, one is not a human. The feeling of

Confucian Economic Ethics    121 commiseration is the beginning of benevolence, the feeling of shame is the beginning of rightness, the feeling of respect is the beginning of propriety, and the feeling of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Humans have these four beginnings as they have four limbs in the sense that they are originally in me and not something inserted in me from outside. (Mencius 6A6)

Here, Mencius makes it clear that rightness, together with the other three, is not only a cardinal human virtue but is also a major constituent of human nature. Of course, if not taken good care of, they may get lost. Thus, using benevolence and propriety as examples, Mencius says that, on the one hand, ‘superior persons are different from other people because they preserve their heart/​mind. They preserve their heart/​mind with humanity and propriety. A person of humanity loves others, and a person of propriety respects others’ (Mencius 4b28). On the other hand, if a person treats, in an outrageous way, a person of humanity and propriety, who has done his best for the person, then ‘such a person does not know what he or she is doing. Such a person is no different from beast, and one cannot expect such a person to know any better’ (Mencius 4b28). In this connection, Mencius compares the immoral person to someone who knows that trees need to be taken care of but not that his or her own person needs to be taken care of: ‘Even with a tong or zhi tree one or two spans thick, anyone who wishes it to be alive knows that it needs to be taken care of. However, when it comes to one’s own person, one does not know that it also needs to be taken care of. Does not one love one’s person less than one’s trees? This is unthinking to the highest degree!’ (Mencius 6A13). Mencius also discloses the foolishness of immoral persons by describing them as ones who care about their fingers more than their heart-​mind: Now if one’s third finger is bent and cannot stretch straight, although this does not cause any pain nor hinder one’s use of it, if there is someone who can straighten it, one will not care about the distance [to seek the cure]. This is because one’s finger is not as good as the finger of others’. When one’s finger is not as good as others’, one knows to dislike it; however, when one’s heart/​mind is not as good as others, one does not know to hate it. (Mencius 6A12)

This is essentially the same argument as the one Mencius makes in the more frequently quoted passage, in which he pictures the immoral person as one who cannot recognize the hierarchical values of the great body and small body: How can there be any other way to see whether a person is good or not than to see what choice the person makes! Different parts of one’s person (ti 體) differ in value and importance. One should never harm the part of greater value and importance for the sake of the part of less value and importance. The person who nurtures the part of great value and importance is a great person, while the person who nurtures the part of less value and importance is a small person. A gardener who tends the common trees while neglecting the valuable ones is a bad gardener. A person who takes care of his or her finger to the detriment of his or her shoulder and back without realizing the mistake is a deluded muddled person. (Mencius 6B14)

122   Yong Huang Because of such inanity, immoral people do not know that, when doing immoral things, they are actually causing great harm to themselves, just like people who take good care of their tree but forget to cure the disease of their own bodies, or people who take care of their finger to the detriment of their shoulders and backs, or people who care to look for their lost chickens and dogs but do not care to look for their own lost heart-​mind. For this reason, immoral people ‘dwell happily among dangers, look upon disaster as profitable and delight in what will lead them to perdition’ (Mencius 4A8). They like to have joy but cause the greatest harm to themselves as human beings without realizing it. It is in this sense that Mencius says that the immoral person who ‘hates death and yet takes delight in being inhumane (bur en 不仁) is like one who hates drunkenness and yet drinks excessively’ (Mencius 4A3). Thus, in Mencius’ view, ‘without education, people will become almost no different from animals’; and for this reason sages make sure that people are ‘taught about human relationships: love between father and son, rightness between ruler and minister, distinction between husband and wife, proper order between old and younger brothers, and faithfulness between friends’ (Mencius 3a4). To further explain this type of education, Mencius quotes the Sage King Yao: ‘Encourage them, lead them on, rectify them, straighten them, help them, and aid them, so that they can get it [their moral nature] themselves (zi de 自得)’ (Mencius 3a4). So education is not to impose external morality upon people: it is, rather, to help people to recover their inborn moral nature. This is because, according to Mencius, ‘Everyone has the heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others. . . . For this reason, whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human; whoever is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of courtesy and modesty is not human, and whoever is devoid of the heart of right and wrong is not human’ (Mencius 2A6). It is in this context we can see better why Mencius emphasizes the importance of people’s benefits: they are not only intrinsically good as they are constitutive of humans’ external well-​being, but they are also instrumentally good as they provide favourable material conditions under which moral education, which aims to improve humans’ internal well-​being, becomes more effective.

Conclusion We have made a roundabout argument about the nature of Confucian economic ethics in light of its view on rightness (ethics) and benefits (economics), and it is time to straighten it. We started with a virtue ethics interpretation that (the virtue of) rightness benefits its possessor, which is challenged by a deontological interpretation that rightness has its own intrinsic value, with benefits as its byproduct. This deontological interpretation, however, is also challenged by a utilitarian interpretation: the so-​called ‘intrinsic’ value of rightness, while indeed independent of the benefits to the agent, is really an instrumental value to produce benefits for others. However, there are two unique features of the Confucian view that render this utilitarian interpretation

Confucian Economic Ethics    123 untenable. The Confucian view (1) is not neutral or blind with respect to benefits to the agent and benefits to others and (2) pays attention to the appropriate distribution of benefits in the community, both of which are inconsistent with utilitarianism. More importantly, however, rightness does have its value independent of benefits, which, however, does not mean that after all the deontological interpretation is correct, since rightness has its value independent of its attendant benefit not because rightness has its own value (like Kant’s goodwill), but because it is a constituent of human nature. One needs the virtue of rightness in order to become a healthy and non-​deficient human being. So ultimately, we are led to a virtue-​ethics interpretation of the Confucian view, which, to some extent and in some sense, synthesizes the respective insights of both deontological and utilitarian interpretations. The utilitarian interpretation holds that benefit has its value independent of rightness, which is instrumental to produce such benefits. The deontological interpretation holds that rightness has its value independent of rightness, although this interpretation fails to point out that benefit also has its instrumental value to help people acquire the virtue of rightness. It thus turns out that while both rightness and benefit have their respective values independent of one another, they also have instrumental value for each other. This is an insight that is central to both virtue ethics and the Confucian view on rightness (yi 義) and benefit (li 利,), and this is the reason why I claim that the latter has to be interpreted as neither a deontological view nor a utilitarian view but a virtue ethical view. On the one hand, virtue ethics is concerned with the good life for humans to live. Such a life must have two components: (1) it has to be a human life, a life that is uniquely human, which is constituted by rightness, and (2) it has to be a human life, a life that is more or less shared with other animals, to which benefits are indispensable. Rightness determines a person’s internal well-​being, while benefits impact a person’s external well-​ being. A good human life that virtue ethics is concerned with is a life that is an excellent or happy one in both internal and external well-​being. While a life that is against rightness is certainly not a good life, a life that lacks necessary benefits cannot be a good life either. On the other hand, it is indeed the case that Confucianism pays attention to both one’s internal and external well-​being. Confucius, of course, regards rightness as essential to human life (Analects 15.18), but he also regards benefit as a given: ‘Riches and honors are what humans desire . . . and poverty and lowliness is what humans detest’ (Analects 4.5). Mencius agrees with this: ‘Life is what I desire, and rightness is also what I desire’, with benefit clearly related to the former (Mencius 6A10). This view that an ideal human life involves both benefits and rightness is more clearly expressed by Xunzi 荀子 (c.310–​ c.220 bce), who says that [R]‌ightness and benefits are two things people like to have. Even sage kings Yao and Shun cannot get rid of people’s desire for benefits; what they can do is only to make sure that people will not allow their desire for benefits to overcome their love for rightness. Even wicked kings Jie and Zhou cannot get rid of people’s love

124   Yong Huang for rightness; what they can do is only allow people’s desire for benefits to overcome their love for rightness. (Xunzi 27.61)

Dong Zhongshu explains further why these are two things people like to have: ‘When the heaven gives birth to humans, it makes humans to seek rightness and benefits. While the latter takes care of the body, the former the heart-​mind. The heart-​mind cannot feel joy without rightness, and body will not be in peace without benefits. Rightness nourishes the heart-​mind, and benefits nourishes the body’ (Dong, 2010, 31.188). Here, desires for rightness and desire for benefits are regarded as two things both given by heaven, that is, two things we are born with. Still, for Confucianism, benefits can never be reduced merely to being means for rightness nor rightness reduced merely to the benefits that they produce. Despite their instrumental value for one another, they each have their own irreducible values. Both are necessary for a flourishing human life. Of course, this does not mean that there will never be conflicts between these two aspects: rightness related to human life and benefits related to human life. It is true that when such conflicts arise, Confucians agree that we should give priority to rightness over benefits. For example, immediately after saying that life and rightness are both what he desired, Mencius says that ‘when they come into conflict, I’ll choose rightness at the expense of life’ (Mencius 6A10). However, even here, there are a few things we should emphasize. First, as we have seen before, one reason that we should prioritize rightness over (our own) benefits is that doing so will bring benefits for others or at least avoid causing harm to others. Second, we should prioritize rightness over (anyone’s or even everyone’s) benefits because while our external well-​being that benefits serve is essential to human life, such external well-​being is after all not unique to human life. In contrast, our internal well-​being that rightness serves is not only essential to human life, but it is also unique to it. Third, although generally speaking, Confucianism prioritizes internal over external well-​being and thus rightness over benefits, as a virtue ethical theory, it is not inflexible on that. For example, in Mencius’s view, generally speaking, to observe moral propriety, which is related to one’s internal well-​being, is more important than eating, which is beneficial to one’s external well-​being. However, what happens if one would starve to death when refraining from eating in order to observe a relatively insignificant rule of moral propriety but would live by taking food against the rule? Mencius answers by using an analogy: ‘Gold is heavier than feather, but this does not mean that a small piece of gold is heavier than a whole cartload of feathers. If you compare a case in which there is a conflict between eating, which is extremely important, and observance of moral propriety, which is insignificant, then of course eating is more important’ (Mencius 6A1). In short, for a good human life, external and internal well-​being cannot be reduced to each other, nor can rightness and benefits be reduced to each other. It might be asked why an ethics that is concerned with a flourishing human life should be called virtue ethics, as virtue (of rightness) is only related to one aspect of such a life, its internal well-​being, while such a life has another aspect, its external

Confucian Economic Ethics    125 well-​being, which is constituted by benefits. To such a question, we only need to recall what we discussed early in this chapter: the virtue of rightness benefits its possessor. So it is not the case that there are two separate processes: one to acquire benefit to promote one’s external well-​being and another to acquire the virtue of rightness to promote one’s internal well-​being. It is in one single process that one acquires both virtue and benefits and thus enhances both internal and external well-​being. In this sense, the three theses, (a) virtue benefits its possessor, (b) virtue makes its possessor a good human being, and (c) these two theses, (a) and (b), are interconnected. This is what Hursthouse (1999) argues in the last part of her book—​insights that are clearly already present in the Confucian view on rightness and benefits. These three theses, however, only reflect one side of this Confucian view, which has another side, largely missed by Hursthouse and, for that matter, most if not all virtue ethicists in the Western philosophical tradition. The side of the Confucian view that Hursthouse fully explores is a person’s self-​ cultivation of virtue, which contributes both to their external and internal well-​being. A truly virtuous person in the Confucian view, however, is also interested in promoting others’ well-​being. Of course, others’ well-​being also includes both external and internal aspects. A virtuous person, by being virtuous and by doing virtuous things, will certainly contribute to others’ external well-​being, which should be clear to any virtue ethicist, Western or Chinese. However, what is unique in the Confucian view is that a person cannot be regarded as virtuous unless they are also disposed to make others virtuous and thus promote others’ internal well-​being as well. I discussed this characteristic feature of Confucian ethics extensively elsewhere (see Huang, 2010, 2013, pp. 53–​62). From the Confucian point of view, the best way to promote others’ internal well-​ being is the virtuous person’s exemplary function. Recall how Mencius says that if the king is benevolent and morally right, then his people will be influenced and eventually become virtuous themselves. Note how this is one single process—​the king’s being virtuous and acting accordingly that contributes to others’ external and internal well-​ being. Of course, seen from the receiving side, the two aspects normally do not take place at the same time. A person’s external well-​being immediately gets enhanced by receiving benefits brought to them by the virtuous person, but the virtuous person’s exemplary power normally takes time to settle in another person. Moreover, it is often the case that additional measures are needed to make others virtuous after they are enriched. It is for this reason that both Confucius and Mencius say that, after being enriched, people ought to be taught to be virtuous. After all, while a virtuous person can give others benefits directly, they cannot give them virtues in the same way, which ultimately has to be acquired by people themselves (zide 自得). The most that a virtuous giver can do is to help recipients acquire the virtues by themselves. Thus, in his extensive speech to Duke Wen of Teng, who asked for advice about governing the state, Mencius quotes sage King Yao: after enriching people, ‘You should encourage them, lead them on, rectify them, straighten them, help them, give them wings, so that they can get [virtues] by themselves (zide), and then promote them and guide them’ (Mencius 2A5).

126   Yong Huang

Suggested Reading Huang, Yong (2013). Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury. Lau, D.C. trans. (1998). Analects (Penguin Classics). London: Penguin Books. Lau, D.C. trans. (2005). Mencius (Penguin Classics). London: Penguin Books. Van Norden, Bryan (2019). ‘Mencius’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta, https://​plato.stanf​ord.edu/​archi​ves/​fall2​019/​entr​ies/​ menc​ius/​, accessed 24 February 2023. Yao, Xinzhong (2000). An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Works Cited Analects (2006). In The Analects Annotated and Translated 論語譯注,by Bojun Yang 楊伯峻. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Ban, Gu 班固 (2002). A History of Han Dynasty 漢書. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Guji Chubanshe. Cai, Xin’an 蔡信安 (1987). ‘On Mencius on Moral Choice 論孟子的道德抉擇’, Taiwan University Philosophical Review 台灣大學哲學評論 10: 135–​174. Chan, Joseph (2013). Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chen, Daqi 陳大齊 (2012). Records of Mencius’s Saying to Be Explained 孟子待解錄. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press. Chen, Guyuan 陳顧遠 (1926). Mencius’s Political Philosophy 孟子的政治哲學. Taipei: Taidong Shuju 泰東書局. Dong, Zhongshu 董仲舒 (2010). Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn. In New Annotations on Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn 春秋繁露, by Zeng Zhenyu 曾振 宇 and Fu Yongju 傅永聚. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Frankfurt, Harry (1987). ‘Equality as a Moral Ideal’, Ethics 98: 21–​43. Guoyu 國語 (2013). Speeches from States 國語, trans. and annotated by Chen Tongsheng 陳桐 生. Beijing: Zhonghu Shuju. Hu, Shi 胡適 (1919). An Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy, Volume 1: History of Ancient Philosophy 中國哲學史大綱，卷上，古代哲學史. Shanghai: Commercial Press. Huang, Weihe 黃偉合, and Haiqi Zhao 趙海琦 (1992). Conflict of Goods: The Debate on Rightness and Benefits in Chinese History 善的衝突—​中國歷史上的義利之辨. Hefei: Anhui People’s Press. Huang, Yong (2010). ‘The Self-​Centeredness Objection to Virtue Ethics: Zhu Xi’s Neo-​ Confucian Response’, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84, no. 4: 651–​692. Huang, Yong (2013). Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury. Hursthouse, Rosalind (1999). On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Im, Manyul (2011). ‘Mencius as Consequentialist’. In Ethics in Early China: An Anthology, edited by Chris Fraser, Dan Robins, and Timothy O’Leary, 41–​64. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Ivanhoe, Philip J. (1991). ‘Character Consequentialism: An Early Confucian Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Theory’, The Journal of Religious Ethics 19: 55–​70. Jensen, Lionel (1997). Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization. Durham: Duke University Press.

Confucian Economic Ethics    127 Lee, Minguei 李明辉 (2018). Confucianism and Kant 儒家与康德. Expanded edition. New Taipei: Lianjing Publishing Company. Luo, Jianren 駱建人 (1995). Explorations of Mencius’s Philosophical System 孟子學術體系探 賾. Taipei: Wenjin Chuban Gongsi. Meng, Peiyuan 蒙培元 (2011). ‘On Confucian Conception of Justice 略談儒家的正義觀’, Confucius Studies 孔子研究 1: 4–​9. Mencius (2005). In The Mencius Annotated and Translated 孟子譯註, Bojun Yang 楊伯峻. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Parfit, Derek (1997). ‘Equality and Priority’, Ratio: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy 10: 202–​221. Sandel, Michael (2009). Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Yeh, Renchang 葉仁昌. (2011). ‘An Analysis of the Distinction between Rightness and Benefit in Mencius’s Political Thought: Four Main Types 孟子政治思想中義利之辨的分析：四 種主要類型的探討’, Taiwanese Journal of Political Science 政治科學論叢 50: 1–​36. Yijing 易經 (2007). In Chinese Text Project. https://​ctext.org/​book-​of-​chan​ges, Zhai, Zhicheng 翟志成 (1986). ‘Taking Appropriateness as Rightness’ vs. ‘Taking Benefits as Moral Rightness’: A Comparative Study of Confucianism and Mohism in Their Views on Rightness and Benefits “以宜為義”與“以利為義“—​先秦儒墨義利觀之比較研究. Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies. Zhu, Xi 朱熹 (1986). Classified Sayings of Master Zhu 朱子語類. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju. Zhu, Xi 朱熹 (1994). Collected Commentaries on the Four Books 四書章句集注 Taipei: Daan Chubanshe 大安出版社. Zuozhuan 左傳 (2015). In Annotations on Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn 春秋 左傳注, by Bojun Yang楊伯峻. Revised Edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.

Chapter 6

Daoist Ec onomi c Et h i c s rory o’neill and hans-​georg moeller

What is Daoism? ‘Daoism’ or ‘Taoism’ denotes a loosely defined tradition of thought and practice that originated in ancient China.1 The terms ‘Daoism’ and ‘Taoism’ stem from different romanizations of the Chinese character dao/​tao 道, which literally means ‘way’ or ‘path’.2 Dao is a central concept in Daoist thought open to a variety of interpretations. One may speak of the dao of the heavens (tian dao 天道), the human dao (ren dao 人道), the dao of a particular topic, like the dao of rulership, or one might speak of the dao in general: the ‘great dao’ (da dao 大道). The core Daoist text, the Daodejing 道德經, begins by stating that what can be called ‘dao’ is not the ‘permanent dao’.3 This line acts as a kind of disclaimer that the great dao, a central topic of the Daodejing, resists direct explication. Roughly speaking, the dao is the perpetuity of all existence. Given the interconnectedness of all things, this great dao, sometimes referred to simply as ‘one’, generates everything. Such explanations may come across as lofty and metaphysical, and the dao is often better understood in terms of the effects that alignment with it produce. This practical thrust of Daoist thought allows for applications in many fields, including the ethics of economics.

1  Readers may refer to a longer, though still very brief, history of Daoism in the introduction to Moeller (2004). 2  The term dao takes its form from the Mandarin romanization system pinyin favoured in mainland China since the founding of the People's Republic of China, while the term tao is derived from the earlier Wade-​Giles romanization system. While the variation, ‘Taoism’, continues to be used, especially when referring to Daoist religion and especially outside of China, the terms are largely interchangeable. The terms ‘dao’, ‘Daoism’, and ‘Daoist’ will be used in this chapter. 3 All quoted translations of passages from the Daodejing are taken from Moeller (2007) unless otherwise stated.

Daoist Economic Ethics    129 In academic discourse, a distinction is sometimes made between Daoist philosophy (daojia 道家) and Daoist religion (daojiao 道教).4 However, difficulties arise when we speak of these as totally separate from each other. A Daoist world view which we might designate as Daoist ‘philosophy’ is informed by practices which relate to physical, mental, and ‘spiritual’ aspects. These practices include breathing and meditation practices, exercises like martial arts (wushu 武術), sexual practices, and dietary and medicinal practices. All of these represent a dissolution of self into the environment or activity that contains the self. Medicinal and therapeutic intentions inform many aspects of Daoist thought and practice, from the health of the body to the health of a governed society. Some philosophical underpinnings of Daoist teachings, including yin-​yang theory, can be traced to the Book of Changes (Yi Jing 易經) which dates back to around the ninth century bce. Historical evidence for the origins of Daoism proper dates roughly to the fourth century bce with the earliest discovered fragments of the Daodejing. The Daodejing is sometimes referred to as the Laozi 老子after its supposed author. However, it is more commonly argued in modern scholarship that the text is a compilation of various orally transmitted passages, and in this sense has no specific author. What exactly the Daodejing is about depends on interpretation, as its messages are conveyed indirectly through images, metaphors, and dense aphorisms. In its early stages the text was directed at the ruling classes and understood to address political and socio-​ economic issues most relevant to this chapter. The Zhuangzi 莊子dates back to the third or fourth century bce. Along with the Daodejing it is one of the most important Daoist texts. It is a lengthy text traditionally ascribed to Zhuang Zhou 莊周, or Master Zhuang, after whom the text is named. The text underwent a long process of transmission and probably stems from multiple sources. It uses many literary styles including prose and verse, and is packed with multi-​ layered allegories, as well as passages of more formal philosophical argumentation. Daoist philosophy was used in the Warring States period (475–​221 bce) and in the form of Huang-​Lao thought (Huang 黃 refers to the ‘Yellow Emperor’ and Lao 老 to Laozi) during the Han 漢 Dynasty (206 bce–​220 ce) to guide rulership. The third century ce was an important time for the scholarly history of Daoism due to thinkers of the ‘Mystical School’ (xuanxue 玄學). Wang Bi’s 王弼 (226–​249 ce) interpretation of the Daodejing and Guo Xiang’s 郭象 (252–​312 ce) annotation of the Zhuangzi dating from this time have profound influences to the present day on our readings of these texts. Daoism as an organized religion began in the second century ce when Zhang Daoling 張道陵 (traditionally, 34–​156 ce) saw the divine Laozi in a dream and founded the Celestial Masters (tianshi 天师) sect. Under the leadership of his grandson Zhang Lu 張魯 (approx. 190–​220 ce) a theocratic state was created that challenged the Han rule. Daoism developed more strongly in the following centuries and flourished during the 4 One notable instance of this distinction is in Fung (1966, p. 3). This text remains influential on English language Chinese philosophy discourse. One notable objection to drawing such a firm distinction can be found in Schipper and Verellen (2004, pp. 6–​7).

130    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller Tang 唐 dynasty (618–​907 ce). The Celestial Masters later became the Zhengyi 正一 tradition which together with the Quanzhen 全真 tradition have been the two largest branches of organized Daoism from the Ming 明dynasty (1368–​1644 ce) to the present day (Chi-​Tim, 2003). Along with the deified Laozi, many other deities—​including ancient sage rulers, ‘gods of the center’ (Kohn, 2009, pp. 93–​94), celestial administrators of the bureaucratic underworld (Kohn, 2009, pp. 102–​103), ancestors, ghosts, and demons—​were established during the early stages of Daoist practice in the Han dynasty. Some early master practitioners were thought to have become immortal (xian 仙) and have the ability to perform great feats such as flying or ‘riding the clouds’ (cheng yun 乘雲). Sages (shengren 聖人) are regarded as perfect humans who realize the nature of the dao, but in the Daodejing the notion of ‘sage’ tends to specifically indicate an ideal ruler who can restore balance in society.5 Today Daoist thought exerts influence in many parts of the world. Daoism is one of the five official religions of China. Although it is difficult to determine the number of adherents, a 2010 survey reported that twelve million Chinese strongly identified with Daoism while a further 173 million people practised a religion with Daoist elements (Hetmanczyk, 2011). An updated version confirmed these figures (Wenzel-​ Teuber, 2020). A Chinese Government website shows an estimate of over nine thousand places of Daoist worship across China, operated by over fifty thousand religious workers (People’s Republic of China State Bureau of Religious Affairs, 2013). A report published in 2019 by the US government on religion in Taiwan estimated that 33 per cent of the population there identify as Daoists (United States Department of State: Office of International Religious Freedom, 2020). Daoism is also influential on the cultures of other parts of Asia and the West.

The Possibility of a Daoist Economic Ethic Daoism offers an approach towards physical, mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual cultivation. It informs political strategy, leadership, and management philosophy, and even investment strategy and economic policy. There are many obstacles to clearly defining a Daoist economic ethic. One notable attempt was undertaken by Max Weber (1959), who did not merely compare economic ethics found in Chinese religions but tried to identify the reasons why, unlike Protestantism, they did not create the circumstances for capitalism to arise. As a result, Weber’s approach relied on a question clearly imported from another tradition. What is more, Weber was primarily interested in Confucianism, given its greater degree of institutionalization. He viewed Daoism 5 

For further discussion on Daoist religious beliefs, practices, and deities, see Miller (2008).

Daoist Economic Ethics    131 largely in terms of its relation to Confucianism—​it is the ‘heterodoxy’ to Confucianism’s ‘orthodoxy’. In Weber’s words, ‘ “Tao” per se is an orthodox Confucian concept. . . . With Lao-​tzu [Laozi], Tao was brought into relationship with the typical god-​seeking of the mystic’(181). There is a degree of appropriateness in viewing Daoism in relation to Confucianism in that the Daoist tradition indeed partly constitutes a reaction against Confucian rites and ceremonies. However, Weber’s derisive assessment of the Daoist tradition as ‘merely an organisation of magicians’ (224–​225) leaves much to be desired in terms of a depiction of the Daoist economic ethic taken on its own terms. At first it might seem that the Daoist tradition does not have much to do with economics. Material wealth is not synonymous with well-​being in Daoist teachings, and these do not give much guidance on the proper management of wealth or any blueprint for economic policy. Nonetheless, Daoist thought continues to contribute to economic discourse, and some argue that it has had real influence upon economic policy, not only in Asia but around the world. Some scholars link the economic reform policies in 1970s’ China under Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平 (1904–​1997) with Daoist influences (Barbalet, 2011; Dorn, 1998; Romar, 2018). Historians of economics have made links between Daoist philosophy and Adam Smith’s theory of economics via Francois Quesnay (1694–​1774) whose economic theory may have been influenced by accounts he read of China.6 Reflections on the lessons of Daoism for economics, business leadership, and management, and even financial investment have considerable global impact. Don Ross describes the discipline of economics as applying ‘where some systems husband energy into limited stores that they then selectively spend in pursuit of outcomes that bring their current states or prospects into closer conformity with their preferences’ (Ross, 2014, p. 17). From such a broad perspective, Daoist thought on economics needs not necessarily apply to money, or even just to the human world. The husbanding of material wealth may be beneficial or harmful depending on its place in a broader context. To attempt to separate economic processes from a broader exchange of energies would give only a segmented view of reality. A movement from such a partial viewpoint to a more all-​encompassing one is central to the Daoist tradition. Economics can be roughly divided into descriptive and normative kinds. Descriptive economics aims to describe economic realities. Normative economics pertains to determining how economic realities ought to be. The latter is of course closer to the subject of this chapter, ‘economic ethics’. Daoist philosophy is both descriptive and normative, and these differing aspects are correlated in complex ways. Daoism can be used to speak about a wide variety of topics, including finance and economics. The investor, hedge fund manager, and author of The Dao of Capital, Mark Spitznagel (2013), tries to explain the strategy that led to his success. He notes that Daoist thought and practice resonate strongly with the often counter-​intuitive and seemingly paradoxical means required to become in tune with the processes of the stock market.

6 

In support of this view, see Clarke (1997, pp. 49–​50) and Gerlach (2019). For a critical view of the degree of influence, see Van den Berg (2022).

132    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller He recognizes the potential fallacies of adhering too strictly to what is knowable, such as in data-​based methods. From a Daoist perspective, ‘gain’ is not fixed or definite. On the contrary, it may give way to loss. Conversely, ‘loss’ may only constitute a temporary loss and may lead to a greater long-​term gain. Spitznagel employs Daoist concepts and draws analogy with Daoist practice to describe an approach towards investing that embraces loss. When buying and selling on the stock market, Spitznagel explains, one must overcome the intuitive urge to capitalize on immediate and easy, yet small, gains and hold out for more significant successes. He describes this as a process of training oneself to enjoy losing. When one has profoundly cultivated a taste for loss, paradoxically only then may one begin to win. For the purpose of characterizing a Daoist position, we intend to focus here on a few specific tenets, found within a much wider context of Western economics, that stand in contrast to it, namely, the assumption that human nature is self-​interested and that the pursuit of self-​interest is beneficial to society as a whole, the equation of a healthy economy with progressive growth, and the idea that humans can and should adopt a position of dominance over nature based on the discovery of its laws. By contrast to the first of these tenets, a preference for seeking satisfaction through knowing when to stop, rather than by constantly moving towards fulfilment of ever-​increasing desires, is evident in the Daoist tradition at both the individual and societal level.

Contentment over Consumption While desire and self-​interest are seen as positive forces for the betterment of society in classical liberal economics, such as in the work of Adam Smith, they tend to be seen in the Daoist tradition as harbingers of disaster to be treated with much caution. Rather than aiming to satisfy desires through maximizing the consumption of what is desired, Daoist thought and practice guide us in curbing what we desire, thereby becoming contented masters of satisfaction.7 The character for ‘desire’ (yu 欲) appears twenty-​six times in fifteen different chapters of the Daodejing. It most often follows a negative to refer to the benefits of ‘desirelessness’ (wuyu 無欲) or ‘not desiring’ (buyu 不欲). Daoist cultivation involves the preservation of a simple state similar to ‘uncarved wood’ (pu 樸) and advocates the curtailing of extraneous desires that threaten this simplicity. This ‘uncarved wood’ can also be understood as a symbol of the art of rulership. It symbolizes, not only simplicity, but the creative potential that is latent in this unadulterated state. It connotes both the sparse desires of an effective ruler, as well as the orderly simplicity of a properly functioning society. The simplicity of the uncarved block is linked in the Daodejing with both desirelessness and smallness, and asserts that without smallness there cannot be greatness.

7 

Further discussion of this topic can be found in Moeller (2006, pp. 87–​97).

Daoist Economic Ethics    133 Daoism warns of the peril of excess at the level of the body. Similarly, the ruler is warned against advancing economic interests at the expense of the people under his or her rule. Potential forms of excess in which the ruler might indulge can be classified as those of extravagance, taxation, and warfare (Barbalet, 2011, p. 347). A peaceful kingdom is one in which even the finest horses are used in the fields to provide manure to fertilize crops.8 What is advised against here is an expansionist mindset. A kingdom in which horses are born near the borders, positioned for war, is a disorderly one. Prioritizing the nourishing of immediate and essential needs rather than reaching beyond these to overweening ambitions is emphasized on both the level of rulership and the individual level. Chapters 3 and 64 of the Daodejing both mention ‘not esteeming goods that are hard to obtain’. While Chapter 64 mentions this in the context of the sage, Chapter 3 speaks of this as a state which is brought about in society due to the ruler’s not allowing that which is desirable to be displayed. While desirelessness resembles a kind of stillness or peace within the individual (ruler), desirelessness at the socio-​economic level is a feature of a peaceful and orderly society. Peace and order lead to undisturbed longevity in society, which in turn promotes the longevity of the ruler. Desirelessness is essential for success at these two levels. Lack of desire can be seen as belonging to a set of negative concepts which paradoxically fulfil their opposites. The phrase zhizu 知足 appears in three chapters of the Laozi and refers to the self-​sustaining mechanism of appreciating sufficiency. The character zhi 知 is often translated as ‘to know’, while zu足 can be understood as ‘enough’ (zugou 足 夠) or ‘satisfied’ (manzu 滿足). Taken together, the phrase can be understood as the ‘mastery of satisfaction’ (Moeller, 2006, p. 92). Choosing the verb ‘to master’ to translate zhi, as opposed to ‘to know’, emphasizes its embodied over its intellectual aspect. To be a master of something (e.g. an instrument, or a language) implies that one is proficient at producing the desired result. Desires are prevented from developing to an unhealthy degree by bringing about a basic and general state of satiation. The infant, described in Chapter 55 of the Daodejing, is an emblem of efficacy due to its ability to satisfy its needs and then stop. Just as the baby does not simply want nothing—​on the contrary, a baby will cry with great determination in order to get what it wants—​the baby does not, however, allow its desires to persist or transform beyond the point of satisfaction. It is for this reason that in Chapter 44 of the Daodejing the term zhizu is paired with the term zhizhi 知止, meaning ‘knowing when to stop’. The Daoist sages are ‘masters of satisfaction’ precisely because they know when to stop. Not every interpretation of the Daodejing implies that desirelessness is mirrored at the levels of ruler and people. In Huang-​Lao Daoism, and the Legalist school with which it is linked, this desirelessness is expected only of the ruler. For the thinker Shen Dao 慎到 (approx. 359–​275 bce), for instance, the ruler is advised that the people are guided

8 

This is a reference to Chapter 46 of the Daodejing which reads, ‘When the world has the dao, saddle-​ horses are returned to fertilize the fields’ (天下有道，卻走馬以糞).

134    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller by self-​interest. It is the place of the ruler not to engage in this human tendency to pursue individual gains; rather, the ruler should enact a set of mechanisms, or laws, which allows the people to compete with one another, but not with the ruler.9 This reading is supported by passages of the Daodejing which suggest that the ruler is different from all other people. For example, Chapter 22 states, ‘Only he [the sage ruler] does not struggle.’

Tian, Ziran, and Nature Desire should be understood in the broader context of a Daoist understanding of nature. Since the concept of nature does not map easily onto any single term found in the Chinese language, the following section will discuss two approximate terms appearing frequently in Daoist texts: tian 天 and ziran 自然. Daoism cultivates an awareness of the greater environment, or ‘nature’. While desires may feel healthy and natural at the individual level, they may be revealed as disharmonious from a broader perspective. In the words of Chen Guying: ‘The most distinctive aspect of the Laozi . . . lies in its expansion of this discussion [of humanistic and political issues] to range from everyday human life to the cosmos in its entirety’ (Chen, 2020, p. 1). As is made clear in Chapter 5 of the Daodejing, the heavens (tian) do not look upon humans with any special favour. Here we use the term ‘the heavens’ to speak of tian and not ‘Heaven’.10 The character tian 天often appears in conjunction with the one for ‘earth’ (di 地). While the earth is what is beneath us and what can be touched, tian is what is above us, or what surrounds us, and is beyond immediate control. In this sense it is not merely the sky, but the part of nature which is hard to influence. It is the realm in which humans and all things survive. On the one hand, it sustains our existence and, on the other hand, it represents a threat. The Laozi offers methods to survive its dangers and reap its benefits. Randomness prevails and our survival is not ensured; even further from being guaranteed is any path towards unending economic advancement. As Chen makes clear in the passage just quoted, the key to attaining longevity is the realization that human nature is situated within the cosmos at large. Adhering to nature in classical economics, as conceived by Adam Smith, for example, implies a move towards certainty and control, as ‘nature’ here implies something knowable through the discovery of its laws and mechanisms. Great advances were made in Smith’s time in understanding patterns in nature, influenced by Newton’s Laws of Motion, and this supported the perception that humans could achieve dominance over nature. There was at this time a steady advancement in scientific methods, and it is in this sense that Smith is said to belong to the first modern school of economics. In this conception of things there are certain patterns, laws, or rules within nature that can be known,

9  For discussion on self-​interest in Shen Dao’s thought as well as a full translation of this thinker’s work the Shenzi 慎子, see Harris (2016). 10  For further discussion, see Ames and Hall (2003, p. 55).

Daoist Economic Ethics    135 such as the axiom that all people are motivated by self-​interest, and that a successful economic policy will devise systems to align with these laws. In Daoist thought, there is instead a focus on surviving in nature. The unfolding of things occurs spontaneously and is difficult to predict; it should be approached with caution. The Chinese expression ziran is often translated as ‘nature’. A more literal translation, sometimes preferred by sinologists in the Daoist context, is ‘self-​so’. It refers to spontaneous ‘natural’ emergence with which human activity, including economic activity, seeks to be in productive alignment. From a Daoist perspective, alignment with nature paradoxically promises greater power than overt attempts at domination. A strategic approach based on such paradoxical considerations is informed by ideas associated with yin and yang.

Yin and Yang Yin–​yang thinking is prevalent in much of classical Chinese thought.11 Yin 陰 can be understood as representing negative, passive, dark, feminine elements present in natural phenomena, while yang 陽 can be understood as representing positive, active, bright, masculine elements. Although these point to female and male traits, a person does not consist purely of yin or purely of yang elements. Rather, there is a balance of yin and yang within each of our bodies. Health resides in the appropriate balance between yin and yang. In Chinese dietary tradition, which is linked with Daoist practice, certain foods produce a heating, invigorating yang effect in the body while others produce a cooling, assuaging yin effect. These two elements are present in human and non-​human phenomena. They form the basis for observations of the world as well as for methods of efficacious action. In terms of government, if rulers fail to appreciate the balance of yin and yang then this will cause the end of their rule. Daoist thought and practice discourage an unduly yang mentality which focuses only on what is active and dominant. By focusing purely on these yang elements, the ruler fails to pay due attention to the passive and nascent yin elements of a situation. Despite strong associations with Daoism, yin–​yang theory is often omitted from introductions to Daoist thought, given that it is not exclusively Daoist, and these terms only appear once in the eighty-​one chapters of the Daodejing. Chapter 42 speaks of ‘carrying yin, embracing yang’. This short phrase can be interpreted as metaphorically conveying the roles of yin and yang. We carry passively on our backs the circumstances which are ever-​present but never to the fore. Meanwhile, we actively address what is obviously present. The balance of yin and yang is never absent from nature, and our survival depends upon our ability to maintain this balance. While yang represents activity, if we engage only in action without paying heed to grounding ourselves and drawing strength in yin passivity, our yang capabilities will be lost.

11 

For a comprehensive study of yin-​yang theory, see Wang (2012).

136    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller In terms of economics, we can think of the patterns of a boom/​bust economy. It is clear from a Daoist perspective that seeking only growth without focusing attention on stability will lead to an economic collapse. The yin of stability must be ensured within the yang of growth. This does not necessarily imply a complete absence of growth, as it is important to pay attention also to the yang within the yin. The Ming dynasty physician Zhang Jingyue 張景岳 (1563–​1640) summed this up with the aphorism, ‘Seek yang in yin. Seek yin in yang.’12 This phrase has been adapted in China in recent times to encourage a healthy approach to economic advancement with a number of slogans along the lines of, ‘Seek development in steadiness. Seek steadiness in development’, and ‘Seek progress in stability.’13 These maxims promote a healthy balance in economic activity—​ they connote both growth and cautious control. While Daoism embraces a non-​ coercive approach towards rulership, this should be understood within the context of the cautious approach towards progress and desire in the Daoist tradition, as discussed in the preceding sections. This should be kept in mind when reading the next section on two major concepts in Daoism and liberal economics.

Wuwei and its Alleged Equivalence with Laissez-​Faire Scholars in both China and the West have pointed to similarities between the thought of the Daoists and classical liberal economists, equating the Daoist concept of wuwei (無為) with the concept of laissez-​faire—​an underlying tenet of free-​market economics.14 The Daoist maxim wuwei is central to many interpretations of Daoist economic ethics. It is variously translated as ‘non-​interfering action’, ‘noncoercive action’ (Ames and Hall, 2003), ‘effortless action’ (Slingerland, 2007), and ‘nonaction’ (Moeller, 2007). Given that the dao does not depend on anything else for its being, its actions do not reach outside of itself. If we understand action as that which brings about external change, the dao thus has no action. All changes are already within the course of the dao and so, as Chapter 48 of the Daodejing describes, “Nothing is undone” (wu bu wei 無不為). Some scholars claim that the French term ‘laissez-​faire’, meaning allowing things to take their own course free from intervention, is derived from, or co-​evolved with, the Chinese term wuwei (Clarke, 1997, p. 50; Gerlach, 2019). According to these views, a significant link between these disparate traditions was François Quesnay—​ nicknamed the ‘Confucius of Europe’—​who is related to the French Enlightenment

12 

The Chinese is ‘陰中求陽, 陽中求陰’. For a Chinese language discussion, see Li and Shen (2004). These phrases are ‘發展中求穩定, 穩定中求發展’ and ‘穩中求進’ respectively. See Jiangxi (2005) and Zhang (2020) [Chinese]. 14  See Dorn (1997) and McCormick (1999) for examples of this position in the English language discourse, and Behuniak (2015) and Goodfield (2011) as examples of opposition to this position. 13 

Daoist Economic Ethics    137 school of Physiocratic economists of the eighteenth century. They subsequently influenced the first school of modern economics, including Adam Smith. Quesnay drew extensively on missionary accounts of Chinese administration. What seems to have impressed him most about the ‘despotism of China’ was that the citizens did not dare to disrupt the law of the land, but also that the ruler would not dare to act in a partial manner, which would also constitute a breach of natural law and thereby lead to abject consequences.15 A chapter of the Daodejing often quoted in this context is Chapter 60 which states that the best way of government is similar to how one should cook a small fish—​that is, with little interference. This does not entail doing nothing at all, but rather warns against ‘overdoing’ things. The Daodejing encourages the ruler not to display objects that are not easily obtained. If ordinary people do not see such material riches, they may live contented and simple lives in which filling their bellies to prolong their existence is their central concern. There is a strong tendency in Daoist teaching to dissuade people from aspiring to fundamentally ‘better’ their conditions. As a tree focuses on attaining the sunlight, earth, and water it requires for survival, there is no attempt to radically transform this mode of existence by striving to get beyond it. Similarly, the Daoist sage ‘cares for the belly, not for the eye’. This line from Chapter 12 of the Daodejing suggests a way of being which focuses on the immediate and simple needs, and not on potential additional desires. The ideal sage ruler cultivates a climate within society in which the needs of the people remain on a level of simplicity. The position which argues for the similarity between Daoist thought and classical economic thought typically holds that the two share a naturalistic and anti-​interventionist approach. Jim Behuniak describes Chapter 57 of the Daodejing as the ‘darling chapter’ of scholars who wish to align Daoist philosophy with classical economics. It contains the lines. ‘I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves. I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves. I am not meddlesome, and the people prosper of themselves.’ As Behuniak points out, however, the last line is often omitted in their quotations, as it reads ‘I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the un-​carved block.’16 While a preference for non-​interference is certainly akin to both Daoism and liberal economics, it is situated quite differently in these diverse traditions. As discussed in the preceding sections, Daoist thought does not share the classical liberal view that the betterment of society depends on people pursuing their self-​interest, nor does it share the view of nature as something which can be dominated by means of discovering scientific laws inherent within it. Daoist thought does not aim to ‘heat up’ the economy by stimulating desire or encouraging consumption (Moeller, 2006, p. 91). With this in mind, let us consider a Daoist position towards two major subjects of economic interest: technological advancement and trade.

15 

16 

See Maverick (1946, pp. 139–​304) for an English translation of Quesnay’s Le Despotisme de la Chine. This article uses D.C. Lau’s translation of the Daodejing.

138    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller

Technology, Trade, and Consumption It is difficult to use Daoist thought as a mouthpiece for any particular position on ethical issues while remaining faithful to the tradition. Identification with a single position may easily miss out on the richness allowed for by the Daoist embrace of paradox. Arguments with firm conclusions are not always preferred within the Daoist tradition. On the contrary, the Zhuangzi describes a ‘zero-​perspective’, which represents adherence with the dao while avoiding entanglement in yes/​no (shifei 是非) conflicts (Moeller, 2004). The Daoist zero-​perspective neither identifies with nor fundamentally rejects specific positions but abstains from one-​sided commitments. To take a hypothetical example related to technology, let us consider artificial fertilizers in agricultural production. Such artificial stimulation of the earth might be seen as in opposition to a wuwei approach, which respects the yin-​yang cycle of the land—​in other words, not attempting to coercively alter the cycle of life and death, activity and rest. It seems obvious then that the Daoist ruler would not permit the use of artificial fertilizer on the land. However, if we were to come at this issue from another direction, while still attempting to take a Daoist viewpoint, one might argue that categorically opposing these substances contradicts a Daoist approach. Banning them altogether would be to take an inflexible position about what substances people could and could not put into the land. The very fixedness of this position could cause counter-​productive social conflicts. With these constraints in mind, the following will attempt to describe a Daoist stance on some aspects of technology and trade. The Zhuangzi discusses the dangers of being caught up in the advancement of technology. Technology in early China was of course very different from today. Nevertheless, what the Zhuangzi observed as happening in people’s ‘heart-​minds’ (xin 心) due to the effect of this early technology is prophetic of a sociological phenomenon described in the twentieth century as modern consciousness—​a state in which our consciousness is partially formed by the mechanistic objects and processes with which we interact.17 Zhuangzi warns of the ‘mechanical heart’ (jixin 機心) with which we become afflicted when we are influenced by living with machines. We lose the immediacy of our impulses and view the world in terms of technological advances, which in turn fuels technological progress. Despite this seeming rejection of technology, Daoist thought has inspired approaches towards manufacturing processes and technological innovation. In typical Daoist fashion, it is precisely through the aversion towards doing more that more can be achieved. For example, there are clearly Daoist tendencies in the process-​improvement philosophy of Toyota (a philosophy now renowned in the business world) which drives incremental improvement by focusing always on the one point identified as in most need of improvement, rather than focusing on to do lists.18 Chapter 63 of the Daodejing

17 

18 

See Berger et al. (1974). See Rother (2009, pp. 28–​35).

Daoist Economic Ethics    139 advises, ‘Tackle the difficult on the basis of what is easy about it. Realise what is great on the basis of what is tiny about it.’ Chinese medicine operates in a preventative manner, identifying potential conditions while they are still subtle, and so does a Daoist approach to socio-​economic problems, which have been termed by scholars of the field as ‘gradualist’ (Barbalet, 2011, p. 345). This is consistent with Chinese tendencies in innovation which have been described as ‘incremental’ rather than ‘disruptive’ (see Yip and McKern, 2016, pp. 81–​82). Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–​1990) describes how Chinese thinkers tend to see agriculture as the ‘root’ of Chinese society, and commerce as the ‘branch’. Farming is fundamental, and so there is a tendency to ‘emphasise the root and slight the branch’ (Fung, 1966, p. 18). This can be seen as recently as in the Cultural Revolution and as far back as with the Confucian philosopher Mencius (born in the fourth century bce) who described markets as ideally a place where people could come and exchange what they had in excess for what they lacked, and argued that those who used markets to make profits were ‘despicable people who sought out a “high mound” and scaled it. They looked left and right and monopolised the market profits. The people all recognised them as despicable, so they went ahead and taxed them’ (Mencius, 2B:10; Behuniak 2015, 287). Implying a similar distaste for markets, Chapter 80 of the Daodejing describes an ideal state as one in which neighbouring villages may be close enough that a crowing rooster can be heard from one to the next, yet no trade is carried out between them. Contrary to interpretations of the Daoist economic ethic which view it as being synonymous with libertarian growth-​oriented economics, the next section discusses those elements of Daoist thought and practice that align Daoist economic ethics more closely with sustainability.

Sustainability, Environmentalism, and Non-​Anthropocentrism Today as we witness a decline in the fertility of our natural resources due to excessive cultivation and extraction, an expression found in the early Chinese chronicle Spring and Autumn Annals becomes poignant, ‘When things reach their extreme they must return to their opposite’ (wu ji bi fan 物極必反). For Daoists, greatness is inherently linked to smallness. Growth is therefore inherently linked to shrinkage or collapse. A holistic attitude that runs through the Daoist tradition recognizes the dangers of following one’s individual will rather than aligning oneself with the more general patterns of nature. Human-​centredness obstructs these patterns, hence a Daoist maxim encourages the ‘saving of all things’ (jiuwu 救物).19 In Daoist thought, humans are not

19 

See Chapter 27 of the Daodejing.

140    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller a privileged species. Chapter 25 of the Daodejing describes how the human learns from the earth how to act, the earth from the heavens (tian), the heavens from the dao, and the dao unfolds of itself (ziran). It is clear from this famous passage that human cultivation does not take place merely within the human world, rather it is connected to the expanses of nature and to the dao itself. Far from being a humanist philosophy, Daoism is precisely a daoist philosophy. To focus on the human would be to get stuck at the very beginning of the process of learning from the earth, heavens, and dao. The following passage in the Zhuangzi reflects this Daoist aversion towards shaping all of nature into a form which humans may utilize:20 The potter says, ‘I am good at “ordering” (zhi 治) clay! I round it until it matches the compass, square it until it matches the T-​square.’ The carpenter says, ‘I am good at “ordering” wood! I curve it until it matches the arc, straighten it until it corresponds to the line.’ Do you suppose the nature of the clay or the wood wants to match a compass, T-​square, arc, or line? And yet somehow or other, generation after generation bursts into songs of praise: ‘Bo Le is so good at “ordering” horses! The potter and the carpenter are so good at “ordering” clay and wood! And this is the same error by those who “order” the world!’ (zhi tian xia 治天下). (Zhuangzi 9.1; Ziporyn, 2009, 61—​translation modified)

One interpretation of Daoist thought is that it is profoundly, even subversively, uncivilized. It is critical of the institutionalized Confucian tradition, which is geared towards a dubious process of ‘civilization’ that brings harm to those it pretends to ‘improve’. This is clear from passages in the Zhuangzi, which can even be read as criticizing parts of the Daoist tradition that lend themselves towards implementing any dogmatic regimes. While, on the surface, a Daoist non-​anthropocentrism may bring to mind an idyllic image of oneness with a benevolent nature, harsh realities are latent in this view. The notion of human dignity, for example, is not present in an exclusive form that privileges humans over other beings. Much of the Daodejing has a cautionary tone, as when it reminds us that the heavens (tian) do not harbour particular love for humans, and humans are liable to perish randomly, as the heavens may treat us like ‘straw dogs’ (Chapter 5)—​ objects used in sacrificial ceremonies which while revered during ceremonies are then burned. The Zhuangzi reinforces this non-​anthropocentric view through parables that humorously depict the human as just another type of animal (see Moeller, 2015, p. 100). While this non-​anthropocentrism contains a dark message about how the human race is not spared from the changes of the cosmos, its intended effect is positive. It serves as a humbling reminder to find contentment in the prosaic. At the human level, the discouragement of self-​centredness entails an aversion to hoarding individual wealth at the expense of one’s fellows. At a broader level, the non-​anthropocentrism of Daoist

20 

For further discussion, see Moeller (2020).

Daoist Economic Ethics    141 thought discourages treating the resources of the planet as a means for the flourishing of humans alone.

Conclusion To sum up Daoist thought as representing a narrow and particular economic ethic is likely to misrepresent the tradition. As this chapter aims to make clear, Daoist thought embraces paradox and change. A Daoist notion of health, including economic health, does not pertain only to positive, active, yang elements of nature, but necessitates a balance with negative, passive, yin elements. Daoist thought is used by some to argue in favour of free-​market capitalism and, ironically, is used by others to support an environmentalist perspective in tension with that growth-​oriented tendency. Environmentalism may be supported by Daoist philosophy insofar as both world views promulgate a non-​ anthropocentric mindset. Daoist thought discourages viewing the things of this world in terms of how they can be used by humans alone, who do not occupy a special place amongst the beings of this world, and it cautions that any claim to such a privileged position is likely to lead to abject consequences. An overarching lesson from Daoist philosophy is therefore to recognize our position within the cosmos. Recognizing and accepting that there is no path that leads us to escaping the physical and economic realities we face helps us to act with greater efficacy and live more contentedly within these realities. Aspiring to observe the complex nature of the dao helps us to see that seemingly trouble-​free methods of improvement may contain seeds of their downfall. Returning to the neutrality of the dao humbles us into finding contentment in frugality and seeing the peril in extravagance. There are constant reminders that human efforts towards progress are likely to also produce adverse effects.

Suggested Reading Ames, R.T. and D.L. Hall (2003). Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books. Fung Y.-​ L. (1966 [1948]). A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (D. Bodde, trans.). New York: The Free Press. Miller, J. (2008). Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide. London, UK: Oneworld Publications. Wang, R. (2012). Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Works Cited Ames, R.T. and D.L. Hall (2003). Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.

142    Rory O’Neill and Hans-Georg Moeller Barbalet, J. (2011). ‘Market Relations as Wuwei: Daoist Concepts in Analysis of China’s Post-​ 1978 Market Economy’, Asian Studies Review 35: 335–​354. Behuniak, J. (2015). ‘Two Challenges to Market Daoism’. In. Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence, edited by R. Ames and P. Hershock, 283–​295. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Berger, P.L., B. Berger, and H. Kellner (1974). The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pelican. Chen, G. (2020). The Annotated Critical Laozi (P. D’Ambrosio, trans.). Leiden: Brill NV. Chi-​Tim, L. (2003). ‘Daoism in China Today 1980–​2002’, The China Quarterly 174: 413–​427. Clarke, J.J. (1997). Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought. New York: Routledge. Dorn, J.A. (1997). ‘The Tao of Adam Smith’. The Wall Street Journal Asia. 18 August: 6. Dorn, J.A. (1998). ‘China’s Future: Market Socialism or Market Taoism’, Cato Journal 18, no. 1: 131–​146. Fung Y.-​ L. (1966 [1948]). A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (D. Bodde, trans.). New York: The Free Press. Gerlach, C. (2019). ‘無為 –​On the Eurasian Roots of the Laissez-​Faire Doctrine’, Man and the Economy 6, no. 2: 1–​16. Goodfield, E. (2011). ‘Wu Wei East and West: Humanism and Anti-​Humanism in Daoist and Enlightenment Political Thought’, Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 5, no.126: 56–​72. Harris, E.L. (2016). The Shenzi Fragments: A Philosophical Analysis and Translation. New York: Columbia University Press. Hetmanczyk, P. (2011). ‘Administrative Neuerungen gegenüber “Volksreligiösen Versammlungsstätten”: Zum Religionspolitischen Status der Volksreligion in China’, China Heute 2: 203–​106. Jiangxi Daily Online 大江网-​江西日报 (2005). ‘Seek Development in Steadiness. Seek Steadiness in Development: Strategy to Create Wealth through Scientific Development in Fengcheng City’. 发展中求稳定 稳定中求发展丰城科学推进富民强市战略’ [News], http://​news.sina.com.cn/​o/​2005-​04-​22/​02025​7 163​15s.shtml. Kohn, L. (2009). Introducing Daoism (World Religions). New York: Routledge. Li, X. 李星and T. Shen 申太明 (2004). ‘Attempting to Discuss Zhang Jingyue’s “Seek Yang in Yin. Seek Yin in Yang 试论张景岳之“阴中求阳,阳中求阴” ’, Modern Journal of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine《现代中西医结合杂志》 11: 1449. McCormick, K. (1999). ‘The Tao of Laissez-​Faire’, Eastern Economic Journal 25, no. 3: 331–​341. Maverick, L.A. (1946). China: A Model for Europe. San Antonio, Texas: Paul Anderson Company. Miller, J. (2008). Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide. London, UK: Oneworld Publications. Moeller, H.-​G. (2004). Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory. Chicago: Open Court. Moeller, H.-​G. (2006). The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York: Columbia University Press. Moeller, H.-​ G. (2007). Daodejing: A Complete Translation and Commentary. Chicago: Open Court. Moeller, H.-​ G. (2015). ‘Basic Aspects of Daoist Philosophy’. Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture. Moeller, H.-​G. (2020). ‘The King’s Slaughterer—​or, The Royal Way of Nourishing Life’, Philosophy East and West 70, no. 1: 155–​173.

Daoist Economic Ethics    143 People’s Republic of China State Bureau of Religious Affairs 中华人民共和国中央人民政府 宗教局 (2013). The General Situation of Religion in China 中国宗教概况. http://​www.gov. cn/​test/​2005-​06/​22/​conte​nt_​8​406.htm. Romar, E.J. (2018). ‘Daoism as the Philosophic Foundation of Chinese Economic Reform: A Conjecture’, Emerging Science Journal 2, no. 4: 202–​212. Ross, D. (2014). Philosophy of Economics. Hampshire: Palgrave Publishing. Rother, M. (2009). Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results. New York: McGraw-​Hill. Schipper, K. and F. Verellen, eds. (2004). The Taoist Canon—​A Historical Companion to the Daozang, Volume 1: Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Slingerland, E. (2007). Effortless Action: Wu-​wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press. Spitznagel, M. (2013). The Dao of Capital: Austrian Investing in a Distorted World. Hoboken: Wiley. United States Department of State: Office of International Religious Freedom (2020). Taiwan 2019 International Religious Freedom Report. https://​www.state.gov/​repo​rts/​2019-​rep​ort-​on-​ intern​atio​nal-​religi​ous-​free​dom/​tai​wan/​. Van den Berg, R. (2022). ‘A Critical Examination of Chinese Influences on Quesnay’. In European and Chinese Histories of Economic Thought. Theories and Images of Good Governance, edited by I. Amelung and B. Schefold, 215–​229. London and New York: Routledge. Wang, R. (2012). Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weber, M. and H.H. Gerth, ed. (1959 [1951]). The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. Glencoe: The Free Press. Wenzel-​Teuber, K. (2020) ‘Statistik zu Religionen und Kirchen in der Volksrepublik China Ein Update für das Jahr 2019’, China Heute XXXIX, no. 1: 205. Yip, G. and B. McKern (2016). In China's Next Strategic Advantage: From Imitation to Innovation. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Zhang, D. 张德勇 (2020). ‘Seek Progress in Stability: Searching for Greater Development 稳中 求进：谋求更大发展’. Chinese Communist Party Online News 中国共产党新闻网, http://​ the​ory.peo​ple.com.cn/​n1/​2020/​0518/​c40​531-​31713​272.html. Ziporyn, B. (2009). Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

Rel igions Arisi ng i n t h e Middle E ast

Chapter 7

J ew i sh Ec onomi c Et h i c s asher meir

Historical Background Jewish People and The Jewish People Jews can be considered in one sense as an ethnic group, and in another sense as adherents of the Jewish religion. Today, there are about fifteen million people who identify ethnically as Jews, and probably about ten million who view Judaism as their religion. We see that Judaism is small compared to many of the major religions discussed in this Handbook. By comparison, over a billion people today identify themselves as Muslim and about two billion as Christian. Over six million Jews live in Israel, and a similar number in North America. Almost a million reside in France and the UK, and about a half million elsewhere in Europe. About 350 thousand live in South America, and about 200 thousand in Australia and South Africa (DellaPergola, 2019).1 Jews trace their collective identity back about four thousand years to the patriarch Avraham (NRSV Abraham),2 who recognized the one God and who made a series of covenants with Him. According to this covenant, Avraham’s offspring would be uniquely devoted to God, and would found a unique nation which would be a religious and ethical exemplar for other nations, and hence a source of eternal blessing for all humankind. Part of the covenant was that this nation would inhabit the land of Canaan (largely coextensive with the area governed today by Israel and the Palestinian Authority). Jews view themselves as the descendants or adherents of Avraham’s grandson Yaakov (NSRV 1 Such

a count involves daunting challenges of both definition and measurement. DellaPergola’s article discusses the ways these were dealt with in reaching the numbers cited. 2  Biblical names are given by usual English spelling of the identical modern Hebrew name. The first time the name appears, we give also the transliteration used in the New Revised Standard Version translation. These are the most familiar to English speakers.

148   Asher Meir Jacob), also known as Israel, and hence mainly refer to themselves as the People of Israel.3 The foundational text of the Jewish religion, the Bible, tells of the development of Yaakov’s offspring from a family to a nation, of their exodus from servitude in Egypt under the leadership of Moshe (NRSV Moses), and of their subsequent covenant with God to keep a detailed set of commandments revealed by God through Moshe, around 1300 bce. These commandments are known as the Torah. The Bible then records the trials and tribulations of the nation for a period of about 800 years, under the leadership of a series of judges, prophets, kings, and sages, and their struggle to remain intact as a nation and faithful to their covenant with God. Despite the divine promise to Avraham, effective sovereignty of the people of Israel over the land of Canaan in ancient times knew many vicissitudes. Sometimes they were subject to neighbouring petty kingdoms; sometimes these kingdoms were subject to them. Frequently all were dominated by regional superpowers such as Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Roman Empire put an end to the last vestiges of Jewish self-​rule towards the end of the first century ce. Since then, the Jews lived a diaspora existence primarily throughout the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa until the restoration of self-​rule in 1948 under the modern State of Israel, which rapidly became the centre of Jewish life and home for the preponderance of Jews.

Overview of the Jewish Religion Today The Jewish religion views the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, as a divinely inspired document which gives a valid description of the early history of the Jewish people. Jewish tradition dates the oldest books of the Bible to about 1300 bce and the latest ones to around 400 bce. (Academic scholarship generally moves these dates forward a few hundred years, but all agree that the texts are thousands of years old.) In addition, Jewish tradition considers the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah, meaning ‘instruction’, to contain an authoritative account of hundreds of detailed commandments given directly by God to the people of Israel via the prophet Moshe, about three thousand years ago. Besides the Bible, the text most fundamental in the Jewish religion is the Talmud. The Talmud records a series of detailed discussions of legal obligations by rabbis—​Jewish religious scholars—​mainly from the first to the fifth century ce. These include both elaborations of the laws of the Torah as well as extensions and interpretations instituted by the rabbis through the generations to deal with changing circumstances. The Bible is entirely in Hebrew except for a few chapters written in Aramaic, a closely related language which was the vernacular for most Jews for hundreds of years. Biblical Hebrew 3 The people of Israel apparently became known—​ to others and soon to themselves—​as Jews, originally ‘Judeans’, in late biblical times, when the most dominant and populous tribe and region among the people of Israel was that of Yehudah (Judah).

Jewish Economic Ethics    149 is very similar to modern Hebrew, and the average contemporary Hebrew speaker can easily comprehend the Hebrew Bible. The Talmud is in a free mixture of Hebrew and a unique Rabbinic style of Aramaic. Almost all important Jewish religious texts subsequent to the time of the Talmud are in Hebrew; a few from early medieval times are in Arabic, but even these had authorized translations into Hebrew within a few years of publication. In the Middle Ages, two outstanding religious scholars distilled the sprawling body of Talmudic discussion and decision into organized codes of religious conduct. The first was Maimonides, renowned also as a philosopher and physician, who in Egypt in 1180 published his Mishneh Torah (Recapitulation of the Torah, corresponding closely to the legal concept of a ‘restatement’ of Jewish law). The second was Rabbi Yosef Karo, who lived in Safed in Ottoman Palestine in 1563, where he published his Shulchan Arukh, or ‘prepared table’. To this day, these two codices are considered the most authoritative sources of practical Jewish law. We see that Judaism is very much a religion of laws and obligations, which obligate its adherents to carefully study and observe thousands of detailed rules of conduct, including regulations of diet, worship, business relations, and marital relationships. Jews have also traditionally put great emphasis on preserving independent communities, maintaining social and communal relationships mainly with their fellow Jews. Ties with non-​Jews were mostly in the workplace and in political life, where Jews have always been very active. The nineteenth century saw a revolutionary development in Jewish communal life, as entire congregations in many Jewish communities began adapting far-​reaching reforms in observance, worship, and doctrine. Congregations that continued to view the traditional legal framework as binding became known as Orthodox. These congregations continue to view the legal strictures based on the Talmud, as interpreted by rabbinical scholars throughout the ages, as binding law. The reformist movement, which came to be known as Reform Judaism, on the whole, recognizes the identical body of canonical Jewish texts, but generally regards them as an inspiring guide to ethical and godly conduct, rather than a binding code of law. Late in the nineteenth century an additional movement arose, which came to be known as Conservative Judaism. This movement fundamentally acknowledges the binding nature of traditional Jewish law, but Conservative scholars recognize quite a large number of legal developments, mostly leniencies, introduced in recent generations. Besides the difference in the approach to Jewish law, Reform and Conservative congregations have always favoured a high degree of involvement with surrounding non-​Jewish society, and seek to minimize the traditional insular nature of Jewish communities. Distinguished scholars of Jewish law are referred to as ‘rabbi’, meaning ‘master’. Formally rabbis do not constitute a clergy, as Judaism today has no religious functions whatsoever that require any formal title or status. But practically speaking, rabbis do function as clergy. Scholars who give sermons, perform weddings, adjudicate disputes in religious courts, and so on are almost always individuals who have obtained an ordination from a religious academy or individually from some acknowledged older scholar.

150   Asher Meir An ordination as rabbi among Orthodox Jews generally indicates authoritative mastery of essential areas of Jewish law; among Reform and Conservative congregations, training in pastoral responsibilities is generally required in addition to requisite familiarity with traditional texts. A Jewish house of worship is usually called a ‘synagogue’. The vast majority of regular synagogue worshipers today attend Orthodox synagogues, which adhere closely to the laws and customs of Jewish worship as described in the Talmud in the fifth century ce. The liturgy is virtually identical in all Orthodox synagogues, and indeed is virtually identical to the liturgy found in the earliest prayer books from the eighth century. However, there are also hundreds of thousands of regular worshippers in synagogues which identify as Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist. These synagogues have preserved the main outlines of the traditional prayer service, but view these outlines as quite flexible. Hence, the exact liturgy can differ considerably from synagogue to synagogue and from year to year. A clear consequence of the nature of God’s promise to Avraham is that the Jewish people consider themselves not only as a faith community but also as a distinct nation. The Bible refers to the people of Israel as a nation and as a people innumerable times. Part of the fixed liturgy of Jewish prayer petitions God for the restoration of Jewish national institutions, including national political and judicial institutions. Another important point is that Jews view themselves as merely one nation among others. Judaism is not a missionary religion; it affirms that members of other nations and religions can be righteous and merit salvation, and does not consider a world with only Jews as a religious or political ideal.4

Centrality of Jewish Narratives in Christianity and Islam Judaism’s influence and importance in world culture stem only partially from its adherents. They draw also from the centrality of Jewish narratives, doctrines, and prophets in Christianity and Islam—​religions with hundreds of times more adherents. For example, Christianity and Islam acknowledge the unique role of Avraham as a pioneer who fully appreciated God’s unity and took upon himself to teach others. Christianity and Islam also acknowledge God’s unique prophetic revelation to Moshe at Mount Sinai, witnessed by the entire people of Israel, as a momentous and foundational event in His relationship to humankind. Traditional Christianity acknowledges the entire Hebrew Bible as prophetically inspired and part of the divine writ. In many ways, Christianity views itself as a direct continuation of pre-​Christian Judaism. The books of the New Testament have a wealth of information about the Jewish people and customs at the time of Jesus. It is probably 4  Part of the prescribed explanations given to a prospective convert is the reminder that perhaps salvation will be easier if s/​he remains a non-​Jew, for whom God’s commandments are far less demanding (Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Deah 268:2).

Jewish Economic Ethics    151 fair to say that the average devout Christian knows more about this era of Jewish history than most Jews. Judaism also has an important place in Islam. The Quran expounds extensively on core concepts in the Jewish tradition, such as the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The Quran affirms that the original Hebrew scriptures are an authoritative prophetic book, though it does not consider the version accepted by Jews and Christians as completely reliable. Many figures from the Hebrew Scriptures are acknowledged as prophets in Islam. Judaism has a special relationship to Christianity and Islam not only doctrinally but also communally and politically. Jews have a special status in Christian and Muslim societies. In Islam, Jews and Christians are uniquely protected and sanctioned monotheistic communities, and are allowed to openly practice their religion in Islamic polities. Augustine (late fourth century CE), one of the most prominent early Church Fathers, urged protection of the Jews due to their special role in perpetuating Christians’ awareness of the foundations of their own religion. Subsequently, a number of Papal bulls from the 12th century onward granted unique protections to Jews in all Catholic lands. Religiously, Christianity and Islam tended to view Judaism as a rival. The prolonged refusal of the Jews to acknowledge the theological revolution which formed the foundation of their faith communities was often a source of disappointment and frustration, sometimes a source of animosity, occasionally a trigger for enmity. While much attention is drawn to the tensions that have existed between Jews and their Christian and Muslim host communities, it is hard to deny that there was something uniquely welcoming in these religious surroundings. Practically speaking, for the last thousand years, large Jewish communities have been able to thrive only in Christian and Muslim lands. Jews in the Christian and Muslim world are not just an undifferentiated Other. They have been a meaningful counterpart whose differences and similarities alike were elements of the group identity of the host communities.

Covenantal Ethics The origin of the Jewish religion, as related by the Bible, is the covenant made between God and the patriarch Avraham. According to the Biblical narrative, Avraham’s extended family left Ur Kasdim (evidently in modern-​day southern Iraq) almost four thousand years ago and settled in Haran (evidently modern-​day southern Turkey). God appeared to Avraham—​then named Avram (NRSV Abram)—​in a vision, bidding him to settle in the land of Canaan (approximately coextensive with modern-​day Israel and Palestinian Authority). God makes grand promises to Avram: Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation,

152   Asher Meir and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ (Genesis 12:1–​3)5

God promises to make Avram a great nation; to make him blessed; and to make him a source of blessing for all humankind. As the biblical story progresses, we learn two critical details about this promise. The first is that God’s promise is not unilateral but is rather part of a covenant. God will fulfil the promises as part of a mutual agreement, struck with the full consent of both sides and in which both sides—​God and Avraham—​have responsibility and commitment. To ensure that there is full ‘informed consent’, Avraham engages in symbolic acts to indicate his acceptance of this deal on two separate occasions. First, in Chapter 15, Avraham is bidden to make a special sacrifice to indicate his agreement to the covenant. Only after this symbolic act does God reiterate his promise, recasting it as a covenant: ‘On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” ’ Next, in Chapter 17, the covenant is renewed; this time the symbolic act is a change of name (from Avram to Avraham) and circumcision. Here also, first God emphasizes that the relationship with Avraham is one of a covenant, of mutual free agreement and acceptance of responsibility, and only afterwards are the promises mentioned. ‘When Abram was ninety-​nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” ’ The second critical detail is the nature of the obligation that Avraham accepts upon himself and the nature of the blessing he is to bring to humankind. It is very much an ethical obligation and an ethical blessing: Avraham’s offspring will exemplify acting in a godly way by doing ‘charity and justice’. God’s obligations are dependent on Avraham accepting this responsibility. Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him . . . for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him. (Genesis 12:18–​19, emphasis added)

For hundreds of years following Avraham, the Bible follows the trials and travails of his family as his children and grandchildren struggle to establish themselves and get along 5 Scriptural quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version translation unless otherwise indicated. Quotes from the Babylonian Talmud are from the William Davidson Talmud translation appearing on the Sefaria site. Due to the extremely terse style of the Talmud, this translation renders direct translation of words from the original in bold (shown in this chapter in italics), and words added to provide needed context in ordinary typeface. Quotes from Maimonides’ Codex are from the Sefaria Community Translation.

Jewish Economic Ethics    153 with their neighbours. During this period of time, we obtain surprisingly few details about the exact nature of the godly conduct, the charity, and the justice that the family has committed to. These details are explicated in the Bible later on, following another covenant: the covenant on Mount Sinai. The Bible tells us that Avraham’s grandchildren and great-​ grandchildren moved to Egypt following a famine. There the small tribe of a few hundred grew, via natural increase and perhaps naturalization, into a large, yet subject, nation of over a million individuals. The only geopolitical obstacle to the realization of God’s promise to Avraham was emigration of the entire nation a short distance to Canaan. As soon this was accomplished, then indeed Avraham’s offspring would be a mighty nation possessing the promised land. This obstacle was overcome by the Exodus from Egypt. But as we know, God’s covenant with Avraham was not merely geopolitical. It also had an ethical dimension. In order to fulfil their side of the covenant—​to exemplify holiness, charity, and justice—​the people would have to learn much more detail about what these lofty terms in fact entailed. All this occurred with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and its elaboration during the time of the forty-​year sojourn in the desert. The Bible describes how the entire nation heard the primary Ten Commandments given directly by God, and then describes the hundreds of detailed commandments transmitted subsequently through the prophecy of Moshe, explaining in great detail exactly how the nation which continues Avraham’s promise and legacy are expected to exemplify holiness, charity, and justice. No less importantly, this stage too was preceded by a covenant. The commandments were only given after the entire nation gave its authorized informed consent to accept them. Furthermore, the process of ‘offer and acceptance’ was very structured to absolutely guarantee that the people truly agreed. First, God offered the basic terms of the contract. He emphasizes to Moshe that the nation must clearly understand the terms. Then Moses went up to God; the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.’ (Exodus 19:3–​5)

The Bible is careful to tell us that the nation, through their acknowledged representatives known as ‘elders’, did indeed accept the deal. So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. The people all answered as one: ‘Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do.’(Exodus 19:6–​7)

154   Asher Meir But God did not let this suffice. Perhaps after hearing the detailed and demanding laws they would regret their choice. Therefore, the nation was given yet another chance after the main commandments were explained to them. The Bible emphasizes this by using the term all of God’s words and all the laws: Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.’ (Exodus 24:3, emphasis added)

We see that the ethical weight of God’s commandments to the people of Israel has two distinct dimensions: content and context. Regarding the content, God explained at the very beginning of the mutual relationship with the People of Avraham—​subsequently the People of Israel—​that the blessing they receive involves a commitment, and that the nature of this commitment is to bring blessing to all humankind by exemplifying the three pillars of godliness, charity, and justice. And with respect to the context, at each stage, God ensured that this duty was not tyrannical or arbitrary but, on the contrary, undertaken in the form of a covenant which ensured fully informed consent.6

The Universal and the Particular in Jewish Ethics The story of the covenant and the commandments presents a peculiar paradox regarding the message of Jewish law and ethics for humankind as a whole. On the one hand, it is clear that such a universal message must be central to the covenant. After all, in the very first revelation to Avraham, God makes clear that ‘and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’. Later on He repeats that ‘all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him’, and that ‘by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice’ (Genesis 22:18). We also saw that when God presented the covenant on Mount Sinai, one of the rights and privileges was that ‘[y]‌ou will be a kingdom of priests’, which evidently implies some kind of ministry to the other nations, as any religious priest is a representative and a minister to others. Yet it is equally central to the covenant that the special relationship is binding only on the Jewish people. The origin of the covenant with Avraham was when God sought an individual who would found a distinct nation charged with this special calling. The

6 Also subsequently in Jewish history, when the nation faltered in its commitment to the commandments, the leadership often tried to renew the commitment by making a new covenant, in order to ensure that the nation was aware that the underlying commitment to God’s laws was voluntary and mutual. Examples are found in II Kings 23 and Nehemiah 8.

Jewish Economic Ethics    155 essence of the special covenant of Sinai was that the Jewish people would be uniquely ‘a special treasure among all nations’ and ‘a holy nation’. The answer seems to be that an ethical society is always a compromise between the real and the ideal. God’s commandments and directives do not change human nature—​ a nature which makes it difficult for individuals and societies to sustain the highest ethical standards. This was particularly true in the ancient world. We know that in many ancient societies the right of the powerful to appropriate the property and person of the weak was often considered acceptable and even fair. God’s plan is for humankind to progress at a realistic pace from savage to civilized norms. Jewish tradition posits three institutions that cultivate this ethical ideal: 1. Individual: A very basic level of ethical obligations is incumbent on every individual at all times in history. Every human being is created in God’s image and is inherently accountable to the Creator regarding the most basic ethical principles, even without any agreement or commitment. 2. Society: Every human society is empowered and obligated to establish institutions of right conduct. They must have laws and courts which enforce them impartially. 3. Covenant: The people of Israel have voluntarily entered into a covenant with God which makes them internally accountable to a very high level of ethical conduct. This conduct is expressed in the laws of the Torah, which the Jewish religion views as an ideal system of law. Obviously being accountable to a system of law and ethics is not the same as being compliant with it. Jews and non-​Jews alike often fall short of the obligations imposed upon them or accepted by them, and the Bible never whitewashes this reality. Human beings of all backgrounds and religions have been guilty of the most heinous crimes. God’s laws, to humankind and to the people of Israel, are not expected to make every individual perfect but rather provide a way for humankind to continuously progress on the way to a decent, civilized world order. The first level, universally applicable rules, are conceptualized in Jewish tradition as the ‘Seven laws given to Adam’ or the ‘Seven laws given to Noah’. The Bible tells us that Adam and Chava (NRSV Eve) were the first human beings, and that Noah and his family were the sole survivors of a great flood which compelled humankind to found society anew. The ‘Adamic’ or ‘Noahide’ laws have their source in a tradition educed by the Sages of the Talmud. They include prohibitions on stealing, idolatry, and adultery. Despite the fact that these strictures are nowhere explicit in its text, the Bible nevertheless makes clear that even in the earliest days of human history, these principles were accepted as common norms of humankind. For example, the Bible tells us that when Cain killed his brother Hevel (NRSV Abel), he sought to hide his responsibility. He evidently knew that killing was wrong. When Abimelech, the king of Gerar, felt that Avraham had deceived him and nearly caused him to inadvertently commit adultery, he rebuked him: ‘Then Abimelech called Abraham, and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great guilt on me and

156   Asher Meir my kingdom? You have done things to me that ought not to be done’ ” (Genesis 20:9). It is clear from Abimelech’s rebuke that both deceit and adultery were widely accepted as ethically wrong. And when God tells Avraham about plans to punish the people of Sodom and Gomorrah for their wicked conduct, Avraham conducts a long negotiation to ensure that the punishment is justified. In Genesis 18:25, he says: ‘Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ It was clearly accepted that there are a priori moral demands in human relations that apply to everyone—​even to God! One of the seven laws applies not to the individual, but rather to the society. Each human society is obligated to establish fair and impartial laws and institutions of judgment, legitimate principles to which the collective agrees. Again, this rule is nowhere explicit in the Bible, but it is clear that it represents an expectation widespread in the ancient world described in the biblical narrative. For instance, after Abimelech’s rebuke, Avraham defends himself by saying, ‘I did it because I thought, “There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.” ’ It is clear that the universal expectation was that any kingdom which acknowledged God would not kill a person in order to seize his wife—​even a king seizing the wife of a total stranger. To sum up, God created the human race with many base and selfish urges. But He also provided humankind with three ways to progressively overcome these urges and create an enlightened society: 1. Basic laws of individual human conduct necessary to keep civilization alive. 2. An obligation for societies to accept standards of conduct and judgment. These standards will be more demanding than the ‘default’ rules applying automatically to all human beings. Furthermore, since they can be amended, they provide a path for human society to progress. 3. A model, covenantal society which affirms internal accountability to a much more demanding set of ethical obligations, hence constituting an example for the rest of humankind to emulate. The covenantal, voluntary aspect of acceptance of higher norms is particularly evident in rabbinic Judaism as elaborated in the Talmud. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have never had a formal hierarchy of any kind. Each community chooses its own spiritual leader of their own free will. No community rabbi is every formally subordinate to any other. Nor is there any kind of appeals process in Jewish law, whereby there is an authoritative decision regarding pressing legal questions. Yet there has always been remarkable consensus regarding who the leading scholars and authorities are, and communities around the world defer to the rulings of these scholars. To this day, the liturgy and the rules of Orthodox Jewry are nearly identical among Jewish communities with roots in Morocco, in Yemen, in Iran, or in Poland or Western Europe. God’s ethical ideal for the Jewish people is expressed both in the specific ethical obligations that the Jewish religion imposes on them, and equally in the meta-​message

Jewish Economic Ethics    157 expressed by the fact that God wanted these obligations to be freely accepted in a covenant of informed consent. The ethical ideal for non-​Jews is expressed in the imposition of the most basic moral obligations, in the responsibility of the community to adopt and enforce its own progressing consensual standards, and by the presence of the Jewish people as a model for emulation.

Empathy Ethics Alongside innumerable specific ethical injunctions, Jewish tradition also is characterized by ethical paradigms. One we just mentioned is covenantal ethics, a kind of collective informed consent regarding the rules of human society. Even the Torah, which contains an immense collection of God-​given rules for human society, is ultimately binding because of the voluntary collective decision of human beings to accept it. An additional paradigm with a central place in Jewish ethics is empathy. In many places, the Torah and the Sages help us to imagine how another person feels. Once we are able to experience how the other person feels, it is a short step to realizing and doing the right thing. Here is an example from the book of Exodus 22:21–​27: You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans. . . . If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? (emphasis added)

First, the Torah motivates thoughtful behaviour to the stranger by reminding the Israelites that they know how it feels to be a neglected stranger. This collective memory is intended to induce empathy and to encourage the Israelites to think to themselves, ‘I do not want to cause this person to suffer like my forefathers suffered when they were unwelcome as strangers in Egypt.’ The motif of commanding decent conduct to the stranger alongside a reminder of the Jews’ experience as strangers in Egypt is found many times in the Bible. The subsequent verses draw on the same kind of motivation. It is one thing to command a person to be thoughtful to widows and orphans. It is quite another to induce him to imagine his own wife as a widow and his own children as orphans. Likewise, the rhetorical question ‘in what else shall that person sleep?’ does not really add any information. There are many who lack proper nightclothes. This phrase is meant to induce the lender to identify with the borrower, to imagine what it is like to go to sleep without bedclothes because your creditor has taken hold of them as surety.

158   Asher Meir Another instance: You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them; otherwise they might cry to the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt. (Devarim 24:14–​15, emphasis added)

The phrase ‘their livelihood depends on them’ is basically meant to tell the employer: ‘Imagine how it feels to work all day looking forward to being able to buy food for your family, and then walking away empty-​handed.’ It is an appeal to empathy. In the following passage, the principle of empathy is called upon by the Sages of the Talmud to evoke feelings of generosity towards the needy. Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says: A person should always request divine mercy with regard to this condition of poverty, for if he does not come to a state of poverty, his son will, and if his child does not come to such a state his grandchild may, as it is stated: ‘You shall surely give him and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, for due to this thing [Hebrew biglal hadavar hazeh] the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you put your hand toward’ (Deuteronomy 15:10). With regard to this verse, the tanna from the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: Due to [Hebrew biglal] this thing means that it is a wheel [galgal] that turns in the world, upon which people continuously rise and fall. (Shabbat 151b William Davidson Talmud)

The ability to feel empathy towards someone, whether a neighbour or a stranger, is an acknowledgment of common humanity which is ultimately the basis of ethics.

Economic Ethics and Torah Study It is impossible to give a coherent account of any ethical topic in Judaism without mentioning the value of Torah study. We have already explained that Judaism is a religion of laws and obligations. But these laws and obligations are not considered merely a set of arbitrary prescriptions which constrain our conduct. Rather, they are considered a vast system of divine order. Here is a useful analogy. In secular studies, we expect everybody to have a basic understanding of science—​a bit of physics, chemistry, and biology. Most people will never be scientists or engineers innovating new techniques and devices, but familiarity with science means that humankind has a common understanding of how the world works. Furthermore, many scientists themselves devote themselves to areas of study that are not really expected to lead to practical breakthroughs. Astrophysicists ‘only’ help us understand how the universe functions and how it developed, but few people think they are wasting their time and their public budgets.

Jewish Economic Ethics    159 Likewise, Judaism demands that all devote themselves to studying Torah, and to innovating novel understandings and paradigms according to their ability. Torah study in the typical yeshiva (Torah academy) includes innumerable topics that have no practical application today. For example, students delve into the laws of Temple sacrifices or the system of punishments for religious infractions that has been in desuetude for thousands of years. This is ‘only’ going to help us understand the universe, and our place in it, and few religious Jews feel that Torah scholars are wasting their time and their public budgets. The following Talmudic story emphasizes the foundational status Torah study has in Jewish tradition: [A]‌story is told about Rav Sheshet, that every thirty days he would review his studies that he had learned over the previous month, and he would stand and lean against the bolt of the door and say: Rejoice my soul, rejoice my soul, for you I have read Scripture, for you I have studied Mishna. The Gemara asks: Is that so, that Torah study is beneficial only for the soul of the person who has studied? But didn’t Rabbi Elazar say: If not for the Torah and its study, heaven and earth would not be sustained, as it is stated: ‘If not for My covenant by day and by night, I would not have set up the laws of heaven and earth’ (Jeremiah 33:25). It is the Torah, the eternal covenant that is studied day and night, that justifies the continued existence of the world. The Gemara answers: This is indeed correct, but at the outset when a person does this mitzva, he does it for himself, and only afterward does he have in mind the benefit that will be brought to the entire world. (Talmud Pesachim 68b)

It follows that a thorough understanding of Jewish economic ethics requires examining this topic in the context of its relation to Torah study. In the ancient world, it was common that study was reserved for men of nobility, people of leisure, and independent means. However, the Jewish people had no gentlemen and no hereditary nobility, hence, scholars must generally support themselves. Commerce was an especially common and even characteristic occupation for Torah scholars; it is a rewarding calling for a worldly person endowed with intelligence and legal acumen, and often provides a fair amount of time and strength for study. A common theme in the Talmud is that Torah scholars are encouraged, on the one hand, to engage in commerce (see e.g. tracate Bava Batra 22a), but at the same, time they are expected to serve as exemplars of scrupulous business conduct. Here are some examples: The Talmudic scholar Rav considered that for someone of his stature to buy on credit, in a place where this was unusual, would be a desecration of God’s name: What are the circumstances that cause desecration of God’s name? Rav said: For example, in the case of someone like me, since I am an important public figure, if I take meat from a butcher and do not give him money immediately, people are likely to think that I did not mean to pay at all. They would consider me a thief and learn from my behavior that one is permitted to steal. (Talmud Yoma 86a)

160   Asher Meir Maimonides emphasizes that Torah scholars have to be extra scrupulous in the business dealings: The business conduct of the [Torah scholar] must be accompanied by truth and good faith; he must say: no, when it is no, and yea, when it is yea; restricting himself in accounting to others, but liberal in giving to and benevolent when receiving from others and place no restrictions upon them; he should make payment immediately after the bargain is made. (Maimonides’ Code, Human Disposition 5:13)

Maimonides combines the idea of encouraging the business pursuits of a Torah scholar and learning scrupulous conduct from them: a person should strive to do business with scholars precisely in order to learn from their example: It is a mandatory commandment to cleave to [Torah scholars] and their disciples, in order to learn of their deeds . . . [Thus, one should strive] to do business for and with [Torah scholars]. (Maimonides’ Code, Human Disposition 6:2)

The Challenge of Wealth In Jewish culture, as in others, collective wisdom is often condensed not only in religious and scientific texts, but also in popular proverbs. An adage from Yiddish (the language spoken by the majority of European Jews, and indeed the majority of all Jews, for centuries up to the 1930s) confirms that ‘It is no disgrace to be poor’, but an equally famous Yiddish proverb adds: ‘But it is no particular honor either.’7 This proverb gives an important insight into Jewish culture: Material wealth and poverty simply do not play a central role in Jewish religious life. Wealth is not considered evidence of divine favour, but neither is there an ascetic tradition assigning special spiritual value to renouncing material well-​being. Judaism recognizes that material comfort is something that human beings value, and being a humanistic religion, it validates and sanctions comfort and its pursuit, but without granting it any inherent religious importance. An appeal in the book of Proverbs acknowledges that wealth and poverty each have their own religious challenges: Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God. (Prov. 30:7–​9, emphasis added)

7 

‘Arem is kein shand, ober oich kein kavod nicht.’ Some readers may recognize this proverb from the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof.

Jewish Economic Ethics    161 Jewish tradition certainly views material well-​being as something desirable and beneficial. The Torah is filled with promises to the Jewish people that faithful commitment to God and His commandments will be rewarded with ample produce and a comfortable collective standard of living. If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. (Lev. 26:3–​5)

Similarly, Deuteronomy 11:15 promises that if the people observe the commandments, and love and serve God, they will ‘eat their fill’. This recognition is equally evident in the liturgy. In the daily prayers, one of the fixed benedictions is a prayer to ‘bless upon us this year and all its produce for the good’, and there is even a collective prayer in which we request to be blessed with ‘wealth and honor’ (Berachot 16b). Note, however, that neither source applies this promise at the individual level. Neither wealth nor poverty is considered any kind of evidence of piety or of divine favour. Indeed, a theme that repeats itself throughout our sources is the essential religious and social equality of rich and poor alike. Among the commandments in the book of Leviticus we find for instance that judges are specifically warned to favour neither the rich nor the poor: ‘You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour’ (Lev. 19:15, emphasis added). Likewise, we find in Exodus 23:3 not to favour the poor in judgment, and in verse 23:6 not to deny justice to the poor. The Talmud likewise emphasizes the essential religious equality of the rich and the poor. Both are obligated to occupy themselves in Torah study, despite the distinct sacrifices this demands of each. The rabbis depict a scene where at Judgement Day, rich and poor alike are confronted with their neglect of study, and measured against renowned Torah scholars who faced similar challenges: To the poor person, the members of the [heavenly] court say: Why did you not engage in Torah? If he rationalizes his conduct and says: I was poor and preoccupied with earning enough to pay for my sustenance and that is why I did not engage in Torah study, they say to him: Were you any poorer than Hillel, who was wretchedly poor and nevertheless attempted to study Torah? They said about Hillel the Elder that each and every day he would work and earn a half-​dinar, half of which he would give to the guard of the study hall and half of which he spent for his sustenance and the sustenance of the members of his family. . . . And if a wealthy man comes before the heavenly court, the members of the court say to him: Why did you not engage in Torah? If he says: I was wealthy and preoccupied with managing my possessions, they say to him: Were you any wealthier than Rabbi Elazar, who was exceedingly wealthy and nevertheless studied Torah? They said about Rabbi Elazar ben

162   Asher Meir Ḥarsum that his father left him an inheritance of one thousand villages on land, and corresponding to them, one thousand ships at sea. And each and every day he takes a leather jug of flour on his shoulder and walks from city to city and from state to state to study Torah from the Torah scholars in each of those places. (Talmud Yoma 35b)

Arbitrary Economic Inequality and Absolute Social Equality While Jewish tradition acknowledges that a certain amount of economic inequality is an inherent and legitimate aspect of any free society, it is stubbornly insistent that economic dominance must be prevented from being leveraged into social dominance. The poor person has a limited claim on the financial resources of the wealthy, but an absolute claim to social equality. The most salient legal expression of this principle is the law that forbids Jews from owning other Jews as slaves. The Torah was given in an era where slavery was a common, perhaps an essential, feature of the economy in the Middle East. The Torah regulates but does not outlaw this institution. It recognizes that sometimes non-​Jews will be slaves to Jews, and Jews to non-​Jews. However, there is a strict prohibition on Jews enslaving other Jews, and such a relationship is not legally acknowledged. Even if a fellow Jew is ‘bought’, his status is that of a hired worker and not a slave. The reason is that since we are all servants of God, it is impossible to sanction that we should become slaves to our fellow human being. If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall be free from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold. (Lev. 25:39–​42)

The institution of slavery is alas only one way of using economic power to dominate the poor. Hence, the prohibition on allowing the rich to formally purchase and dominate the poor is accompanied by a large number of associated laws meant to prevent the rich from achieving the same outcome de facto by leveraging their wealth to achieve power. The most prominent institutions directed at preventing wealth from being turned into power are the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year. Every seven years, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel mark a sabbatical year. Working the land in the Sabbatical year is forbidden, and appropriating the produce is likewise forbidden. Landowners have no leverage over the landless in this year; hired hands cannot be hired because agricultural labour ceases, and the produce of the land belongs equally to all.

Jewish Economic Ethics    163 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. (Exod. 23:10)

In the book of Leviticus, the laws of the Sabbatical year lead to the command to reverse all land purchases in the Jubilee year. [I]‌n the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. . . . And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. . . The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. (Lev. 25, emphasis added)

It is understood that a person may become impoverished, or perhaps prefer some other livelihood to farming, and seek to sell his land to sustain himself. However, the prolonged accumulation of concentrated land holdings in the hands of the wealthy is likely to lead to a permanent class distinction and indeed a feudal society of masters and serfs. Hence, the Torah commands that all purchased lands be returned to the seller in the Jubilee year, every fifty years. Fifty years is long enough for land to have a reasonable degree of marketability and to provide financial flexibility, but far too short to enable a feudal class system to become entrenched. The Scripture emphasizes that the basis for social equality among human beings is the fact that all are subordinate to God: ‘. . . the land is mine, with me you are but aliens and tenants.’ In the same direction, we find limits to loan collection. Among the most well known of these is the prohibition on usury, which is repeated several times. Exodus 22:24 declares: ‘When you lend money to My people, to the poor man among you, do not press him for repayment. [Also] do not take interest from him.’ On a purely economic basis, interest on loans can be justified. However, the danger exists that the growing debt becomes so large that the debtor become completely subject to the lender. Indeed, we know that in the time of the Bible, creditors did occasionally actually enslave borrowers or their family members (e.g. 2 Kgs, Chapter 4). Related laws are taught in Chapter 24 of Deuteronomy. In 24:10 we find, ‘When you make any kind of loan to your neighbour, do not go into his house to take something as security. You must stand outside, and the man who has the debt to you shall bring the security outside to you.’ The lender may have a monetary right to the borrower’s collateral, but the borrower has an absolute human right to privacy which the lender’s economic dominance is not allowed to infringe. Likewise, this chapter teaches that wages must be paid on time. Often, we find that even when contracts exist, the stronger party—​in the employment contract, usually the employer—​leverages his position to be lax in the fulfilment of his contractual obligations. Hence, the religious obligation to pay wages on time. ‘You must give him his wage on the day it is due, and not let the sun set with him

164   Asher Meir waiting for it. Since he is a poor man, and his life depends on it, do not let him call out to God, causing you to have a sin’ (Deut. 24:15). Perhaps the most famous example of preventing economic domination from infringing on individual equality is the commandment of the Sabbath, one of the Ten Commandments. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—​you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. (Deut. 5:13–​15)

The commandment of rest for the slave (the Hebrew term also applies to a hired servant) is explicitly motivated so that he or she may rest ‘just as you do’. The servitude is sanctioned, but it cannot be an excuse for depriving a person of the fundamental social and religious equality in observing the Sabbath day. The recollection of the servitude in Egypt is a reminder that no Jew has a special pedigree that would entitle him to special status.8 The Bible does not have any examples of a hereditary class among the people of Israel granted political authority or privilege. Members of the priestly tribe of Levi were entitled to extensive tithes and donations which enabled them to devote their time to religious duties, but politically they were if anything disadvantaged, since this tribe was not given landed estates, which were the basis for political power in ancient times. Even kings were appointed by the people, and their offspring had no automatic claim to rule. Kings in their private dealings were subject to the exact same laws as everybody else, as we see from the story of King Achav (NRSV Ahab) who was unable to compel Navot (NRSV Naboth) to sell the king his vineyard. In the end, Achav resorted to distorting justice through hired witnesses; the legal process per se was not tilted in his favour in any way (1 Kgs 21). The Sages of the Talmud were equally insistent on absolute social equality. While in theory rich and poor are full legal equals in making any agreement, practically speaking, wealthy and powerful individuals often have the ability to coerce the economically vulnerable. Hence, the Sages taught or instituted a number of enactments that were intended to somewhat level the playing field. We will bring some examples from employment law. While it is not automatically true that an employer has deep pockets and an employee is vulnerable, this situation is common enough that Jewish law mandates various protections for employees. Consider the following instances: 8 

A similar sentiment is expressed in the famous sermon of fourteenth-​century English preacher John Ball: ‘When Adam delved [dug the earth] and Eve span [spun thread], Who was then the gentleman?’

Jewish Economic Ethics    165 To ensure that a hired worker does not become a de facto indentured servant, Jewish law allows a worker to quit his job any time, even in the middle of the hiring period, and receive wages pro rata: [A]‌laborer may reconsider and quit his job, even at midday. . . as it is written: ‘For to Me the children of Israel are slaves; they are My slaves whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt’ (Lev. 25:55), which indicates: They are My slaves, and not slaves of slaves, i.e., of other Jews. (Talmud Bava Metzia 10a)

If there is a dispute between the employer and the employee whether the worker was paid or not, the worker is not considered a normal creditor with the full burden of proof. Rather, he has a lesser burden of proof established by the rabbis: it is enough for him to establish his credibility with an oath. If a hired laborer requests payment at the proper time and the employer claims he already paid him, the laborer takes an oath that he did not receive his wages and then receives the wages from the employer. The Gemara asks: Why did the Sages institute for a hired laborer, who is the plaintiff, to take an oath and receive his wages, in opposition to the principle that in the case of a monetary dispute between two parties, the defendant takes an oath that he is not liable and thereby exempts himself from payment? . . . [The Sage] Shmuel says: They taught fixed ordinances here that are necessary for practical life. The reason is that taking the oath is actually the duty of the employer, but the Sages transferred the oath of the employer and imposed it upon the hired laborer due to the livelihood of the hired laborer. The laborer requires his wages to survive, and therefore if the employer is allowed to exempt himself by taking an oath, the laborer will be left with nothing. The Gemara asks: And simply due to the livelihood of the hired laborer should we cause the employer to lose out? If the employer is entitled to take an oath to exempt himself, why should he suffer due to the laborer’s needs? . . . Rather, the employer is preoccupied with many laborers, and it is more likely that he forgot and mistakenly believed that he already paid this laborer’s wages. (Talmud Bava Metzia 112b)

The Talmud’s first explanation is that we bend the rules arbitrarily in favour of the worker. Ultimately, this explanation cannot be sustained. We already learned that the Torah sternly warns against showing arbitrary favouritism in court to the rich or to the poor. Rather, the rabbis find there is a substantive reason to favour the claim of the worker: he has much more skin in the game.

The Dignity of Work in Jewish Ethics Jewish tradition acknowledges the dignity of work and self-​sufficiency as central ethical values. Indeed, they understand the birth of work, as it is described in the Bible, rather differently than the plain meaning of the verses would seem to indicate. The Bible opens

166   Asher Meir with the story of Adam and Chava, the first man and woman. The two are placed in a beautiful garden, the Garden of Eden, in which all their material needs are readily at hand. They are commanded to refrain from eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, but they are tempted by the serpent to defy God’s command. God responds by banishing them from the garden, with the following admonition: And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ (Gen. 3:17–​19)

According to the simplest reading, work is described as a punishment and a curse. Previously Adam and Chava ate fruit readily available from the trees, but now they need to toil to obtain bread. In fact, in English, the need to work for a living is sometimes referred to as ‘the curse of Adam’. Remarkably, the Sages of the Talmud describe this sentence as a blessing: When the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Adam: ‘Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field’ (Genesis 3:18), his eyes streamed with tears. Adam said before Him: Master of the Universe, will my donkey and I eat from one trough? After God said to him: ‘In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread’ (Genesis 3:19), his mind was settled, assured that if he toils he will be able to eat bread, unlike the donkey. (Pesachim 118a)

In Genesis 1:29–​30, God designated ‘every tree with seed in its fruit’ as food for human beings, and ‘every green plant’ as food for the animals. Eating thorns and thistles certainly provides a ready livelihood, but one that does not give expression to humankind’s unique elevated status, the species created in God’s image. Adam is worried that he has now been reduced to no more than a beast. God gives him a double reassurance: ‘By the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread.’ The human attains a livelihood by complex, directed exertion; and he eats bread—​a refined food which requires effort and culture. A donkey can eat stalks of wheat, but only humankind will harvest and thresh and winnow and grind and knead and raise and bake the wheat into bread. The Sages of the Talmud read a similar message into a subsequent biblical story, that of the Flood of Noach (Noah). After seeing the corrupt conduct of humankind, God decides he needs to re-​create the world, to start almost from scratch. He decides to erase civilization with a flood, but first He takes one family, that of Noach, and orders them to build a huge ship, an ‘ark’, and to save the world’s animal species on it. For almost a year, the animals are unable to fend for themselves; they are dependent on the fodder that Noach’s family brings them from the hold of the ark.

Jewish Economic Ethics    167 As the flood waters subside, Noach wonders if it is possible to make landfall; he sends out a dove to see if it will find a place to live or rather return to the ark. Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him anymore. (Gen. 8:8–​12)

As the dove returned to the ark, it was obvious to Noach that the land was not quite ready for settlement yet. But why did the dove bother to bring an olive leaf? After all, there was plenty of food in the ark. The Sages of the Talmud understand this gesture as a message, a collective message of the animals to humankind: What is the meaning of that which is written: ‘And the dove came in to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf, plucked off [Hebrew taraf]; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth’ (Genesis 8:11)? The dove said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, let my food be bitter as an olive but given into Your hand, and let it not be sweet as honey but dependent upon flesh and blood. He adds this explanation: Here it is written: Taraf. And there it is written: ‘Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me [Hebrew hatrifeni from the root taraf] my allotted portion’ (Prov. 30:8). (Eruvin 18b)

This allegorical understanding involves a play on the words of the biblical text, but does not depend on it. At the simplest level, the dove indicates to Noach that it is now capable of providing a basic livelihood for itself, and prefers to do so. The play on words is based on the fact the word ‘taraf ’ seldom means ‘plucked off ’ in the Bible; it is more often used as a word for ‘sustenance’. In a characteristic example of the value the rabbis of the Talmud attributed to the dignity of work and self-​sufficiency we find: ‘Rav further said: Skin a carcass in the market and take payment, but do not say: I am a priest, or: I am a great man, and this matter disgusts me. It is preferable for one to work, even in menial labor, than to be dependent on others’ (Pesachim 113a).

Jewish Work Ethic It is however important to emphasize that the ‘dignity of work’ is rather different from what Max Weber denoted the ‘Protestant work ethic’, which views hard work and thrift

168   Asher Meir as a religious value in itself.9 Diligence is indeed praised, but from a slightly distinct point of view, as we see from the following sources. The Talmud tells the story of a man named Abba Hilkiyya, who had a very special relationship with God. God hears and considers the prayers of all human beings, but He was especially inclined to respond to the prayers of Abba Hilkiyya. Let’s see why: [W]‌hen the world was in need of rain they would send Sages to [Abba Hilkiyya], and he would pray for mercy, and rain would fall. Once the world was in need of rain, and the Sages sent a pair of Sages to him so that he would pray for mercy and rain would fall. They went to his house but they did not find him there. They went to the field and found him hoeing the ground. They greeted him, but he did not return their greetings. Toward evening, as he was gathering firewood, he placed the wood and hoe on one shoulder and his cloak on the other shoulder. When he reached his house, his wife entered first, he entered afterward, and afterward the two Sages entered. . . . Abba Ḥilkiyya said to his wife: I know that these Sages have come due to the rain. Let us go up to the roof and pray for mercy. Perhaps the Holy One, Blessed be He, will be appeased, and it will rain, and we will not receive credit ourselves for the rainfall. They went up to the roof. He stood in one corner and she stood in the other corner. Clouds began to form on that side where his wife stood. When he descended, he said to the Sages: . . . Blessed is God, Who did not require you to petition Abba Ḥilkiyya, as the sky has filled with clouds and rain is certainly on its way. They said to him: We know that the rain has come on the Master’s account. However, let the Master please say and explain to us these aspects of your behavior that are puzzling to us: What is the reason that when we greeted the Master, the Master did not return our greeting? He said to them: I am a day laborer, hired for the day, and I said to myself that I may not delay my work to answer you. They further inquired: And what is the reason that the Master carried the firewood on one shoulder and his cloak on the other shoulder? He said to them: It was a borrowed robe. I borrowed it for this purpose, to wear it, and I did not borrow it for that purpose, to place wood on it. (Babylonian Talmud Taanit 23a–​b)

At first glance it may seem that Abba Hilkiyya was a diligent, hard-​working fellow. He was so busy working the field that he paid no attention to his distinguished visitors! However, a second look shows that this is not precise. We do not know if he was hoeing the ground energetically or perfunctorily; we only know that he refused to be distracted. What in fact distinguishes Abba Hilkiyya is that he was extremely, almost obsessively concerned with obligations he undertook to his fellow man. Since he agreed to give a full day of work to his employer, he declined to even greet the distinguished Sages who came to visit him. Since the person who lent him the cloak only agreed that he would wear it, he declined to rest his load on the cloak. He was scrupulous to share the privilege, and ultimately the credit, for the miraculous answered prayer with his faithful wife, his partner in the marriage covenant. 9 

Obviously, this chapter is not making any judgement as to whether Weber’s conjecture is correct. We do not mean to imply that Protestantism indeed adopts this ‘work ethic’.

Jewish Economic Ethics    169 Interestingly, the Talmud does not tell us that Abba Hilkiyya was a learned sage, or a person uniquely punctilious in the commandments. These traits would almost certainly have characterized the messengers, who are described as Sages or rabbis. But the prayers of the Sages went unanswered. It was the prayers of the unassuming couple, Abba Hilkiyya and his wife, whose foremost concern was the obligations they undertook to their fellow man, which were particularly heard and heeded by the God Who gave the commandments. A similar lesson emerges from a ruling from Maimonides’ Codex. We already pointed out a number of Torah laws meant to ensure that the employer is unable to take advantage of the vulnerable situation of the day labourer. The final chapters of the book on the Laws of Hire elaborate on these protections for the worker. However, Maimonides is careful to balance the presentation by pointing out also the obligations of the worker and the right of the employer: Just as the employer is warned against robbing the wage of the poor workman, and against delaying it, so is the poor workman warned against robbing the employer by idling away his time on the job, a little here and a little there, thus wasting the entire day deceitfully. He must be scrupulous throughout the time of work. Also, he is required to work to the best of his ability, as the upright Jacob said: ‘I have served your father with all my strength’ (Gen. 31:6). For this reason, he was rewarded even in this world, as it is written: ‘The man became exceedingly rich’ (30:43). (Mishneh Torah Laws of Hiring 13:7)

It might appear that the Patriarch Yaakov (Jacob) is singling out his diligent work in accumulating wealth. In fact, he is singling out his service: ‘I have served your father with all my strength.’ The biblical narrative tells us that Yaakov made an agreement to serve his father-​in-​law Lavan (Laban) for seven years in return for the hand in marriage of his daughter. Once the agreement was closed, Yaakov wants to emphasize that despite the great tension that exists between him and Lavan, he remains scrupulous in fulfilling his agreement.10 Human work, involving directed, creative effort, is a blessing. It is one expression of man’s divine image, for the Torah tells us that the creation was the result of God’s work: ‘On the seventh day God finished the work that he had done’ (Genesis 2:2). The biblical term for ‘work’ used here, melacha, generally means skilled work, what we might translate as craft or artisanship; it does not refer to effort per se.

10  Indeed, we find elsewhere in Maimonides’ code that excessive devotion to business is a character flaw. Maimonides was influenced much by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and adopts Aristotle’s approach to humans cultivating a refined character: a person should strive for the ‘middle way’ in most traits. One example of the ‘middle way’ mentioned in Maimonides’ code: ‘Likewise shall he not continue to fatigue himself in his affairs, save to acquire what is necessary for him to live on for the time being as the subject is mentioned, saying: “A little that a righteous man hath is better” ’ (Ps. 37:16) (Mishneh Torah Human Dispositions, 1:4).’ The problem is not the accumulation of wealth per se, which we have already pointed out is not condemned in Jewish tradition. It is the excessive ‘fatigue’, the devotion of energy to a pursuit beyond its contribution to human flourishing.

170   Asher Meir Hence, work has immense dignity in Jewish tradition. However, this does not mean that more is better. The main emphasis is on being steadfast in fulfilling our commitments, on giving our all to a worthwhile undertaking, rather than on diligence per se. Hence, the Jewish ‘work ethic’ is a natural corollary to the idea of ‘covenantal ethics’ we developed earlier.

Care for the Poor and the Welfare State The obligation of both the individual and the community to see to the needs of the disadvantaged has been emphasized by the Jewish tradition throughout its history. The Torah commands the people of Israel to be charitable in a number of places. Here is one example: If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-​hearted or tight-​fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. . . . Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ (Deut. 15)

It seems that in Biblical times, providing for the needs of the poor was accomplished through a highly decentralized system. We see from this passage the requirement to take care of neighbours. Every extended family had primary responsibility for struggling family members. This aspect is evident from the prophet Isaiah (58:7), who emphasizes that the purpose of fasting is ‘to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—​when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood.’ In addition, every single farmer was required to leave part of his produce un-​reaped or un-​gathered so that the poor could support themselves from the remainders (Lev. 23:22). This source of livelihood figures prominently in the story of Ruth. Every third year there was a poor tithe amounting to 10 per cent of gross agricultural production (Deut. 14:28–​29). And as we saw, in the Sabbatical year all produce is equally available to all. The safety net described in the Torah is a very ‘thick’ welfare system. The recipients were mostly well known to the donors. In addition, it appears that the main basis of mutual help was free loans (‘willingly lending enough’) which inherently involves an ongoing connection between recipient and donor. This decentralized welfare system was probably suitable for a highly decentralized agrarian society. Few people lived in large

Jewish Economic Ethics    171 towns or cities. Most probably visited towns infrequently. Most social and economic interactions were with family members or neighbours. However, as society became more urbanized and centralized, this welfare system became problematic. Neighbours in a city do not know you as well as neighbours in a village. A village does not have ample resources to establish a viable infrastructure for social welfare, but a city does. And a ‘thick’ welfare system based on ongoing personal connections can be quite intrusive. We find that by the time of the Mishna (approximately 100 ce), Jewish communities typically had charity funds with all the characteristics of the modern welfare state. There were a variety of charity programmes with different scope; some for immediate needs, including those of wayfarers, others for longer-​term needs with the focus on residents. There were clearly stated criteria for eligibility, applied by a permanent charity administrator or committee, as well as clearly stated criteria for assessment of taxes, which was also carried out by a committee in order to obviate the presence or even appearance of arbitrary assessment or collection. We see for example that the Talmud (Bava Batra 8 B) brings the following ruling: A charity fund is collected by [at least] two representatives . . . because it is forbidden to exercise communal authority with less than two; and distributed by [at least] three, by analogy with [a tribunal authorized for] making court judgments in monetary matters. The fund for immediate needs . . . is collected and distributed at the same time, and is distributed every day. The fund for longer term needs is collected every week. Wayfarers are eligible for immediate needs; town residents are eligible for longer-​term support.

There is much evidence that Jewish communities throughout the world, and throughout the generations, were scrupulous in establishing functioning charity funds and committees to fulfil the goals of these Talmud-​era institutions. Maimonides, a leading twelfth-​century rabbinic scholar, was intimately familiar with the situation of Jewish communities around the world. Due to his stature, queries were addressed to him in Egypt from communities as distant as India, Morocco, and Western Europe. In his monumental Code of Jewish Law, Maimonides writes (Gifts to the Poor 9:3), ‘We have never seen, and never heard of, a community of Israelites lacking a charity fund.’

Subjective Needs The Torah commands us to be generous to our ‘needy’ neighbour. But this begs the question of who is needy? Jewish tradition is emphatic that the bar for ‘need’ is flexible, and will be higher in a more affluent society. The Talmud in a number of places gives a uniform means test for judging eligibility for receiving charity. The Tur, a very influential codification of Jewish law by the late

172   Asher Meir thirteenth/​early fourteenth-​century authority Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher mentions this means test, but then adds: Perhaps in those times expenses were low and it was possible to live on [this sum], but today it is impossible, and everything is judged according to the place and the time. (Tur Yoreh Deah 253)

The bar for eligibility does not change only from millennium to millennium. It can change even from one generation to another. The renowned rabbinic authority Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan wrote a very influential book on the laws of charity. The book, Ahavat Chesed, was published in 1888, when Eastern Europe was already exposed to the Industrial Revolution and the norm of continuously rising living standards. Rabbi Kagan explained that the standard for poverty needs to be revised in accordance with living standards: It’s clear that we can’t liken the level of obligation of our time to that of a previous time, because previously there was not the same general prosperity in the world as there is now. . . . Someone who would have previously been considered ‘middle class’ would be considered today an absolute pauper, and someone who was previously rich would be barely considered middle class by the standards of today. Each location is judged according to its standard.11

In general, we are discouraged from being excessively meticulous in judging whether a person is truly needy. It is best, when possible, to give the recipient the benefit of the doubt. The Talmud exemplifies this attitude with the following story: [The sage] Mar Ukva had another pauper in his neighbourhood, and Mar Ukva was accustomed to send to him four hundred dinars every year on the eve of Yom Kippur. One day he sent the money to him by the hand of his son. The son returned and said to him: The poor individual does not need the charity. Mar Ukva said: What did you see that prompted you to say this? He said to him: I saw them spilling old wine on the ground for him, to give the room a pleasant smell. Mar Ukva said: If he is pampered this much and requires even this luxury, then he needs even more money. He doubled the funds and sent them to him. (Babylonian Talmud Ketubot 67B, William Davidson Talmud)

Mar Ukva does not mean to teach us that a wealthy and pampered individual is entitled to charity. But the story reminds us that excuses to decide a person is not worthy of support are so natural to us that it is a good idea to look at the other side of the picture as well, and not rush to deprive a person of support.

11 

Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, Ahavat Chesed, Epilogue.

Jewish Economic Ethics    173

Self-​Sufficiency and Charity We pointed out earlier the great value Jewish tradition attaches to work and self-​ sufficiency. This value colours our approach to charity. Helping a person to help himself is a greater mitzvah—​a greater fulfilment of God’s will and command—​than merely providing him with the means to sustain his lifestyle. Maimonides summarizes this approach in his monumental legal code: There are eight levels of tzedakah [charity], each one greater than the other. The greatest level, higher than all the rest, is to fortify a fellow Jew and give him a gift, a loan, form with him a partnership, or find work for him, until he is strong enough so that he does not need to ask others [for sustenance]. Of this it is said, (Lev. 25:35) [If your kinsman, being in straits, comes under your authority,] and you hold him as though a resident alien, let him live by your side. That is as if to say, ‘Hold him up,’ so that he will not fall and be in need. (Maimonides’ Code, Gifts to the Poor, Chapter 10)

Returning Lost Objects as a Paradigm for a Universal Doctrine of Mutual Care The Torah obligates the care and return of lost objects among Jews: You shall not watch your neighbor’s ox or sheep straying away and ignore them; you shall take them back to their owner. If the owner does not reside near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until the owner claims it; then you shall return it to him. . . . do the same with anything else that your neighbor loses and you find. You may not withhold your help. (Deut. 22:1–​3)

Observance of this duty in biblical times appears to have been quite scrupulous. The book of Samuel tells the story of a young man named Shaul (NRSV Saul), who was later to be appointed as king of Israel. His father lost some donkeys, and sent his son to go look for them: Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s father, had strayed. So Kish said to his son Saul, ‘Take one of the boys with you; go and look for the donkeys.’ He passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then he passed through the land of Benjamin, but they did not find them. (I Sam. 9)

The story follows Saul from Ephraim, to Shalishahh, to Shaalim, to Benjamin, thence to Zuph; a trip of many weeks through the countryside. Eventually the donkeys were found and voluntarily returned to Shaul’s household by the finder. It seems never to have

174   Asher Meir occurred to Shaul that perhaps someone just helped himself to his donkeys. After all, even a fairly honest person could convince himself that the owner of two stray donkeys would never go to the trouble of roaming the country for weeks to search for them, and decided he was justified in a ruling of ‘finder’s keepers’. It seems that the norm of watching and returning lost objects was quite ingrained in the people. Subsequently, the rabbis of the Talmud elaborated on this obligation. The rabbinic legal elaboration of this law is of two distinct kinds. On the one hand, the Torah law is vague; hence, the rabbis of the Talmud filled in the details. When is an object considered ‘lost’? How much effort needs to be invested in returning it? What degree of loss of value (due to spoiling, costs of care which are reimbursable, etc.) justifies selling the object and just returning the money? But more importantly, the Talmud transformed the return of lost objects from a law into a doctrine. It seems that a narrow duty to return a lost object was construed as a much more general ‘duty of care’.12 For example, the rabbis note (Bava Kamma 81b) that the Hebrew expression ‘you shall return it to him’ in the second verse just quoted can also be construed as ‘you shall return him to him’ or ‘you shall return his self to him’. From this they learn the duty of ‘restoring the body’, specifically endeavouring to rescue a person in distress or restore a sick person to health. The rabbis also found in this doctrine a basis for expanding obligations originally limited to obligations within the Jewish people to reciprocal ethical obligations in the larger civil community. In strict Torah law, negative obligations generally apply equally to Jews and non-​Jews; positive ones generally apply only within the Jewish community. Hence, it is equally forbidden to steal from a Jew or from a non-​Jew, or to cause damage to either. But returning lost objects is obligatory only towards Jews.13 This seems justifiable. After all, a positive duty to return a lost object to non-​Jews would not have been sustainable in a non-​Jewish society where non-​Jews saw no obligation to return lost objects even among themselves. In Talmudic times, this obligation was in large measure expanded to include non-​Jews. This expansion provides a key to a paradox hinted at earlier in the chapter. We noted earlier that one way in which the Jewish people fulfil the promise to be a blessing to all humankind is by adopting elevated norms which will ultimately be emulated by non-​ Jewish societies. We also saw that these norms took form as the commandments of the Torah and their later development by rabbinic scholars throughout the generations. But how does the emulation take place? How do the ethical principles binding on a tiny nation promote ethical progress among humankind as a whole? One way of course is simple emulation. Just as Meiji Japan adopted a constitution which in large measure simply emulated the legal system of Prussia, so surrounding 12 

There is an interesting parallel in Common Law. The action of trover (literally ‘finding’) originally had a very narrow scope including compensation of the owner for appropriating his lost property. Eventually it became the basis for assessing monetary liability for a wide variety of acts of appropriation. 13  This is not the same as ‘finders keepers’; the finder of a non-​Jew’s lost object was not in general allowed to keep it, but he was not required to expend effort to return it.

Jewish Economic Ethics    175 non-​Jewish societies may simply agree to adopt or adapt elements of Jewish law and ethics. One example: Bankruptcy legislation in the United States in the nineteenth century was often referred to, by both supporters and opponents, as ‘debt jubilee’.14 In the highly scripturally oriented society of nineteenth-​century America, the ‘fresh start’ provided for debtors by mandatory remission of debts in the sabbatical year, and freeing of servants and restoration of estates in the jubilee year, served as a natural model for contemporary legislation. However, another path is when Jewish law itself expands a law originally applying only within the Jewish community to include the surrounding non-​Jewish community as well. This can occur when the Jewish community feels that the underlying ethical level of the surrounding community is sufficiently high to make such an extension sustainable, and when the integration of Jews into that community is sufficiently complete as to justify viewing the entire community as a single ethical entity. The Talmud gives a number of examples where ethical obligations which are originally obligatory among Jews are extended to non-​Jews, on the condition that Jews and non-​Jews form an integrated, reciprocal community. Among these obligations are collecting and distributing communal charity, caring for the sick, and burying the dead. Yet another example is moving objects exposed to danger or theft to a safe place—​an obligation which among Jews is a subcategory of the commandment to return lost objects. (Talmud Yerushalmi Demai 4:3 and elsewhere.) These extensions are not ad hoc, rather all are given as instances of a rather broad category of rabbinical enactment known as ‘the ways of peace’—​enactments intended to make communal life harmonious and predictable. We see that the legal principle of ‘the ways of peace’ extends many ethical obligations which were originally obligatory only among the Jewish people, who voluntarily accepted this higher level of obligation, to any broader integrated community which includes Jews. There is interesting evidence that ‘the ways of peace’ can be viewed as a meta-​principle in Jewish law which is capable of extending many other ethical obligations to members of the surrounding society if that society is characterized by the requisite degree of reciprocity.15 Such a dynamic can explain a cryptic Talmudic passage. The Talmud (Yerushalmi Bava Metzia 2:5) tells the story of Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach, one of the most illustrious early Talmud scholars (approximately 140–​60 bce). His students bought a pack animal on his behalf and found a valuable jewel, unknown to its owner, among its gear. When they told their rabbi, he instructed them to return the jewel. They respectfully pointed out that according to Torah law there is no obligation to return a lost object belonging to a non-​Jew. He replied, ‘Do you think Shimon ben Shetach is a barbarian? The value of having the non-​Jew bless the God of Israel is worth more than any worldly reward.’ The passage then goes on to describe parallel stories which occurred to other Talmudic 14 

See, for example, Olmstead (1901) and Hotchkiss (1901). I develop this idea at some length in a Hebrew article ‘Lenatzel o shelo lenatzel?’, online at: https://​ iyun.org.il/​sed​ersh​eni/​the-​halac​hic-​attit​ude-​towa​rds-​non-​jews/​ 15 

176   Asher Meir sages, including one who deliberately forwent a reward for returning a lost object in order to emphasize that he was returning it only in order to fulfil the Torah’s command. Yet we explained previously that there is no Torah command to return lost objects to a non-​Jew! This would seem to be a perfect example of the ‘ways of peace’ principle at work. The Jews involved were evidently well integrated into non-​Jewish society; the non-​Jews were at a high ethical level where they considered finders-​keepers a ‘barbaric’ approach to commercial relations and where returning lost objects was considered a sign of ethical elevation and not of weakness. The relevant application of the principal would then be: each person has a duty to exert himself to restore the property and well-​being of anyone with whom he is in a relationship of equal reciprocal civil duties. Insofar as the Roman society of that period was a civilized one in which Jews were partners, the doctrine does indeed encompass the cases described in our Talmudic passage, and does indeed justify blessing the God of Israel who commanded His people to adhere to this enlightened ethical doctrine.

Relationship to the Natural Environment Economic ethics include principles for the way an individual relates to his or her own property and that of others, but includes equally the principles for the way humankind as a whole is bidden to relate to the surrounding natural world. The basic paradigm we find both in the Bible and in the Talmud is that the world belongs in the first instance to God, but that He gave it to the human race for their use and benefit, at the same time imposing on them the duty of preserving and cultivating it. The very first chapter of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, describes how God created the entire natural world ‘ex nihilo’—​out of nothingness. Subsequently, the creation of humankind is described as follows: Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ (Gen. 1:26–​28, emphasis added)

The first thing we learn about humans is that they are created in the image and likeness of God. And at this stage, the only fact we know about God is that He is a creator.

Jewish Economic Ethics    177 Evidently, the human must also have some creative nature. The second thing we learn about humans is that they are allowed to dominate the natural world. However, given the first fact, it would be very surprising if the nature of this domination was thoughtless exploitation. Such an attitude would hardly reflect the divine image of the Creator who carefully fashioned the natural world. Indeed, we see in the coming chapters of the book of Genesis that humans have responsibility to care for and cultivate the earth which they dominate. In Chapter 2, we find: ‘The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it’ (Gen. 2:15). Humans have responsibility to work and to oversee and preserve their surroundings. A few chapters later, we find that God is disappointed that humankind has not learned to behave in the ethical and holy way his creation demands. The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—​people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ (Gen. 6:5–​7)

Insofar as man’s ethical conduct is essential to expressing his divine image, which is the essence of his nature, it is understandable that if humankind is completely incapable of such conduct, God would see a need to start over. And insofar as the natural world was created to create an environment for humankind, it is natural that it would need also to start over. How then does humankind’s second start begin? With humankind taking responsibility for the natural world. And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. . . . And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.’(Gen. 6:13–​21)

In ‘humankind 1.0’, which began with Adam and Eve, mankind’s first relationship to the environment is one of domination, which is then followed by one of cultivation. This version was not successful in sustaining an ethical interpersonal environment. In the second version, the order is reversed. The very first responsibility given to Noah, who will be the progenitor of humankind’s second start, is to take care of every single living

178   Asher Meir creature, by gathering it into the ark and giving it food and care. Only subsequently is humankind given dominion over the natural world, and here also there is a subtle difference: The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. (Gen. 9:2, emphasis added)

Where previously the relationship of humans to the animals was one of dominance, now the relationship is one of care—​‘I have placed them in your hands.’ It seems that the message of humankind’s new start is that without taking responsibility for the natural environment, humankind will not be successful in taking responsibility for the human environment. Later in the biblical narrative, when the lessons taught by example and experience are formalized in detailed laws, the obligation to take care of the environment is expressed as a law: If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you? (Deut. 20:19)

While in context this rule applies only to trees, and only during warfare, the prohibition is understood in Jewish tradition as embodying a general aversion to disproportionate destruction of useful and beautiful aspects of our natural environment. The Sefer HaChinuch, a fourteenth-​century popular exposition of the meaning of the Torah commandments, explains that besides the narrow ambit of the commandment, this law teaches us: ‘And in general our Sages forbade doing anything which is destructive’ (Chinuch 529). The rationale the Torah gives for this law can be understood in the original Hebrew in two distinct ways. One is as a question: ‘Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?!’ It is an unfortunate corollary of war that we have to destroy our enemies, but this is not an excuse for destroying the natural environment which is our ally. An equally valid reading is as a statement: ‘For a human being is likened to a tree.’ Human life is inevitably bound up with and dependent on nature; destroying nature is to some degree likened to destroying humanity.

Concluding Thoughts Judaism is a very future-​oriented religion. Even the earliest sources, such as God’s promise to Noach (Gen. 9) and to Avraham (Gen. 12), adumbrate a more perfect future world and the role of humans in cultivating it. The messianic visions of the Prophetic books emphasize even more the ideal of mankind’s march towards perfection. Hence, it

Jewish Economic Ethics    179 is hardly surprising that Jewish tradition views ethics not as a static set of rules, but rather as a prolonged and evolving process. The process includes a universal mandate for all societies to adopt enlightened laws and norms, and a specific mandate for the Jewish people to serve as both exemplar and educator for many specific ethical principles and paradigms. One basic principle is the importance of covenant, of obligations born of consent and commitment. Jewish tradition views covenant as the proper basis of both God-​given and humanistic ethics. Another foundation is the religious unimportance of material well-​being. Rich and poor alike can be righteous or sinful; each has their own characteristic spiritual trials and spiritual opportunities. Both of these principles embody an idea of fundamental human equality before God. Each human being has spiritual importance, hence his or her consent has religious weight, and his or her religious service has value. The same applies at the level of a community. One recurring theme in Jewish economic ethics is that economic inequality, while ethically neutralin and of itself, has the dangerous potential to lead to social and political domination by the wealthy, and many laws have the stated objective of preventing the leveraging of economic advantage to violate the underlying norm of human equality. This is done both by providing for the needs of the poor and also by ensuring that their poverty does not deprive them of basic rights. The idea of equality is also expressed in a repeated appeal to empathy as a motivator of ethical conduct. Empathy implies imagining ourselves in the situation of another human being; it presupposes the presence of underlying equality. While the adherents of the Jewish religion are not particularly numerous, it is fair to say that the foundational texts and narratives of the Jewish people are acknowledged as a central and essential source of ethical instruction and inspiration for billions of people, and have been remarkably successful in initiating and propelling a millennia-​old process, still continuing, of human ethical learning and development.

Suggested Reading Levine, Aaron. (2000). Case Studies in Jewish Business Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV. Levine, Aaron. (2005). Moral Issues of the Marketplace in Jewish Law. New York: Yashar. Levine, Aaron. (2012). Economic Morality and Jewish Law. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Meir, Asher (2005). The Jewish Ethicist: Everyday Ethics For Business And Life. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV. Tamari, Meir. (1995). The Challenge of Wealth: A Jewish Perspective on Earning and Spending Money. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Tamari, Meir (1997). ‘The Challenge of Wealth: Jewish Business Ethics’, Business Ethics Quarterly 7, no. 2: 45–​56. Tamari, Meir. 1998. With All Your Possessions: Jewish Ethics and Economic Life. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

180   Asher Meir Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph (2009). A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy. New York: Harmony. Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph (2009). A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. New York: Harmony. Yellin, Yakov. (2022). A Code of Conduct for Business Consistent with Jewish Law and Tradition: Background, History, Theory and Practice. Cambridge, MA: Shikey Press.

Works Cited DellaPergola, Sergio (2019). ‘World Jewish Population, 2018’. In American Jewish Year Book 2018, edited by DellaPergola, 361–​449. Cham: Springer. Hotchkiss, William. (1901). ‘Two Years of the Federal Bankruptcy Law’, The North American Review 172, no. 533: 573–​583. Olmstead, James Monroe. (1901). ‘Bankruptcy a Commercial Regulation’, Harvard Law Review 15: 829.

Chapter 8

Christia n Ec onomic Et h i c s albino barrera

Introduction The Christian faith is said to be one of the longest standing critics of market excesses. Not surprisingly, Christianity has accumulated a wealth of theological and philosophical reflections and teachings on proper economic conduct. What is surprising, though, is that despite its fragmentation into disparate and often contentious churches with their own ethical positions, the various Christian traditions generally converge in their teachings on economic morality. Christian economic ethics is fairly homogenous across these churches. This chapter provides a succinct historical account of its development and an abridged synthesis of this rich body of teachings. In what follows, we examine the sources, method, and content of Christian economic morality. It is a non-​exhaustive presentation and only highlights some of its salient features as much as space permits. Christianity is founded on the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who becomes incarnate, that is, takes on a dual human–​divine nature. This Incarnation leads to the salvation of humanity from its sinfulness and provides a lived example of what it is and how it is to be truly and fully human. Jesus Christ—​in his life, Gospel, passion, death, and Resurrection—​is the crown and the fullness of God’s self-​revelation to humans. Believed to have lived in the first quarter of the first century of the Common Era (around 4 bc to 30 ce), the historical Jesus is born, preaches, teaches, heals the sick, dies, and rises from the dead in what was then considered to be the backwaters of the Roman Empire—​biblical Judea, Samaria, and Galilee (parts of modern-​day Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan). Before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of God, his Father, the historical Jesus commissions his remaining eleven apostles to preach his Gospel to the ends of the earth. This gives rise to the Christian Church/​Christianity, which by the early twenty-​first century, is the biggest faith worldwide, with a global

182   Albino Barrera membership of over two billion out of seven billion in the world, or nearly a third of the global population.1 Initially banned and subjected to sporadic violent persecution by the Roman authorities in the first three centuries of the Common Era, Christianity experiences a dramatic turnaround in becoming the de facto state religion, courtesy of Emperor Constantine (313 ce). In 1054, the Christian Church splits into what is now called the Eastern Orthodox Church (Greek and Russian) and the Roman Catholic Church. This First Schism comes about from disagreements over dogma and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. A Second Schism leads to a further division of the Roman Catholic Church five hundred years later in what is now called the Protestant Reformation (1517 onwards). The immediate cause is disaffection over rampant abuses perpetrated by members of the Church hierarchy at that time. Since then, other disagreements have emerged over the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, some matters of dogma, and various Church disciplines and practices. There were further divisions within the Protestant ranks soon afterwards (e.g. Anglicanism, Calvinism, Methodism, and Pentecostalism). To this day, Protestantism gives rise to many offshoots, such as the conservative evangelical mega-​ churches in the Southern US, the house churches in China, and the numerous small independent Protestant evangelical churches in many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Clearly, Christianity is not homogeneous in its ecclesiology, lines of authority, church discipline, and practices. Nevertheless, despite the proliferation of disparate Christian traditions, we find convergence in (1) Christians’ core set of beliefs and (2) their moral discernment regarding socio-​economic issues.

Core Beliefs The various Christian traditions subscribe to a common core set of beliefs. In particular, Christians hold that: • There is only one God—​the Blessed Trinity comprised of three Persons in one God (Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit). • Jesus Christ is both a human person and God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. • Jesus Christ lived in human history in the first three decades of the Common Era. To be normatively a Christian, one will have to hold on to the aforementioned convictions.

1 

This is for the year 2015. See Hackett and McClendon (2017).

Christian Economic Ethics    183 Another revealed truth is the special nature of humans. Humans are different from all other creatures because they have been created for their own sake and in the image and likeness of God. They are brought into existence by God so that they might share in divine life and happiness. But this is only the first of many other gifts to follow. It is merely the prelude to even greater gifts. Humans are deeply and profoundly loved by God, even to the point of the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God, stooping down to become a human person and then dying for the sins of humanity. This deep divine love for humans is one of the great puzzles of life. Why would God take an interest in, much less love, humans, despite their track record of infidelity, sin, and corruption? This is among the mysteries that Christianity acknowledges it cannot explain. In the wake of this inexplicable divine love, humans are invited to imitatio Christi, to imitate Christ. It is in becoming Christ-​like that humans shine forth fully as imago Dei. Jesus Christ provides a lived example of what it is and how it is to be truly and fully human. As part of imitatio Christi, humans are called to love God and one another as Christ loves them. This is the invitation to love as God loves. It is a love that culminates eventually in union with God. Indeed, friendship with God (charity) is the telos (end) of human existence. It is the end for which humans exercise their freedom. Using their faculties of reason and will, humans are invited to freely and intelligently seek and love God, their highest Good. Such moral excellence culminating in friendship with God is supernatural excellence—​the highest attainment of human life. Thus, in the opening lines of his Confessions, Augustine (1960, 43) succinctly and aptly captures the essence of Christian life, indeed of human life, when he famously sighs, ‘you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’ All this unfolds within an even larger ongoing undertaking—​the building of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is about actualizing God’s reign on the earth—​ an order characterized by love as Christ loves humans. This Kingdom of love has been a work in progress since the time of Christ. It is built up piece by piece with every moral choice made out of love and for love. All are invited to be part of building this order of love. It is an edifice that will be completed at the end time when Jesus Christ comes back a second time and then presents the completed Kingdom of God to his Father (Vatican II, 1965a, #39d). Jesus Christ could have singlehandedly built and perfected this Kingdom by himself during his earthly life. He is God after all. But Jesus chooses not to do so and instead invites humans to build it. Jesus is not going to do for people what they are able and should do for themselves.2 Moreover, far from being an onerous imposition, the invitation to be part of the building of the Kingdom of God is in fact yet another gift. It is the gift of giving humans first-​hand experience of the joy of loving God and neighbour. It is about making vivid and embodying in themselves and in one another God’s love.

2 

As we will find later, this is very much in line with the principle of subsidiarity.

184   Albino Barrera

Economic Dimension of the Kingdom of God The Kingdom of God has a substantial economic dimension, for multiple reasons. We can only address three of these within our limited space. First, humans are embodied creatures in a temporal existence. They are still ‘in process’, on their journey to that destined union with God. In that journey, they have to share a common finite earth from which they draw what they need to satisfy their basic needs and thereby survive and grow as embodied beings. Whether it is in the use of their time or the goods of the earth, they are compelled to be judicious in their disposition of these resources, and they have to allocate because there is not enough time or material goods to satisfy everyone’s needs and wants. Such never-​ending judicious use and allocation are what economic activity is all about. Second, humans are social by nature. They can thrive only in community. Human freedom is actualized only in community. Thus, the marketplace can be viewed as a collaborative endeavour of embodied persons working jointly together to reach their natural and supernatural excellence. Together, they produce a whole larger than the sum of their individual contributions—​a synergy! This resulting synergy directly contributes towards the building of the Kingdom of God. Third, humans are both the subject and object of economic life. As subject, humans are morally responsible for market outcomes and processes. As object, humans are supposed to be served by economic activity. Economic life is merely a means and not an end itself; it provides humans the means to flourish in temporal life. There is a large unavoidable economic dimension to human life despite their otherworldly, spiritual destiny. For example, even as Paul anticipates the imminent return of Christ and the end of the world in his own lifetime, he is nevertheless adamant that his church congregations should still live up to their temporal obligations. Thus, Paul berates those who refuse to work, thinking that the world is soon to come to an end anyway, and he instructs the community not to feed and thereby enable such people (2 Thess. 3:10–​11). Their spiritual destiny does not excuse humans from fulfilling what may seem to be mundane economic obligations. People are still expected, indeed, invited by God to natural excellence, even as they are summoned to supernatural excellence as well. Such dual excellence is about people being all they can be according to what God creates them to be. In fact, natural excellence is a stepping-​stone to supernatural excellence. It is in the natural realm that humans get to grow in and shine forth in supernatural excellence. Temporal existence is the terrain within which supernatural excellence unfolds. The Old and the New Testament clearly illustrate this dynamic. Note how the signal invitations to be holy, as God is holy (Lev. 11:44–​45; 19:2) and to ‘be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48) occur within the context of a long list of moral norms handed down to humans. These norms are the pathways to the holiness and perfection for which God creates humans and to which God invites them. The quest for holiness and perfection is supposed to be the spirit that animates Christian moral life. But there is

Christian Economic Ethics    185 much more to this spirit than mere holiness and perfection. Love and joy are its constitutive elements as well.

Nearly Realized Eschatology This economic life, indeed temporal life itself, alongside the building of the Kingdom of God takes place within the larger backdrop of a nearly realized eschatology. Eschatology pertains to the last days, the end of the world, how humans are to live after their temporal lives, how they are going to be in that room prepared for them in their Father’s house (John 14:2–​3). But the Gospel of John, the last to have been written, teaches humans that they do not have to wait until they die for them to start enjoying heaven. It is possible to have a foretaste of heaven in the here and now. It is possible for people to have a first instalment of heaven, even as they live in temporal existence. To be sure, this is not to say that humans can completely enjoy heaven in the here and now. The fullness of heaven can only be enjoyed at the end time. Nevertheless, all that nearly realized eschatology says is that humans can begin to enjoy heaven in the here and now, even if not in its fullness. This foretaste of the love and joy that will envelope humans in the afterlife comes about only to the degree that they feel God’s love for them, only to the degree that they are able to internalize divine love. Nearly realized eschatology is the epoch in which Christians live their moral lives. Love and joy are the spirit that animates Christian economic ethics, indeed, all of moral life.

Grace In viewing economic life within the context of the building of the Kingdom of God in the nearly realized eschatology, followers of Christ can then understand why it is and how it is that Christian economic ethics sets high standards. In fact, it often seems to be unreasonable in its demands—​turning the other cheek, forgiving not seven times but seventy-​times seven, writing off debt, walking the extra mile, dying to oneself, and taking responsibility for the welfare of the marginalized, among many other norms. Sacred Scripture acknowledges that these are high standards and exacting demands, and it explains this by pointing to the invitation to be holy, as God is holy (Lev. 11:44–​45; 19:2) and to ‘be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt. 5:48). These high ideals get to be even more unrealistic when juxtaposed alongside human sin. Human freedom is real and powerful. It can create so much good, but it can also cause appalling harms. Unfortunately, moral evil abounds in the world, including in economic life. Destitution, avarice, theft, exploitation, ecological destruction, pollution, and many other economic ills are the result of the misuse or abuse of human freedom. Far from assisting one another in a shared pursuit of integral human development,

186   Albino Barrera people often tear each other down and impede their respective human flourishing because of their selfishness and indifference. Despite human sinfulness in what is already a challenging and complex marketplace to begin with, Christians nevertheless remain optimistic that all will be well, and all because of grace. Grace can be defined in many ways—​as God’s blessings, as God’s assistance, as God at work in human lives. Grace has a twofold movement. It liberates humans from evil; it liberates them for authentic human freedom. Evil does not have an independent existence of its own. Evil is merely a description of a situation in which something good that should be present is missing. Evil is merely a privation of the good (Augustine, 1961). Grace restores or mitigates the privations caused by human sinfulness. In so doing, grace dispels evil and restores the good that had been lost. Grace is radically transformative. It recreates. Nowhere is this best seen than in the new creatures that humans have become as a result of the saving death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. As new creatures, they have been empowered by grace to accomplish feats they would not have otherwise been able to accomplish on their own. Paul himself is a walking example of the transformative and re-​creative power of grace stemming from his encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–​9; Gal. 1:11–​24). In his re-​creation, Paul comes to grasp that it is love that provides meaning and substance in life. A life bereft of love has not yet begun to truly live. Nevertheless, Paul is under no illusion that love is ever easy at all. In his great hymn of love, Paul describes the heroism of love in its sufferance. It has ‘no limits to its trust, its hope, its power to endure’ (1 Cor. 13:7). No less than this kind of love is elicited in the nearly realized eschatology as the Kingdom of God is being built. It is the kind of love that should animate Christian economic agency. Thus, Christian economic ethics, and Christian moral life for that matter, is demanding. It sets high standards. It invites self-​emptying and self-​forgetfulness. It asks much to the point of generating incredulity and scepticism from its audience. It is so exacting to the point of disheartening well-​intentioned people eager to do good to simply walk away, as in the case of the rich young man (Matt. 19:16–​22). Christian economic ethics asks much even in the face of human sinfulness and frailty because of its premise on the constant presence of grace. Humans can love heroically and do so indefinitely because they are not giving their own love but are drawing from an inexhaustible reservoir of love. Paul understands this well. Despite all the evils and harms heaped on him as he pours himself out for others, Paul is unfazed and does not run out of heroic love because of his understanding that there is nothing that can separate humans from the love of God that comes to them through Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:39). Thus it is that Paul writes that it is no longer he who lives, but Christ lives in him (Gal. 2:20). This is the kind of love that enlivens Christian economic ethics. As a result, it is capable of eliciting that which is impossible, that which is unthinkable to humans. Note, for example, how the early Christians try to live a communal life of sharing in which they put what they have in the common pot and take only what they need (Acts 2:44–​45).

Christian Economic Ethics    187 Faith and good works are distinct, but they are inseparable. They are flipsides of the same coin (Jas. 2). Good works spontaneously flow from faith because love is diffusive and cannot contain itself. To love God is to love one’s neighbour. It turns out that to care for one’s neighbour in distress is to care for no less than Jesus Christ himself (Matt. 25). To see Christ in others, especially the poor, is yet another consequence of the spirit in which Christian economic ethics is lived. Great, good, and heroic deeds flow from ‘new creatures in Christ’ because that is what grace has transformed them to be. Clearly, humans cannot claim any credit or merit for these good works because they are the abundant harvest from the seeds planted by grace. Thus, for all his stunning accomplishments achieved at great personal sacrifice, Paul could only boast of Christ. In sum, Christian economic ethics unfolds in the new dispensation inaugurated by Christ and marked by the building of the Kingdom of God. Christian economic ethics is lived out of love and for love. Christians are unfazed by the exacting nature of its demands because they know that grace empowers them. To those who have been given much, much will be expected (Luke 12:48). Thus, Christians are invited, indeed expected, to be prophetic and proleptic in their economic lives. They are prophetic because they live in such a way as to provide witness to all and remind them of their potential in what God creates them to be. They are proleptic because they live in the here and now how they are to live in the afterlife—​radiating the love and joy of God burning fiercely within them, and in the process, become holy and perfect as God is holy and perfect, to the extent humanly possible. These are the core beliefs undergirding Christian economic ethics.

Sources From where did Christians derive the aforementioned beliefs? How do Christians come to know what constitutes right economic conduct? Where do its economic norms come from?

Revelation Regardless of whether they are from the Eastern or Western Church, Protestant or Catholic, all Christians have their common starting point in Revelation. This is the bedrock upon which the edifice of Christianity is founded. The core beliefs of Christianity listed at the start of this chapter are neither the result of empirical investigation nor are they subject to empirical validation. Instead, they are accepted to be true at face value because of Revelation. This is the phenomenon whereby God takes the initiative of self-​revealing to humans the interior life of God. To be sure, Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs on the existence of God (Summa Theologica I, Q2, a3) have demonstrated that

188   Albino Barrera human reason alone is powerful enough on its own to arrive at the conclusion that God exists and that God is all perfect. Human logic, together with empirical observation from everyday life, are all that are needed to reach the conclusion on the necessity of God’s existence and to discern some of God’s perfections. However, human reason on its own is not powerful enough to arrive at the Trinitarian nature of God, the simultaneous divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, and the historicity of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection. Moreover, human reason on its own will not be able to arrive at the findings that God loves human beings whom God had created for their own sake and that this profound divine love is revealed in its fullness in the Incarnation, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus, Revelation requires an assent of faith on the part of the Christian believer—​to accept all these as truths without the benefit of empirical proof.

Foundational Scripture Sacred Scripture (aka the Bible) is at the heart of Revelation. For Protestants, it is the exclusive venue by which God’s initiative of self-​revelation unfolds (sola scriptura). In contrast, Roman and Eastern Orthodox Catholics view the Bible as only one of two sources of Revelation, the other being tradition. Nevertheless, Catholics acknowledge and accord primacy of place to the Bible as the major venue by which God is self-​revealed. The Christian Bible (Christian Sacred Scripture) is comprised of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Protestant Old Testament consists of thirty-​nine books that are drawn exclusively from the Hebrew Scripture (Tanakh) of the Jewish faith. Tanakh is composed of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Writings. The Roman Catholic Old Testament has an additional seven canonical books drawn from the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Hebrew Scripture based on a different Hebrew canon.3 These additional books are not considered part of the Tanakh. The New Testament is comprised of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), the Acts of the Apostles, various epistles (most of which are Pauline), and the book of Revelation. These twenty-​seven books provide an account of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of the promises made by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus Christ is the Messiah promised by God and eagerly awaited by the Chosen People in the Hebrew Scripture. Consequently, Christians view the Old and New Testament as a seamless whole, with the latter bringing to completion and fruition all that is described in the former. For this reason, note Christians’ use of the modifiers ‘Old’ and ‘New’ to distinguish the two parts of Sacred Scripture.

3  In contrast, Eastern Orthodox Catholics draw an additional ten books from the Septuagint, instead of only seven. Moreover, these additions are non-​canonical and are meant to be read aloud during liturgical services.

Christian Economic Ethics    189 Despite having been written, edited, and collated over a millennium by innumerable human writers and editors, the Bible is believed by all Christian traditions to be the written word of God. It is God who is the author of Sacred Scripture. Moreover, it is God who guarantees the integrity of what has been written and what has been received by humans in what is now commonly called the Bible. In addition, Christians believe in inerrancy, that is, the claim that there can be no errors in Sacred Scripture when it comes to matters of faith, morals, and salvation. The Holy Spirit guarantees this inerrancy. Note that Christians embrace these claims as truths, not because of empirical validation but because of their assent of faith. They accept Sacred Scripture at face value because it is God who self-​reveals. Given the centrality and the foundational nature of the Bible for Christian life, it should not be a surprise to see Sacred Scripture play an outsized role in Christian economic ethics.

Tradition In contrast to Protestants, Eastern and Roman Catholics see tradition as a complementary source of Revelation alongside Sacred Scripture. Both are served by a third element, the teaching office of the Church. Thus, for Catholics, Revelation is comprised of three unequal elements—​the two main pillars of Sacred Scripture and tradition served by the teaching office of the Church (Vatican II 1965b). As mentioned earlier, these are two unequal pillars because Catholics themselves recognize that Sacred Scripture holds a privileged and primary place in Revelation over tradition. Tradition is that which receives, records, preserves, interprets, and transmits that which God self-​reveals. It is a broad category that includes the teachings, practices, and beliefs of the Church that stand the test of time. The teachings of the ecumenical councils are part of tradition, such as the Nicene Creed. The beliefs and practices of the faithful that withstand the test of time and the scrutiny of reason are incorporated as part of tradition. For example, there are the sacraments, the devotion to Mary (the Mother of Jesus), the honour accorded to saints, the value of intercessory prayers, and the ecclesiological procedures that ensure proper succession all the way back to Peter, among many others. Furthermore, pronouncements from the teaching office of the Church may eventually become part of what is deemed to be tradition, as in the case of many of the papal social encyclicals briefly examined later. When it was promulgated in 1891, Rerum Novarum was received by the faithful as part of the teaching office of the Church. Given what has come to be its seminal role in the modern Catholic social tradition, Rerum Novarum is now viewed by Roman Catholics as more than just a pronouncement of the teaching office of the Church but as part of tradition itself. Similarly, in the 1960s, Gaudium et Spes is promulgated and received by Roman Catholics as the pronouncement of the highest teaching body of the Church, a global ecumenical council of bishops gathered together in prayer and discernment. Today, this pastoral constitution is now viewed as part of tradition.

190   Albino Barrera This implies an important feature of the Catholic approach to Revelation: tradition is neither set in stone nor is it closed. It is a growing, living tradition. As we will see shortly, this is important for economic ethics, given the new and constantly evolving ethical challenges encountered in the marketplace. Tradition and the teaching office of the Church enables Catholic economic ethics to be flexible and agile in responding to the urgent social issues of the day.

Role of Tradition The Reformation’s aversion to recognizing tradition and the teaching office of the Church as constitutive elements of Revelation stems in part from the Protestants’ bitter experience of abuses within the Catholic Church around the early sixteenth century, such as the selling of indulgences, the ecclesial sinecures, etc. Given the flaws of the Church hierarchy and membership, reformers thought it best to prevent tainting Revelation with human sinfulness by relying solely on Sacred Scripture (sola scriptura). Otherwise, there is great risk that errors will creep in via tradition and the teaching office of the Church if these are made part of Revelation, as Catholics do. Catholics are aware of these dangers and their Protestant brethren’s concerns over the flawed nature of the Church. Nevertheless, Catholics still subscribe to the two-​pillars/​ three-​elements view of Revelation because of their belief that the same Holy Spirit that inspired and guided the human authors and editors of old as they set the Bible in writing is the very same Spirit that today guides the teaching office of the Church and guarantees the integrity of tradition as a repository of God’s self-​revelation. It is the same Holy Spirit that guarantees and protects the integrity of Revelation in the here and now. Despite the Protestants’ sola scriptura view of Revelation, what we find in actual practice is the pivotal role of both tradition and the teaching office of the Church in how the Bible comes about. On the one hand, it is oral tradition that preserves and then transmits down through the generations God’s self-​revelation long before human authors begin putting down in writing Sacred Scripture. This is true for both the Old and the New Testament. Oral tradition is the basis for the Bible as the written word of God.4 On the other hand, it is the teaching office of the Church that selects and then declares official the canon of what is now known as the Bible. The ecumenical councils of the fourth century made such choices out of the many ancient writings known to them at that time.

4  The Old Testament describe events that are believed to be as early as 2000 bc, even as the oldest parts of the Hebrew Scriptures are put down in writing only around 1300 bc, at the earliest. The letters of St. Paul and the Gospels are the bases for what Christians know about Jesus Christ, and yet Paul is neither an eyewitness nor a follower of Jesus. The evangelists write their respective Gospels anywhere from one to three generations removed from the time of Christ. In all these cases, oral tradition provided the materials that were eventually set in writing.

Christian Economic Ethics    191 The differences regarding Revelation between Protestants and Catholics narrow down even further when it comes to moral discernment. In a series of dialogues among the Christian churches, they acknowledge that their moral discernment is informed and shaped by both faith and sapiential sources. Faith resources include Sacred Scripture, tradition, teaching authority, spirituality, and the culture within these churches (such as customs and habits). Sapiential sources include reason, natural law, moral reasoning, experience, conscience, culture, language, civil law, human rights, and the sciences [natural, human, and social] (World Council of Churches, 2013). We find this convergence as well in what has come to be called the ‘Wesleyan quadrilateral’ in which Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience are identified as the sources of religious authority (Thorsen, 2006). Even as the latter three are acknowledged to be secondary sources compared to Scripture, they nevertheless play a significant role as complements, rather than as opposing poles to Scripture.

Method What ethical method(s) does Christianity follow? How do Christians come to a consensus on what constitutes right or wrong? What difference does the composition of Revelation make for Christian economic teachings? Why would it matter for right economic conduct whether or not tradition and the teaching of the Church are part of Revelation? These questions are important for Christian economic ethics in understanding its authoritative nature, its ethical methodology, and its further development.

Strength of the Moral Claims of Christian Economic Ethics How binding are Christian economic teachings? For Christians, the economic norms explicitly stated by the Old and New Testament carry extra weight because they come from the written word of God itself. For example, one cannot easily dismiss the precepts of care for the poor and almsgiving as merely optional for Christian life. But how about the economic teachings from the post-​New Testament era starting from the Patristic Fathers all the way to contemporary church social pronouncements? How binding are they for Christian moral life? How authoritative are they in their teachings on right economic conduct? In other words, what weight should Christians accord to post-​New Testament economic norms and to Church teachings that reinterpret Sacred Scripture and apply them to changing circumstances? For example, the leadership of various Christian churches preach and write about nations’ moral obligations to welcome refugees and migrants. They also repeatedly call for a change in lifestyles to curtail climate change. Should these be received by Christians

192   Albino Barrera as precepts (mandatory) or as counsels (much-​desired ideals)? How strong are the moral claims of the economic norms that arise from the teaching office of the Church or from tradition? Christians will respond to these questions differently depending on whether they consider tradition and the teaching office of the Church to be part of Revelation. Clearly, Roman Catholics will find it much more difficult to ignore Pope Francis’s calls to assist refugees or to combat climate change compared to their Protestant peers. In sum, the strength of the claims of post-​New Testament Christian economic teachings depends on whether one subscribes to a sola-​scriptura view of Revelation. Clearly, these new economic norms are more authoritative if tradition and the teaching office of the Church are deemed to be part of Revelation itself.

Teleological Ethical Methodology and Natural Law It is not good enough to assert that Christian economic teachings are valid because it is God who says so. This would be sufficient in a deontological approach to ethics whereby right or wrong is dependent on obedience to rules and law. In acknowledging the important role of sapiential sources for moral discernment and religious authority, Christians are in effect saying that morality is intelligible. They do what they do, not only because they are told to do them, but because they understand that these precepts and counsels are good and right. Christian economic ethics is, for the most part, teleological. It is founded on the use of reason in identifying the goals that are truly worth pursuing in life and then finding the means to reach such ends. To be sure, rules and regulations are important. In fact, the oldest Christian economic norms are drawn from the law codes of the Hebrew Scripture.5 Obedience to the will of God is a fundamental starting point of Judaeo-​Christian life. Nevertheless, it is not blind obedience, but a free and intelligent obedience that is elicited. Jesus Christ treats his followers not as slaves but as friends (John 15:15). This teleological dimension is evident as well in Sacred Scripture. The Deuteronomic link between righteousness and prosperity, the motive clauses in the law codes (e.g., Lev. 25:38, 42, 55), the prophetic indictments, biblical Israel’s historical narratives (e.g. 1 Sam. 8), and the preaching of Jesus (e.g. Matt. 6:25–​34), among many others, paint an image of a God who reasons with humans in an effort to make them understand the rationale behind God’s norms. The Wisdom writings pool together lessons from human experience to teach younger generations the pathway to wisdom. Christians hold that this is a God who wants humans to make wise choices—​reasoned and informed. The manuals and treatises of the Scholastic Doctors are by their nature about reasoning and a better understanding of human life and the earthly and spiritual world. Their ethical methodology is teleological, especially as ethical conduct revolves around 5 Even the economic norms of the Hebrew Scripture can be said to be teleological in their methodology when viewed as a rational strategy of mutual survival in the midst of a precarious nomadic life (von Waldow 1970).

Christian Economic Ethics    193 attaining the person’s telos (end). Note, for example, Aquinas’ exposition on virtues, including his section on justice which provides a rich source for Scholastic economic ethics (Aquinas 1947/​8 II-​II q. 57-​q. 122). The modern Christian social writings propose many principles that are useful in resolving ethical dilemmas spawned by the modern industrial economy, such as the principles of the universal destination of the goods of the earth, subsidiarity, socialization, and integral human development, among others. These are justified with the use of teleological reasoning. For example, Leo XIII defends the right to private property ownership not by asserting that the right stems from God’s commandments or the teaching authority of the Church. Instead, Leo XIII explains in Rerum Novarum why it is reasonable to arrive at the conclusion that there is a right to private property ownership. Note the very practical observations and examples he draws from real life to make his case before his readers. In sum, Christians believe that their faith’s economic ethics is intelligible. Its norms are not handed down by an arbitrary, capricious God. There is rhyme and reason to them. It is possible for people to understand why they are good for them. Human reason is capable of discovering bits and pieces of the larger Divine order of creation and come to partially understand such Divine Providence. Thus, Christian economic ethics can be described as stemming from natural law, that is, human reason’s participation in divine law (Aquinas 1947/​8, I-​II q. 91, a. 2; q. 94).

Historical Development and Content Christian economic teachings do not arise out of a vacuum. With the exception of the Scholastic Doctors writing their treatises and instructional manuals, these teachings are for the most part a response to the burning socio-​economic issues of their day. This is true for every time period, even during the Scholastic era (eleventh to seventeenth century). Christian economic teachings predate Jesus Christ and the institutional Church because Christians appropriate as their own the Hebrew Scripture. This is the starting point of Christian economic teachings. In particular, the Law and the Prophets deal heavily with proper economic conduct. Economics is not a side or peripheral issue for biblical Israel. Many lose their ancestral land and are impoverished because of heavy taxes and forced labour. Economic injustice and corruption are rife. Debt slavery is a common fate. Actual economic conditions on the ground are so unlike the Deuteronomic vision (Deut. 15:4–​5) of having no poor among them, but only if they obey the commandments of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that is precisely the problem—​there is great and widespread suffering among them because they have failed to live up to their election of responsibility from their Covenant relationship with God, especially the royal court and elite. Thus, the Law and the Prophets emphatically reiterate the many economic prescriptions handed down as part of this Covenant relationship: almsgiving,

194   Albino Barrera wholehearted and interest-​free lending of money or grain to distressed neighbours, debt forgiveness after six years, slave manumission after six years of service, poor-​tithing, gleaning privileges for the poor, hospitality to strangers, fair treatment of aliens living in their midst, preferential option for the poor, and the return of ancestral land to their original years during the Jubilee, among many others. The Law and the Prophets condemn self-​indulgent living and avarice. In addition, the Writings warn about the danger to one’s virtue and wisdom posed by an inordinate desire for and pursuit of wealth. All of these are in addition to the basic expectation of honesty, truthfulness, and respect for others’ property (Exod. 20:2–​17). Far from being proprietary in the way people view the goods of the earth, they are reminded to take a humble posture of accountability. After all, they are merely tenants on God’s land entrusted to their care, and stewardship is the proper attitude to develop (Lev. 25:23). This trove of economic teachings from the Hebrew Scripture emerges out of a people struggling to build themselves into the model nation for all others to follow—​a nation where there is no poor because people care for one another, where power is used to serve and to dispense justice, and where religion shapes their economics and politics. These economic norms arise as a way of rectifying what clearly had gone awry in their journey together as the Chosen People of God. Indeed, Christian economic ethics is a beneficiary of a wealth of insights from the hard-​earned experience of biblical Israel.

New Testament The New Testament not only embraces and affirms the economic norms of the Hebrew Bible, but it adds even more in response to the problems of its own day. Graeco-​ Roman client–​patron relationships is the norm at that time in which a person’s worth is measured by class or status. One is never brazen enough to move in circles above one’s social class nor should one stoop down to associate with those beneath one’s class. Wealth is what makes a person, for wealth translates to power and prestige—​the goals that are pursued by most. The Gospels challenge such practices and thinking. Jesus’s table-​fellowship is a better way, the right way, whereby people welcome and associate with one and all as fellow children of God—​brothers and sisters. In the same way that Jesus shares a table with the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Luke 7:36–​50), on the one hand, he is just as welcoming in sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners (e.g. Matt. 9:10), on the other hand. Moreover, the Gospels extend a repeated invitation to voluntary divestment. To the unsuspecting, wealth is often an obstacle rather than a stepping-​stone to perfection and happiness. The Gospels offer hope to the poor and the disenfranchised because divine providence assures them that there will be a reversal in their fortunes (e.g. Luke 6:20–​26). Unmeasured generosity is elicited from one and all. Humans are accountable for how they care or do not care for one another’s well-​being (Matt. 25:31-​46). The economic insights that can be gleaned from the Pauline epistles are also responses to actual issues of the day. Thus, there is the collection for the poor of Jerusalem, the

Christian Economic Ethics    195 admonition not to enable freeloaders who choose not to work, the example of Paul’s work ethic in providing for his own needs and not be a burden on others, and the need to put into practice what they celebrate in the Eucharist, with the wealthy members of the church sharing their meals with their poorer fellow congregants. Similarly, the letter of James highlights the importance of people living out in practice what they profess with their lips. This includes genuine concern for and action to promote the well-​being of the underprivileged. Indeed, the New Testament economic teachings are a counterpoint to the prevailing Graeco-​Roman economic ethos and praxis of the first century whereby social interaction is governed by class status. They are the antithesis of the period’s preoccupation with wealth, power, and intemperate living.

Patristic Era In the first five hundred years of the Christian Church, the Patristic economic teachings are principally addressed to the wealthy and the powerful of the era. Eastern Fathers, such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, and the Western Fathers, such as Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, lambast the scandal of the elite living in opulent self-​indulgence, even as the poor are starving and dying right in their midst. The Graeco-​Roman class-​status mentality is still the predominant ethos, and the rich would have nothing at all to do with the poor, much less be concerned about their well-​being. The wealthy do give alms and benefactions, but only in self-​ serving ways, such as the sponsorship of games and the building of public monuments that earn them applause, honours, loyalty, and more clients beholden to them. The poor are not numbered among their clients because destitute people have nothing of value to offer in return. Thus, consistent with the Graeco-​Roman system of patronage, the truly needy benefit little, if at all, from such occasional largesse from the elite’s surplus. The Patristic Fathers challenge such decadence and callous indifference in a steady stream of caustic homilies, treatises, letters, and writings. John Chrysostom, a fourth-​ century Archbishop of Constantinople, spares no one from scathing denunciation for such conduct, not even the emperor and empress who respond by banishing him into exile where he dies. The Patristic Fathers can be aptly described as the prophets of their day, no different from Amos, Hosea, and Micah of the Hebrew Bible who in their own time expose the excesses of biblical Israel’s royal court and elite. And just as the biblical prophets inadvertently leave a wealth of economic teachings in the wake of their relentless preaching, so do the Patristic Fathers leave a rich trove of materials on the true nature of economic life in their homilies and writings. In particular, economic life is not for the end of accumulating wealth but is meant to supply everyone’s basic needs, no one excluded. The goods of the earth have been created and given by God to all. Even as goods are private in ownership, they are meant to be common in use. Private-​property ownership is inseparable from its attendant responsibilities. Property is to be used for the benefit of others as well, especially the

196   Albino Barrera disadvantaged. Thus, hoarded wealth is theft from the poor, and almsgiving is nothing more than giving to the needy what rightfully belongs to them to begin with (Phan, 1984, pp. 37–​41). Ownership (right to own) and usufruct (right to use) are two separate matters. The condemnation of usury is another favourite theme of Patristic preaching. Besides the charging of interest, the sin of usury is also incurred whenever onerous loan conditions are imposed. It is unconscionable to burden borrowers any further with exacting loan conditions (e.g. collateral, quick repayment, etc.) precisely at a time when they are destitute and compelled to borrow for their survival. Underlying all these economic teachings is the firm Patristic belief that humanity is one family in God. All are special and beloved to God. Contrary to the prevailing Graeco-​Roman class-​status protective bubble in which they live, the rich and the powerful are to accept and treat the poor as equals. Far from being aloof or disdainful of the underprivileged, they are to welcome and treat them as brothers and sisters. People are responsible for each other’s well-​being—​body and soul. This is the ethos that should prevail in the marketplace. Consequently, in giving alms and caring for the impoverished, the wealthy ‘put God in their debt’ because of their succour to those who are beloved by God. It is described as the kind of usury that people should engage in—​building their treasure in heaven rather than on earth. People’s economic actions are consequential not only for others, but for themselves as well. There is a sure day of reckoning for all that people do or do not do, just as in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31–​46). Among other Patristic admonitions are the call to detachment from wealth and simplicity of life. Work is also a major concern of the Patristic Fathers. There is dignity to manual labour, contrary to the Graeco-​Roman disparagement of it as demeaning and fit only for slaves and servants. Despite championing generosity and almsgiving, the Patristic Fathers do not encourage dependency. People ought to provide for their own needs and those of their dependants, to the extent possible, instead of being a burden on others. Moreover, work provides them the means to be able to give alms themselves and to provide assistance to those who are genuinely in need. A work ethic is thus essential. However, not all types of work are encouraged. Work in the production of luxuries is frowned upon. One should rather be engaged in the production of goods or services that are truly useful for meeting human needs and development. In sum, through their homilies and writings, the Patristic Fathers demonstrate how to use Sacred Scripture in arriving at right economic conduct in response to the ills of the day. Two of their teachings particularly stand out. First, far from adopting a Graeco-​Roman disdain for or indifference towards the poor, the rich have to treat and embrace those who are destitute as an equal, as a fellow child of God. Second, there is a difference between property ownership rights and use rights (usufruct). While its ownership may be held in private, property should always be common in the way it generates benefits.

Christian Economic Ethics    197

Scholastic Era The mendicant orders teach about economic conduct through word and example. Franciscans and Dominicans provide an illustration of detachment from wealth in their choice of voluntary poverty and dependence on the charity of others as they devote their lives to preaching. The community life of these friars mirrors that of the early Church described in the Acts of the Apostles (2:44–​45; 4:32–​37) whereby people sold their properties, put the proceeds in the common pot, and took only as they needed. It is a reiteration of the call to simplicity of life. Besides this evangelical poverty, the Scholastic era also advances the notion of a just price. Scholars disagree on what the Scholastics mean by ‘just price’, whether it refers to the market price or the price that allows the worker to live adequately, or perhaps both. Regardless of which is the correct formulation, both call for fairness in market exchange. Temperance and justice are essential cardinal virtues descriptive of proper economic conduct. Thomas Aquinas’s exposition on these virtues and their potential parts underscores some of the economic dimensions of a flourishing life, such as giving others their due, truthfulness, gratitude, liberality, moderation, and modesty. A community thrives only to the degree that it is characterized by commutative justice (equality in exchange), distributive justice (fair allocation of shared resources), and general or legal justice (contributing one’s best to advance the common good). Legitimate claims can and do clash in economic life, particularly in the criterion used for distributive justice—​ according to strict equality, contribution, merit, promise, societal role, or need, among other standards. The choice of criterion is a function of the circumstances on hand. Nevertheless, in the event of exigencies of life or death, need trumps all other criteria. Thus, private property becomes common in use on such occasions (Aquinas 1947/​8, II-​ II, q. 66, a. 7). Superfluity in wealth or income are to be used for the relief of those in need. Related to this is the issue of rank ordering economic obligations. Whom should people prioritize in sharing their resources—​the nearest and dearest to them (e.g. family) or the neediest? Thomas Aquinas argues that the former trumps the latter because the natural obligations of blood and kin take precedence. This explains why he measures superfluity as that part of income and wealth that is not needed to sustain one’s own and one’s family’s social standing in community (Aquinas 1947/​48, II-​II q. 32, a. 6, reply). This is consistent with Paul’s admonition to the church communities for his collection for the poor of Jerusalem—​that they give generously, but not to the point of impoverishing themselves (2 Cor. 8:10–​15). Usury is condemned. Since money is considered to be sterile at that time, useful only to facilitate market exchange, the charging of interest is a violation of commutative justice since the lender demands payment from the borrower without giving anything back in return. Early Scholasticism viewed merchants similarly as giving nothing back in return for the profits they reap. This thinking changes as Scholastic Doctors get to appreciate more the real services that merchants provide in assuming risk and in procuring

198   Albino Barrera and ensuring the local availability of goods that would have otherwise not be locally available. As we will see shortly, a similar change in thinking occurs when it comes to the charging of interest for loans. Scholastic Doctors advance Christian economic ethics by making finer distinctions, enlarging its vocabulary and categories, and directly addressing clashing claims. In particular, one must underscore Thomas Aquinas’s exposition on justice. It is an illustration of how to approach questions of economic ethics in a systematic fashion.

Protestant Reformation Two contributions to Christian economic ethics must be highlighted from the Protestant Reformation, namely: (1) its institutionalization of poor relief and (2) its view of economic life in the context of vocation. For the Protestant reformers, poor relief should not be the responsibility of the Church alone, or of just the rich or the willing, as it had been up to that time. Poor relief is the responsibility of all. Humans are truly responsible for one another. The entire community must be taxed to fund a community chest set aside to provide for those who have fallen on hard times and require assistance. This institutionalization of poor relief stems from the Protestant critique of almsgiving as a way of gaining merit, part of the larger fight on the Church’s sale of indulgences. Its second contribution to Christian economic ethics is related to what has now been called Max Weber’s thesis on the Protestant ethic as the proximate cause for modern capitalism. The voluntary poverty of the mendicant orders imposes undue burdens on everyone else in the community, especially on those with modest means, because of the moral suasion to provide alms as a way of building treasure in heaven. In effect, hardworking people end up bearing additional burdens so that mendicants can live their vow of evangelical poverty. Protestant reformers find this problematic, not to mention unjust (Lindberg, 1977, p. 317). Furthermore, there is nothing meritorious in being destitute. God does not create humans so that they might wallow in want. Instead, God endows humans with signal gifts that they might work and be productive. Each person has a vocation from God, and one ought to live it to its fullness, and that includes work. Thus, one ought to produce and earn as much as one can, save as much as one can, and then give as much as one can (Wesley, 1872, III, 6). It is not surprising that the Protestant ethic is hypothesized to be the immediate cause of the rise of the modern industrial economy (Weber’s thesis).

Modern Industrial Economy The corpus of Christian economic teachings in the last century is enormous and can fill an entire volume in itself. This is not even to mention the various grass-​roots Christian social movements that had emerged, from the Protestants’ Social Gospel movement,

Christian Economic Ethics    199 to the French priest-​worker movement, to the Latin American liberation theology that later spread to Africa and Asia. Given our space constraint and given that this Handbook is primarily about teachings regarding economic morality, the rest of this section focuses exclusively on official church teachings and not on the social movements. And even then, we can only sample some of these teachings to illustrate their methodology. Both the Protestant and Catholic churches take seriously their moral obligation to contribute toward resolving the social issues of their day despite secularists’ perennial criticism that faith traditions have no business being in the public square. A major part of their efforts has been their official church pronouncements and documents. This is partly driven by their sense of their teaching role and responsibilities. For example, the mainline Protestant churches have been forthright in naming the socio-​economic ills of their day and in proposing solutions along the lines of the Gospel. Similarly, the Catholic Church has not shied away from advancing moral teachings in response to deeply contentious socio-​economic debates. This is true across all levels of its hierarchy, from the Vatican to the regional and national episcopal conferences, to the local dioceses and parishes. The diversity of positions taken by these Christian churches falls along the lines of the modern political divide that pits free-​market proponents versus those favouring extra-​market government intervention. For example, on one end of the spectrum are the Protestant evangelical churches that espouse the Prosperity Gospel, in which wealth is deemed to be a measure of God’s favour. These generally advocate freer market operations. On the other hand, there are many more Christian churches that advocate a more activist government role. The mainline Protestant and the Roman Catholic churches fall along this end of the spectrum. In fact, mainline Protestant and official Roman Catholic social teachings on the economy are often indistinguishable in their diagnoses of the economic problems and in their proposed solutions.6 Consequently, in the interest of saving space and to avoid repetition, we will follow the modern Catholic papal and conciliar social documents and their response to the economic problems of the last century for the rest of this section. Partly because of the centralized governance of the Roman Catholic Church, this body of teachings has been among the most extensive, systematic, and sustained in addressing the socio-​economic issues of the modern era among the various Christian churches. They illustrate well the teleological reasoning and methodology employed in sorting through competing claims.

Private Property Ownership and Use Among the earliest problems to emerge from the Industrial Revolution is the bitter labour–​management conflict due to inadequate wages and the dangerous working 6  As

an example, read and compare United Church of Christ (1989) and United Methodist Church (2000), on the one hand, and United States Catholic Bishops (1986), on the other hand. Compare these, too, with the teachings of the Eastern Orthodox traditions. See Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (2016) and Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Special Commission, Holy and Sacred Synod (2020).

200   Albino Barrera conditions in the mines and factories. This clash is aggravated by a newly emergent Marxist ideology which promises workers an easy solution to their troubles in one fell swoop—​the abolition of private-​property ownership and with it, the capitalist class. In 1891, Leo XIII challenges Marxism in his encyclical Rerum Novarum by arguing that private-​property ownership is a natural right that is critical to sustaining the human family. It is a right that cannot be abolished. Thus, capitalists are correct in their claims that they do have a right to own their properties, including the means of production, and the returns that are generated by these. Nevertheless, Leo XIII is quick to add that the right to private-​property ownership comes with attendant obligations. In particular, contrary to the laissez-​faire claim that just use automatically follows just ownership, property owners are bound by strong moral obligations to use their properties not only for their own benefit but for the well-​ being of others as well, especially the propertyless. In the case of capitalists, this entails the provision of a living wage and humane working conditions. This just-​use obligation is founded on the principle of the universal destination of the goods of the earth, which states that the goods of the earth are meant for the benefit of all, regardless of how titles of ownership are assigned.

Affirmation of Private Initiative The next significant addition to Christian economic ethics unfolds during the Great Depression. By then, Marxism is no longer merely an ideology that exists only in the world of ideas. It is an actual historical movement, as seen in the emergence of the Soviet Union. In addition, it seems that Marx is correct all along in his claim that capitalism is unsustainable and will self-​destruct. And indeed, the global economy is in deep distress, with the United States suffering an unemployment rate of anywhere from 25 to 33 per cent. And this, in what is supposed to be the strongest and the paradigmatic capitalist economy at that time. In his 1931 social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, Pius XI addresses the economic malaise head on and traces the problem to a concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few amidst a vast sea of poverty. He proposes vocational groupings as a solution, whereby each industry is to be organized around two mega-​groups, one for employers and the other for workers. These two groups are then to negotiate with each other and jointly decide matters that affect their particular industry. This is clearly not a practical solution given the logistical difficulties. Moreover, it would have been much easier to simply ask governments to use anti-​trust laws in breaking up the concentrations of economic and political power. As it is, Pius XI suggests fighting one concentration of power (employers) by creating a countervailing concentration of power (workers). Despite the ready availability of anti-​trust action as a solution which has also already been proven to work, Pius XI nevertheless still proposes vocational groupings because he is out to make a much bigger point—​workers ought to do for themselves what they are capable of doing on their own, instead of depending on a higher body, such as government, to do it for them. This is the principle of subsidiarity, which comes in two parts. The first part notes that higher bodies should not arrogate functions that lower

Christian Economic Ethics    201 bodies (or individuals) are able to do for themselves. The second part completes it by adding that in the event that the lower body (or individual) is no longer able to function on behalf of the common good, then it becomes a moral obligation for the higher body (or other individuals with the means) to intervene and provide the necessary assistance.

Affirmation of Legitimate Government Role in Socio-​Economic Life The principle of subsidiarity comes to the fore once again, but this time, it is its second part that is underscored. The post-​World War II era of rebuilding torn nations and societies creates its own share of new challenges. In 1961, John XXIII’s social encyclical Mater et Magistra observes that society has gotten to be more and more complex to the point where what individuals used to be able to accomplish on their own is no longer possible but can now be achieved only with the cooperation of ever larger circles of people. This is called the phenomenon of socialization. Thus, society has to rely increasingly on higher bodies for assistance or collaboration. This is an affirmation of a legitimate role for government in socio-​economic life. Some have called this second part of the principle of subsidiarity, the principle of socialization. Not surprisingly, Mater et Magistra upsets those whose political philosophy calls for small government. Reacting to John XXIII’s encyclical, Catholic conservative William Buckley (1961) quips, ‘Mater si, Magistra no’.

Economic Rights The near nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis becomes the catalyst for John XXIII to address the whole world in Pacem in Terris (1963) in which he appeals for justice as a pathway to peace. Justice requires living up to and respecting each other’s rights. Numerous rights cover different facets of life. Among these are economic rights, such as the right to food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, among others. The affirmation of economic rights is not original to John XXIII because these rights are already asserted as early as Rerum Novarum in 1891. Christian social thought and Western liberalism converge in their passionate advocacy of human rights. Nevertheless, two major differences separate these two strands of thought. First, Western liberalism does not legally recognize economic rights even as it champions civil and political rights. It is easy to satisfy civil and political rights because they entail merely a negative obligation. This means that in order to satisfy them, all government has to do is not to interfere in the exercise of people’s civil and political rights, such as the freedom of the press, speech, religion, assembly, etc. Not so for economic rights. These are extremely expensive to satisfy because they involve a legal entitlement to basic needs—​food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and whatever else may be deemed to be important by society, such as connectivity to the Internet. Government will have to provide for these, if it legally accepts economic rights. This means that people will have to be taxed in order to satisfy the basic needs of the poor in their midst. This creates a whole slew of other problems, such as a large-​scale de facto redistribution of income and wealth, and the real risk of spawning a moral hazard problem of free ridership. These are incentive-​killing and result in shortages and the destruction

202   Albino Barrera of personal work ethic as we see in the collectivization efforts of Communist regimes in the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, Western liberalism has avoided economic rights. In contrast, Christian economic ethics has consistently and firmly believed and taught across different eras that people are responsible for one another’s well-​being and ought to assist distressed neighbours meet their basic needs. With the emergence of modern nation states, such a moral obligation has become institutionalized, with the obligor moving from the individual to the collective (cf. Protestant community chest). This difference in thinking regarding economic rights exposes one significant weakness of Christian economic ethics. It can make sweeping claims and call for the most generous moral obligations, but it does not address how to implement them. Christian churches can teach expansively about the importance of economic rights, but they do not have to figure out how to pay for them. Governments do. This weakness applies to many other teachings of Christian economic ethics which are easier said than done (e.g. provision of a living wage). One reason why Christian economic ethics does not pay as much attention to the practical realities of political governance and the implementation of many of its prescriptions is because it relies on people’s voluntary compliance for enforcement. Individual conscience, virtue, and accountability before God are the enforcement mechanisms rather than the fiat and coercive powers of the state. It is the same enforcement mechanism employed in the economic norms of the Hebrew Scripture. This accounts for why Christian ethics can make the most exacting demands. This expectation of enforcement from the heart underscores a second difference between Western rights language and Christian thought. In Western liberalism, rights can stand on their own. One can talk about them all by themselves. Not so for Christian thought. Rights cannot be discussed without their attendant duties, both for the obligor and the obligee. For example, recall Leo XIII’s defence of the right to private property ownership in Rerum Novarum, followed by his quick addendum that this comes with just-​use obligations. In fact, for Christian thought, the primary phenomenon is not the right but the obligation. Thus, in order to be able to satisfy the household heads’ duty to provide for their dependants, they are given the right to own the means (especially productive assets) that will enable them to procure their needs on a daily basis and remove the uncertainty of how to provide for their families. In response to the moral hazard problem of free-​ridership, Christian economic ethics assumes that people will live up to their obligations of contributing whatever they can for their own and their community’s upkeep (cf. Pauline work ethic and Aquinas’s legal justice).

Familial Nature of Community as a Basis for Christian Economic Ethics The Second Vatican Council seeks to address in its pastoral constitution, Gaudium et Spes (1965), how the Roman Catholic Church can better serve the modern world. It begins with a reflection on the nature of the human person, the human community, and the Church. This self-​reflection is then applied to specific topics, including socio-​ economic life. Earlier principles and teachings on right economic conduct are reiterated.

Christian Economic Ethics    203 It has multiple significant contributions to Christian economic ethics, but we highlight two in particular: (1) the nature of the human community and (2) the nature of human dignity. Far from being contractual, the human community is in fact familial in nature. The human community is not the creation of the human will or of a social contract. Rather, it comes with human nature. Humans are born into a particular family and a particular community of which they are a part and to which they contribute. Moreover, contrary to the impression one gets from many clashing claims in socio-​economic life, the individual person, on the one hand, and the human community, on the other hand, are not intrinsically in conflict with one another by the nature of things. Rather, the good of the individual and the good of the community are necessary conditions to each other’s attainment of their respective good. Human dignity is the bedrock on which Christian economic ethics is built. This is a divine gift that comes with human nature. Humans are imbued with a dignity unique to them because they are created and sustained by God with a personal love, they are made in the image and likeness of God, they have been redeemed by Jesus Christ in his death, and they have a standing personal invitation for eventual union with God for all eternity. They are destined to behold the face of God. They are beloved of God, created for their own sake. It is one of the mysteries of life—​how it is and why it is that God loves human beings with a singular and profound love. Human dignity is not something that can be given, rescinded, or even redefined by legislation or social contract. In fact, humans themselves cannot give away or forego this dignity (e.g. voluntarily selling oneself into slavery). After all, humans do not own but rather owe this dignity to God. For Christians, human dignity and the familial nature of the community are not some abstraction or platitude. They have real implications for socio-​economic life. To begin with, the innate human dignity of their neighbour should lead people to better appreciate them and to be concerned with their well-​being. Assisting a distressed neighbour is not merely an option but a moral obligation, even if the recipient is undeserving or perhaps even an antagonist. The principle of solidarity calls for an active and genuine concern for the well-​being of others, seeing in others fellow children of God. Consequently, promoting the common good should be a proximate goal of economic decision-​making. The conciliar pastoral constitution, Gaudium et Spes (#26), defines the common good as the ‘sum total of the social conditions’ that facilitate the attainment of human flourishing for every member of the community. The principle of solidarity moves community members to contribute in the measure that they can towards building this common good.

Integral Human Development It is puzzling that Paul VI should issue his encyclical Populorum Progressio (Mar. 1967) only fifteen months after the promulgation of a significant social teaching, Gaudium et Spes (Dec. 1965). Deeply concerned for the welfare of poor nations in the world, Paul VI perceives a problem in their incomplete and often even false

204   Albino Barrera understanding of development. Many seek to emulate the lifestyle of the rich nations. For them, the goal of development is to achieve the same standard of living as the West. Development is principally economic in nature. Development is primarily if not solely about economic development, and wealthier nations have shown the pathway for how to achieve it. One could not fault the leadership of poor nations for such aspiration, given the deprivations endured by their people and given the glaring disparity in the quality of life between developed and poor nations. Nevertheless, poor nations run the danger of giving up on or exchanging what is good in their cultures and in their values for the materialism and consumerism that plague the West. Paul VI corrects this mistaken notion of development. Development is not primarily economic in nature. Rather, authentic development is a moral phenomenon. While economic progress is indeed a necessary condition for human flourishing, authentic development, nevertheless, entails the development of the whole person—​ body, mind, and spirit. Authentic development has to be integral. But, this is not good enough. Development also has to be human. Authentic development has to revolve around the humanity of the person. It has to promote and protect that humanity. Economic development, while necessary, is never the end in itself but is merely a means to facilitating every person’s flourishing. Socio-​economic life is meant to enable the human person’s attainment of his/​her telos (ultimate end)—​union with God! Far from moving the human person toward this telos, socio-​economic life can in fact put up obstacles and distractions, as in the case of materialism and consumerism. Greed and the inordinate accumulation of wealth by some cause the impoverishment of others. Far from being an aid to human flourishing, socio-​economic life often ends up demeaning human dignity. Thus it is that the major contribution of Populorum Progressio is its notion of integral human development. Development is authentic only in the measure that it is holistic (body, mind, and spirit) for the person, and only if such integral development is for every person, no one excluded. People are fully human only to the degree that they are present to God and to one another as brothers and sisters. While integral human development is instantiated in the individual, such journey can only be completed jointly with one’s neighbour. Integral human development is not merely an option. It is a moral obligation. Since human dignity is something that is not owned by the person but is rather owed to God, people are bound by a moral obligation to work towards integral human development, both for themselves and their neighbours. These duties are also collective in nature. Wealthy nations are morally obligated to be concerned with the welfare of poor countries and to pro-​actively assist them with direct aid or through trade. Populorum Progressio calls attention to international trade rules and practices that disadvantage poor countries. Far from paving the way for economic development for these struggling countries, international trading rules often add burdens and obstacles. In celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio and in reaction to the problems spawned by globalization, Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate (2009) once

Christian Economic Ethics    205 again appeals to wealthier nations to be mindful of their duties to the less developed countries. It once again calls attention to international trade rules and heavy debt burdens that keep many countries in poverty.

Primacy of Labour John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens (1981) is a commemorative document on the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. Its primacy of labour principle notes that work has to be evaluated in its two dimensions. On the one hand, the objective dimension of work pertains to any and all factors that are critical for sustaining the work effort or output, such as the cost of production, capital, raw materials, finance, etc. On the other hand, the subjective dimension is about the pivotal role of the human person in making work effort and output possible to begin with. The human person is the subject of work. It is the human person who is responsible for what is achieved in work. To be sure, it is vital to pay attention to the objective dimension of work because it determines the viability of the entire work enterprise. The objective dimension is important, and to ignore it is to put jobs in peril. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the subjective dimension takes precedence over the objective dimension. In particular, when it comes time to put a value on work output or work effort, one must remember that it is humans who are responsible for that work. It is humans who depend on that work for survival and growth and for providing for their families. Thus, the primacy of labour principle gives rise to strong economic obligations, such as the provision of a living wage, humane working conditions, and meaningful and gainful opportunities for employment that fully use people’s skills and talents and even stretches them. Contrary to popular belief, these economic duties are not limited to the business sector alone. It is a duty that is incumbent upon the entire community. All will have to put in their share. For example, individual businesses, in general, are not able to provide a living wage even if they wanted to because they would price themselves out of the market if their peers do not follow suit. For most businesses, a living wage can only be provided if consumers are willing to pay higher prices for goods and services. This entails a commitment from the larger public, as in the case of fair trade in which consumers voluntarily forego cheaper goods and services and purchase higher-​priced alternatives instead that provide better wages and living conditions to their workers. The creation of meaningful and gainful employment opportunities is also another of those economic duties that can be pulled off only by the entire community. It requires the pooling of talent and collaborative work in order to push the frontiers of science and technology and create new goods and services. The Microelectronics-​Internet Revolution is a contemporary example of the creation of untold numbers of challenging and highly paid work for tens of millions. It is an example of how people build on each other’s work to push the envelope of development even further. Furthermore, the Microelectronics-​Internet Revolution is also a validation of the primacy of labour principle’s claim that the subjective dimension takes precedence over the objective

206   Albino Barrera dimension of work. After all, it is human ingenuity and invention that have clearly been driving the achievements of what some have been calling the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ or more aptly, the Knowledge Economy.

Stewardship of the Goods of the Earth Extreme weather events since the early twenty-​first century finally bring to the attention of the world the danger and the problem of climate change, global warming in particular. Pope Francis has responded to this vigorously and has put the full weight of the Roman Catholic Church in eliciting a change in people’s attitudes towards greater respect for and better stewardship of the goods of the earth. His papal social encyclical Laudato Sí brings to the fore the link between individual and collective economic decisions and the state of the ecology. Contrary to long-​standing economic thinking and practice in which vibrant and unrelenting economic growth is the measure of progress and advancement, the desideratum, Pope Francis calls instead for intelligent and thoughtful economic growth, one that does not enable, or worse, even encourage, consumerism, materialism, and self-​indulgent opulence. The adverse consequences of a throwaway culture have now become increasingly clear in the plastic pollution of the oceans, the intrusion of micro-​plastics into the food chain and air, and the presence of plastic in the human bloodstream, even among newborns. Centuries’ worth of fossil fuel usage, agricultural burning, the overconsumption of beef, and the large-​scale destruction of forests for their lumber or to carve out farmland for palm-​oil plantations, cattle grazing, or soybean farms have precipitated a chain of ecological events. The resulting environmental distress includes the excessive discharge of carbon into the air, rising global temperature, the melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and extreme weather patterns. These ultimately lead to human suffering, death, and widespread property destruction. Unfortunately, the poor often bear the brunt of this chain of events because their poverty compels them to live in disaster prone and ecologically vulnerable areas—​the only places cheap enough for them to afford. Moreover, the poor have little savings to cushion them when disaster strikes and, on top of that, what little they have been able to save and accumulate are destroyed in these extreme weather events. They never get the chance to save and build capital for themselves (such as a home) because they are trapped in a cycle of destruction, rebuilding, and then destruction once again. Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013) and the droughts and famines in Sub-​Saharan Africa are but some examples. Laudato Sí attributes these ultimately to immoral economic practices and values. The throwaway culture, the toleration of extreme levels of inequality, and apathy towards the poor and refugees—​all these merely reflect an even deeper malaise of self-​centredness and indifference to the human person, greed, and the lack of respect for the earth. Not surprisingly, a dysfunctional socio-​economic life has emerged. The earth is in peril. Laudato Sí’s most significant contribution to Christian economic ethics is arguably that of reminding people that they reap what they sow. Getting economic ethics right is not an idle academic exercise but is consequential for lives.

Christian Economic Ethics    207

Development of Christian Economic Teachings Christian economic ethics has to evolve and develop by its own nature. This is so because social and economic life are not only complex, but they are also dynamic. In fact, change is the norm rather than the exception. Such fluidity and complexity necessarily alter not only what is right or wrong economic conduct, but even the criteria for economic morality. This is where we see in full view the critical role of tradition, the teaching office of the Church, reason, experience, and the sciences for moral discernment. Consider the following examples of shifts and development in Christian economic norms.

Usury Take the case of usury. The charging of interest for money or grain loans is strictly proscribed in biblical Israel. It is an economic norm that is embraced by Christianity. The rationale is clear—​debtors are driven to take out these hardship-​consumption loans because they have fallen on hard times and have nothing with which to sustain themselves and their dependants. Assisting a distressed neighbour is a must. Furthermore, money is deemed to be sterile. It does not produce anything on its own requiring recompense. Why should lenders be compensated with interest for the money or grain they lend to someone in distress when these are to be returned, repaid to them? What service do lenders provide as to merit interest earnings? Thus, Christian economic ethics banned the charging of interest or the imposition of harsh terms and conditions for loans. To do so is to be usurious and to be deserving of the most severe censure. On the eve of the modern industrial economy, we see a change in Christian thinking on the charging of interest. Money takes on a new role. It is no longer merely a medium of exchange or a store of value. It has taken on the role of capital. Any economic enterprise has to assemble first the raw materials, tools, workers, managers, and many other inputs that will then be combined to produce the good or service that will be sold to the public. All these factors of production assembled together will have to be paid for long before the revenues come in from the sale of the good or the service that will eventually be produced. Industrial manufacturing is much more roundabout with a long gestation period compared to pre-​modern production. It is capital that finances and thereby makes possible this long incubation period. It is capital that foots the bill at this time. Moreover, capital takes the risk of pursuing a venture that might in the end fail. This has always been a feature of economic activity, but it is only on the cusp of the industrial economy that the role of money as capital comes to the fore. Money is not sterile after all. It produces a genuine service to society deserving some recompense. In addition, money as capital provides an additional service of enabling people to collaborate in a new way—​pooling their resources together in order to pursue ever larger initiatives

208   Albino Barrera that would have otherwise been too risky or unaffordable for any of them working on their own. This is another service of money as capital—​it enables the formation of the modern limited-​risk corporations. Furthermore, the bulk of the pre-​modern loans are consumption-​hardship loans to be used for basic needs and to tide over hard-​pressed families. In contrast, in the modern economy, ever more lending is for investment for business or loans for the purchase of household durable items. Christian ethicists eventually come to an appreciation for all these, and they modify the long-​standing, millennia-​old norm against the charging of interest. Thus, Christians are eventually also able to engage in banking services. Usury is still a sin, and most people would not want to be labelled ‘usurious’ because the public ethos still associates this word with one who shamelessly exploits the poor and distressed via harsh loan conditions or unreasonably high interest rates. However, the charging of interest is not usury by itself. A similar change is evident in the treatment of merchants. They are initially deemed not to provide any real service and therefore not deserving of any profits or pay. This changes even during the Scholastic period. We find Scholastic writings acknowledging the value of the services that merchants provide in ensuring the ready availability of goods, especially those from distant places that would have otherwise not been available. In addition to providing convenience for the public, these merchants also bear the risks and the cost of transportation, inventory, and warehousing. Thus, we see an eventual acceptance of merchants in later Scholastic economic ethics (Langholm, 1998, pp. 453–​458).

Slavery Slavery is permitted in both the Old and the New Testament. Far from explicitly condemning this practice, the law codes of Hebrew Scripture regulate its practice. Old Testament law mitigates the harshness of the experience and prevents abuse. For example, slaves are to be released after six years of service, and as they are given their freedom, their masters are to weight them down with provisions (Deut. 15:13–​14). Slaves are to be emancipated too during the Jubilee year. They, too, are to rest on the Sabbath. They are to be treated humanely and not punished excessively. Slavery is accepted as a fact of life. Modern commentators have taken the New Testament to task in not having challenged the institution of slavery despite the Gospel of Jesus Christ that calls for mutual love and care for the poor. Paul, who writes that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free in the new dispensation inaugurated by Christ (Gal. 3:28), nevertheless sends runaway slave Onesimus back to his master, albeit in a new modified relationship of fellowship in Christ, but still a slave nonetheless (Philemon). The Patristic Fathers generally do not challenge slavery as an institution. Christians themselves eventually own and profit from slaves. Slaves are bought and used for the papal galleys during the medieval era. Anglican-​affiliated institutions use slaves in

Christian Economic Ethics    209 their plantations. Slaves work in the farms of Roman Catholic religious orders in the Americas, including the Jesuit founders of Georgetown University. Similarly, Protestant groups in early US history own, use, and profit from slaves. Within the Catholic Church, protests from the grassroots slowly make their way up to the Church hierarchy on the enslavement of peoples occasioned by the rush for colonies first by Spain and Portugal in the Americas and then the rest of Europe in Africa and then Asia during the nineteenth century. From the fifteen to the nineteenth century, conflicting papal pronouncements are issued. Some condemn slavery, even as others sanction the colonization of new lands and the enslavement of their inhabitants who do not peaceably welcome these colonizers and the preaching of the Gospel.7 The irony is lost to the colonizers and to the Church hierarchy of that time. It is not until the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries that a sustained effort from small Christian groups coalesces to campaign for the abolition of slavery. William Wilberforce and the Protestant churches initiate early efforts and eventually win over the British Parliament to this cause. To its credit, the British government takes international leadership of this campaign, including the interdiction of seaborne slave trade. The British Foreign Office also lobbies the Vatican on numerous occasions for the latter to publicly and officially denounce slavery and the slave trade. It is not until 1888 that the Catholic hierarchy does so, and only after Brazil itself declares an end to legalized slavery. And it is not until John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (1993) that slavery is described as an intrinsic evil. We do not have the space to account for why it takes so long for Christianity not only to condemn but to vigorously fight slavery as an institution. It is sufficient for purposes of this chapter to note that slavery underscores both a flaw and a strength of Christian economic ethics. The failure is evident. Not only did it fail to discern that it is a terribly unjust and inhumane practice, but the Church itself has been co-​opted by the larger culture to engage in it and thereby inadvertently provide moral cover for the practice. Nevertheless, slavery also highlights a strength of Christian economic ethics—​it evolves. It is capable of turning around 180-​degrees. Most of all, it is able to correct itself and acknowledge its grave mistakes, even if it takes a long time to arrive at that realization. Slavery demonstrates the strength of Christian churches—​they have prophets in their midst, that is, people who are willing to live lives of witness to remind people of what God expects of them. It is a life of witness that shames people into seeing what they have done to themselves, a life of witness to living the truth. We see an analogous phenomenon in the era of liberation theology amidst the civil strife in Central and Latin American nations in the second half of the twentieth century. Some local church hierarchies are co-​opted by the ruling elite and unwittingly enable autocrats and sinful societal structures. This is yet another instance of failure for Christian economic ethics and praxis. Nevertheless, just as in slavery, there are also

7 For

example, we have Nicholas V in Dum Diversas (1452); Alexander VI in 1493 in Eximiae Devotionis and Inter Caetera.

210   Albino Barrera prophets who speak up and work to rectify the injustices of the era. Liberation theology provides many insights for Christian economic ethics, including a renewed reflection on what authentic freedom is all about.8 The Social Gospel movement earlier in the twentieth century does similarly. In sum, Christian economic ethics not only evolves and changes in response to the signs of the times, it is even able to correct itself. It has its share of failures, but it also has its share of prophets who work towards addressing these shortcomings. The examples of usury or slavery demonstrate that Christians are able to interpret and apply Sacred Scripture to changing circumstances. Tradition and the teaching office of the Church can be credited for this in bringing to bear reason, experience, and the sciences in moral discernment. The reliance on the tandem of faith and reason is a strength and a safeguard of Christian economic ethics. Faith and reason are central to its methodology.

Limitations and Weaknesses Christian sexual and biomedical ethics, especially Catholic teachings, can often be fairly precise in identifying the boundaries that should not be crossed. They are often able to pinpoint the exact line that divides right from wrong (e.g. abortion, pre-​marital sex, artificial contraception). In contrast, Christian socio-​economic ethics will be hard-​pressed in the vast majority of cases to be as precise and as confident in delineating exactly where right or wrong lies. They often have to deal with grey areas and uncertainties and are thus reduced to having to use prudential judgement at the end of the day in adjudicating economic moral dilemmas. For example, a minimum wage in the US does not bring a family of four above the poverty line, in contrast to a living wage, which by definition is high enough to provide for the basic needs and even leave some savings. Should the minimum wage, then, be raised but in the process lead to currently employed people being laid off? These grey areas in socio-​economic ethics arise from the complexity and fluidity of social life. There is thus a lot of room for morally valid variations when it comes to implementing Christian economic ethics and principles. This exposes another weakness of Christian economic ethics and praxis. Official Church social teachings are not always received favourably or obeyed by the Church membership. There is often dissent. For example, the issue of assisting, much less wholeheartedly welcoming, migrants and refugees has divided Christians, even from within the same denominations, communities, or parishes. Some point to the biblical norms of hospitality and aid to strangers and the distressed or to the New Testament image of being brothers and sisters in the One Body of Christ. Other Christians, however, are hostile and can only see problems from these ‘uninvited’ people.

8 

See, for example, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1986).

Christian Economic Ethics    211 We find a similar division on the issue of the proper role and size of government vis-​à-​ vis markets. Some Christians favour less regulation and the freer operation of markets, while others call for governments to pro-​actively shape market processes and outcomes. This is vividly illustrated in the diametrically opposed positions taken by Pope Francis in lambasting the malign processes and effects of market capitalism, on the one hand, versus pro-​market American capitalists’ ardent praise and embrace of the free-​market’s capacity to create value, on the other hand. It is the proverbial case of whether one describes the glass as half empty or as half full. Perspective matters enormously, and this where the trouble emerges. Personal political views can and often do override faith convictions. The fault lines for migration and for free-​markets vs market regulation fall along the so-​called modern liberal versus conservative lines. This is especially evident among American Christians, even for Catholics who are supposed to have been steeped in the much-​ touted long-​standing Catholic social tradition. On the one hand, those who are labelled as ‘conservatives’ fiercely oppose abortion and what they view as the murder of innocent human life, even while being indisposed to providing adequate social safety nets for the poor. On the other hand, those who are called ‘liberals’ are staunch in their call for assistance for the marginalized, even as they are firm in imposing pro-​abortion advocacy as a litmus test for holding public office. Indeed, personal political views supersede faith convictions, rather than the other way around. This is a vulnerability of Christian economic ethics, more so in some of the Christian churches than in others. This is clearly a task for future work for Christian social ethics—​getting people to let their faith shape their politics and economics rather than the reverse.

Synthesis: A Diagnostic Framework The wide variety of teachings in the preceding sections might leave readers with the impression that Christian economic ethics is ad hoc. After all, the vast majority of these teachings are responses to specific urgent issues of their day instead of being the outcome of a systematic analysis in some academic treatise. Consequently, while readers may be familiar with the historical context of these teachings, they may not necessarily be able to see how these norms relate to each other and how they form a single framework of analysis. The use of reason, experience, and the sciences in Christian moral discernment allows for distilling general guidelines out of these disparate teachings. To begin with, social ethics is about making people’s individual and private pursuits and decisions promote the common good, or at least not harm it. This is in fact the duty that Aquinas speaks of in his notion of general/​legal justice—​contributing to the common good in the measure that one can (Aquinas 1947/​8, II-​II, Q. 58, a 6). The common good has been defined as ‘the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment’ (Vatican II 1965b, Gaudium et Spes #26). But what are these

212   Albino Barrera requisite ‘conditions of social life’ that are said to be constitutive of the common good? The preceding account of the historical development of Christian economic ethics gives us a glimpse into these much-​sought social conditions. The common starting point and end of various Christian economic teachings is the protection and the promotion of human dignity. This is the proximate goal or parameter that Christian ethics and praxis must serve. This human dignity culminates with the attainment of union with God, that is, charity as the crown and completion of human life—​charity defined as friendship with God (and not a benevolent hand-​out that most people associate with this term). This is the telos (end) of human life. The actions that people take to attain this ultimate human end fall under the principle of integral human development—​the dual mandate of (1) nurturing the person’s body, mind, and spirit, and (2) doing so for all with no one excluded. Integral human development is never a solitary journey, but one that can only be taken and completed within a community, a joint effort with others. This need to be integral and inclusive–​collaborative in people’s growth journey underscores how the world around them can be categorized into three broad groups of gifts: the gift of the earth, the gift of oneself, and the gift of one another. Each of these gifts carries their respective attendant responsibilities. For the gift of the earth, the responsibility is clearly stewardship and ensuring that everyone has access to the goods of the earth for their basic needs. Note how the latter principle underlies the numerous Old Testament economic norms, which are meant to provide a safety net for those who are chronically poor and those who have fallen on hard times, a phenomenon quite common given the vagaries of agricultural life, especially in the pre-​modern economy (von Waldow, 1970). Moreover, a common principle undergirds biblical Israel’s gleaning law, the Patristic and Scholastic view of property as private in ownership but common in use, and the modern Christian social documents’ superfluous income obligation.9 All three teachings in different centuries are means to ensure that people are able to use the goods of the earth to satisfy their basic needs. This is the principle of the universal destination of the goods of the earth. For the gift of the self, the duty is to contribute to the good of the community in the measure that one can and not to free-​ride and be dependent on the community or on others. This is part I of the principle of subsidiarity. After all, the human’s unique gifts of reason and will develop and grow through a process of learning by doing. Furthermore, meaningful and gainful productive labour is the means by which humans earn the wherewithal to procure their material needs. Thus, we have the primacy of labour principle. Both of these principles give rise to another prescriptive principle—​the principle of participation. Humans get to learn by doing, and they earn a livelihood only to the degree that they are able to participate in the larger community of which they are a part and to which they contribute.

9 

Anything that is superfluous in one’s income or wealth ought to be used for the welfare of others, especially the poor (Rerum Novarum #22; Vatican II 1965a, Part II, Chapter 3, fn 10).

Christian Economic Ethics    213 For the gift of one another, humans are immediately faced with two immediate duties. One principle is the principle of socialization, or the principle of subsidiarity, part II. This is the duty whereby higher bodies or individuals with the necessary resources have to intervene and provide assistance to lower bodies or individuals who are no longer able to function on behalf of the common good. The other principle is solidarity whereby humans have a genuine concern for the well-​being of others because they see themselves in others and as fellow children of God. This principle of solidarity, in its own turn, gives rise to other principles, to wit, the preferential option for the poor, relative equality, and participation. The aforesaid principles are non-​exhaustive. There are surely many more principles that can be derived from the trove of Christian economic ethics. For now, these are among the principles that have been proposed in this huge body of literature. With this framework, ethical dilemmas in socio-​economic life can be evaluated in a systematic and as comprehensive a manner as possible. It provides a guide to the various dimensions of social problems that must be considered. Note, too, how all these principles are instrumental, indeed even pivotal, in attaining due order and due proportion in the way people divide up the goods of the earth. In sum, Christian economic teachings do not arise in a vacuum but are responses to the burning issues of their day. These teachings are practical solutions to festering problems, much like St Paul answering through his letters the questions posed by the various church communities on their day-​to-​day concerns. And just like St Paul who, in addressing these problems, inadvertently articulates his theology and ethics, Christian social thought is also slowly accumulating a rich store of teachings, and building its capacity for moral discernment as it seeks to attend to the challenging socio-​economic issues of the day.

Conclusion This chapter has scratched only the surface of what is a rich corpus of teachings. It has merely sampled salient features of its content, method, and spirit. Christian economic ethics reveals much about God’s Providence and in the process, about humans and the earth as well. As new social problems emerge, Christian churches look to previous teachings, combine these in innovative ways, reinterpret them, or modify them to come up with new applications. Even the teachings of Sacred Scripture are modified to keep them relevant and applicable to the modern era (e.g. slavery, usury). These teachings are packaged and understood in ever new ways. For example, biblical Israel dares to envision a nation in which there is no poor among them (Deut. 15:4). They aim to bring this about through their mutual care, such as gleaning privileges, poor-​tithing, and debt-​forgiveness, among many other norms to which they bind themselves. The modern era has the same vision, but this time with modified means, including a more institutionalized approach

214   Albino Barrera such as economic rights. Christianity has a trove of philosophical and theological reflections and resources on economic morality because of its belief that faith necessarily reflects itself in how people treat one another. There is an unavoidable economic dimension to human flourishing on their way to their ultimate end of union with God. Thus, economic life is not a peripheral concern for Christianity, even as it is oriented towards the otherworldly. Sacred Scripture is the bedrock source for Christian moral discernment. Unlike Protestants’ sola scriptura, Catholics add tradition and the teaching office of the Church as elements of Revelation. Differences between Protestants and Catholics on the composition of Revelation are mitigated by their common acknowledgement of the important role of reason, experience, and the sciences in supplementing Revelation for moral discernment. Christian economic ethics is founded on faith and reason. While it has a deontological dimension in its methodology since law is a major source of its norms, it is primarily teleological in how it evaluates right or wrong. This teleological method is much better suited for socio-​economic life because of the latter’s complexity and fluidity. Christian economic ethics is in a constant state of evolution in light of such dynamism. The value of Christian economic ethics lies not only in the content of its ethics (e.g. the norms and principles) but even more so in its methodology and the spirit within which economic life, and moral life for that matter, is to be lived. On the one hand, methodology paves the way for future generations to draw new principles or to use teachings from previous eras in new ways in order to meet new challenges. On the other hand, the spirit of love and holiness vivifies life even in the midst of the most horrendous evils. It sees with the eyes of faith that Christian economic ethics is a constitutive element of the building of the Kingdom of God. The methodology and the spirit within which Christian economic ethics is lived are significant because they provide humans with a better self-​understanding of who they are as persons and who they are as a community. They also provide reasons for appreciating the earth as a gift and for temporal existence as a unique opportunity to grow in both natural and supernatural excellence. Christian economic ethics is extremely demanding and exacts selfless sacrifice. Nevertheless, Christians believe in the power and gift of grace in helping them fulfil what God asks of them. Moreover, such a demanding ethic only goes to show that God thinks so highly of humans as to expect much of them. However, living up to these high ideals is no reason for human boasting because, at the end of the day, all is the work of God. God’s Providence always brings to fruition and completion whatever it is God begins.

Suggested Reading Avila, Charles (1983). Ownership: Early Christian Teaching. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis; London: Sheed and Ward. Finn, Daniel K. (2013). Christian Economic Ethics: History and Implications. MN: Fortress.

Christian Economic Ethics    215 Francis (2015). Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Rome: Vatican. Johnson, Luke Timothy (1981). Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress. Lindbergh, Carter (1993). Beyond Charity: Reformation Initiatives for the Poor. MN: Fortress. Nardoni, Enrique (2004). Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World. Translated by Seán Charles Martin. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Osslington, Paul, ed. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics. New York: Oxford University Press. Phan, Peter (1984). Social Thought. Message of the Fathers of the Church #20. Delaware: Michael Glazier. Rhee, Helen (2017). Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity. Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources MN: Fortress. Schweiker, William (2009). ‘Protestant Ethics’. In Handbook of Economics and Ethics, edited by Jan Peil and Irene van Staveren, 407–​415. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. United States Catholic Bishops (1986). Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. Washington DC: National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Vatican II (1965). Gaudium et Spes. (Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World). Rome: Vatican.

Works Cited Aquinas, Thomas (1947/​8). Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Three volumes. New York: Benzinger Brothers. Augustine (1960). The Confessions of St. Augustine. Translation by John Ryan. New York: Image Book. Augustine (1961). ‘What Is Called Evil in the Universe Is but the Absence of Good’. In The Enchiridion, edited by Henry Paolucci, 11–​12. Chicago: Henry Regnery. Buckley, William (1961). ‘Going the Rounds in Conservative Circles: “Mater si, Magistra no” ’. National Review. 12 August: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1986). Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation. Rome: Vatican. Hackett, Conrad and David McClendon (2017). ‘Christians Remain World’s Largest Religious Group, but They Are Declining in Europe’. Pew Research Center. https://​www.pewr​esea​rch. org/​fact-​tank/​2017/​04/​05/​chr​isti​ans-​rem​ain-​wor​lds-​larg​est-​religi​ous-​group-​but-​they-​are-​ declin​ing-​in-​eur​ope/​, accessed 29 June 2020. Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (2016). The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World. Official Documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church. https://​www.holy​coun​cil.org/​-​/​miss​ion-​ortho​dox-​chu​rch-​tod​ays-​world, accessed 18 May 2021. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Special Commission, Holy and Sacred Synod (2020). For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church. https://​www. goa​rch.org/​soc​ial-​ethos?fbc​lid=​IwAR2RSPrgYRhPfAgT9p2iIQkd9wqtOYJ7​4Gtj​npmy​ q9xY​dxsh​wqr6​U1FJ​FiY, accessed 18 May 2021.

216   Albino Barrera Langholm, Odd (1998). The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought: Antecedents of Choice and Power. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Lindberg, Carter (1977). ‘There Should Be No Beggars among Christians: Karlstadt, Luther, and the Origins of Protestant Poor Relief ’, Church History 46, no. 3: 313–​334. Phan, Peter (1984). Social Thought. Message of the Fathers of the Church 20. Delaware: Michael Glazier. Thorsen, Don (2006). ‘Sola Scriptura and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral’, Wesleyan Theological Journal 41:7–​27. United Church of Christ (1989). A Pronouncement on Christian Faith: Economic Life and Justice. Republished as appendix in Rebecca Blank, Do Justice: Linking Christian Faith and Modern Economic Life. http://​www.ucc.org/​just​ice/​econo​mic-​just​ice/​pdfs/​DoJust​ice.pdf, accessed 18 May 2021. United Methodist Church (2000). Economic Justice for a New Millennium. http://​archi​ves.umc. org/​inter​ior.asp?ptid=​4&mid=​916, accessed 18 May 2021. United States Catholic Bishops (1986). Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. Washington DC: USCB. Vatican II (1965a). Gaudium et Spes. Rome: Vatican. Vatican II (1965b). Dei Verbum. Rome: Vatican. von Waldow, H. Eberhard (1970). ‘Social Responsibility and Social Structure in Early Israel’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32: 182–​204. Wesley, John. (1872). ‘The Use of Money’, Sermon 50 (1872 edition, Thomas Jackson editor). https://​www.reso​urce​umc.org/​en/​cont​ent/​ser​mon-​50-​the-​use-​of-​money, last accessed 7 August 2023. World Council of Churches (2013). Moral Discernment in the Churches: A Study Document. Faith and Order Paper #35. Geneva, Switzerland.

Chapter 9

Isl am ic Ec onomi c s m. kabir hassan and aishath muneeza

Introduction Islamic economics is derived from the religion Islam. Islam literally refers to submission to God, which is one, and it is known as a comprehensive way of human life that encompasses rules, norms, and ethics. The followers of Islam are called Muslims, and they number 1.8 billion as of 2015 or 24.1 per cent of a global population of 7.3 billion (Hackett and McClendon, 2017). The oneness of God (tawheed) is the basis of Islam where Allah (SW) is the only God that ought to be worshipped. Islam deals with three main aspects of human life: i`tiqadiyah (belief), `amaliyah (dealings), and akhlaqiah (morality). The category of `amaliyah (dealings) can be further divided into ‘ibadah (human with creator) and muamalah (human with human) activities. Issues related to economics fall within the category of muamalah which is carried out between humans.

Shariah, Fiqh and the Role of Islamic Schools of Thought Islamic law is called Shariah, and fiqh is the human understanding and practices of Shariah. There are pertinent differences between Shariah and fiqh. The first difference is that Shariah is divine while fiqh is derived from the ijthihad process of legal reasoning and via a competent jurist known as a mujtahid who derives law on the basis of sources of Shariah. The sources of Shariah could be divided into revealed and non-​revealed sources. Revealed sources are the Quran [the Holy book] and Sunnah [what was transmitted from the last Messenger of Allah Prophet Muhammad (SAW)—​hereafter referred to as Prophet (SAW)—​which includes his words, acts, and tacit teachings]. Non-​revealed sources include ijma’ (consensus), qiyas (analogy), istishan (juristic preference), istishab (presumption of continuity), ‘uruf (customs), and maslahah (public interest). The second difference is that Shariah consists of general teachings while fiqh elaborates those teachings, providing

218    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza specific details. The final difference between the two is that Shariah is not only the basis of fiqh and is immutable, fiqh can be changed based on the circumstances surrounding the rules as it is flexible. Fiqh muamalah refers to the fiqh related to muamalah matters while usul al fiqh is known in Islamic jurisprudence as the rules and methodology that are employed by jurists to derive legal rules from the sources of Shariah. Therefore, to derive fiqh rulings, one has to know usul al fiqh. There are four Sunni schools of thought in Islam and they are Hanafi which is named after Imam Abu Hanifa; Maliki which is named after Imam Malik bin Anas; Shafi which is named after al-​Shafi; and Hanbali which is named after Ahmad ibn Hanbal. There are also three major Shi’a schools of thought which are Imamiyyah named after twelve imams; Zaydi named after Zayd Ibn Ali; and Ja’fari named after Ja'far al-​Sadiq. The Hanafi school of thought is the oldest and originated in Kufa (presently known as Iraq). The main difference between the Sunni and Shi’ah schools of thought arose from the divergence of their views on governance after the demise of Prophet (SAW). The Sunni sect subscribed to the appointment of Caliph Abu Bakr as khalifah (caliph), the ruler of Muslims, while the Shi’a sect believed that the ruler should come from the lineage of Prophet (SAW) which was Ali ibn Abi Talib. Fiqh was developed by the Islamic scholars, based on their respective schools of thought. Thus, fiqh rulings on muamalah matters are heavily influenced by their respective underlying Islamic schools of thought. Nevertheless, the differences of opinion in this regard occur only on secondary issues and not on primary matters such as those related to creed. The differences of opinion among different schools of thought and among scholars within a single school of thought occur at the level of human understanding in the interpretation of evidence, in arriving at legal conclusions, and in studying the ‘illah (effective causes) underlying all these. Thus, there is no contradiction among the schools of thought on the testimony of Shariah. Differences of opinion arise from human interpretation.

Muamalah and ‘Ibadat It is imperative to understand that in muamalah-​related matters, Islam provides room for human innovation in those matters which are not expressly prohibited in the revealed sources of Shariah such as riba (usury). However, this room for flexibility and innovation is not given in the case of ‘ibadah, where the worship activities ought to be conducted in accordance with what has been prescribed in the revealed sources. Any innovation in this regard would be considered as a bid’ah, which is a sinful innovation. As such, since economics falls within the ambit of muamalah in Islam, there is leeway for innovation as long as one does not make lawful that which is prohibited by the revealed sources. For example, there can be no instance in a Shariah-​compliant economics in which riba is declared lawful since the Quran, which is a revealed source, has explicitly prohibited it. Fiqh plays an important role in muamalah matters in determining what is lawful (halal) or unlawful (haram).

Islamic Economics   219

Creed and Belief System Determining what is halal or haram is also based on six main beliefs in Islam, namely, belief in the oneness of God; belief in the angels of God; belief in the books of God; belief in the messengers of God; belief in the day of judgement; and belief in divine decree, including belief in the Day of Judgement when humans will be assessed and rewarded or punished based on their conduct. Halal acts will be rewarded while haram activities will be punished accordingly. All humans will be held to account for their actions. Besides the preceding six articles of faith, there are five pillars of Islam. The moment people convert to Islam, they are obliged to practise the following: declaration of shahadah, that is, uttering and believing that there is no god except Allah (SW) and Prophet Mohammad (SAW) is his messenger; Salah (prayer) five times a day at the prescribed time and in the approved manner; zakat (alms), a compulsory charity given every year by Muslims with the means to do so and these are to be given to the eight group of recipients found in the Quran; Sawm (fasting), observed in the Islamic calendar (hijree) month of Ramadhan; and at least one Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia) which should be undertaken by every Muslim who is physically and financially capable of doing so. Before Prophet (SAW), there were many messengers of God who were sent to different communities, and different books were revealed to them. The Quran itself mentions earlier messengers, such as Prophet Ibrahim, Prophet Musa, and Prophet Isa who preceded Prophet (SAW). However, the final messenger of God was the Prophet (SAW) to whom the Quran, the final book of God was revealed. With the advent of the Quran, the books revealed to the other messengers were abrogated. As such, Shariah is the Islamic law that is revealed to Prophet (SAW). As one of the six articles of faith, Muslims believe in all the messengers sent by God, but they are obliged to follow Islam as found in the Quran and the teachings of Prophet (SAW). In other words, Muslims today are obliged to follow only the Quran and the practices of the last messenger, Prophet (SAW). Belief in Allah (SW) alone is a common tenet that is preserved in all the books revealed to all the messengers. Even as the revelation sent to the messengers prior to Prophet (SAW) was time bound, the Quran is a book sent to all mankind. Nevertheless, sharu man qablana (the revealed law prior to Shariah and revealed to the earlier messengers) can in some instances be considered as a source of Shariah. Sharu man qablana is divided into two types: (1) rules that are not found in the Quran but are in the respective scriptures of the earlier messengers and therefore considered to be non-​binding for Muslims to follow; and (2) rules that are stated in the Quran. Rules found in the Quran can be further classified into three types: (1) rules commanded by Allah (SW) for the nations before the Muslim ummah through revelation to their Prophets; (2) those that are stated to be rules for Muslims just as they were prescribed before Prophet (SAW), such as fasting; and (3) practices that are stated expressly, despite not being explicitly legally adopted. The rule of thumb used in the adoption of sharu man qablana is that if the rule contradicts Shariah, it is the latter that must be followed.

220    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza Shariah is the law found in the Quran and Sunnah. As mentioned earlier, laws revealed to the earlier prophets were abrogated upon revelation of the Quran. Nevertheless, Quran, 16:36, notes that all the prophets sent by him carried the same message, though they were customized to the circumstances of the time and place to which they were sent. Furthermore, Quran, 5:3, states that Allah (SW) has perfected the religion and has chosen Islam as the religion. The first human being and prophet sent by Allah (SW) to this world is Adam [May Allah (SW) bless him] and the last prophet is Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and in between them, the most significant prophets include Nuh, Ibrahim, and Isa. There are many overlaps in the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran. Prophet Ibrahim was the first to lay down the basics of tawhid, and all ahl kitab (people of the book) mentioned in Quran—​Jews, Christians, and Muslims—​acknowledge the faith brought by Prophet Ibrahim. Islamic economic teachings and principles have also been derived from the lives of these earlier prophets. For instance, from the life of Prophet Yusuf, the counter-​ cyclical principle is derived from his interpretation of the dream of the king of the Egypt in which he suggested that the king save grain during the seven years of abundance to use during the seven years of famine (Quran, 12:43–​49).

Quran The Quran was not revealed overnight to Prophet (SAW). Rather, it was revealed to Prophet (SAW) over a period of twenty-​three years (609–​632 ce). There were two periods of revelation. The first was in Mecca where nineteen out of thirty parts of the Quran were revealed. This was known as the Makki period. These were the parts of the Quran revealed prior to Prophet (SAW) migrating to Medina from Mecca. The second period was in Medina where the remainder of the Quran was revealed. This is known as the Medani period, after Prophet (SAW) migrated from Mecca to Madina. The Quran is comprised of 114 suras (chapters) and 6235 ayat (verses). The book is not arranged by subject, and it consists of manifest revelation, that is, the communication in Arabic made by God to Prophet (SAW) via the angel Jibreel (Gabriel). There is no disagreement among Muslim scholars on the validity of the Quran as the main source of Shariah. When the Quran was revealed, Prophet (SAW) and his companions memorized it. They also preserved it in bones, wood, and stones. It was the Caliph Abu Bakr, the first Caliph of Muslims after the demise of Prophet (SAW), who compiled the Quran as one book via Zayd bin Thabit, the scribe of Prophet (SAW). This was in the aftermath of the battle called Yamamah when some seventy memorizers of the Quran were martyred. Tafsir (interpretation) of the Quran is made by a competent Mufassir (interpreter) who can belong to different Islamic schools of thought or theology and who brings to bear various perspectives from linguistics, jurisprudence, and theology. Sunnah is the second divine source of Islam. This is comprised of what has been narrated about

Islamic Economics   221 Prophet (SAW), his actions, his statements, and what had been tacitly approved by him including the accounts of his physical character and attributes.

Islam and Ethics Islam is a moral religion as it evolves around pleasing Allah (SW) by doing what Allah (SW) has permitted and refraining from what Allah (SW) has forbidden. Ethical behaviour and ethical values are a major part of Islam, and Muslims are rewarded in this world as well as in the hereafter for being moral and practising ethical behaviour. Such conduct is constitutive of this religion. For example, Quran calls for justice (Quran, 4:135; 5:8; 16:90; 42:15), commands the use of correct measures (Quran, 6:151; 17:35), dissuades involvement in shameful deeds (Quran, 6:151; 17:32), calls for kindness to parents (Quran, 6:151; 17:32), requires honesty in dealing with an orphan’s property (Quran, 6:151; 17:35), proscribes bribery and fraud (Quran, 83:1), and frowns on mocking, finding fault, or disrespecting one another (Quran, 49:11). Indeed, the revealed source of Islam itself, the Quran, accords the highest regard to moral conduct and ethical principles.

Hukum Taklifi Hukum taklifi describes the degree of compliance with the commandments of Allah (SW), whether they are compulsory or not. It is classified into five types of commandments, namely, (1) wajib (obligatory), which is compulsory and with a consequent punishment if not observed; (2) mandub (recommended), which is an optional action that will be rewarded but will not be punished for non-​performance; (3) haram (prohibited), which is forbidden and punished accordingly; (4) makruh (reprehensible), which is an act which should be omitted as it is demanded by Allah (SWT) in non-​binding terms; and (5) mubah (permissible), which is a permissible act whether by commission or omission that Allah (SWT) has granted and which is neither blamed nor praised. For Muslims, accountability is not only required in this world, but in the hereafter as well. Thus, understanding and careful observance of hukum taklifi are essential in order to adhere to the commandments of Allah (SW) in all their dealings.

Dual Accountability in Islam In Islam, the world is considered a temporary place where the main objective of living is to give opportunity for Allah (SW) to test us. When one dies, the person will be punished or rewarded based on his actions in the world. Thus, the ultimate goal of every human being is to please Allah (SW) and thereby attain the eternal paradise upon death. In Quran, 2: 156, Allah (SW) teaches that: ‘To God we belong, and to him our return is.’

222    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza Thus, in economic matters, people will be accountable for their actions in this world and in the hereafter as well.

Islam’s Economic Teachings Islamic economic teachings are derived from Shariah where it takes a moderate stance in the sense that it is neither capitalistic nor socialistic. It takes a middle path where justice is served in any society in which it operates by taking into consideration and balancing the needs of the rich and the poor alike via a redistributive justice system whereby wealth is shared in society. Islam acknowledges market forces and the market economy, and sees its economic principles as controlled by the divine principles of Islam (Usmani, 2016). Therefore, Islamic economic teachings are neither driven by the desire for profits or private ownership, on the one hand, nor by the quest for a classless society dominated by state ownership with no room for private ownership, on the other hand. Rather, Islamic economic teachings align with revealed ethical principles or their derivatives, such as the prohibition of interest-​based transactions and gambling, and the promotion of wealth redistribution via zakat (almsgiving). Islamic economic teachings are derived from the primary sources of Shariah.

Ownership in Islam The Islamic concept of ownership is the starting point of discussion because it is rooted in the fundamental principle that everything in this world belongs to Allah (SW), and humans are merely the trustees who have been given the trust (amanah) of acting as the viceregents of God, called to live in the world in the manner God has commanded. Thus, ownership in Islam is based on trusteeship. Humans will be judged by God based on how they perform their fiduciary duty over the earth’s goods, which belong to God. This foundational principle of ownership gives rise to all the other principles of Islamic economics. The ultimate goal in life is to please God, whether in worship activities or in economic activities. Thus, there is no difference between private and public property ownership in Islam.

Social Justice via Ethical Considerations Islam calls for social justice in economic life. Everyone in society, whether Muslim or not, is to be treated justly. The state has a central responsibility in this regard. For example, state intervention ensures that wealth is not vested in the hands of only a few and that there is no hoarding of wealth or profiteering. The state is guided by principles derived from Shariah. This includes the protection of private ownership, the prevention of unjust enrichment, and the promotion of shared prosperity.

Islamic Economics   223

Divine Guidance on Halal and Haram Economic life falls within the category of muamalah (human to human activities) and consequently has to adhere to the Shariah’s guidelines governing muamalah conduct. The general rule of Shariah applicable to muamalah matters is that all economic activities are permissible for as long as they are not forbidden by Allah (SW). Innovations are even allowed within this parameter. Examples of prohibitions include the selling or buying of alcohol and other banned items; transactions involving riba (usury); maysir (gambling); and sale contracts generating and thriving on uncertainty (gharar Fahishah) with the exception of salam (Islamic forward sale) and istisna’ (Islamic manufacturing contract).

Iqtisad and Its Principles In Arabic, ‘iqtisad’ is the word used to describe the economy. Iqtisad is derived from qasd, which means the most effective manner of producing and acquiring wealth and spending it without wasting the resources in accordance with what has been prescribed by Allah (SW). A fundamental belief of the Islamic economic system is that there is no scarcity of resources since Allah (SW) has provided sufficient sustenance for all living beings in the world. Thus, the science of economics is about the effective utilization of resources. However, Islamic economics is more than just about the techniques of allocation or utilization because it is at its root about moral conduct. After all, Islamic economics is derived from Shariah. Islamic economics is founded on tawhid (oneness of Allah [SW]), Khilafah (viceregent system), ‘adl (justice), tazkiya (purity), al-​ukhuwwah (brotherhood), al-​ihsan (doing well [literally, doing what is beautiful]), and the principles of work, productivity, and distributional equity. These foundational principles are complementary and mutually reinforcing. Thus, understanding them in isolation would not make sense. At the end of the day, Islamic economics should be aligned in achieving maqasid al Shariah (objectives of Islamic law), that is, Islamic law’s aim of promoting humans’ good. The principle of tawhid calls for the unity of Allah (SW) whereby the sovereignty of God is accepted in all human affairs, from matters of creed to muamalah affairs. There are three types of tawhid: (1) tawhid al-​Rububiyyah (oneness of Allah’s lordship), (2) tawhid al-​Uluhiyyah (oneness of worship), and (3) tawhid al-​Asma’ wal-​Sifat (oneness of Allah’s names and attributes). Tawhid al-​Rububiyyah is the starting point of Islamic economics because it firmly believes and testifies that Allah (SW) is the sole creator of everything in this world, and it is he who gives life, death, and sustenance to them, thereby controlling all affairs in the whole universe. As such, the Islamic world view followed in economics is that Allah (SW) is responsible for providing everything that exists in the world, and the role of humans is to act as his viceregents and live in the world in the manner he has prescribed without breaching the rules he has set.

224    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza Since the whole universe belongs to Allah (SW) and humans are mere trustees, Allah (SW) has made zakat (alms) as the third pillar of Islam. A portion of the wealth of the rich has to be given to the poor annually. The rich have duties to help the needy and help in the just and equitable distribution of the community’s resources. Being just or upholding ‘adl (justice) is a priority that ought to be considered by humans for the sake of Allah (SW). Quran, 4:135, expressly states that justice should be maintained even if one has to go against one’s own interest. Quran, 5:9, teaches that one should be just and fear Allah (SW) and reminds all that Allah (SW) is aware of every person’s actions. The private and public ownership of property in Islamic economics is based on the concept of equitable and just distribution of resources. It considers not only the individual’s rights, but also the wealth of the whole society. Tazkiya (purity) complements being just and equitable by providing the opportunity for purification by seeking falah (prosperity) not only in this world, but in the hereafter as well. This spiritual accountability is vital since the ultimate goal of humans is to live in the way Allah (SW) has prescribed in order to achieve paradise in the hereafter. Through tazkiya, the self-​development of humans takes place where people try to achieve perfection via actions that please Allah (SW) in the hope of getting his reward. In living up to the aforementioned precepts, the principle of al-​ukhuwwah (brotherhood) is promoted as well. Even without having a blood relationship with one another, all humans are considered as brothers and sisters because all are descendants of Prophet Adam and his wife Hawwah [May Allah (SW) bestow peace and blessing upon him and her]. Thus, all are to treat one another with the kindness and consideration that they accord their own family members. They will not stop helping each other with ihsan (doing well) in order to gain the pleasure of Allah (SW). The concept of ihsan simply means that people should act as if Allah (SW) is watching over them, in order to please him. Therefore, helping a person in need financially or otherwise to please Allah (SW) is ihsan and doing ihsan will give the doer rewards in this world and in the hereafter.

Ethics and Islamic Economics In Islamic economics, the principles of work, productivity, and distributional equity are aligned with the ethical and moral principles derived from Shariah. The beauty of Islam as an ethical religion is reflected in these practices. Islam does not promote begging. Rather, it promotes engaging in work that generates income for a person to live in the world in a self-​sufficient manner. As such, it would not be wrong to state that Islam encourages all humans to be diligent workers in achieving success in this world and in the hereafter. Such diligence is also called forth in worship as well. The only Shariah parameter to be observed in this regard is that it should be a halal work that would eventually give a halal earning. As such, engaging in riba-​based lending activities, gambling, selling of prohibited products like alcohol, or providing prohibited

Islamic Economics   225 services such as prostitution should never be done to earn money for a living. The rule of thumb used in this regard is that earning money in a haram manner gives a haram return, and one should avoid using money that is generated from a haram activity. Examples of haram means include misappropriating the property of others, engaging in cheating or fraudulent activities, and dishonesty in the measurement and trading of goods. In the production of goods and services, Islam uses the same distinctions of halal versus haram in order to identify the acceptable production of goods and services. In this regard, one should be mindful of resource sustainability by not wasting resources and not causing destruction to their sources. Environmental protection is important in Islamic economics. Regarding equitable distribution, as we have seen earlier, zakat (almsgiving) is one of the ways in which those who are financially capable give to those who are needy. Islam has a redistributive system of wealth that ensures that there are no sidelined members of the society who are left to die for lack of basic necessities. Hoarding of wealth is discouraged and wealth circulation in an economy is encouraged for the sake of establishing justice and equity in societies.

Maqasid al-​Shariah of Economics The overarching objective of Islamic economics is to achieve Maqasid al-​Shariah, which calls for eliminating all harms by promoting all that will benefit society. This means that any market activity that harms the well-​being of the members of society and the environment should be eliminated. Society and its members balance these rights when laws are enacted to regulate their communal affairs. However, their laws and regulations should align with the aforesaid objective of Islamic economics, and they should not breach the standards of halal and haram. Any laws that contravene these rules will be deemed ultra vires to Shariah and will thus be considered void from a Shariah perspective. One example to illustrate this point is tax legislation. Governments may introduce tax laws, but these cannot replace zakat. The parameters of when, how, and from whom the zakat can be collected is laid down in Shariah, just as to whom it should be distributed is also already specifically laid down in Quran, 9:60. Taxes could be introduced parallel to the zakat system, but such tax arrangements can never substitute for or be merged with zakat in a manner that compromises the long-​established principles of the latter. There were three types of taxes used during the classical times of Islam. They were: ghanimah (property received from non-​Muslims after a war), sadaqat (non-​ obligatory charity), and fay’ (booty surrendered by the enemy without physical fighting). Fay’ includes Jizyah (per capita financial contribution made in exchange for protection and other benefits), kharaj (tax on agricultural land), ‘ushur (custom duties imposed on foreign traders), and rikaz (treasure trove). Depending on the way the state is managed, the ruler has the liberty to impose taxes in a fair and equitable manner without causing injustice (Al-​Qaradawi, 1999).

226    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza

Comparison with Capitalism and Socialism Islamic economics is different from capitalism and socialism. The point of divergence between the Islamic economic system, capitalism, and socialism starts from the lex loci applicable to them. Shariah is a revealed religion and this is the lex loci applicable to Islamic economics. In contrast, the lex loci applicable to capitalism and socialism is derived from the human mind, which is prone to errors, regardless of how intelligent people may be. As such, capitalism and socialism cannot be universally adopted for all human beings across generations without having to customize them to the context of their time and place. In contrast, the general rules of Islamic economic systems can be adopted by all humans across the ages since its rules are derived from Shariah. It is an immutable source and is applicable to all humankind as it was enacted by Allah (SW) who created the universe and all living and non-​living beings and who consequently knows what is best for all.

Methodology of Islamic Economics Capitalism and socialism arose in reaction to the dissatisfaction with the economic systems of their time. They sought to overcome the unfairness created in those systems both to the individuals and to society as a whole. This is the main reason why there is no balance in these two systems: capitalism is aligned more towards protecting private ownership even as it neglects the rights of society, while socialism leans towards protecting the rights of society but at the expense of individual rights. The concept of halal and haram is not emphasized in capitalism and socialism, resulting in humans choosing whatever means they desire to get rich, whether ethical or not. As a result, social justice is not achieved, and people are left dissatisfied, yearning to find a better alternative. This gives rise to the variants of capitalism or socialism to suit their needs. When Allah (SW) created humans, he fully understood the nature of human beings, their desires, and how they act. In Quran, 51:47, Allah (SW) made the universe, and in Quran, 50:38, Allah (SW) creates heaven and earth in six days. According to Quran, 15:28, Allah (SW) created man from black mud fashioned in shape, and Quran, 21:30 indicates that all living things are created from water. Some of the bad nature of humans described in the Quran includes being impatient (Quran, 70:19); inclined towards doing evil (Quran, 12:53); being quarrelsome (Quran, 18:54); being arrogant (Quran, 90:5–​7); and ingratitude (Quran, 7:10). As such, following Islamic economics makes more sense as its rules have been formulated by Allah (SW) who created the universe and mankind. As viceregent of Allah (SW) the role of the human as a trustee is to utilize the resources he provided in an effective manner, with the ultimate objective of seeking the pleasure of Allah (SW).

Islamic Economics   227

Moral Values Balancing Rights of Individuals and Society It is essential to note that the Islamic economic system does not reject market forces and the market economy. It balances making profits with societal rights and as such, the roles of individuals and society are affirmed. In the Islamic economic system, therefore, the ruler is entrusted with the duty of preventing the infringement of the rights of both the individual and the community. A large part of this entails ensuring that prosperity is shared between the rich and the poor and needy. The Islamic economy is also called the moral economy because it is steeped in moral and ethical values. There are individual and collective responsibilities that must be discharged to ensure that there is social justice, and all these responsibilities reflect ethical practices that benefit humankind. The solidarity of brotherhood and consultation (shurah) among the members of the community are essential. Individuals are liable for their own actions, while authorities will be held liable for protecting societal rights. This means that just as the individual has the duty to pay zakat, it is the task of a Muslim ruler to ensure that zakat is paid. While it is the duty of individuals to practise and abide by moral and ethical principles, including in their economic dealings, it is the duty of the ruler or the state to ensure that there are checks and balances for such compliance, including the establishment of the institution of hisbah (accountability).

Resources are in Abundance Scarcity of resources is a central concept that exists in both capitalism and socialism. In the former, a perfect market for competition is created between sellers and buyers in which the fittest of all will survive. In the latter, there is a quota allocated for the distribution of goods as it is limited. Scarcity of resources are believed to arise due to unlimited human wants. In the Islamic economic system, the concept of scarcity does not exist because Allah (SW) is the sustainer and he has provided what is enough for all living beings. The role of human beings is to ensure that the resources given by Allah (SW) are used in a sustainable manner without destroying or wasting them. As such, protecting the environment and promoting a circular economy are seen to be properly the duty of the trustee of Allah (SW). Consequently, effective mobilization and distribution of resources is what Islamic economists are concerned about, rather than dealing with the scarcity of resources. The definition of Islamic economics reflects the concept of abundance of resources whereby using Shariah as a yardstick to determine the rules, Islamic economics deals with how resources can be conserved and managed in a sustainable and effective manner. Falah (prosperity) can be achieved in this world and in the hereafter. Thus, monopoly is frowned upon, and the hoarding of goods is disallowed so that there will be circulation of wealth within the community.

228    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza Today, the economy is managed in a linear manner characterized by ‘take-​make-​ dispose’ in which, after extracting goods from resources, the next step is to produce something out of it, and then dispose of it when done without recycling. It is wasteful of resources. There is need to switch to a circular economy that aligns more with Islamic economic principles of conservation and uses resources in a productive manner that also benefits upcoming generations.

All Property Belongs to Allah (SW) Property rights in Islam are protected. Shariah ensures that no person’s property is unlawfully taken by another. If one infringes the right of another, not only the ruler in this world can make that person accountable for his actions, but there will be another reckoning in the hereafter. The general principles of ownership in Islam is that all property belongs to Allah (SW), and he has entrusted mankind with the duty as a trust to take care of it in the manner he has prescribed. As trustees, humans are responsible to ensure that the parameters set by Allah (SW) in this regard are strictly followed. For instance, one must not waste resources. The Arabic word milk refers to ownership, and private-​property ownership is allowed in Islam whereby an individual is able to acquire property by way of gift, inheritance, or purchase. This includes the right to use it. Capitalism emphasizes the right of private ownership above everything else, while socialism promotes the public ownership of property even while infringing on the individual’s right to own it. In contrast, Islam allows private individuals to enjoy the right of property ownership within its moral principles even as it simultaneously affirms public rights over properties. The only limitation to enjoying property rights in Islam is that individuals can operate in a free market as long as they comply with Shariah principles, including the duties to the poor in zakat and sadaqat which is also known as infaq. The institution of waqf (endowment) plays a significant role in an Islamic economy, though waqf is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran itself like zakat and sadaqat. Sadaqat or infaq is a voluntary donation made by a person for charitable purposes. Unlike zakat, sadaqat has no strict rules as to the time and person who is supposed to make it and the beneficiaries to whom it shall be given. As such, those who want to increase the barakah (blessing) in their property or purify their acts, can engage in giving sadaqat as much as they want and to whomever they choose. The only requirement is to have the proper intention to do so. Quran has encouraged giving sadaqat, especially to the poor and the needy. In waqf, the owner of the property perpetually or permanently gives away the property, including its usufruct/​income received from it for the beneficiaries to enjoy as per the objective set in the benefaction. By making a waqf, one stops the property from being used except for public purposes in order to please Allah (SW) in the hope that there will be a continuous reward for doing so. As Prophet (SAW) said that even if people die and leave this world, they will be consciously rewarded if they made a sadaqat jariyah, which

Islamic Economics   229 is a continuous charity. The common feature to all kinds of waqf is that they should be given for charitable purposes. These can be public, family, or quasi-​public endowments (waqf mushtarak). Public waqf is made when the perpetual and permanent dedication of a property for a charitable purpose is formed during the lifetime of the founder. It can become immediately effective or upon the founder’s death. In the latter case, at any point before his death, the benefactor can revoke the waqf, and not more than one-​third of the asset shall be given to the waqf. This is the same rule applicable to wills in order to protect the rights of legal heirs. In contrast, in a family waqf, the income or usufruct of the waqf property will be used for the benefit of the founder’s family only. In waqf mushtarak, the founder makes the waqf for some particular individuals or a class of individuals who are not family members of the benefactor. Initially, immovable property like land and movable property like furniture and books were given as waqf. However, cash waqf emerged from Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and is widely used today. In cash waqf, the initial capital received or donated will be invested in order to generate returns, which in turn will be used for charitable purposes after deducting any administrative expenses incurred. Islamic inheritance law also allows a person to acquire property upon the death of another person. This exercise of distribution of property of the deceased to his legal heirs is compulsory in Islam and is expressly stated in the Quran. There are fixed shares of the property of the deceased that must be given to the legal heirs, such as mother, father, husband, widow, daughter, uterine brother, full sister, uterine or consanguine sister. By analogy, jurists have included paternal grandfather, maternal grandmother, and agnatic granddaughter to be included in this list. These legal heirs will be entitled to receive fixed shares, while the remaining estate is inherited by residuaries. There is no way one could make a will (wasiyyah) to oust these legal heirs to inherit one’s property since in Islam, one can give away only one-​third of one’s property by way of will to non-​legal heirs. If this rule is not followed in making the will, then the will applies only to one-​third of the property, while the rest will be distributed to the legal heirs. In Sunni schools of thought, no property could be given to legal heirs by way of a will in order to ensure that fairness is maintained among the legal heirs using an objective standard of the rule. Thus, under Islamic inheritance laws, there is no way that legal heirs of the deceased can be excluded from getting the property of the deceased. This ensures that upon death of a person, none of the decedent’s legal heirs is left poor, if the deceased had property. This is one way by which social justice eliminates feuds among the legal heirs. In case a non-​legal heir such as an orphan’s rights need to be protected upon death of the caretaker or adoptive father or mother, making a will ensures the protection of the orphan’s property rights. If people wish to give more than one-​third of their property to a non-​legal heir, Islam allows doing so during the lifetime of the benefactor by way of hibah (gift) without any consideration. In a nutshell, it can be said that in Islam, the ownership rights of humans are limited and not absolute. Allah (SW) is the

230    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza creator and owner of the whole universe and what is found therein, including living and non-​living things.

Financing Without Riba Since riba is prohibited in an Islamic economic system, making money out of money without trading an underlying asset or engaging in a real economic activity is haram. As such, the Islamic economic system involves asset-​backed financing, rather than using money as a commodity to make more money by lending it with interest. In Shariah, there are two types of riba: riba al-​jahiliyyah (riba from loans) and riba al-​fadl (riba arising from the exchange of two ribawi commodities). In riba al-​jahiliyyah, what is prohibited is giving a loan with interest. This simply means that from a Shariah perspective, a loan known as qard is a contract that is a charitable contract, that is, it is used to help people in need. Charging more than the principal amount given is tantamount to exploiting a party in need. In riba al-​fadl, there are six ribawi commodities identified in hadith: gold, silver, barley, wheat, salt, and dates. When the commodities traded are of the same type, they should be exchanged at the same amount and on the spot without a delay. However, if a commodity belonging to the same class, but of different types such as gold and silver is traded, it can be exchanged in different amounts, with the condition that such exchange be on the spot. If the exchange of ribawi commodities belonging to entirely different classes is done, such as trading silver for barley, then there is no riba in such a transaction, and it can be exchanged in any way the parties set. In 1407 A.H., the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) extended the rule of riba applicable to gold and silver to the fiat money used today. Consequently, if the same currency is traded, for example, USD$ to USD$, it should be exchanged hand-​ to-​hand and in equal quantity, just like gold is exchanged for gold. If different types of currencies are exchanged, such as USD$ to Malaysian Ringgit (RM), then the rule is to change hand-​to-​hand, but not necessarily in equal quantity. In Shariah, sarf is the contract that is used to exchange currencies at the current exchange rate and, in concluding this contract, one ought to be mindful of riba al-​fadl (riba arising from the exchange of two ribawi commodities). In modern times, financial institutions provide loans with interest, and since this is a practice prohibited in Shariah, alternative solutions were considered by Shariah scholars. They came up with the adoption of bai’ (sale) contracts in Islamic financing. The main reason for this is that there will be only a few people in the world who would be willing to provide a loan without a return. Since Shariah prohibits giving a loan with a return, except for a loan contract, there are other Shariah lawful contracts where risk can be shared between the parties, and a lawful return or a profit can be obtained. These contracts can be divided into sale contracts, such as murabahah (a trust sale where it is mandatory for the seller to disclose the acquisition cost of the sold good and the profit he charges to the buyer); bai’bithaman ajil (instalment sales); tawarruq (sale of a good to a person on a deferred basis where the buyer sells it to a third party on the spot and

Islamic Economics   231 obtains cash); salam (forward sale of homogenous goods where the price is paid fully on the spot and the quantity, quality, and the time of the delivery of goods are specified and agreed at the time of contract); istisna’ (manufacturing contracts where the specification is given and the price, delivery time, and the manner in which the price can be paid for the manufactured commodity is agreed upon), where the price of the sold asset provides a return; lease contracts such as ijarah where rent received by leasing an asset is the return received or wage received for providing a halal service; partnership contracts such as mudharabah (money management partnership where one party provides the capital and the other party works by agreeing to share profits for a pre-​determined profit-​ sharing ratio and in the case of financial loss, except in the case of negligence, the loss must be borne by the provider of the capital), and musharakah (joint ventures) in which the profit sharing is not fixed; and service contracts such as wakalah (agency) in which the profit is earned from the commission received from providing a Shariah-​compliant service. Furthermore, Islam encourages people to help each other without expecting a financial return, for the sake of Allah (SW) who has promised to reward such generosity in abundance in the hereafter. Thus, Islam prohibits lending to a person in need with a return or interest. In order to assist the needy, Islam calls for giving a gard al hassan (benevolent loan) where the expected amount to be returned is only the principal, and if the debtor is unable to do so, the loan is forgiven. Islamic social finance is another mechanism by which assistance is extended to those who need to survive without incurring the burden of debt since they are financially incapable of paying off a debt. For this segment of the population, Islam calls for the payment of zakat compulsory where the beneficiaries are the poor, the needy, and debtors unable to pay their debts. In addition, Islam calls for sadaqat, waqf, and takaful (cooperative insurance). Thus, Islamic microfinance programmes do not involve giving small loans with interest, but rather use Islamic social financial instruments that provide relief to those unable to meet the equity, collateral, and other requirements of Islamic commercial financial institutions and thus are unable to obtain much needed loans. Islam does not impose a burden on anyone who is incapable of providing the aforesaid financial loans and contracts. It espouses social justice in economic dealings in a manner by which people can live an honourable life with happiness within the means they have. It can be said that Shariah does not acknowledge the time value of money as it considers money itself to be barren. Rather, it allows and recognizes the time value in price.

Capital and Entrepreneur as a Single Factor of Production In the Islamic economic system, capital and entrepreneurs are considered to be a single factor of production. In contrast, capitalism and socialism treat these as two separate factors of production, with capital entitled to receive interest while entrepreneurs receive profits. In Islamic economics, a person who contributes capital is entitled to receive

232    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza a proportionate share of the actual profits, and no form of guaranteed return on capital like interest is given. Capital is considered an inherent part of entrepreneurship from the point of view of risk (Usmani, 2016). In simple terms, in Shariah, when an equity relationship is formed, partners are entitled to receive part of the actual profits based on the pre-​agreed profit-​sharing ratio between them, and no part of the profits can be guaranteed. If there is such a guarantee, then the nature of the relationship between the parties changes to a debt or a loan-​based relationship where any payment to be made by the debtor over the principal amount will trigger riba, thereby making the transaction haram from an Islamic perspective. It is imperative to note that from a Shariah perspective, production activities ought to be attentive to the spiritual dimensions as well. This means that that the production process itself should be halal in its inputs and methods. Moreover, the goal of production is not only to generate profits but should also include obtaining a reward in the hereafter. Therefore, moral principles ought to be adhered to in these activities. This includes ensuring equity and fairness in production and distribution. It also entails the protection of the environment, including the preservation of resources in a sustainable manner and the adoption of an economy that recycles. Allah (SW) has provided these resources in great abundance, and they need to be used without wasting or destroying them. Humans are expected to do halal work and attain success in the world without engaging in begging, exploiting others by fraudulent means, transacting in riba, or gambling in an effort to get rich instantly without any effort.

Zakat as a Compulsory Way to Achieve Redistributive Justice Islamic economics also emphasizes giving to those who are in need based on one’s ability to do so. As mentioned earlier, zakat (alms) is one of the five pillars of Islam. That Allah (SW) mentions it in the Quran immediately after establishing the need to pray only goes to highlight its importance. The literal meaning of zakat is ‘to grow and purification’. There are two types of zakat: zakat al-​fitrah, which is paid starting from the first day of Ramadhan before the day of Eid, and zakat al-​mal, which is paid at any time of the year when nisab (the threshold amount of wealth that leads to the obligation of zakat) and hawl (possession of the wealth for at least a lunar year) are reached. In its legal sense, zakat al-​mal can be described as a mandatory payment of 2.5 per cent of a person’s income and satisfies the minimum amount of zakat (nisab) to pay for a full (lunar) year cycle (hawl) to those recipients stated in the Quran. Note that giving zakat is also deemed to be giving worship. While the payment of zakat purifies the individual’s wealth, it also helps society achieve redistributive justice. The conditions for giving zakat al-​mal are these: the payer is a Muslim; the payer has full ownership of the wealth; nisab and hawl must be reached as well. Sadaqat (charity) is also encouraged in Islam. Unlike zakat, sadaqat is

Islamic Economics   233 not mandatory, and there are no requirements or minimum amounts specified. Anyone can be a recipient of sadaqat in contrast to zakat. Allah (SW) specifies the recipients of zakat in Quran, 9:60: Zakat is for the poor and the needy, and amil (those employed to administer the funds), for the muallaf (those who have embraced Islam), for those in bondage and in debt, those who strive in the cause of Allah and for the wayfarer; (thus it is) ordained by Allah and Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.

Besides zakat and sadaqat (charity), waqf (Islamic endowment) has also been used to give non-​compulsory irrevocable charity in perpetuity for the sake of Allah (SW). This is to be used for the benefit of the public. Furthermore, as we have seen earlier, the Islamic system of wills (wasiyyat) and its distribution of estates (faraid) also protects the rights of individuals in the family whereby no more than one-​third of one’s property can be given to a non-​legal heir. Islamic economics aims to create citizens who not only earn, spend, and invest, but also give back to society. Thus, social justice and harmony are achieved by tempering human greed in the pursuit of worldly possessions with the desire to be rewarded by Allah (SW) in the hereafter. In acting as trustees of Allah (SW) for the wealth received, the community can care for the poor and the needy, with everyone living in love and solidarity. The culture of giving back to society ensures that consumption is at a moderate level without extravagance. The main differences between the Islamic economic system and other economic systems are summarized in Table 9.1. Neither capitalism nor socialism embed ethical and moral values to derive what is right and wrong in the human action taken. In capitalism, the individual’s interest and the maximization of profits are pursued without moral or ethical limits. Likewise, in socialism, the pursuit of equal wealth distribution is not bounded by ethical and moral values. In contrast, moral and ethical values are foundational for Islamic economics as seen in its lex loci rooted in divinely revealed law.

Islamic Economic Governance via Hisbah and the Practice of Islamic Economics The Islamic economy is comprised of three sets of entities, namely, the private for-​profit sector, the voluntary sector, and the public sector (Faridi, 1983). Hisbah is a vital institution in this economy that works towards the implementation of Islamic economics at a practical level. It is the institution that promotes justice and equity in economic life. The traditional practices of Islamic economics could be understood by looking at its practice

Interest-​based. Financialization is acceptable, that is, making money out of money.

Not Compulsory

Not Compulsory

Interest-​based. Financialization is acceptable, that is, making money out of money.

Type of financing

Public ownership is absolute.

Giving Alms

Private ownership is absolute.

Ownership of property

It is limited and scarce.

Two separate factors of production

It is limited and scarce.

Availability of Resources

Compulsory for those who are capable.

A single factor of production

Asset-​backed financing by the sale of an underlying asset or engaging in a real economic activity.

All property belongs to Allah (SW), and thus, private ownership of property is relative and if misused, the state can intervene.

Allah (SW) has allocated sufficient resources for everyone in the world, and there is no scarcity.

Moral values are embedded and No emphasis on moral values, and the state has the power to decide what is good cannot be detached. Governed by the concepts of halal and haram. for the people by infringing on individual rights. No moral boundaries are set.

Capital and entrepreneur as Two separate factors of production factors of production

No emphasis on moral values, and profits can be maximized in any way the individual thinks befitting. No moral boundaries are set.

To obey Allah (SW) and seek his pleasure.

Moral Principles

Divine/​revealed

To make all members of society equal while disregarding the individual’s right with a state intervention that emphasizes the public ownership of businesses.

Human-​made

To make individuals rich while disregarding the social interest and emphasizing the private ownership of businesses.

Methodology

Objectives

Human-​made

Islamic Economic System

Socialism

Capitalism

Compared Perspective

Table 9.1 Key Differences between Capitalism, Socialism, and the Islamic Economic System

Islamic Economics   235 during Prophet (SAW)’s time and that of Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz. It is to these that we now turn our attention. Allah (SW) says in the Quran that the nation is at its best when it enjoins what is right and prohibits what is wrong (Quran: 3:110). Hisbah is the institution that seeks to implement this in practice with its checks and balances in assuring integrity, compliance, and ethics in human dealings, including both economic and religious activities. The person appointed to conduct the function of this institution is called a Muhtasib. During the time of Prophet (SAW), hisbah was established, not only to ensure that the religious activities were conducted in the prescribed manner, but to ensure that economic activities were conducted with integrity, honesty, and transparency, without fraud, deceit, or exploitation. Prophet (SAW) himself was a Muhtasib, who forbade what was wrong and promoted what was right, not only by advising others, but also by living as example. He exemplified the requisite ethical behaviour. He also appointed others to act as Muhtasibs. The ethical behaviour advocated in this regard included avoiding name-​calling in the marketplace, ensuring the use of right scales and measures, enacting clear guidelines, and being considerate to those buying goods. Vilifying people including one’s competition is prohibited, as was the practice of ihkitar, which was the storing of goods to be sold for a higher price later when the price of that good increases. The caliphs who became the rulers of Muslims after the demise of Prophet (SAW) also practised hisbah. As part of hisbah, rulers were charged with ensuring that individuals who were less privileged due to a lack of knowledge or their social class were not exploited. They were responsible for keeping trade and commercial activities compliant with Shariah and that rules and laws enacted were consistent with Shariah and for the welfare of all citizens. It was the institution of hisbah that gave rise to the current practice of Shariah review and audit of Islamic financial institutions.

Implementation of Islamic Economics during the Time of Prophet (SAW) The time Prophet (SAW) built a new society from scratch in Madinah is an interesting period of history to study if one is to understand how the Islamic economic system was established. Prophet (SAW) arrived in Madinah on 27 September 622 ce and began to create a new society. He first built the prophetic mosque, which was used not only as a worship place but as his headquarters as well for administrative and consultative matters, in addition to preaching activities (Al Mubarakpuri, 2002). After the mosque, Prophet (SAW)’s next priority was to promote brotherhood between those who migrated from Mecca to Madinah, known as Muhajiroon, and those who lived in Madinah, known as Ansar. Prophet (SAW) created rules of brotherhood among them by pairing an emigrant with an immigrant and made a rule that when either of them died, the brother in faith would inherit his property. This rule of inheritance was abolished upon revelation

236    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza of Quran, 8:75 which established the current rule of inheritance. Prophet (SAW) also instilled good virtues and ethics among his followers by asking them to provide food and greetings to both people they know and do not know; give food to the needy; treat their neighbours well; keep their tongue and hands from harming a fellow Muslim; avoid begging; and give charity to those in need. The ethical values promoted by Prophet (SAW) are also found in the Quran. For instance, adhering to and upholding agreements between the parties is found in 13:25 and 28:28; being considerate and kind to others in 4:36 and 60:9; consulting one another in 42:38 and 20:103; promoting unity with equality in 17:35; being humble in 11:23; being patient in 11:11; upholding truth and sincerity in 8:27, 10:61, and 24:8; fairness in dealings in 6:152, 60:8, and 53:32; equity in providing wages in 3:57 and 34:37; and working hard in 2:62 and 6:135. During the life of Prophet (SAW), the conditions for a valid sale in general and in specific sale transactions were taught. In this regard, all the lawful Islamic finance contracts classically derived stem from their practice during the time of Prophet (SAW). For instance, during the life of Prophet (SAW), he prohibited many business practices. These included monopolies as these cause injustice in society whereby some become rich at the expense of others; excessively speculative business as these often deceive or exploit one of the parties to the transactions; and all sorts of ribawi and maysir (gambling) as these damage social justice and harmony. Other proscribed practices include munabadha (when a barter trade occurs with a man throwing his garment to another, and the other throwing his garment without either of them making any inspection), mulamasa (when a person is allowed to feel a garment but is not allowed to unfold it or examine what is in it, or he buys at night and does not know what is in it), mozabana (an exchange of fresh fruits for dry fruits where the quantity of dry fruits is measured and fixed while merely guessing the measurement of the exchanged fresh fruits), mu’awamah (the selling of a tree’s fruits that are yet to come in the next one to three years), and sale involving gharar (selling of an object which is not in existence or under one’s ownership and possession at the time of entering such a transaction). These were disallowed in order to minimize deceit in transactions. Prophet (SAW) also taught that there is room to exercise options (khiyar), such as the right and option of the buyer or seller to rescind the contract. In this regard, there are five types of options available to the parties engaging in a contract. They are Khiyar al-​shart, that is, the option to rescind a contract by stipulation; Khiyar al-​ ruyah, that is, the option to inspect the goods and to return them if they do not meet the requirements agreed upon; Khiyar al-​aib, which is the option of defect; Khiyar al-​wasf, which is the option of quality; and Khiyar al-​ghabn, which is the option of price. The books of hadith, narrations of Prophet (SAW), also advance numerous ethical norms. For example, if one sells fruits to a person and if calamity befalls the latter, then it is not permissible to get anything from the buyer. Prophet (SAW) urged the reduction in price for people befallen with calamity. Helping a person to pay off debt by providing money as charity is an excellent deed. When the buyer becomes insolvent and if the goods sold is still intact, the seller may take the goods back. After a riba-​free loan (qard) is given and if the debtor’s situation becomes strained, respite for him must be

Islamic Economics   237 given. Delay in the payment of a debt by the rich is forbidden. Selling excess water in a barren land was prohibited as this will impede the cultivation of the land. The calf of a camel may be sold while still in the womb as per Bai‘ habal al-​habala, a type of business dealing found in the Jahiliyyah (pre-​Islamic) times in Arabia. No price may be set when selling a dog. The earnings of a prostitute is not halal. Sweets offered to a Kahin (fortune teller) is prohibited as is the sale of wine, carcass, swine, and idols. Likewise, interest is prohibited, and those who engage in it are cursed. Debtors who took out a loan are encouraged to pay more and better in return at their own discretion. Making a pledge to secure a debt is permissible. Salam (forward) sale is legal for as long as the weight and time are specified. Other prohibited practices include hoarding foodstuffs, taking oaths in business transactions, and unjustly and unlawfully seizing land and property belonging to others. Pre-​emption rights are given.

Implementation of Islamic Economics during Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz’s Time Though the period of Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz lasted merely for thirty months, the practical implementation of Islamic economics during his time has been widely praised. It was reported that during his time as the ruler, there were none eligible to receive zakat (As-​Sallabi, 2014). Thus, it is worth understanding his approach to Islamic economics. Because of his outstanding contribution and impact in this regard, some consider him as the fifth and final caliph of Islam. Before he became the ruler, Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz saw that the rich were getting richer at the expense of poor. Once he came into power, Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz reformed the economy extensively. Not only did he forbid government from unjustly confiscating private properties, but he also returned those that had come to the state in such a manner. If the owner was unknown, the property was used for the public good. Without collecting funds or imposing heavy taxes, he built public infrastructure such as bridges, public transport, and wells. As a result, people had more surplus to use for real economic activities such as trading. This led to a surge in zakat and ‘ushur (custom duties imposed on foreign traders) which in turn swelled the bait-​ul mal (government treasury). The rise in the number of zakat payers led to the total elimination of poverty so much so that during his time, it was difficult to find a single person willing to receive zakat. Consequently, zakat funds were used instead for the emancipation of slaves. The elimination of poverty was also due to the Caliph’s increased spending on social welfare. The poor and the needy were provided with the means to achieve self-​sufficiency by harnessing their potential to earn halal income, even helping them not to spend all they had for consumption. He also helped debtors who had no means to pay off their debts by providing them with relief. The Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz also lightened the tax imposed on Zimmis as it was unjust, and this helped the needy among the Zimmis.

238    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza Many Zimmis converted to Islam as a result. This in turn led to a further increase in the number of zakat payers. In all this, Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz provided an example of good fiscal governance. He demonstrated that it is possible to reform economic systems that had been previously unjust and lacked credibility among the people. Instead of distributing debt financing to people to start them off in trading and business activities, he in effect let them use the funds they would have used to pay taxes to fund their own businesses instead. By lightening the fiscal burden of the population, he enabled the private sector to become wealthy enough to be able to pay zakat that could be distributed in a just manner to those who need it as prescribed in the Quran. His policies in this regard were applied not only to Muslims but to non-​ Muslims as well, thereby showing that the Islamic economic system does not discriminate anyone based on faith convictions. His fiscal methods have been praised and are seen as a model even for today. Nevertheless, Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz was successful as a ruler not because of the economic principles he implemented, but because of the moral and ethical principles he believed in and practised himself via a strict adherence to Shariah and being pious to the creator. Though he was rich and had all the luxuries, he refrained from all of these by returning them to the bait-​al mal (state treasury) when he was appointed as the ruler and adopted a modest lifestyle. He did not own his house and received a salary less than his juniors. In his first sermon as Caliph, he listed five principles that people who wanted to associate with him should embrace, namely, they will give preference to fulfilling the needs of those unable to do so themselves; they will work to promote the good of the people around them; they will act in the same good manner accorded to them; they will not cheat or deceive any member of the community; and they will involve themselves in the things that concern them (As-​Sallabi, 2014). Clearly, his strategy was to instil ethical and moral values inwardly and outwardly in humans using Shariah as the yardstick of what is right and wrong, keeping in mind that this world is a temporary place with the hereafter providing the eternal abode. Umar ibn Abdul Aziz practised what he preached. His actions, even as ruler, did not go beyond the boundaries set by Shariah. He appointed men with knowledge and wisdom from whom he could get advice and who at the same time were charged with the duty of stopping him from wrongdoing. So assiduous was he in living up to his duties, that Fathima, his wife once found him weeping after prayers. When asked why he was in tears, he replied that as the leader, he had a duty to take care of all the marginalized in the community. If he failed to care for the poor, sick, and oppressed, he would be answerable to Allah (SW) in the hereafter, and thinking of that responsibility made him weep. Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz demonstrates that success stems not only from good economic principles, but more importantly, from good moral principles and fear of god. He demonstrated that rulers are servants of citizens. Sincerity and following the

Islamic Economics   239 commandments of god using Islamic economic principles should be the key strategies of a ruler and only then can true success come about.

Contemporary Practice of Islamic Economics Today, the practice of Islamic economics is most visibly found in the adoption of Islamic finance. It is important to note that Islamic finance is merely a component of Islamic economics and not its entirety. Furthermore, zakat and waqf (Islamic endowment) have also been practised in an ad hoc manner as part of Muslim personal law in non-​Muslim countries. In Muslim countries, their practice is more open to proper institutionalization with regulatory authorities overseeing such operations. The undeniable truth is that the practice of Islamic economic teachings today is dependent on the legal system adopted by the countries in the world, and the degree to which these countries adopt and implement Shariah. Therefore, successful implementation of Islamic economic teachings at a national level is dependent on the political will to implement them, while at the individual level, all Muslims are capable of practising them in their everyday lives by opting for the halal option in everything they chose to practise (e.g. how they engage in worship activities). Despite its deep theological foundations, its divinely inspired imperatives, and its rich history, Islamic economics is, unfortunately, not widely practised. Not all Muslim countries adopt it. Scholars, such as Asad Zaman, Umer Chapra, Nejatullah Siddiqi, Timur Kuran, and Monzer Kahf, claim that Islamic economics is in crisis as it has failed to replace capitalist economics (Zaman, 2012). Furthermore, Islamic economics is still considered in its infancy stage, as seen in the dearth of comprehensive textbooks on Islamic economics, the lack of a consensus or even uniformity among Muslim economists and scholars on the definition of Islamic economics, and the absence of either a concrete or a sophisticated practical model of Islamic economics based on its theoretical foundations. Nevertheless, Islamic economics has bright prospects going forward. There is an increasing grass-​roots call for conformity to Islamic economics. This is evident from Muslims’ growing demand for halal food, goods, and services. Ever more manufacturers and suppliers seek a halal certification and label for their products and consumables. Commercial banks, insurance firms, and various financial institutions are adding Shariah-​compliant instruments and capital-​market services to their offerings. As we have seen in the life of Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, making Islamic economics a reality is largely dependent on its moral values and ethical principles taking root in individual hearts and minds. Actualizing Islamic economics is ultimately about people having a keen desire to please Allah (SW) in the here and now.

240    M. Kabir Hassan and Aishath Muneeza

Conclusion Islamic economic principles and ethics cannot be separated, as all principles of the Islamic economic system are derived from Shariah that teaches humans to be moral in all their dealings. The principles of Islamic economics find their starting point in the notion that all things, including wealth and property in this world, belong to Allah (SW). Humans are merely trustees in managing them in the way prescribed by Allah (SW). Since the world is but a transitory path to their everlasting abode, humans must prove by their actions whether they are worthy of being admitted to paradise or deserving of hell as their eternal destination. As such, from an Islamic perspective, humans have to comply with the principles prescribed by Allah (SW) in all their dealings and avoid breaching the commandments of Allah (SW). Thus, it can be said that Islamic economics balances both the material and spiritual dimensions. It also aims to balance individual rights and society’s overall good and the harmony of society. Justice requires that the richer people get, the more they have to take care of the poor and the needy, and this is mandatory as set by Allah (SW) in the form of zakat. Furthermore, Islam inheritance law protects the institution of the family by ensuring that property is passed on within the family. Using sadaqat and waqf as modern tools of Islamic social finance also promotes public welfare by precluding the poor and the needy from having to beg. The right to private ownership and the property rights of those incapable of fending for themselves like orphans and minors are also protected in Islam. In addition, government is also governed by its own sets of rules to ensure that justice is upheld in society. A key distinction in Islamic economics is that of halal versus haram. In layman’s terms, this simply refers to that which is lawful (halal) and that which is not (haram) according to Shariah. For doing a lawful action, one gets rewarded not only in the form of barakah (blessing) in this world, but also in the hereafter. Likewise, unlawful actions are sinful and will be punished accordingly in the hereafter, if not sooner in the here and now as seen in the absence of barakah no matter how much profit or worldly possessions one may acquire from such unlawful actions. Examples of this include prostitution, the sale of alcohol, appropriating the property of others unjustly, gambling, and begging even while one is capable of working. In other words, lawful activities enhance a person’s chances of getting into paradise. In this regard, avoiding and eliminating riba which is the norm in the world today makes it extremely difficult for Muslims to avoid engaging in it in their own consumption, business, and investment activities. The widespread use of riba shows the need to sustain Islamic economics holistically in the world, not only for the betterment of Muslims, but also for the advancement of all humankind. Islam views riba as an evil that needs to be eliminated. Though it is hard to see a fully-​fledged Islamic economic system being established and operationalized today in the world, it does not mean that it is impractical. The history

Islamic Economics   241 of Islam and the institutionalization of hisbah prove that what is required to practise Islamic economics is political will and support. However, this can only come about with instilling its moral values down at the level of the individual. Islamic economics integrates moral values and humane ethics to ensure that justice is maintained, and individual rights are balanced with the larger needs of society.

Suggested Reading Abojeib, M., M.A.M. Haneef, and M.A. Mohammed, ed. (2018). Islamic Economics Principles & Analysis. Kuala Lumpur: International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance. Agil, S.O.S. and A. Ghazali, ed. (2007). Readings in the Concept and Methodology of Islamic Economics. Kuala Lumpur: CERT Publications. Ansari, A.H. (2011). Contemporary Issues in Islamic Law. First Edition.. New Delhi: Serials Publications. Ariff, M. (2016). Islam for All: An Intellective Discourse. First Edition. Kuala Lumpur: Ilmiah Publishers. Chapra, M.U. (1992). Islam and the Economic Challenge. Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Choudhury, M.A. (2007). The Universal Paradigm and the Islamic World System: Economy, Society, Ethics and Science. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing. Kamali, M.H. (1998). Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. Second Edition. Kuala Lumpur: Ilmiah Publishers. Kamali, M.H. (2005). Equity and Fairness in Islam. Cambridge: Islamic Text Society. Khan, M.F. (1995). Essays in Islamic Economics. Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Tripp, C. (2006). Islam and the Moral Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Works Cited Al Mubarakpuri, S.R. (2002). The Sealed Nectar: Biography of Prophet Muhammad. Riyadh: Darussalam. Al-​Qaradawi, Y. (1999). Fiqh az-​Zakah: A Comparative Study—​The Rules, Regulations and Philosophy of Zakah in the Light of the Qur’an and Sunna. London: Dar Al Taqwa Ltd. As-​Sallabi, A.M. (2014). The Biography of Umar Bin Abd Al-​Aziz. Riyadh: Darussalam. Faridi, F.R. (1983). ‘Theory of Fiscal Policy in an Islamic State’, Journal of Research in Islamic Economics 1, no. 1: 15–​30. Quran. (2013). Translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited Hackett, Conrad and David McClendon (2017). ‘Christians Remain World’s Largest Religious Group, But They Are Declining in Europe’. Pew Research Center. https://​www.pewr​esea​rch. org/​fact-​tank/​2017/​04/​05/​chr​isti​ans-​rem​ain-​wor​lds-​larg​est-​religi​ous-​group-​but-​they-​are-​ declin​ing-​in-​eur​ope/​, accessed 5 December 2020. Usmani, M.T. (2016). An Introduction to Islamic Finance. Karachi: Quranic Studies Publisher. Zaman, A. (2012). ‘Crisis in Islamic Economics: Diagnosis and Prescriptions’, Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics 25, no. 1: 143–​166.

Chapter 10

Bahá’í Ec onomi c Et h i c s HOOSHMAND BADEE

Introduction: The Bahá’í Faith The Bahá’í Faith holds that throughout history, God has sent to humanity a series of divine educators, known as Manifestations of God or Messengers of God, whose teachings have provided the basis for the advancement of civilization. Bahá’u’lláh, said to have been the latest of these Messengers, explained that the religions of the world come from the same source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God. A primary theme of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings is achieving world peace through the establishment of unity, justice, and equality. Therefore, Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings specifically advocate for racial unity, gender equality, universal education, harmony of science and religion, elimination of prejudice of all kinds, the integration of worship and service, the independent investigation of truth, the abolition of extremes of wealth and poverty, the non-​involvement of religion and politics, and religion as the cause of love and unity. The Bahá’í Faith began with the mission entrusted by God to two Divine Messengers—​ the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. Today, the distinctive unity of the Faith they founded stems from explicit instructions given by Bahá’u’lláh that have assured the continuity of guidance following His passing. This line of succession, referred to as the Covenant, went from Bahá’u’lláh to His Son ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, and then from ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá to His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice, ordained by Bahá’u’lláh. A Bahá’í accepts the divine authority of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh and of these appointed successors. The Báb (1819–​1851) is the Herald of the Bahá’í Faith. In the middle of the nineteenth century, He announced that He was the bearer of a message destined to transform humanity’s spiritual life. His mission was to prepare the way for the coming of a second Messenger from God, greater than Himself, who would usher in an age of peace and justice.

Bahá’í Economic Ethics    243 Bahá’u’lláh (1817–​1892)—​the ‘Glory of God’—​is the Promised One foretold by the Báb and all of the Divine Messengers of the past. Bahá’u’lláh delivered a new revelation from God to humanity. Thousands of verses, letters, and books flowed from His pen. In His writings, He outlined a framework for the development of a global civilization which takes into account both the spiritual and material dimensions of human life. For this, He endured forty years of imprisonment, torture, and exile. In His Will, Bahá’u’lláh appointed His oldest son, ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1844–​1921), as the authorized interpreter of His teachings and Head of the Faith. Throughout the East and West, ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá became known as an ambassador of peace, an exemplary human being, and the leading exponent of a new Faith. Appointed Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith by ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, His eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi (1897–​1957), spent thirty-​six years systematically nurturing the development, deepening the understanding, and strengthening the unity of the Bahá’í community, as it increasingly grew to reflect the diversity of the entire human race. Today, the development of the Bahá’í Faith worldwide is guided by the Universal House of Justice, first elected in 1963, and since then re-​elected every five years. In His book of laws, The Kitáb-​i-​Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh instructed the Universal House of Justice to exert a positive influence on the welfare of humankind; promote education, peace, and global prosperity; and safeguard human honour and the position of religion (Bahá’í Community, 2023). The Bahá’í community comprises members of the Bahá’í Faith from every nationality, race, ethnic group, and religious background across the globe. According to 2021 statistics provided by the Bahá’í International Community, there are more than five million Bahá’ís in the world. The Bahá’í Faith is established in virtually every country and in many dependent territories and overseas departments of countries. Bahá’ís reside in well over 100,000 localities. About 2,100 Indigenous tribes, races, and ethnic groups are represented in the Bahá’í community. Of the several thousand Bahá’í efforts in social and economic development, more than 900 are small and large-​scale, sustained projects, including more than 600 schools and over seventy development agencies. Bahá’í primary writings and other works of literature have been translated into more than 800 languages. Such a mixture of people makes the worldwide Bahá’í community a diverse group and works with any group whose aim is to advance communities. Hence, the life of Bahá’ís and the Bahá’í community is not isolated from the rest of society. One of the distinguishing features is that the Bahá’í Faith is a religion without priesthood. Hence, the presence of a set of institutions to be in charge of the affairs of the Bahá’í community at the local, national, and international levels. With electoral and consultative principles, the Bahá’í administrative order operates democratically at the local, national, and international levels. The election of Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assemblies takes place each year on 21 April. Bahá’ís are free to vote for any adult Bahá’í, 21 years of age or older (see Bahá’í World News Service, 2023).

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Economic Teachings on Production Bahá’í Work Ethics Bahá’ís are encouraged to work, to be productive members of society, earn a livelihood, and serve humanity. The distinctiveness of Bahá’í work ethics is that work done in a spirit of service is elevated to the rank of worship. Hence, the expression ‘work as worship’ is a key concept for discussing the Bahá’í perspective on work and work ethics. The phrase ‘work ethics’ refers to the beliefs, values, and principles that guide the way individuals understand, value, and perform their jobs well. From a Bahá’í perspective, work is conducive to human upliftment and exaltation. Also, work is important for individual identity and self-​fulfilment, and as a service for community development. Bahá’u’lláh, addressing His followers, affirmed, ‘It is incumbent upon each one of you to engage in some occupation, such as a craft, a trade or the like. We have exalted your engagement in such work to the rank of worship of the one true God’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1992: verse 33). Hence, the emphasis is placed not only on the monetary aspect of work but also on its effect on one’s spiritual development, which would otherwise be achieved through worship. The Bahá’í writings recognize the essential need for cooperation and interdependence among human beings, and that engaging in some kind of work is a means for achieving it. One of the key features of Bahá’í teachings on economics is the keen interest shown in one’s productive contribution to society in a sustainable manner. Hence, the principles of Bahá’í work ethics are meant to move individuals to become productive members of society and develop a sustainable lifestyle. This means producing those goods and services that befit human nobility, protect the environment, and respect future generations. A Bahá’í view closely linked with ‘work as worship’ is the call to try to achieve perfection in one’s profession, which is closely related to skill learning. Bahá’u’lláh said, ‘Strain every nerve to acquire both inner and outer perfections, for the fruit of the human tree, hath ever been and will ever be perfections both within and without’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1978, p. 3). The inner and outer perfection can be interpreted as developing both spiritually and materially. The impression is that work offers the opportunity for self-​realization and self-​ development, in addition to its material benefits. The view of producing products at the ‘highest perfection’ and other expressions such as ‘outer perfection’ and ‘attaining perfection in one’s profession’ can be interpreted as resource efficiency and sustainability. Another area closely related to the Bahá’í work ethics is that Bahá’ís are encouraged to study the type of knowledge and engage in a kind of occupation that benefit the entire society. For example, Bahá’u’lláh advises His followers to ‘occupy yourselves with what will profit you and others’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1992: verse 33). Also, the Bahá’í view is that it is not possible to worship God without serving others. Prayers and meditations need to be reflected in action in order to be effective.

Bahá’í Economic Ethics    245

Bahá’í Teachings to Increase the Supply of Labour The ability of an individual, or group of individuals, to become productive members of society is important both for their own growth and for community building and social development. Bahá’í writings offer teachings that are effective in enabling such a process. The application of these teachings provides employment opportunities and increases the supply of the workforce in the labour market. Note the following teachings that increase the supply of labour. Idleness is forbidden: According to the Bahá’í writings idleness is forbidden, whether it is due to lack of skills, lack of incentives, or as a result of living from inherited wealth. However, the opportunity to work must be provided. It is stated, ‘Waste not your hours in idleness and sloth’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1992: verse 33). The emphasis on the productive capacity of individuals suggests that ‘all must be producers’. These excerpts leave little excuse for Bahá’ís to avoid working which results in increasing the supply of labour in the market. Equal opportunity for women and men: Another principle that leads to an increase in the supply of labour is the equality of opportunity for women and men in social and economic contribution: ‘Womankind may develop equal capacity and importance with man in the social and economic equation’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1986, p. 50). This principle has an important implication in increasing the supply of the workforce and hence the level of production. The Bahá’í literature suggests the active participation of women in all aspects of community life. It is stated that ‘Women have astonishing capacities’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1986, p. 49). The benefits of discovering and using the capacity of women are many and affect the whole of society. These include increasing economic growth, particularly in developing countries, reducing the gap between the higher and lower income group, and a decline in the number of people living in poverty. Universal and compulsory education: Education and skills learning are vital keys in increasing production levels and are conducive to personal growth and the transformation of society. The Bahá’í writings indicate that humans have great potential that needs to be discovered. Bahá’u’lláh states: Man is a supreme talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess . . . Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom. (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 260)

The provision of the right type of education and skills learning has proved to be the most effective way to a prosperous society by revealing the human potential, improving the scale of productivity, and increasing the level of production and hence the supply of labour force in the market.

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Social Function of Wealth In Bahá’í economics, wealth creation is not immoral. In one of His writings, Bahá’u’lláh states: ‘Having attained the stage of fulfilment and reached his maturity, man standeth in need of wealth, and such wealth as he acquireth through crafts or professions is commendable and praiseworthy’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1978, p. 34). People are deemed to have reached maturity when they develop intellectually and spiritually to the point where they spend sensibly and responsibly the wealth that they have acquired through honest work. In other words, this is when they spend their wealth on goods and services that befit human dignity and preserve the ecosystem. This, in turn, would inspire producers to produce goods and services that are demanded by responsible consumers. Bahá’í writings note the social function of wealth, with the entire society enriched and with individual members of the society living moderately. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá describes the benefits that material wealth can bring to society through the efforts of individuals, ‘Wealth is most commendable, provided the entire population is wealthy’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1975, p. 25). Wealth to a Bahá’í is praiseworthy if it is acquired legitimately and through honest work, and is used sensibly for the creation of a prosperous society. Society is more than just individuals. Materially, society consists of schools, hospitals, roads, other infrastructure, and services. It is recommended that wealth should be invested in the development of capabilities and learning skills useful for securing a livelihood and the advancement of the new economic order.

Cooperation instead of Competition In a free-​market economy, competition plays an important role. It is said that through competition, businesses use resources more efficiently and, as a result, there is less wastage. Moreover, with competition, businesses produce better quality goods and services to attract more customers. Thus, in theory, consumers benefit from both lower prices and better quality. However, in practice, small and vulnerable businesses are suffering and eventually exit the market because of aggressive and relentless competition and an uncontrolled and unregulated market system. This behaviour in the market leads to power distortions, self-​interest, negative externalities, the waste of scarce resources, and an increasing gap between the lower and higher income groups. In response, the Bahá’í writings recommend cooperation instead of competition. Firms should compete in cooperation. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá explained that even a single enterprise should adopt cooperation by reflecting on the essential partnership of workers and owners. He specifically mentions that apart from the wage, workers must receive a portion of the profit. Workers will be much more motivated and cooperative when they are partners rather than just wage earners. The argument in favour of cooperation in the Bahá’í writings goes beyond the scope of the market and the economy. The writings emphasize that cooperation and not competition is the cause of social activities, just as the life of an organism is maintained by the cooperation of various elements of which it is composed.

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Employee–​Employer Relationship and the Principle of Profit-​Sharing The Bahá’í writings view the employee–​employer relationship as a method of distributive justice and as an instrument of balancing the economy. The conventional method used in the past to deal with issues related to employer–​employee relationships was through trade union negotiations in which failure to reach a settlement, such as in wage negotiation, led to industrial action, including strikes. The Bahá’í literature supports a fair wage system, but it frowns on using strike action as a means of dealing with industrial disputes over wage. For ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1982a, p. 315) there are two possible causes of strikes, ‘One is the excessive greed and rapacity of the factory owners, and the other is the gratuitous demands, the greed, and the intransigence of the workers. One must therefore seek to address both.’ According to this view, the ‘principal cause’ is the current laws, which may ‘lead to a small number of individuals accumulating incomparable fortunes, beyond their needs, while the greater number remain destitute, stripped and in the greatest misery’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982a, p. 315). The policy of establishing regulations by the government to increase the earnings of the underpaid is supported by the Bahá’í writings. For example, profit sharing is recommended as a method for improving employee–​employer relations and reducing the gap between the lower and higher income groups. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1979, p. 43) notes, ‘Laws and regulations should be enacted which would grant the workers both a daily wage and a share in a fourth or fifth of the profits of the factory in accordance with its means, or which would have the workers equitably share in some other way in the profits with the owners.’ This passage considers a fair wage system that is more than just a minimum wage. Profit-​sharing gives workers a sense of belonging, creates opportunities for workers to participate in decision-​making, improves working conditions, and provides better prospects for the growth and development of the company. The monetary rewards to the workers increase their standard of living and societal prosperity. Such a technique would help remove the culture of ‘them’ and ‘us’, strengthen people’s loyalty to their company, and encourage workers to work more effectively and contribute to its success. Workers would use their skills and talents more fully, thereby increasing the level of production. Therefore, profit-​sharing can foster a working environment in which people enjoy their work.

Economic Teachings on Distribution Equality, Inequality, and Equity Irrespective of ideology, culture, and religion, people generally condemn extreme inequality of income. It restricts opportunity, limits growth, and endangers

248   Hooshmand Badee macroeconomic stability, including price stability, employment, economic growth and development. Furthermore, it concentrates political and decision-​making power in the hands of a few. High and sustained levels of inequality prompt many individuals to seek favoured treatment and protection through bribes and pay-​offs, resulting in a misallocation of resources. The multiple consequences of social and economic inequality are described by ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1995, p. 156): We see amongst us men who are overburdened with riches on the one hand and on the other those unfortunate ones who starve with nothing; those who possess several stately palaces, and those who have not where to lay their head. Some we find with numerous courses of costly and dainty food; whilst others can scarce find sufficient crusts to keep them alive . . . This condition of affairs is wrong and must be remedied.

There are many advantages to mitigating economic inequality. It can strengthen democracy, encourage consumers to participate in economic life, and increase the prosperity of the entire community. At the societal level, reducing economic inequality leads to the eradication of absolute poverty, thus reducing crime and violence within and between countries. Nevertheless, according to Bahá’í writings, complete economic equality is impossible. The writings point out that while we are all equal in the sight of God and the laws of the land, our social and economic circumstances differ. Each individual has unique capabilities, knowledge, talent, and eagerness to work. Consequently, social and economic equity is preferred to equality. The Bahá’í writings advocate equality of opportunity, to ensure that access to material resources is justly distributed. Because each individual’s talents and abilities are different, their economic contribution to society will vary. However, economic freedom, equal opportunity, and the means to contribute must be available to all. The view is that, ‘It is the duty of those who are in charge of the organization of society to give every individual the opportunity of acquiring the necessary talent in some kind of the profession, and also the means of utilizing such a talent, both for its own sake and for the sake of earning the means of his livelihood’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1973, p. 74). The Bahá’í writings recognize the need for a wage differential based on one’s productive contribution to society, ‘Social inequality is the inevitable outcome of the natural inequality of man. Human beings are different in ability and should, therefore, be different in their social and economic standing’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1973, p. 20). This is done through the implementation of laws for the redistribution of wealth, the creation of opportunity, the right to work, the right to education, and the right to good health. The Bahá’í writings state that governments must tackle inequality and poverty by ‘establishing just legislation and economics in order that all humanity may enjoy a full measure of welfare and privilege, but this will always be according to legal protection and procedure’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 238). The overriding priority of legislation is the protection of the economically disadvantaged. The rich also have a responsibility to take care of the poor, ‘O ye rich ones on earth! The poor in your midst are My trust, guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1990, PHW 54).

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A Progressive Income Tax The Bahá’í writings support the establishment of a progressive income tax as another means of bringing about distributive justice and as an instrument for balancing the economy. It is stated that, ‘The income tax, according to the Bahá’í teaching mounts at quite a steep rate so that great sums of money would be very heavily taxed’ (Shoghi Effendi, letter dated 11 February 1944). It is one of the most straightforward means of achieving a more equitable distribution of income and wealth by marginally redistributing income from the top to the bottom. This policy is now widely accepted as fair and justified, and is practised by most governments. The rationale for this method is that a guaranteed minimum income should be sufficient to lift everyone above the poverty line. As a result, ‘It will not be possible for a few to be millionaires and many destitute’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 216). A classic objection against the imposition of any tax is that it has a disincentive effect on effort, productivity, and initiative. The Bahá’í writings offer three basic principles in response. First, although people have the right to accumulate wealth and own property, the Bahá’í writings encourage the rich to care for the poor and needy and share their wealth for the betterment of the community. It is stated that, ‘They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost regard for the poor’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 202). Second, Bahá’u’lláh admonishes everyone to pursue a vocation which is vital as a source of earning a higher income, he said, ‘Ye are the trees of My garden; ye must give forth goodly and wondrous fruits, that ye yourselves and others may profit therefrom. Thus, it is incumbent on every one to engage in crafts and professions, for therein lies the secret of wealth’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1990: PHW 80). Third, Bahá’u’lláh elevates work performed in a spirit of service to a form of worship. If these spiritual principles are accepted in the lives and cultures of people, taxation would not be viewed as a disincentive to work or the accumulation of wealth.

The Law of Ḥuqúqu’lláh (The Right of God) The Law of Ḥuqúqu’lláh is a unique and revolutionary principle with both spiritual and economic features. It is a form of distributive justice and for balancing the economy. Huqúqu’lláh is an Arabic word composed of two words, Huqúq, meaning ‘Right’ and Allah, meaning ‘God’, thereby producing ‘the Right of God’. The law states that once the earnings of a Bahá’í reach a certain amount, and after all necessary expenses have been paid, 19 per cent (19%) of what remains as surplus belongs to God and should be paid to the head of the Bahá’í Faith, the Universal House of Justice. The distribution of 19 per cent of the surplus actualizes the social function of wealth and moves the economy towards a healthier balance. The process, in the long run, assists Baha’ís in adopting a moderate way of living, thereby eliminating extreme wealth and poverty.

250   Hooshmand Badee Reflecting on this law, there are a number of economic benefits that individual Bahá’ís and the wider society may receive through its application, including looking after the poor, reducing inequality, carrying-​ out humanitarian work during disasters, and organizing and coordinating various developmental projects. Also, the law assists individuals in learning how to budget and control income and expenditure whilst considering its altruistic nature. Thus, it offers a model for the transformation of society with a focus on human well-​being and prosperity, rather than self-​interest. In addition to its economic effects, the Right of God provides a number of spiritual incentives to those who observe it. For example, it enables Bahá’ís to better understand the principles of generosity, detachment, unity, and compassion. The most important effect is that Bahá’u’lláh established a permanent and self-​ regulating source of income for Bahá’í institutions based, of course, on the spiritual maturity and adherence of His followers. Therefore, although the Right of God is a law, the spiritual aspect of this law surpasses its material dimension. Also, while the payment of the Right of God is assigned to Bahá’ís only, the benefits are for the betterment of the world.

The Law of Inheritance The law of inheritance is another Bahá’í principle for attaining distributive justice and balancing the economy. Bahá’ís can stipulate in their will the distribution of their estate as they wish. Alternatively, Bahá’u’lláh offers a substitute if no will is prepared. He divides the inheritance into forty-​two shares among seven groups of people, as follows:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

to the children, nine shares to the wife, eight shares to the father, seven shares to the mother, six shares to the brothers, five shares to the sisters, four shares to the teachers, three shares (Bahá’u’lláh, 1992: verse 20)

It is obvious from this division that the wealth of the deceased is not meant to stay with one individual such as the oldest son, as is customary in some societies, but is to be distributed among different groups of people, thereby improving the lives of many people, which will then have an effect on the wider society. Not all seven categories are always present, and consequently, a part of the wealth is paid to the Universal House of Justice, which can spend it on a variety of purposes that benefit society. The last category demonstrates the importance of education. Bahá’u’lláh proposed division of inheritance, indicating the importance of the social function of wealth.

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Voluntary Sharing of One’s Wealth Like all organizations, the Bahá’í community requires material means for its continued existence. But only Bahá’ís can support the Bahá’í funds. Bahá’í institutions are maintained only by ‘those who are fully conscious of, and are unreservedly submissive to, the claims inherent in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1974, p. 182). Furthermore, all contributions must be strictly voluntary: ‘It should be made clear and evident to everyone that any form of compulsion, however slight and indirect, strikes at the very root of the principle underlying the formation of the Fund ever since its inception’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1974, p. 101).

Economic Teachings on Consumption Material and Spiritual Coherence One of the challenges that humanity faces is materialism and its adverse and harmful consequences. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá notes that ‘although material advancement furthers good purposes in life, at the same time it serves evil ends’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 109). The ‘evil ends’ of materialism include consumerism, corruption including bribery, inequality, and poverty, damaging the natural environment, and various forms of negative externalities that are destructive to human life, the animal kingdom and the environment. These negative externalities, such as pollution, erode the strength of the market system by imposing additional costs on other members of society. The social, moral, and economic consequences of materialism underline the need to apply spiritual principles in the implementation of scientific methods and approaches. As Shoghi Effendi observes, ‘Our troubles are not purely economic. There are also basic spiritual reforms that have to set in. There is the human heart that has to be changed’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1974, p. 68). Economic justice will be attained only when every member of society enjoys a relative degree of material prosperity and gives due regard to the acquisition of spiritual qualities. Consequently, ‘No matter how far the material world advances, it cannot establish the happiness of mankind. Only when material and spiritual civilization are linked and coordinated will happiness be assured’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 109). The Bahá’í view is that because human beings have a higher spiritual nature, material well-​being alone cannot guarantee human happiness. They will be happier if the spiritual aspects of their lives are fulfilled and developed as well and are balanced alongside the material.

The Bahá’í View on Sustainable Lifestyles What is important about modern consumption is the complexity of the integration of people and nations trading in a global borderless market. The new consumer has access to different facilities, such as the Internet for researching and purchasing products of one’s own choice

252   Hooshmand Badee from different sources and from every corner of this planet. With the increasing global population, the relationship between consumption and sustainability is becoming critical. Consumption consists of normative choices and is a matter of value judgement. Value principles, such as fairness, caring, and compassion play an important part when consumers associate with others in an integrated market. Moral principles are important in making final decisions about choices. The role of moral incentives in sustainable consumption is explored in selected Bahá’í principles and their application to the adoption of a kind of lifestyle that leads to well-​being for the individuals and the whole society. How do we get from our present world condition to a more sensible, equitable, sustainable, and prosperous world? This can be done through an adjustment in the provision of livelihoods in human society. This requires a change in lifestyle for both the poor and the rich. Alternatively, there could be a ‘readjustment of the economic laws for the livelihood of man . . . in order that all humanity may live in the greatest happiness according to their respective degrees’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 170). The Bahá’í writings have emphasized various aspects of human rights, including living in dignity, being free from needs, and rights that are universal, interconnected, and interdependent. Human rights also comprise freedom from poverty which includes the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to work and receive wages that contribute to an adequate standard of living, the right to a healthy and safe environment, and the right to education for girls and boys. For ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1995, pp. 134–​135): Every human being has the right to live; they have a right to rest and to a certain amount of well-​being. As a rich man is able to live in his palace surrounded by luxury and the greatest comfort, so should a poor man be able to have the necessaries of life. Nobody should die of hunger . . . Let us try with all the strength we have to bring about happier conditions, so that no single soul may be destitute.

A working definition of sustainable living inspired by the Bahá’í scriptures is suggested as the process of a wise and just use of resources for producing goods and services that consider basic human needs while safeguarding nature for future generations. This definition considers a number of features and, to a certain extent, has built into it the characteristics of sustainable development, which encompasses both sustainable production and sustainable consumption. The most important aspect is the avoidance of wastage associated with the activities of production, distribution, and consumption. This view is supported by the Bahá’í writings. For example, Bahá’u’lláh (1983, p. 342) warns, ‘If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation.’

The Bahá’í Law of Fasting Fasting is a teaching given by all major religions. Along with obligatory prayer, fasting is one of the greatest obligations of a Bahá’í. The Bahá’í fasting is the complete abstinence

Bahá’í Economic Ethics    253 from both food and drinks from sunrise to sunset during a period of one Bahá’í month, which is nineteen days. Fasting is also symbolic. The basis for fasting is to obey the law and to remember the conditions of those who are suffering, as well as abstention from one’s worldly desires. For a Bahá’í, ‘It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation . . .’ [and] ‘must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life . . .’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1973, p. 28). Therefore, its significance and purpose are fundamentally spiritual in character. Through fasting, as a symbolic phenomenon, a Bahá’í learns to develop powers of self-​ control and self-​restraint to bring about self-​improvement and gets better at resisting wrongdoing. The deprivation brought about by fasting makes one sympathize with the suffering of others. The economic significance of fasting is that it helps Bahá’ís reflect on their own consumption and the problems associated with over-​consumption. It provides an occasion for practising moderation and perhaps being content with little. Also, it can help improve self-​care and the preservation of health. The Bahá’í teaching on fasting, therefore, helps believers to reflect on and change their attitude towards their lifestyle and allows individuals to take an objective view of their habits and become aware of the needs of others.

Principle of Moderation An essential principle to ensure a sustainable lifestyle is the practice of moderation in all aspects of life, which is a practical way for balancing the economy. It helps individuals to live a spiritual life in a material world by reducing excessive consumption and production. Through the exercise of moderation and developing our higher spiritual nature, economic activities can enhance human dignity, preserve the natural environment, respect the rights of future generations, and advance the well-​being and prosperity of humankind. It can foster economic sustainability and achieve the greatest satisfaction of needs and wants. Moderation is an economic sustainability principle that requires creating a balance between the lowest and the highest standards of living. One extreme is when the rich enjoy the greatest luxury and comfort, and the other extreme is when the poor are in a state of abject need. Therefore, moderation is a condition when ‘there will not be the abnormally rich nor the abject poor. The rich will enjoy the privilege of this new economic condition as well as the poor’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1982, p. 132). Moderation, if practised, can maintain a balance in the material and spiritual life of individuals, and at the same time, it can be a solution to the societal problems associated with extremes. The exercise of moderation varies among people and depends largely on individual and family circumstances, such as the size of the family, employment, the level of earnings, and the pattern of individual and family lifestyle. A person may choose simple living for different personal reasons, such as health, an increase in quality time with family and friends, stress reduction, or other personal reasons. In the Bahá’í view, simple living is not ‘living in seclusion or practicing

254   Hooshmand Badee asceticism’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1978, p. 71) The Bahá’í writings discourage practising asceticism, which is characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures as a lifestyle. Bahá’í detachment ‘does not consist in setting fire to one’s house, or becoming bankrupt or throwing one’s fortune out of the window, or even giving away all of one’s possessions. Detachment consists in refraining from letting our possessions possess us’ (‘Abdu’l-​ Bahá, 1918, p. 135).

The Bahá’í Perspective on Food and Agriculture The Bahá’í writings have paid ‘special regard’ to agriculture, and it is considered as a ‘vital and important matter’. Similar statements about the importance of agriculture are seen in the scriptures. For example, agriculture is considered as ‘the fundamental basis of the community’ [and] ‘a noble science’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1992, p. 12), the practice of which is an ‘act of worship’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1978, p. 145). Bahá’ís are encouraged to be engaged in ‘agricultural sciences’. It is stated that should an individual ‘become proficient in this field, he will become a means of providing for the comfort of untold numbers of people’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1990, p. 12). Dietary codes are not prominent in the Bahá’í sacred writings. Bahá’u’lláh recommends, ‘Eat ye, O people, of the good things which God hath allowed you, and deprive not yourselves from His wondrous bounties’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 283). In this passage, Bahá’u’lláh not only encourages people to eat good things. He also reminds them that these are bounties from God, and one need not deprive oneself of them. Rather than setting out detailed rules, the Bahá’í writings have provided guidance and stress the responsibility of individuals to live a virtuous life. Emphasizing the harmony of science and religion, the Bahá’í writings suggest a kind of food discourse that invokes the virtues of naturalness, simplicity, moderation, and compassion. Attention should be paid to moderation in order to help maintain a relatively healthy physical and mental state. Bahá’u’lláh affirms, ‘In all circumstances, they should conduct themselves with moderation; if the meal be only one course this is more pleasing in the sight of God; however, according to their means, they should seek to have this single dish be of good quality’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1988, p. 294). Of course, the concept of a one-​course meal and a ‘single dish’ may have different interpretations depending on the country, culture, or particular circumstance or occasion. What is important is the consideration of moderation. A significant economic implication related to food is the guidance given for them ‘not [to] eat except when you are hungry’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1988, p. 294). This not only can have a significant impact on one’s physical well-​being but also prevents different illnesses and disorders which may result from overeating. The practice of these principles will also lead to a reduction in wasted resources.

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Bahá’í Globalization Unity as a Prerequisite for an Enlightened Globalization For Bahá’ís, an enlightened globalization involves a firm belief in the principle of the unity of humankind. Bahá’u’lláh proclaims, ‘The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers . . .’ A number of statements clearly emphasize the meaning and significance of globalization in relation to the unity of humankind, including phrases such as ‘the well-​being of mankind’, ‘betterment of the world’, ‘Let your vision be world-​embracing’, and ‘The interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth’. Similarly, Baháu’lláh uses metaphorical expressions such as ‘the entire human race as one soul and one body’, and ‘ye are the flowers of one garden’. The notion of unity is now possible because the material means to attain it exists, such as communication, transportation, information technology, and global financial interdependency. Nations increasingly realize that interdependency is a prerequisite for their future prosperity: ‘For none is self-​sufficiency any longer possible’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1978, p. 31). A significant subject pertinent to globalization that has been discussed by ‘Abdu’l-​ Bahá is the interdependence of people and nations. Frequently He emphasizes that ‘all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1978, p. 31). A number of Bahá’í teachings facilitate the process of enlightened globalization, including universal and compulsory education, equality of women and men, unity in diversity, world citizenship, a universal auxiliary language and script, universal peace, supporting an international single currency, economic justice, Bahá’í development approach, and free and fair international trade.

Free and Fair International Trade The Bahá’í teachings on economics is consistent with the belief that ‘The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 248). This statement supports international trade. The establishment of free and fair trade among nations is an important pillar of Bahá’í economics of the future. It is fair in a sense that it is closely associated with sustainable trade for both developing and developed countries and preserves the eco-​system. Sustainable international trade has a significant role in establishing universal benefits. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá states, ‘It is apparent that whenever the ties between nations become strengthened and the exchange of commodities accelerated, and any economic principles established in one country, it will ultimately affect the other countries and universal benefits will result’ (‘Abdu’l-​Bahá, 1978, p. 301).

256   Hooshmand Badee The success of fair and sustained international trade would depend on how realistic the mutual exchange is. Considerations along these lines include issues related to protectionism, currency fluctuations, quality of goods and services, and price levels that may affect trade or become barriers to free and fair trade. It can also be argued that the level of protectionism can be decreased with a regulated international market. Bahá’í writings support this view when referring to a free market economy. In reference to fair trade among nations, the Bahá’í writings recommend a universal single currency. It is stated that ‘a uniform and universal system of currency . . . will simplify and facilitate intercourse and understanding among the nations and races of mankind’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1982, p. 204). A universal single currency would be much like another Bahá’í teaching, an international auxiliary language, which would facilitate and improve communication around the world.

The Bahá’í View on Development The universality of Bahá’í development is incorporated and is the basis of Bahá’í inspired social and economic development projects. This indicates that in our increasingly interdependent world, Bahá’í development efforts must be animated by universal values and guided by a vision of the world community. Projects are thus designed to engage and benefit all the members of a community and not only Bahá’ís. This vision is necessary for understanding the concept of sustainable economic development. Bahá’u’lláh states, ‘All human beings have been created to carry forward an ever-​advancing civilisation’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 215). Consequently, the creation of a prosperous and peaceful global society that promotes individual and community well-​being is central to the Bahá'í vision of the future, which is incorporated by all economic development activities. It is based on these principles that the Bahá’í development approach is the struggle to learn universal values. This requires engendering a new mindset in the Bahá’í community, which is already in place through various educational programmes for all ages. The existence of many social and economic development projects worldwide, with visions such as unity, world citizenship, service to humanity, work as worship, and consultation is aimed at putting the grass-​roots population at the centre of economic activities. The development projects consist of academic and vocational schools dealing with literacy and capacity-​building. Many others focus on areas, such as basic health care, immunization, substance abuse, childcare, agriculture, the environment, and microenterprise. Workshops and seminars on such themes as race unity and the advancement of women are also organized for the whole community. The approach to creating and operating these projects is distinctively based on Bahá’í teachings. Many projects place emphasis on raising the status of women, and a number of projects seek to serve minority populations that have been discriminated against. By studying and observing the pattern of activities of Bahá’í projects, we can see that development is an organic process in which the spiritual is expressed and carried out in

Bahá’í Economic Ethics    257 the material. Therefore, an important feature of Bahá’í development is that it must respond to both material and spiritual needs in a balanced way. At the centre of development activities, the desire for change must come directly from individuals and communities and cannot be imposed from the outside. An important aspect of Bahá’í development projects is that for the most part, these activities are very simple initiatives that take place at the grass-​roots level. The activities are used to unlock the creative capabilities of individuals and communities. The form of grass-​ roots initiatives carried out by small groups of individuals in towns and villages has an important effect in the long run. The most important successes of Bahá’í development initiatives are qualitative in nature. With an emphasis on grass-​roots action and evolutionary growth, Bahá’í development projects complement the many other elements of Bahá’í community life. The focus of Bahá’í development projects is that learning takes place at all levels and involves all the members of a community, whatever their capability and experiences. The development of human resources is closely related to learning and building capability. The educational activities offered in increasing numbers by Bahá’í communities around the world, can help to ensure that children grow strong intellectually, morally, and spiritually. The view is that increased prosperity in rural areas of developing countries is mainly possible through the education of rural children. To contribute to their societies effectively, these children need not only to acquire knowledge and skills but also to be acquainted with universal ethical values to develop capability and proficiency, which is the main focus of the Bahá’í development projects.

Economic Justice Justice has been a vital virtue since the dawn of civilization and it continues to play a critical role in the process of creating a better world for all. However, the application of principles of justice has become the defining challenge as society becomes more interdependent, and issues of justice, either social, political, environmental, or economic, have become more complex. Justice is one of the fundamental tenets of the Bahá’í Faith. The following statements by Bahá’u’lláh reveal its importance, ‘No light can compare with the light of Justice. The establishment of order in the world and the tranquillity of the nations depend on it’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1988, p. 28). There are injustices of all kinds at all levels of society. They arise from economic exploitation, the suffering of the poor, the malnourishment of children, wage discrimination and oppression of women, relentless competition, and child labour with its consequence of separation from families at a young age. As Bahá’u’lláh exclaimed, ‘Justice is, in this day, bewailing its plight, and equity groaneth beneath the yoke of oppression. The thick clouds of tyranny have darkened the face of the earth and enveloped its peoples’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 92). Likewise, Shoghi Effendi observed that humanity is facing ‘a world spiritually destitute, morally bankrupt, politically disrupted, socially convulsed, economically paralyzed’ (Shoghi Effendi, 1980, p. 16). Various

258   Hooshmand Badee wrongdoings have impacted the lives of people in all strata of society, and only the application of justice can remedy this. It has been stated that, ‘There can be no doubt whatever that if the day-​star of justice, which the clouds of tyranny have obscured, were to shed its light upon men, the face of the earth would be completely transformed’ (Bahá’u’lláh, 1983, p. 218). Justice is a human virtue that makes a person socially, politically, and economically conscientious, and society internally harmonious. Uniting humanity is a prerequisite of economic justice—​unity set in a way that people are concerned, interconnected, and responsible for the needs of each other. It is about recognizing well-​being as a human right and seeing that the suffering of others will affect one’s own comfort in the long run. With unity, the benefits of globalization will be distributed more fairly among citizens of the world. Unity and, hence, the elimination of all kinds of prejudices will lead to mutual trade, economic growth, and job creation. Therefore, with unity, resources will be allocated more efficiently, resulting in maintaining global economic sustainability.

Conclusion If economics creates relationships between people through exchange and trade, then moral and spiritual incentives are necessary conditions for an effective relationship. Moral codes of conduct become essential across the entire range of market operations, from an effective application of supply and demand, to the price mechanism among participants of the market, and to the successful operation of production, distribution, and consumption as three basic principles of economics. Therefore, religion and economics are not enemies but partners. The rationale presented in this work is that there is a role for morality and spirituality in economics. A growing number of economists, philosophers, writers, and experts now support the view that moral and spiritual incentives should be part of modern scientific economics, even while maintaining that the two disciplines of economics and religion are not the same. In other words, they look at things from different perspectives, and their effective partnership fosters human well-​being. The main focus of the Bahá’í writings, however, is the application of spiritual principles within the Bahá’í community and to infuse these into the wider society. The world is moving towards its destiny. The interdependence of peoples and nations of the world is no more an imagination but a fact. Accepting others as part of our family is vital to create a sensible, equitable, sustainable world. Some of the statements heard frequently during COVID-​19 are very promising towards connecting humanity for celebration. Here are a few examples:

• • • •

connecting without any discrimination we are all in this together the whole planet faces the same emergency let’s share the good things of this world

Bahá’í Economic Ethics    259 • the dream of becoming connected is becoming a reality • we want tomorrow to be better than yesterday How amazing are these beautiful statements? We should collectively be proud of it. It’s good to be optimistic, but at the same time, we should not be too naïve. There are still many challenges we are facing that require immediate attention. Finally, social structures are constantly changing, and no single economic system, model, or theory is always going to be suitable for the whole world. Humanity has reached a level of maturity where it is capable of developing an economy with a totally new logic and conscience that are based on sustainable development, which is protecting the Earth’s resources and thus improving the life of this and future generations.

Suggested Reading ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá. ‘Secret of Divine Civilization’, 1990. https://​www.bahai.org/​libr​ary/​author​itat​ive-​ texts/​abdul-​baha/​sec​ret-​div​ine-​ civilization/​ Hooshmand, Badee. ‘Principles of Spiritual Economics—​A Compilation from the Bahá’í Writings’, 2019. https://​www.ama​zon.co.uk/​Pri​ncip​les-​Spirit​ual-​Econom​ics-​Comp​ilat​ion-​ Writi​ngs-​ebook/​dp/​B01​CXIF​XS0 Hooshmand, Badee. (2023). Economics and the Bahá’í Faith, revised edition, Seattle, WA: Amazon Publishing Agency. Shoghi, Effendi. ‘The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh’, 2000. https://​www.bahai.org/​libr​ary/​author​ itat​ive-​texts/​sho​ghi-​effe​ndi/​world-​order-​bahaul​lah/​ Universal House of Justice. ‘The Prosperity of Humankind’, 1995. https://​www.bahai.org/​libr​ ary/​other-​lit​erat​ure/​offic​ial-​sta​teme​nts-​comme​ntar​ies/​pro​sper​ity-​humank​ind/​ Universal House of Justice. Statement on Economic Life dated 1st March 2017. https://​www. bahai.org/​libr​ary/​author​itat​ive-​texts/​t he-​univer​s al-​house-​of-​just ​ice/​messa​ges/​20170​ 301_​001/​1#712004​157

Works Cited ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1918). Divine Philosophy, compiled by Elizabeth Fraser Chamberlain, Boston, MA: Todur Press. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1975). Secret of Divine Civilization. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1978). Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1979). Foundation of World Unity. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1982). Promulgation of Universal Peace. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1982a). Some Answered Questions, Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1986). Women, Compiled by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre.

260   Hooshmand Badee ‘Abdu’l-​Bahá (1995). Paris Talks, London: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United Kingdom. Bahá’í Community (n.d.). ‘Bahá’u’lláh and His Covenant’. https://​www.bahai.org/​beli​efs/​ bahaul​lah-​coven​ant/​ accessed 25 February 2023. Bahá’í International Community, 2023. https://​news.bahai.org/​media-​info​rmat​ion/​sta​tist​ics/​, accessed 25 February 2023. Bahá’í World News Service (n. d.), 2023. ‘Statistics’. https://​news.bahai.org/​media-​info​rmat​ion/​ sta​tist​ics/​ accessed 25 February 2023. Bahá’u’lláh (1978). Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed after the Kitáb-​i-​Aqdas. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre. Bahá’u’lláh (1983). Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Pocket-​size Edition. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. Bahá’u’lláh (1988). Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. Bahá’u’lláh (1990). The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States (from Persian translation). Bahá’u’lláh (1992). The Kitáb-​i-​Aqdas. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre. Shoghi Effendi (1944). Letter dated 11 February 1944. Shoghi Effendi (1973). Directives from the Guardian. Compiled by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands, Published by the Bahá'í Publishing Trust, India. Shoghi Effendi (1974). Bahá’í Administration. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. Shoghi Effendi (1980). Promised Day Is Come, Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States. Shoghi Effendi (1982). The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Wilmette IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, United States.

B.  Regional Religions

Chapter 11

Chinese P opu l a r Re l igion and E c onomy MAYFAIR YANG

Introduction Chinese popular religion of the dominant Han ethnicity includes such religious and ritual activities as spirit possession, ritual communication and sacrifice to ancestors, divination or fortune-​telling, deity worship, placating of ghosts and demons, Chinese geomancy or fengshui, ritual exorcism, food and paper money offerings to divinities, and so forth. It is impossible to count the number of adherents of popular religion in China today, because of the porous nature of religious boundaries in China, where worshippers can be simultaneously participants in several religious traditions. Popular religion is often blended with, or partially absorbed into the other traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism (which is not considered a religion in China), and especially Daoism. In contemporary China, Han people’s popular religion is practised more in rural communities and small or medium-​sized towns, and less in the large cities, which tend to be secular, with pockets of active Buddhists and Christians. Such regions as the south-​eastern coastal areas of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong Provinces, as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the interior provinces of Sichuan, Jiangxi, and Hunan are strongholds of Han popular religion today. This account is informed by my fieldwork (Yang, 2020) in rural areas and the small towns of Wenzhou on the coast of Zhejiang Province. Other than the above list-​making approach, it is difficult to define Chinese popular religion because of what the sociologist of modern Chinese religions, C.K. Yang (1961), called its ‘diffuseness’. Unlike the more ‘institutionalized’ religious traditions of Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and Christianity in China, with their own clergy, sacred scriptures, and specialized religious authorities, popular religion does not have a strong independent institutional or organizational presence of its own. Instead, it is blended into the existing social fabric and structures of social life in local communities, kinship

264   Mayfair Yang groupings, and families, so that often it is difficult to distinguish between popular religion and local ‘customs’. Indeed, ‘popular religion’ is a Western term introduced into modern China, whereas in premodern China, religious features permeated all social life, and Chinese local gazetteers used the term ‘local customs’ (fengsu風俗) to describe deity cults, local deity temples, lineage ancestor halls and rituals, and religious festivals. John Lagerwey (1999, pp. 167–​168) defines Chinese popular religion as entailing the three key features of spirit possession, animal sacrifice, and localism. To this, we can add a fourth key element—​the lower classes as the primary worshippers (Yang, 2020, p. 52). This does not deny that the educated gentry often led and financed local religious activities, festivals, and temples, and wrote down hagiographies and oral folktales of deities. However, at the same time, the gentry also sometimes looked down upon and tried to curtail what they regarded as the excessive effervescence of the religious culture of the common people. Before modernity, with virtually no central religious authority other than the imperial state, these communal religious activities were diverse and highly localized, since the state did not always scrutinize local religious practices except for signs of millenarian rebellious sects.1 Tutelary deities served as the divine guardians and symbols of local community solidarity, and religious charities and festivals helped in the local redistribution of wealth. Religious devotion found expression not only in rituals, sacrifices, and festivals to the gods and ancestors, and the placating of demons and ghosts, but also in religious theatre and vernacular novels. Theatre/​opera and novels told the stories of different gods and immortals, their exploits and self-​sacrifices in saving human beings, and offered inspiring moral tales of ethical behaviour and divine retribution for evildoers. While there are many religious novels, perhaps the two most important are the Ming Dynasty novels Journey to the West《西游記 》(Wu, 2012) and Canonization of the Gods 《封神演義》(Meulenbeld, 2015), which are translated into film and television, animation, novel spin-​offs, and video games today. The gods and deities of popular religion could be natural forces such as mountains, rivers, stars, and constellations, or human cultural heroes and martyrs who made contributions to humanity and were deified after their deaths. New gods constantly emerged. The pantheon of gods is extremely large, and each region or locality in China may have local deities never heard of in other areas. Of course, the cults of some deities became influential and spread across the empire, and the imperial state even canonized and gave honorific titles to certain popular deities and honoured the most influential cults. Important empire-​wide divinities who are still worshipped today include the Jade Emperor, the supreme deity of all deities; Bixia Yuanjun (碧霞元君), the goddess of Mount Tai in Shandong Province; Bodhisattva Guanyin in Putuoshan, an island off Zhejiang Province; Shennong (神農aka Yandi), the God of Agriculture, a mythological tribal chief whose inventions started up agriculture and Chinese herbal medicine; 1  The Daoist tradition did have their religious capital at Dragon Tiger Mountain in Jiangxi Province. However, its ability to standardize and govern local branches of Daoist lineages was curtailed by the imperial state.

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    265 Guandi 關帝, a military general who became both a God of War and a God of Wealth; and He-​Who-​is-​Equal-​to-​Heaven (Qitian Dasheng 齊天大聖), the Monkey King, a Buddhist trickster figure who accompanied the Buddhist monk Tang Seng to obtain scriptures in India in the religious novel Journey to the West. Many empire-​wide and regional deity cults commanded long-​distance pilgrimages, while local cults proliferated, hoping to gain greater geographical influence. Historically, elements of Chinese popular religions trace far back to ancient Chinese history and even prehistory. The very beginning of writing in the Shang Dynasty (1700–​ 1027 bce) was tied up with court divination, sacrifices to the royal ancestors, and shamanistic communications with them in other worlds. With the establishment of the three religious traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Chinese Buddhism from the fifth century bce to fourth century ce, the educated elite tended to gravitate towards the literate and philosophical dimensions of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions, called the ‘Three Teachings’ (sanjiao 三教). Confucianism became the state religion and orthodoxy from the Han Dynasty (second century bce), while shamanism lost its centrality in the court and gradually declined into the realm of popular religion among commoners and gentry. The Three Teachings received court patronage, and also sought to tame and domesticate popular religion. Buddhist and Daoist religious discourse both tried to wean popular religion from its blood sacrifices to deities encouraging vegetarian offerings. They both incorporated the local gods and demons of popular religion into the lower echelons of their divine pantheon of higher gods, buddhas, or bodhisattvas, in a process that could be called ‘hierarchical encompassment’ (Yang, 2020, p. 55). Daoism was closest to popular religion, sharing many of its gods and demons, and exorcistic and healing rituals. Since Buddhism and Daoism were also blended from the arrival of the former in China, one could also say that popular religion is interpenetrated with the ‘Buddho-​ Daoist’ tradition, and has absorbed many tenets of the Three Teachings. In late imperial times, as Neo-​Confucian culture became a dominant state orthodoxy, it decried the ‘wastefulness’ of popular religion, and sought to tamp down its excessive and boisterous ritual expenditures. China’s entry into modernity was a rude awakening to a threatening outside world: the Chinese lost the Opium Wars to European imperialist powers (1839–​ 1860), and became a semi-​colony forced to accept the influx of Western missionaries, merchants, and colonial authorities. Under the influence of Protestant missionaries and the social evolutionist thinking of the nineteenth century, modern educated Chinese reformers, nationalists, and revolutionaries alike embraced the Western notion that China’s economic development demanded the elimination of its ‘backward’ popular religion. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, popular religion came to be labelled ‘superstitions’ by both the Guomindang and Communist Parties, adopting a European Protestant term that was formerly applied to the Catholics (Yang, 2008, 2011). Later, popular religion was banned and had to go underground in much of the Maoist Era (1949–​1979), with spirit mediums, Daoist and Buddhist ritualists and priests either subjected to political pressure or even persecuted. The worst period was during

266   Mayfair Yang the Cultural Revolution (1966–​1976). In the post-​Mao period of economic reform and Chinese entry into global capitalism, popular religion has bounced back across the country, with its activities often tied in with domestic tourism and pilgrimage.

Religion as Mutually Embedded with Commercial Economy It is a historical irony that Chinese modernizers embraced the modern European mindset in which religion is positioned as ‘feudal’ in opposition to, and as an obstacle to economic development, because China’s social history differed so much from European feudalism. Before modernity, the internal logics of Chinese popular religion and a commercial economy were quite compatible, and they worked well with each other. The late imperial Chinese economy was not ‘feudal’, in the medieval European sense of a system of manorial land holdings by feudal lords and aristocrats, with immobilized serfs who were bound to the land, a basically anti-​commercial economy. In China, the collapse of the Tang Dynasty, the period of loss of centralized polity, and the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty in the tenth century produced what scholars have called a ‘Commercial and Urban Revolution’. This was a dramatic shift away from the ancient ‘military-​physiocratic state’ vision of ancient China’s Qin and Han empires, in which the state selectively allocated land to prominent wealthy families. In this new commercial economy opened up to commoners, private landownership was ‘nearly universal’, and the production of commodities, mainly by small-​scale family units for long-​distance markets, increased exponentially to overtake subsistence farming, especially in eastern China, south of the Yangzi River (von Glahn, 2016, pp. 252–​253). The increasing economic and social mobility helped dismantle the aristocratic society of the earlier Tang Dynasty. Song Dynasty (960–​1279 ce) commercial economy was the period where Chinese popular religion as we know it today first came to be crystallized. There was a shift in the religious domain from the territorial altars of the Earth Gods (she) and other nature spirits that were tied into the imperial state, to new anthropomorphic deities whose birthdays were celebrated as urban festivals and the solidarity of local communities (Davis, 2001, p. 12). There was a mutual feedback relation between rising economic prosperity, urbanization, and surplus wealth, and the expansion in numbers of divinities and large-​scale religious-​ritual activities, and ordinary commoners came to participate more in religious productions (von Glahn, 2003, 2004). Market towns sprung up, especially in south-​eastern China, drawing farmers and traders from the countryside to periodic markets to sell their wares, while also attending religious festivals, dramas, and operas. Today in China, this religio-​commercial development continues in the context of rural and small towns. Based on fieldwork in a northern Chinese market town and its Black Dragon deity temple in Shaanxi Province, Adam Chau calls the combination of religious festivals and market days serving a

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    267 network of villages and small towns, an ‘event production’ (2006, p. 125). These events required detailed organization by temple committees of liturgical events, volunteer labour, theatrical performances, and economic vendors and market activities. Hill Gates has referred to this important sector of small family production threaded with religious voluntary organizations in the Chinese economy as ‘China’s Motor’ (1996), a ‘petty capitalist’ mode of production. However, her approach is an economic determinist one, presuming that the economy is primary, the religious development only derivative. In my book, Re-​Enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China (Yang, 2020), I show how popular religion in the post-​Mao religious resurgence actually helped to fuel the rural economic development of household production in Wenzhou. Religious donations and expenditures helped in the accumulation of wealth for families, lineages, temples, and in turn, were converted into investments in local economic enterprises. These ritual expenditures helped to start up and protect local businesses, lineage organizations, and local communities, thus stimulating the local economy, while at the same time, strengthening the horizontal bonds of sociality that are usually lost in a more secularized and individualistic modern capitalism. What can be called Wenzhou’s ‘ritual economy’ has been indispensable in constructing Indigenous forms of religious civil society, local identities, and non-​governmental organizations in a state-​penetrated society such as modern China. China’s ‘motor’ of small-​scale economic production embedded in kinship and religious associations helped fuel not only the commercial society within China, but also the Chinese diaspora and emigration throughout Southeast Asia in the nineteenth century. Today, there are many Chinese deity temples, Daoist rituals, and spirit medium traditions to be found in every Southeast Asian nation (de Bernardi, 2006; Dean, 2010, 2011). This ‘motor’ has served as the basis for Chinese diasporic civil society voluntary organizations such as guilds; lineages, clans, and surname associations; temple associations; native-​places associations; interest groups; and even Chambers of Commerce chapters, all of which have a religious dimension to different degrees. Thus, from the Song through the late imperial periods, religion and economy were very much in a relationship of mutual stimulation and production, quite different from the image that twentieth-​century Chinese modernizers later constructed as a ‘backward’ religion holding back economic growth. This religio-​economic ‘motor’ continues to be a force for Chinese emigration to Africa, Latin America, and parts of Europe and North America. In the case of many Wenzhou emigrants to Europe, Christianity is now added as a new religious force. Chinese small traders also interact with African and Middle Eastern counterparts within China, in such foreign enclaves as the city of Guangzhou (Mathews, 2017) and Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, the world’s largest petty commodity wholesale trading centre. In both these enclaves of foreign petty traders who reside long term with their families in China, there is an ongoing fascinating interaction of Chinese popular religion with the Christianity and Islam of the foreign merchants that has yet to be studied by scholars. However, due to twentieth-​century Chinese state suppression of popular religion, it is not clear to what extent contemporary Chinese emigrants are

268   Mayfair Yang bringing or transmitting their popular religious culture to their host societies around the globe. The following sections will show the interpenetration and mutual stimulation of economy and religion in China, as well as the interchangeable logics that both economic and religious practices shared, and continue to do so, in the context of China’s hyper-​ commercialization today.

Spirit Money and the Celestial Treasury In Chinese popular religion, ‘spirit money’ (mingbi 冥币), a special paper money, is burned for different kinds of divine beings: deities and spirits, ghosts and demons, and ancestors, but generally not to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. They are understood as offerings, much like sacrifices of food, given to please or placate the divinities. They show that the human giver is willing to sacrifice or transfer a segment of their material wealth, represented symbolically with ‘money’, to the gods and ancestors. Due to Chinese diasporic movements around the globe, spirit money is also burned in places like Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other places. For example, from a store-​ front Mazu deity temple where people were celebrating the birthday of this maritime goddess on a busy street in Taichung City, Taiwan in 2001, I travelled to the outskirts of the city where several truckloads of paper money were piled up into a ten-​foot-​high hill, which was put to the torch in honour of Mazu’s birthday. Since then, burning paper money has been prohibited in urban areas of Taiwan, due to air pollution. Spirit money comes in different forms: some are of handmade brown rice husk paper, then stamped with a metal imprinter; some are of gold or silver paper for the gods; some are folded up into the shape of a traditional Chinese gold ingot with a boat shape; some have a gold paper layer, with printed red Daoist talismanic characters; and some have become modern, imitating a country’s national currency banknotes, but instead of the usual image of a national hero or leader, it substitutes the Jade Emperor (the supreme deity). In places that have experienced heavy Chinese emigration traffic to other countries, spirit money might even be in another country’s currency, such as American dollars or Japanese yen. Besides burning money to request help from the gods and ancestors, or repay them for assistance granted, there is also another rationale for burning money at funerals: to pay back the Celestial Treasury (luku 祿庫) for granting a certain lifespan to the deceased. The Celestial Treasury idea traces back to ancient Daoist practice in the third century ce, and today, Western scholars often translate it as the ‘Bank of Hell’. The idea is that in the Underworld, or the Yin World where the soul goes right after death (as opposed to the Yang World of life), there is a Bank or a Treasury that issues paper money, gives out loans, and collects on debts from each individual. When one is born, one is given a monetary loan for a specified number of years to support one’s predetermined lifespan, whose length one cannot know in advance. As Anna Seidel explains, Daoists had a ‘basic concept of life as a financial loan which has to be repaid. To be born is to receive

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    269 an advance payment, to die is to have exhausted one’s loan from the Celestial Treasury’ (1978, p. 421). Even today in many parts of China, at one’s funeral, a Daoist priest or a diviner will calculate the ‘yin loan or debt’ (yinzhai 陰債) of the deceased, in terms of the number of years lived, and the debt must be repaid by one’s surviving family members burning spirit money to send it back to the Celestial Treasury.2 Here we see that in traditional Chinese religio-​economic logic, there is a deep familiarity with quantifying and monetizing not only commodities, but also moral behaviour and even individual lifespans. No doubt, this deep history of religio-​economic thinking in terms of earning financial credit or incurring debt that must be repaid to a celestial ‘bank’ is part of the explanation for the recent four decades of astonishing rapid economic development in China, and successful entry into global capitalism. The Chinese are credited with inventing paper money as legal tender, which is dated to the Song Dynasty, when commerce and commodity transportation intensified to the point where strings of metal coin currency became heavier than the goods for which they were paying, so paper bills replaced coins. To impose standardization over the chaotic situation in Sichuan where different merchant houses were issuing their own paper bills of credit (jiaozi 交子), the imperial state stepped in to issue standardized bills, creating the world’s first paper money as legal tender in 1024 ce (von Glahn, 2016, p. 233). Here, the Marxist historical materialist approach, which says that religious phenomena are merely the byproducts of the relations of production, will be difficult to apply. The religious use of Chinese spirit money preceded both paper money as legal tender and Song Dynasty commercial economy by at least 400 years, in the Tang Dynasty (618–​907 ce) (Hou, 1975, pp. 5–​17; Seidel, 1978, p. 424). The eighth-​century text Wide World of Marvels《廣異記》by Dai Fu (戴孚) shows that the use of spirit money was already widespread during the Tang era (Von Glahn, 2004, p. 141). Some scholars even trace spirit money to as early as the Wei-​Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties (220–​588 ce). Thus, well before the commercialization of Song society, the religio-​economic logic of sacrificial offerings to divinities was already monetized. This sort of religio-​economic world view preceded China’s market economy, and likely paved the way for the commercialization of later periods, such as the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. Similarly, Richard von Glahn disputes Valerie Hansen and David Johnson’s arguments that the commercialization of the Song gave rise to merchants as new patrons of religious temples and the spread of deity cults through trade networks. Instead, he proposes that the proliferation of cults and intensification of religious practices may have been a response to the increasing uncertainties and competitiveness of commercial society. In this way, we can avoid an easy privileging of economic trade directly producing religious phenomena as a byproduct, but show that earlier religious culture both helped to create the new economic relations, and also found new areas to thrive in the new relations of production. Thus, to do justice to China’s religio-​economic history and society, we need to rethink the modern Western tendency to give primary agency to the economy,

2 

The author participated at two funerals in Wenzhou where this procedure was carried out.

270   Mayfair Yang especially since in pre-​capitalist economies, economic practices and institutions had not been disembedded from other social institutions, such as kinship, religion, and the political order. We may need to ask the question of what force(s) allowed the already existing monetized religious logic to expand and inform the rapid commercialization of society.

Buddho-​Daoist Notions of Merit, Sin, Debt, and Karma Not only is the human lifespan quantified and monetized in Chinese religion, so also are virtue (德) and sin (罪), key Chinese religious concepts. In the early centuries of the Celestial Masters’ tradition of Daoist culture in the third century ce, the confession of sins was a prominent religious practice, and illness was regarded as the product of sins, which must be expiated before recovery of health was possible (Wang, 1999, p. 17). In Buddhism, the notions of reincarnation and karma (the notion that one’s actions have moral consequences) taught that good deeds will accumulate ‘merit’ (gongde 功德), while unethical behaviour will incur demerits. At one’s deathbed, if the demerits outweigh the merits, a dying person faces the prospect of the soul being punished in each of the ten courts of Purgatory in the Underworld, and of being reborn into a difficult new form of life ahead, as an insect or dog or ‘hungry ghost’. Cynthia Brokaw traces the history of the recording of merits and demerits, for virtuous acts and sins, to the Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal, an instruction manual for record-​keeping of merits dating to the twelfth century ce in the Song Dynasty. This is the first extant text that established a detailed numerical point-​system for moral behaviour and deeds (1991, p. 35), and it is in keeping with the commercial society of the times. The objective was to record one’s merits and demerits for behaviours, with a numerical point system, so that one could balance out the demerits and avoid falling into moral debt by quickly compensating for negative points with moral behaviour. This ledger system became especially popular among gentry in late imperial China, from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century. In my fieldwork in contemporary Wenzhou, I did not encounter anyone who actually kept written records of the points for merit or demerit, but I did find that people equated sins with both a moral and monetary debt, and they believed that the debt must be repaid or compensated for with moral acts, donations to temples, asking for forgiveness, or chanting sutras (Yang, 2020). Even the chanting of sutras can be monetized. Many people in Wenzhou today have little time to chant sutras and mantras to make requests of the gods and Buddhas, or to make recompense for past sins. So, they would pay local elderly women who have time on their hands, to perform this ritual task and accumulate merit for themselves. The old women would pore over a printed paper image of a god that had little round circles scattered across the image. Each time she chanted a mantra or a section of a scripture twenty times, she would use a calligraphy brush with red ink to dot the circle until she had chanted for many hours and had filled in all the circles. Then she would do the same with the image on the outer paper envelope, into which the paper image

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    271 would be placed. This is a ritual service whose product, a dotted paper deity image and envelope, would be just as ritually effective as if it were produced by the person who commissioned and paid for it. One can see late imperial versions of these red-​dotted sutra-​chanting records on the Chinese Internet. Interestingly, Wenzhou people often call these paper records ‘cash’ (chaopiao 鈔票): because they monetize the time spent in chanting the sutras or mantras, they undergo conversion from one kind of value (legal currency) to another (merit) in the divine world, and they are burned as offerings just like spirit money.

Gods of Wealth Who Resist Greed and Promote Loyalty Since religion and economic production and exchange were interpenetrated and mutually reinforcing, it is not surprising to find Gods of Wealth whom people beseech for business success. Today, in many small Chinese-​owned shops and restaurants scattered across China and all over the globe, we can find small shrines to the local Earth God, who protects the space of the shop, and the God of Wealth (caishen 財神), who will bring prosperity to the family business. Both gods are also found in Daoist and deity temples. To many Chinese, the God of Wealth is just the one god to whom they pray and make offerings to protect their business and make it thrive. Others, usually with more education, understand that there are several Gods of Wealth, both ‘martial’ (wu 武) gods, and ‘educated’ or ‘cultural’ (wen 文) gods. The most widely known God of Wealth is named Zhao Gongming (趙公明), who has a long recorded mythological history. He is often represented in images as a military general with a black face and beard, riding astride a black tiger, with one hand grasping a metal rod weapon. Besides serving as a sort of patron saint of merchants who make offerings to him to protect and promote their businesses, he is also a plague god whom people beseech for help in contagious disease outbreaks. He is understood to preside over the terrestrial spirits of the Five Directions (wufang 五方) (East, South, West, North, Centre), who are also translated into English as the Five Furies because they are dangerous demonic forces giving rise to seasonal plagues and diseases, and sometimes represented as ferocious tigers (Meulenbeld, 2015, pp. 85–​88). To combat and restrain the Five Furies, Zhao commands a military force of eight deity-​generals, five Thunder gods, the encampment leaders of water and fire, spirit soldiers, etc. In the fifteenth-​century religious novel Great Compendium of the Absorption of Gods into the Original Flow of the Three Teachings《三教搜神大全》, Zhao is presented as a key assistant to the founder of the Celestial Masters’ tradition of Daoism, Zhang Daoling (Pan, 2001). Zhang Daoling was on the Daoist sacred mountain, Dragon Tiger Mountain, engaged in alchemically combining different minerals on his ‘immortal stove’ to produce medicines to save people from the plague. Demons wished to play havoc with his alchemical concoction and destroy humankind, so the Dragon King god beseeched the Jade Emperor to send down divine assistance. Soon afterwards, Zhao Gongming descended before Zhang Daoling and swore to protect him and his immortal

272   Mayfair Yang stove. After Zhang Daoling ascended to Heaven, the Jade Emperor enfeoffed Zhao with a number of honorific deity titles. In a fourteenth-​century Daoist manual, Zhao Gongming is presented as the general who leads various exorcistic measures against demonic forces. He establishes the ‘five encampments’ (wuying 五营) of spirit troops in a local area and commands them in battle against the Five Furies to protect the local community (Meulenbeld, 2015, pp. 86–​88). Eight centuries after this Daoist manual, I took part in two Daoist ritual performances in rural Wenzhou where the liturgy included this same procedure of setting up the ‘five encampments’, taking the physical form of stacked tables, with the presiding Daoist priest directing the (invisible) spirit troops to attack the demons threatening the local community. While this God of Wealth seems to have granted the prayers of tens of millions of small businessmen and women in the last four decades of China’s amazing economic development, he is also not just about money-​making. In the seventeenth-​century collection of short stories, Wide Compendium of Tales of the Resolute Gourd《堅瓠 廣集》, there is a story about a gambler named Du, and how he lost all his money gambling, and begged the God of Wealth for help in recuperating the money. Zhao Gongming said to him, ‘You love wealth, and it is legitimate for you to pursue it. However, I can never tolerate anyone using a crooked means to gain a fortune. Since your ancestors have for countless generations offered sacrifices to me, and seeing your ruined family and your property gone to the pawnshops, I cannot help but feel my eyes moisten. Today, I will send down the black tiger to help you. However, you must remain true to your word that after my help, you will go on the right path, do good deeds, and live a modest life to maintain your family’ (Pan, 2001, pp. 133–​134). Aided by Zhao, Du the gambler won his money back in a series of duelling cricket gambling matches, but his greed did not allow him to stop gambling, so he was punished by Zhao Gongming. When a large rival cricket bit off the head of Du’s cricket, Du was so stricken with shock and distress that he collapsed dead onto the floor. It was only when the bystanders who had watched the cricket game declared that both sides were winners, that Du regained his senses, awoke from death, and resolved to go on the right path, never daring to visit gambling dens again. In this story, while it is ‘legitimate . . . to pursue’ wealth, the God of Wealth is also about observing moderation in the desire for wealth. The second-​most popular God of Wealth was a historical figure, a military general by the name of Guan Yu (關羽; 160–​220 ce), who after death, was apotheosized as a god named Guandi, or Lord Guan. Besides historical biographical sources, a wealth of fictionalized tales in the form of oral folktales, operas, puppet theatre, the classical fourteenth-​century Ming Dynasty novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and even video games today, tells his story. In the chaotic period at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (third century ce) when the centralized political order was weakening, regional warlords rose up in military contention for the throne of a new unified empire. Guandi and another general, Zhang Fei, served as loyal generals to the warlord Liu Bei, and the three of them swore an oath of blood brotherhood in the Peach Garden. Through all the treacheries of warfare, Guandi remained loyal to Liu Bei.

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    273 From today’s modern perspective, there are three explanations for why merchants pay homage to Guandi as a God of Wealth. First, he is credited with the invention of novel business accounting systems and recording-​keeping. Second, since China’s traditional commercial economy did not rely much on law, which was primarily criminal law, business people very much valued personal trust and keeping one’s word. The stories of Guandi’s unshaking loyalty to Liu Bei makes him an icon of personal integrity and reliability in business dealings. Third, Guandi is said to have resurrected after death in order to come to the assistance of his comrades still engaged in war. Thus, he is a symbol of hope and resurrection for businesses that will inevitably encounter hardships, bankruptcy, and death.3 The masculinity of Guandi is also prominent, as we can see in his military general exploits, and the competitive/​martial dimensions of business, which align with the male domination of businesses in premodern China. The neo-​Confucian culture restricted women from leaving the ‘inner quarters’ to go to public marketplaces or travel long distances to engage in business.

Chinese Religio-​E conomy: Modernity, Nation State, and Capitalism Modern China has experienced a dramatic series of transformations in the religious landscape, not least of which were the traumatic processes of semi-​colonialism by Western and Japanese imperialism, and China’s own modern nation-​state building, which involved civil war, revolution, and religious persecution. With the collapse of the ritualized Confucian monarchical order in 1911, the religious economy of late imperial China had to struggle with several imported Western derogatory labels: the Protestant ones of ‘heathenism’, ‘paganism’, and ‘superstition’, which derided Chinese religiosity for its polytheism and ritualism; the social evolutionist labels of ‘backwardness’ and ‘living fossil’; and the Soviet and Chinese Marxist label of ‘feudal superstition’. These experiences of modernity produced the intense state secularization campaigns that started with the Guomindang Party in the 1930s through the more extremist anti-​ religious period of the Maoist state order (1949–​1979) (Goossaert and Palmer, 2011; Yang, 2008). The modernist Chinese association of popular religion with ‘feudalism’ is especially egregious in that, since Song commercialization, China already did not fit into the European model of ‘feudalism’. Eight hundred years before European capitalism, China was already exhibiting many capitalist features without the modern mechanism of ‘self-​regulating market’. However, instead of what Max Weber (1958) described as the secularizing and rationalizing forces of modern capitalism emerging out of Calvinism, 3 

‘God of Wealth: The God in Charge of Worldly Wealth in Chinese Taoism’, https://​baike.baidu.com/​ item/​%E8%B4%A2%E7%A5%9E/​376​940?fr=​alad​din, accessed 27 February 2023.

274   Mayfair Yang premodern Chinese commercial relations were tied into a diverse and complex religious imaginary and ethics. Modern capitalism’s social and environmental destruction and profit-​making that we witness everywhere today, were checked and moderated in traditional China by the commercial economy’s embeddedness within religious and kinship ethical systems and notions of divine retribution for human sins. In Chinese modernity, the religio-​economy that was embedded in local communities, temple associations, guilds, and kinship organizations, was no longer connected and supported by the ritualized imperial state, but had to deal with the new hostile forces of a new secular nation state and modern state education. Instead of allowing popular religion to adapt to the needs and conditions of modernity and to rationalize and reform on its own, the view of modern nationalists and revolutionaries was that popular religion must be suppressed in order for China to become modern. The mounting nationalism of the twentieth century was intolerant of the local community—​and the kinship-​based nature of traditional religio-​economy, favouring the centralized vision of a new secular form, the nation state. The dire wartime economy and poverty during the Anti-​Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War were not at all favourable to protecting traditional religiosities from their decline, as few people had the economic means to invest in or donate to temples, lineage ancestor halls, and monasteries. However, this decline has been reversed in the post-​Mao period in Mainland China, and in Taiwan, popular religion did not suffer the same fate, but we witness new religious expansions and change. The following sections examine two forms of contemporary Chinese religio-​ economies: that of localized communal religions that have seen a resurgence in post-​ Mao China, and that of transnational Taiwanese Buddhist charity organizations. We will examine how they interact with and diverge from two larger modes of the economy: the state command economy in Maoist China and the transnational global capitalist economy. The first form of communal religion is the ‘ritual economy’ of small local communities (such as the author’s fieldwork sites in rural Wenzhou), which has fuelled rapid rural economic development and urbanization. The second is exemplified by the Buddhist organization Tzu Chi Merit Foundation, headquartered in Taiwan, where it enjoys state support. Today, Tzu Chi is a highly transnational and global religious charitable and disaster relief organization that relies on lay volunteers.

The ‘Ritual Economy’ and Communal Religion in Global Capitalism With the Communist Revolution of 1949, the older religio-​economy continued to have no means to develop or even survive. The Maoist state command economy centralized economic decision-​making within the hierarchical levels of state administration, and local grass-​roots communities were on the bottom rungs of only receiving state orders from above. Land Reform (1950–​1952) took away the land and property from almost all religious and ritual sites, despite their collective ownership, converting them into

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    275 secular schools, storage structures, government offices, or factories. The poverty during the Maoist period also meant that people did not possess the economic means to donate and support temples, clerics, or rituals and religious festivals, even if they were not in violation of the Party’s ideology of ‘historical materialism’. The Communist Party’s radical dismantling and re-​organization of families, religious and kinship organizations, villages, and counties into new collectivist production units (production teams, brigades, and communes) run by local officials, ensured that people’s activities were focused on economic production and political education, with little time for religious life or expenditures. Since 1979, private family-​run household production has returned in tandem with localized religious economies, especially in south-​eastern China and Sichuan in the interior. The wealth generated out of private household production (many factories and workshops are located in people’s homes and courtyards) has ironically often been invested in public communal religious sites, which serve the public good. Religious and economic development fuel and re-​enforce each other. For example, in my fieldwork in rural Wenzhou, people often said that it is strange that the more they get rich and their economy develops, the more they engage in ‘superstitious’ activities (Yang, 2020). In other words, the more they produce surplus wealth, the more they plough part of it into religious activities. At the same time, religion stimulates economic development. For example, one village signed a contract with a woman spirit medium, whereby she could use a local deity temple for rituals and have customers consult with her there. In return, she would split a portion of her lucrative earnings with the local community and village government, and these accumulated funds were used in improving the local schools and in building local infrastructure (Yang, 2020, pp. 302–​304). However, the elite media from Beijing ‘exposed’ the local ‘superstition’ and ‘corruption’ of the local cadres on a television news show, condemning them for betraying the Party’s principle of ‘atheism’. These urban elite perspectives led to the punishment of the local cadres, without understanding the grass-​roots workings of China’s long tradition of the religio-​economy. The local people were angry about the media exposure, for they thought that their local officials were doing what was right for local economic development and community strengthening. Here, we see that the religious impulse directly led to capital accumulation for public benefit: schools and infrastructure that can in turn stimulate the economy. Katherine Gibson-​Graham (1996) calls attention to the unnoticed precapitalist economic threads in contemporary global capitalism that still operate according to counter-​capitalist values (Yang, 2020, Chapters 2 and 10). Amidst the dominant Chinese state-​capitalist nexus, with its powerful global reach of state and large semi-​ private corporations today, there is a resurgent ‘ritual economy’ that operates within, at the margins, and alongside the dominant state capitalist mode. Such ritual economy consists of ‘expenditures of wealth on ritual, religious, ethical, and social bonding practices . . . that do not directly lead to profit accumulation, and indeed often eat up profits and savings for non-​utilitarian ends’ (Yang, 2020, p. 281).

276   Mayfair Yang The ritual economy is particularly evident in grass-​roots communal religions and in various kinds of ritual consumption. It includes expenditures for rituals, gifts, charitable and temple donations, food offerings and sacrifices to gods and buddhas, religious festivals, and investments in religious buildings and activities. It involves human transactions and economic exchange with the divine world of ancestors, gods, nature spirits, demons, and ghosts. The ritual economy diverts a segment of wealth from this world and transfers it to the divine transcendent realm of the gods, so that sacrifice is an ‘investment’ in the afterlife. The Buddho-​Daoist logic of indebtedness for one’s sins, whereby one can redeem sin with good deeds and donations to build up moral and divine credit, is a part of this ritual economy, as economic expiation of sin diverts a segment of wealth and capital from being reinvested in the profit economy for expanding production. Unlike the profit economy, which stresses accumulation of wealth, the ritual economy expresses a logic of generosity, sacrifice, and self-​abnegation, or the willingness to part with one’s material wealth, and donate labour for higher transcendent ends. The ritual economy can overlap with the market economy, such as ritual businesses that sell ritual expertise and ritual goods. However, the ritual economy has religious and ethical mechanisms to check and restrain unseemly profits: there is the belief that unseemly profits render the rituals less efficacious, thus effectively restricting the prices for ritual services. In my fieldwork, local officials often chided the villagers for being ‘wasteful’ (langfei 浪費) in weddings, funerals, lunar and religious festivals, and all manner of ritual consumption. From a secular capitalist utilitarian point of view, religious expenditures are ‘wasteful’ because one’s surplus wealth is not reinvested back into agricultural or industrial production for further economic expansion, but essentially thrown away on the gods and buddhas. Furthermore, the local people have a culture of what is regarded as ‘excessive’ generosity in sacrifices to divinities and ancestors, and they build expensive temples and halls to house them. Towards their kin, friends, and neighbours in hosting and feasting, and life-​cycle rituals at weddings and funerals, their ‘face’ is on the line, so most people are generous hosts who compete in expenditures for rituals and feasts. These expenditures divert wealth out of production; strengthen social ties between humans and between humans and divinities; and ground people in higher cosmologies that transcend mundane worldly concerns.

Taiwanese Engaged Buddhism and ‘Industrialized Philanthropy’ A very different kind of religious economic engagement that counter-​balances both capitalism and nation-​state is what Robert Weller, Julia Huang, and Wu Keping (2018) call ‘industrialized philanthropy’. The term ‘industrialized’ refers to the scale of religious operations, which they use to describe several large Taiwanese transnational

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    277 Buddhist operations, such as Tzu Chi Merit Foundation, Fo Guangshan, Dharma Drum Mountain, and Chung Tai Shan, nicknamed the ‘Four Great Mountains’. The scale of donations and the funds they expend in their religious charitable activities puts them on a par with some large industrial corporations in financial investments and expenditures. The largest organization of Buddhist charity is Tzu Chi, the secularized engaged Buddhist charity (Huang, 2009), with over ten million members worldwide, including converts in Africa, Latin America, and China, and branch offices in fifty to sixty-​three countries. The organization was founded in 1966 in Hualien, Taiwan, by a humble nun or bhikkuni named Master Cheng Yen. Tzu Chi members are mainly middle-​class lay Buddhists, who volunteer their labour and donate large sums. so much so that the main offices of Tzu Chi have a large glass-​enclosed room with multiple rows of uniformed volunteers sitting in front of computers, entering donation sums, making calculations, and diverting the funds to different parts of the mega-​organization. Visitors are often taken aback by this display of financial power at its Taipei office. Tzu Chi operates social service programmes such as global disaster relief, hospitals, universities and medical schools, bone-​marrow donor registries (for leukemia patients), organ donation programmes, environmental and recycling programmes, poverty relief, dharma lectures on Buddhist teachings, the global satellite television station Da Ai Television, and global radio broadcasts. In 2021, when the Taiwan government was having difficulties obtaining the Covid-​19 vaccines on the global market for its citizens, Tzu Chi stepped up to donate five million Pfizer-​BioNTech (BNT) COVID-​19 vaccines, so that, along with the donations of two major corporations, Taiwan had a total vaccine capability of fifteen million vaccines (Ya-​chun, 2021). Tzu Chi also donated 162 oxygen generators and five respirators to India, as well as 200,000 Covid test kits to eight countries (Strong, 2021). What is also noteworthy about the development of these large-​scale Taiwanese Buddhist operations is that they have become bureaucratized and rationalized, adopting complex accounting and communications systems to handle the flow of donations, charitable investments in disaster relief overseas, the building of medical, educational, and media establishments, and the organization of large memberships and volunteers. Furthermore, according to Weller, Huang, and Wu (2018), they have advanced a new form of a more autonomous, individuated self that not only engages in self-​cultivation, the traditional form of Buddhist individuation which paradoxically aims at the erasure of the self, but also embraces the modern cosmopolitan self. This new kind of self makes independent decisions to donate, get First Aid and CPR training, purchase airplane tickets, and fly off to relieve suffering in a distant country struck by a major disaster. The development of ‘industrial philanthropy’ continues and reinterprets ancient Chinese Buddhist teachings of compassion for the suffering of others, but also adopts modern rationalized bureaucratic forms of organization and accounting which are quite different from the communal religion reported from my fieldwork in rural Wenzhou. They both directly diverge from the profit-​orientation and accumulation of capitalism, and in Karl Polanyi’s (1957) terms, from modern capitalism’s disembedding of economic relations from kinship, religion, community, and polities large and small. The transnational nature of these Buddhist investments in charitable and educational projects

278   Mayfair Yang benefiting citizens of other countries also plays in a different key from the dominant nationalist discourse of nation states. There is a reason why these large-​scale transnational Buddhist operations are based only in Taiwan and not Mainland China. In China, the secularized state monopolizes the category of the sacred in its nationalism and holds a privileged role in administering social charity and welfare. Religious organizations are under tight control by local Party organizations (United Front), the Bureaus of Religion, and the quasi-​state organizations of the Buddhist or Daoist Association. Although some Buddhist organizations in Mainland China have amassed wealth from donations and possess the financial means to invest in large-​ scale national and transnational religious proselytizing, charitable, medical, or disaster relief operations, they are not allowed to do so, without special permission from state authorities. Since the participation of Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian organizations in the relief operations for the Wenchuan earthquake disaster in Sichuan in 2008, the state has been amenable to registering many religious foundations for charity. However, only the state can be the primary agency for administering poverty and disaster relief, not religious organizations. Until the Chinese state relaxes its hold on religious organizations and their expenditures, and grants them greater institutional identity and autonomy, we can expect the Chinese religious economy to be mainly operating at the communal, local, and perhaps regional levels, rather than the national or global levels, as with Taiwanese Buddhism.

Georges Bataille: A New Perspective on Religious Economies The work of the French scholar Georges Bataille is seldom invoked in economic or religious anthropology. His bold, original, yet unsystematic thought brings a fresh perspective on religious economies that is quite different from that of Karl Marx, Marcel Mauss, Max Weber, and Karl Polanyi. Writing at a time (1947) before the onset of a capitalist consumer economy, in his book, The Accursed Share, volume 1 (1991), Bataille called attention to a ‘general economy’ that includes not only production, exchange, and distribution, but also consumption. By consumption, he meant ritual and religious consumption and expenditures, which had rapidly declined in modernity. For Bataille, viewing economies in this holistic way allows us to recognize the inter-​relationship of these different parts of any economy and how they operate according to something akin to the ‘laws of physics’. After meeting a society’s basic subsistence needs, if the surplus wealth is not expended, it becomes a danger to society, an ‘accursed share’ that may explode. Archaic societies knew how to expend their surplus wealth: they engaged in spectacular ritual consumption, built vast religious infrastructures, or engaged in lavishly ‘wasting’ their societies’ ‘accursed share’. Modern secular rationalized industrial societies, however, have no outlet for their increasing surplus wealth, which is accumulated instead of expended, and ploughed back into further expanding

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    279 production. For Bataille, his imbalance towards unilateral production and accumulation has led to the dangerous stockpiling of both wealth and weapons, which creates the conditions for the ultimate ‘waste’, the explosive destruction of modern industrialized warfare. While Karl Polanyi (1944, 1957) explains the breakout of World War II as the result of the social destruction that was an outcome of the new ‘self-​regulating market’ disembedded from all existing social institutions except the modern state, Bataille introduces the important idea that the loss of religiosity was a major factor that led to modern social disorder and expansive warfare. The implication is that, by drastically scaling back religious expenditures, modern secularized and rationalized capitalism has lost the balance between production and profit on the one hand, and religious inspiration, ethical conduct, and social bonding and redistribution that comes from ritual consumption on the other hand. Bataille is very relevant to the discovery of ritual economy and the official discourse of ‘waste’ in modern China. His work diverges from both the structural functionalism of Mauss’s The Gift (1967), which argues for how reciprocal exchange strengthens social ties, as well as from Karl Marx’s pre-​occupation with productive relations and social redistribution of wealth. Bataille shows how many archaic societies in the past, as well as non-​Western societies in modern times, divert large amounts of wealth and labour to religious consumption that baffle industrialized moderns. Examples of ritual expenditure ‘excess’ include the giant Egyptian pyramids which bury and render ‘useless’ the huge wealth and labour expended in their construction; huge medieval European cathedrals; premodern Tibetan Buddhism, where about one-​third of male adults were Buddhist clerics not engaged in productive labour; and finally, the generous and competitive feasting, gifting, and burning of copper shields and wealth items found in the Native American potlatches of the Northwest Coast of North America (Bataille 1991; Yang 2022). Comparing the principles of excessive generosity and ‘squandering’ of wealth in the ritual economy to the accumulation of profit and productivism in modern capitalism shows how the ritual economy has survived the twin powerful waves of nation-​ building and the entry of global capitalism. From a Polanyian perspective, the Chinese Communist Revolution can be seen as a form of social protection from the social destructiveness of the new imported capitalism by instituting a state command economy. However, this command economy banned not only the new capitalism, which was still weak in China, but also the millennial tradition of a religious economy that had held commercial relations and profit-​making in check by embedding them deeply in kinship, and communal and religious ethics. Today, the revival of ritual economy can be understood as the protection of local communities from the expansionary dynamics of both the state and global capitalism. Although the ritual economy operates as a marginalized and minor economic mode in contemporary China, it offers a balance of profit and ritual consumption that was lost in the rapacious and competitive nature of secular capitalism. The industrial philanthropy of globalized Taiwan Buddhism can be regarded as a response to

280   Mayfair Yang Bataille’s post-​World War II call for something akin to the US’s Marshall Plan, which was bequeathed free of charge to Europe, to help in its post-​war reconstruction. Taiwan transnational Buddhism helps today’s Global South deal with poverty and rebuilding after natural disasters and war. Both the ritual economy of communal religions as well as large global religious philanthropies represent investments in ethical education, social solidarity, redistribution of wealth, and what Deleuze and Guattari call, a ‘line of flight’ out of entrapment in the mundane world of wealth accumulation and production, by individuals, corporations, and nation states, towards transcendent cosmologies and religious imaginaries.

Suggested Reading Chau, Adam Yuet (2006). Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Von Glahn, Richard (2003). ‘Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100-​1400’ In The Song-​Yuan-​Ming Transition in Chinese History, edited by Paul Smith and Richard von Glahn, 176–​211. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weller, Robert P., C. Julia Huang, and Keping Wu (2018). Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang, Mayfair (2020). Re-​Enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China. Durham: Duke University Press.

Works Cited Bataille, Georges (1991). The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume. 1. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Zone Books (orig. publ. 1947). Brokaw, Cynthia J. (1991). The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chau, Adam Yuet (2006). Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Davis, Edward L. (2001). Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Dean, Kenneth and Zhengman Zheng (2010). Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volumes 1 and 2. Leiden: Brill. Dean, Kenneth (2011). ‘Daoists and Transnational Chinese Society: The Circulation of Daoist Priests, Three in One Self-​Cultivators, and Spirit Mediums between Fujian and South-​East Asia’. In Daoism in the Twentieth Century: Between Eternity and Modernity, edited by David A. Palmer and Xun Liu, 251–​274. Berkeley: University of California Press. De Bernardi, Jean (2006). The Way that Lives in the Heart: Chinese Popular Religion and Spirit Mediums in Penang, Malaysia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gates, Hill (1996). China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gibson-​Graham, J.K. (1996). The End of Capitalism (as we knew it): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. London: Blackwell.

Chinese Popular Religion and Economy    281 Goossaert, Vincent and David A. Palmer. (2011). The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hou, Ching-​lang. (1975). Monnaies doffrande et la notions de trésorerie dans la religion chinoise. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des hautes ètudes chinoises. Huang, Julia C. (2009). Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://​www.ama​zon.com/​Chari​sma-​ Com​ p ass​ i on-​ C heng-​ Buddh​ i st-​ Movem​ e nt/​ dp/​ 0 67​ 4031​ 3 34/​ ref=​ s r_​ 1 _​ 3 ?s=​ b ooks&ie=​ UTF8&qid=​147​6811​242&sr=​1-​3\. Lagerwey, John (1999 ). ‘Questions of Vocabulary or How Shall We Talk About Chinese Religion?’. In《道教與民間宗教研究論集》(Studies of Taoism and Popular Religion), edited by Lai Chi Tim，165–​181. Hong Kong： Xuefeng Wenhua. Mathews, Gordon, Linessa Lin, and Yang Yang (2017). The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mauss, Marcel (1967). The Gift: The Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Ian Cunnison. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Meulenbeld, Mark R.E. (2015). Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pan, Ende, ed. 潘恩德編 (2001).《民間信仰諸神譜》(Gods in Chinese Popular Religion). 成 都: 巴蜀書社. Polanyi, Karl (1980). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. New York: The Beacon Press. (orig. publ. 1944). Polanyi, Karl (1957). ‘The Economy as Instituted Process’. In Trade and Market in Early Empires, edited by Karl Polanyi and Conrad Arensberg, 243–​269. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Seidel, Anna K. (1978). ‘Buying One’s Way to Heaven: The Celestial Treasury in Chinese Religions’, History of Religions 17, no. 3/​4, Feb.–​May: 419–​432. Strong, Matthew (2021). ‘Taiwan’s Tzu Chi Foundation Donated Oxygen Generators to India’. Taiwan News, 25 August. https://​www.tai​wann​ews.com.tw/​en/​news/​4276​408, accessed 25 February 2023. Von Glahn, Richard (2003). ‘Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100–​140’. In The Song-​Yuan-​Ming Transition in Chinese History, edited by Paul Smith and Richard von Glahn, 176–​211. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Von Glahn, Richard (2004). The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Von Glahn, Richard (2016). The Economic History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wang, Ka, ed. 王卡, 主編 (1999).《中國道教基础知識》(Foundational Knowledge of Chinese Daoism). 北京: 宗教文化出版社. Weber, Max (1958). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (orig. publ. 1904). Weller, Robert P., C. Julia Huang, and Keping Wu (2018). Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wu, Cheng-​en (吴承恩) (2012). Journey to the West. Translated by Anthony Yu. Revised Edition. Volumes 1–​4. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ya-​chun, Chang (2021). ‘Tzu Chi Foundation Donates 5 Million Doses of BNT Vaccine to Taiwan’. Taiwan News, 21 July. https://​www.tai​wann​ews.com.tw/​en/​news/​4254​073, accessed 25254073.

282   Mayfair Yang Yang, C.K. (1961). Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their Historical Factors. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Mayfair (2008). ‘Introduction’. In Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, edited by Mayfair Yang. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Mayfair (2011). ‘Postcoloniality & Religiosity in Modern China: The Disenchantments of Sovereignty’, Theory, Culture, and Society 28, no. 2: 3–​45. Yang, Mayfair (2020). Re-​Enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China. Durham: Duke University Press. Yang, Mayfair (2022). ‘Mauss or Bataille? Gift, Sacrifice, and Feasting Across China and the Northwest Coast’, Mauss International 2, December: 305–​359.

Chapter 12

Shinto Ec onomi c Et h i c s tomoko iwasawa

Introduction This chapter discusses the relation of Japanese religious tradition to the rise of modern Japan, in which the fundamentals of Japanese economic ethics prevalent today were developed. Japan is regarded as one of the non-​Western nations that was able to take over very rapidly what it needed from Western culture to transform itself into a modern industrial nation. Sociologists influenced by Max Weber’s great work on the relation of religion to the development of the modern Western economy have wondered if there is a functional analogue to the Protestant ethic vis-​à-​vis Japanese religious tradition. With this Weberian question as a starting point, the chapter focuses on analysing the religious thought and moral teaching of Ishida Baigan (1685–​1744), the founder of Shingaku, who is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers on the economic morality of commoners, mostly of the merchant class, in the pre-​modern Edo Period (1603–​1867), the important socio-​historical timeframe that laid the groundwork for Japanese economic ethics in the modern era. Japanese culture and religiosity have been developed as a complex syncretization of Shinto, Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, because of the polytheistic character of Japan’s primal religion, kami-​worship, which absorbed these religious traditions by dynamically syncretizing their elements to make an enduring religious structure. In Baigan’s thought and moral teaching, we find a typical example of such syncretization of plural religious traditions, the foundation of which, he maintains, consists in the worship of Japanese kami. Taking Baigan’s moral teaching as an example, this chapter will explore how the world view of Shinto, as a deep substratum of Japanese society, contributed to establishing the central value system underlying the development of Japanese economic ethics. We shall start with an overview of ‘Shinto’ and its historical development, pursuing how the unique syncretism of diverse religious traditions created the core value system of Japanese society.

284   Tomoko Iwasawa

What is Shinto? Shinto (神道) is a system of kami worship and shrine ritual, the early origins of which are lost in the mists of ancient Japanese history. Unlike such religions as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it has no founder, no official sacred scripture, and no fixed dogma. Today, there are more than 100,000 Shinto shrines across Japan. These shrines are dedicated to a multitude of divinities called kami, representing diverse beings such as mysterious natural forces, culture heroes of various kinds, mythical figures, the ancestors of the ancient clans, and sometimes, famous historical figures, too. Many Japanese participate in shrine events and make use of the ritual services offered by shrines. For example, the number of New Year’s visits to shrines amounts to nearly 100 million, a number that reaches well over 80 per cent of the populace. Yet only a small percentage of the Japanese identify themselves as ‘adherents’ of Shinto, and the majority of them, if asked, often say, ‘I have no religion.’ How can we understand this situation unique to Shinto? Scholars have not yet agreed on how to define ‘Shinto’. The classical question which was raised by Kuroda Toshio (1926–​1993) is whether ‘Shinto has existed without interruption throughout Japanese history’, or ‘emerged as an independent religion only in modern times’ (Kuroda, 1981, pp. 1–​21). Kuroda himself provides an answer: Today we usually use ‘Shinto’ to refer to a separate religion existing alongside Buddhism and Christianity, and there are many people who incorrectly believe that it has existed as such since the beginning of history. ‘Shinto’ is also presently treated this way on a legal and institutional level. However, before shinbutsu bunri (separation of kami and buddhas) during the Meiji period (1868–​1912), for at least one thousand years ‘Shinto’ was part of the structure of a religious world (including various reformist and dissident schools) centred on exo-​esoteric (kenmitsu) Buddhism—​ originally an inferior, marginal part. It did not have an independent nature as an individual religion. (Kuroda, 1990, p. 153)

Kuroda’s theory, since its appearance, has exerted a considerable influence on the study of the history of Japanese religion. Now it seems to be widely shared that ‘the expression “Shinto” cannot be used simply to refer to one clear-​cut stream of religious tradition that has maintained an orthodox coherence since ancient beginnings’ (Pye, 2020, p. 14). Rather, Shinto has transformed itself at various historical stages by absorbing diverse elements of other religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, and dynamically syncretizing these elements to make an enduring religious system. Shinto’s essential parameters (i.e. many shrines, priestly lineages, and forms of kami worship and rites) may show a certain degree of continuity over a long period of time, although such continuity has not been accomplished without changes and adjustments. In particular, we cannot neglect the active interactions of Shinto and Buddhism called ‘shinbutsu shūgō’ (the syncretism of kami and buddhas) that had been the norm

Shinto Economic Ethics    285 throughout most of the history of Japanese religion. The present state of separation of Shinto and Buddhism has only occurred since the Meiji government imposed ‘the edict of Separation of Kami and Buddhas (shinbutsu bunri rei)’ in 1868. Regarding the development of Shinto, we may point out the following historical stages: (1) The first stage is around the eighth century ce, when the Yamato clan established its sovereignty over the Japanese archipelago by enforcing the Ritsuryō (律令) system,1 which newly established a central office called the Jingi-​kan to administer shrine affairs as well as various kami rites transmitted from ancient times. The term Jingi (神祇) was originally used in the Chinese classics to mean ‘the gods of heaven and earth’. Borrowing this as an official term in founding the Ritsuryo system, the Yamato regime newly created the Jingi-​kan (the kami council) and the Jingi-​ryo (the kami law) to distinguish these kami-​related matters from Buddhism that had been introduced to Japan in the mid-​sixth century. During this Ritsuryo period, two texts were officially compiled to record the ancient myths of Japan: the Kojiki (古事記, Record of Ancient Events, completed in 712) and the Nihon shoki (日本書紀, Chronicles of Japan, 720). Composed under the auspices of Emperor Tenmu (reigned 673–​686), these two texts laid the foundation of Jingi (the kami worship) as a state cult, providing its world view through mythic narratives. The Japanese ‘kami worship’ in this period was thus organized under the name of Jingi, not of Shinto. Although the term ‘神道’ appeared for the first time in the Nihon shoki, Shinto as a concept did not yet exist, but it simply meant ‘native, untamed kami’ in contrast to the newly introduced Buddhism to Japan in the mid-​sixth century. (2) The second stage is around the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the religious system called ‘shinbutsu shūgō (the syncretism of kami and buddhas)’ had fully developed to become a long-​inherited Japanese tradition until the nineteenth century. This medieval history will be described in detail in the following sections of this chapter. (3) Third, it is in the latter half of the medieval period that a fundamental change in the concept of Shinto occurred. According to Mark Teeuwen’s influential study (Teeuwen, 2002, p. 256), there was a change in pronouncing the two characters normally read today as Shinto (神道). 神道 was originally introduced to Japan as a Buddhist term with the pronunciation not of shinto, but of jindo, which referred to ‘the kami as non-​Buddhist, local deities’ (Teeuwen, 2002, p. 256), who ‘obstruct Buddhism or otherwise need Buddhist help’ (Teeuwen, 2002, p. 241). During the fifteenth century, however, a monk called Ryohen introduced a new way of pronouncing it as ‘shinto’. Teeuwen maintains that this sound transformation symbolized that a radically new meaning was given to this term. Shinto

1 

Ritsuryo (律令) means ‘the penal codes and administrative law’ adopted from China.

286   Tomoko Iwasawa thus began to take form as a distinct and self-​conscious entity in the fifteenth century. This medieval transformation resulted in the emergence of Yoshida Shinto, established by Yoshida Kanetomo in the fifteenth century, which became one of the leading schools that developed the doctrines and philosophy of Shinto. (4) Lastly, we find the establishment of ‘State Shinto’ along with the formation of a modern nation state in the nineteenth century. The present state of separation of Shinto and Buddhism has prevailed since the Meiji government imposed ‘the edict of Separation of Kami and Buddhas’ in 1868. In other words, such separation of kami and buddhas in Japan has lasted little more than a century and a half. As already shown, when discussing Shinto, we cannot disregard its complex history, that is, the syncretism of kami and buddhas that had long been a central topic in Japan’s religious history. Our pursuit of ‘Shinto economic ethics’, therefore, must proceed on the premise that Shinto in our context should be understood in a wider sense, meaning Japan’s ‘kami worship’ that absorbed such multiple religious traditions as Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism for more than a millennium and dynamically syncretized these elements to make an enduring religious system. In the next section, we shall ask ‘what is kami’ that enabled this religious syncretism, discuss its conceptual transformation in Japanese history, and pursue how this syncretic nature of kami eventually contributed to the formation of the value system that has remained prevalent in modern Japanese society.

The Notion of Kami in the Ancient Period ‘Shinto’ (神道) literally means ‘the way of kami’. The word kami has often been translated as ‘god’. But if we regard kami as a transcendent, almighty, personified God as in the case of Western theism, we will misunderstand the essence of Japanese religious experience. We shall now explore the meaning of kami by examining its etymology. According to recent Japanese linguistic studies, the most ancient Japanese language started with monosyllabic words, which included expressions of the primordial experience of the sacred, such as i, chi, and hi. These words preceded the emergence of the word kami and are regarded as the primal Japanese concept signifying the divine (Matsumura, 1959, pp. 241–​314; Tsuchihashi, 2000). The commonality that underlies these archaic words is the feeling of awe and reverence in confronting the supernatural power—​a power that seems to be very similar to what Rudolf Otto called mysterium which is both creative and destructive by virtue of its tremendum et fascinans—​ overwhelming power, but eventually provides beings in this world with vigorous life force (Otto, 1958). The ancient Japanese thus held an animistic view of life, sensing a

Shinto Economic Ethics    287 hidden spirituality, which they called i, chi, and hi, in all things and phenomena. The word i meant ‘life’ (生), ‘breath’ (息), ‘air’ (気), and was also used as a prefix to the things and phenomena that are full of life force and therefore awe-​inspiring. The word kami consists of this word i and the verb kumu (籠む・隠む, to be hidden). The word kumu, now combined with the noun ‘i,’ made kumu +​ i → kamu +​ i → kami, which together means ‘i that is hidden,’ that is, ‘the mysterious power full of life force that cannot be seen or described’ (Sakakura, 1982, pp. 89–​107; Sonoda, 1998, pp. 24–​27; Sonoda, 2005; Sonoda, 2006, pp. 186–​187). Having this concept of kami as its foundation, the Japanese myth provides a contrasting world view to the Judaeo-​Christian one. Judaeo-​Christian cosmogony is characterized by the concept of creation, which is based on the duality of the creator and the created. By contrast, being indifferent to this kind of duality, Japanese cosmogony describes the image of an organism’s dynamic process of emerging, growing, and proliferating, revealing how the ancient Japanese have understood the fundamental principle of being. The concept of being has never meant for the Japanese ‘to exist absolutely or eternally’ as it has in the case of the Judaeo-​Christian tradition. Rather, the Japanese have understood both, Being and beings, inseparably through such process phenomena as ‘coming into being’, ‘becoming’, and ‘being matured’. It is this bio-​ centric notion that the Japanese concept of kami originated from. Kami never means the transcendent, extra-​cosmic, eternal God of Logos, but rather, the intra-​cosmic divine essence, manifested as life force, that gives constant dynamism to all beings in the physical world. For the Japanese, the concept of transcendence has never existed, but the divine has always been what is felt, that is, what is experienced through one’s body. Kami is the ‘life force’ that permeates the physical world. Since it can exert its force in any object in this world, kami can dwell in natural objects, such as mountains, waters, trees, fire, earth, and stones, as well as in various animals that serve as its messengers. A human being is not an exception to it. As a member of the natural world, he/​she can be endowed with this divine force by sincerely worshipping the kami. We may say that such an animistic notion of kami has continued to be one of the most fundamental themes of Japanese culture and civilization throughout its history (Nelson, 2019, p. 566).

The Notion of Kami Transformed in the Medieval Period This ancient notion of kami was gradually transformed after it encountered Buddhism. According to the Nihon shoki, the official introduction of Buddhism to Japan occurred in the sixth century, when Buddhist divinities were first worshipped as foreign kami, different in name but not in character from the indigenous deities. This kami–​buddha relationship began to change as the syncretization of these two traditions developed into the so-​called honji suijaku (本地垂迹) theory in medieval Japan. As Buddhism spread

288   Tomoko Iwasawa from India to other countries, it often identified local gods as the temporal appearances of buddhas and bodhisattvas to root Buddhism in foreign cultures; this also happened in Japan. The Japanese phrase ‘honji suijaku’ comes from the Lotus Sutra and means that ‘the original beings manifest themselves by taking temporal appearances in this world’. According to this theory, kami were regarded as suijaku (temporal manifestation), whereas buddhas were the honji (original foundation) of the kami. In other words, the kami were the provisional manifestations of buddhas that appeared in temporal forms to save sentient beings in the land of Japan. Underlying this theory was the Buddhist presupposition that the kami, too, were the sentient beings in this world, who were subject to suffering in the same way as humans. In a Buddhist document in the eighth century, for example, we can find a description that the kami of several shrines expressed their wish to be saved from this world of suffering, hoping to attain salvation through the powers of Buddhism (Itō, 2003, p. 70). This notion of kami as ‘suffering sentient beings in need of saving powers of Buddhism’ persisted throughout the medieval period, and even beyond. The dissemination of this idea, however, had not undermined the belief in kami. To the contrary, as saviours of sentient beings, standing closer to human beings and teaching them a more fundamental and profound truth than the buddhas themselves, the kami became valued even more highly than the divinities of Buddhism (Itō, 2003, p. 76). With this honji suijaku theory, another principle called ‘wakō dōjin’ (和光同塵) was developed and became prevalent as the idea of kami-​buddha amalgamation permeated Japanese society. The principle of wakō dōjin maintained that, when a buddha appears in this world, he transforms himself into a kami to save sentient beings; at this moment, he ‘dims his light and becomes one with the dust’ (=​the literal meaning of the Japanese phrase: wakō dōjin). Differently put, the buddha tempers the bright light emitted from his body and descends to the impure, dusty world of transmigration in the form of a kami. In this logic, not only kami but even the buddha was believed to become one with ‘the dust’, identifying himself with a worldly existence. The theory of honji suijaku, together with the principle of wakō dōjin, thus led the Japanese to believe that the pursuit of Buddhahood (identified with the kami state of mind) can be accomplished not in a secluded ‘forest’ but rather in an everyday life. Namely, any humans as suffering sentient beings can attain enlightenment by sincerely cultivating themselves through their conduct in this world. This may be understood as a strong ‘affirmation of life in this world’. Indeed, we can find this trait as one of the main characteristics of Japanese religious tradition continuing today. The medieval syncretization of kami and buddhas brought about a transformation in the traditional notion of kami. In the ancient period, the kami was believed to descend to any natural object as life force. As such, the divine was not identified as the Good or the Rational Being like the Western God but manifested itself simply as the power that goes ‘beyond good and evil’, that is, beyond human control. The kami at this primordial stage was not yet understood in the ethical context. When this concept of the divine was combined with Buddhism in the

Shinto Economic Ethics    289 medieval period, a conceptual transformation occurred. The Japanese Buddhism that was characterized by its pantheistic world view claimed that Buddhahood dwells in all things in nature, that is, that all beings in this world fundamentally have a potential for being good. By following this logic, even the wild kami that was believed to go beyond human control and cause various natural disasters could be appeased by Buddhism and transformed into ‘good saviours’ as buddhas. Now the irrational kami that used to be ‘beyond good and evil’ was, in a sense, rationalized by Buddhism and began to take on an ethical appearance. Such kami no longer dwelt only in natural objects but also in the minds of people to lead them to enlightenment. This ‘internalization’ of kami, combined with the concept of Buddhahood contributed to the moralization of the concept of kami, and therefore of the Japanese kami worship, which has become one of the most important features of Japanese kami worship continuing to this day (Itō, 2020, pp. 41–​46; Nishida, 1980, pp. 140–​ 186; Satō, 2021, pp. 123–​126). In the following sections, we will focus on how this transformed notion of ‘internalized kami–​buddha’ played a part in creating social ethics in the pre-​modern Edo period: the important socio-​historical timeframe that prepared the basis for the development of Japanese economic ethics.

The Emergence of Economic Ethics in the Edo Period The Edo period (1603–​1867) was an era of peace with no wars. After the long Warring States period, the Tokugawas eventually ruled over the whole country and established the shogunate in Edo (modern-​day Tokyo), which used to be but a solitary village in the Kanto area. All the daimyōs (feudal lords) as well as the retainers of the Tokugawa shogunate were summoned to Edo, where the merchants from various areas of Japan gathered to supply a variety of commodities for the people in Edo. This initiated the business transactions of products from all regions of the country, and a massive, urban consumer market was generated for the first time in Japanese history. The Edo period also saw the establishment of money as a means of exchange for the first time on a national scale and thus experienced a continuous expansion of the Japanese economy. It was a period when the social position of merchants rose, while the influence of samurai (warriors), who occupied the top social position, weakened. Regarding religious traditions, the Edo period saw a widespread influence of Confucianism on social governance and ethics. Confucianism was introduced to Japan in the ancient time, but it was not until the seventeenth century when Zhu Xi’s Neo-​ Confucianism reached Japan that Confucianism was enthusiastically studied by the scholarly circles in Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate, supported by such Neo-​Confucian advisors as Hayashi Razan and Arai Hakuseki, adopted Neo-​Confucianism as the principle of governing society and established a new social structure based on it, which consisted of the four social classes: samurai, farmer, craftsman, and merchant. The adoption of Neo-​Confucianism by the Tokugawa shogunate, however, did not lead to its dominance over Japanese society but created another syncretization.

290   Tomoko Iwasawa Confucianism was now added to conventional kami–​buddha combinatory thought to produce the ‘theory of the unity of three teachings of kami, Confucianism, and Buddhism’ (神儒仏三教一致論 shinjubutsu-​ sankyō-​icchiron).2

Ishida Baigan It was in this historical context that Ishida Baigan (石田梅岩 1685–​1744), a thinker of economic ethics, appeared and exerted a remarkable influence, especially on the merchant class in the Edo period. Baigan maintained the social significance of commerce as well as the fairness of merchants getting profit through commerce, and thus emphasized the morality required for the merchants therein. Baigan’s teaching was later called Shingaku (心学), that is, the study of kokoro (heart or mind), the pursuit of which, according to him, can be accomplished through the spiritual enlightenment/​cultivation that pursues the universal truth underlying the three religions: Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism. We shall examine Baigan’s moral teaching in detail and discuss how it was developed in the Japanese religious background that enabled ‘the unity of three teachings of kami, Confucianism, and Buddhism’. Ishida Baigan was a townsperson born to a family of farmers. From the age of 11 to 15, he worked as apprentice in a Kyoto merchant family. After going back to his native place and working as a farmer, he again returned to Kyoto at the age of 23 to serve a merchant family and engaged in business for almost twenty years. Then in his 40s, Baigan left his position, devoted himself to scholarly inquiries for several years, and started free public lectures to the common people in 1729. He gathered people around him and worked towards disseminating his teaching. In the Western literature, Robert Bellah in his Tokugawa Religion analysed the thought of Baigan extensively, introducing him as one of the most influential thinkers of social ethics in the Edo-​period in Japan. Let us quote Bellah’s statement: Shingaku is a movement which began when Ishida Baigan hung out his shingle and gave his first public lecture in 1729. After Baigan’s death the movement grew decade by decade until by the early 19th century there were many scores of Shingaku lecture halls all over Japan. Its chief appeal was to the city classes, thousands of whom thronged its halls for over one hundred years, but it also made inroads among the peasantry and samurai. Many Japanese scholars consider it to have been one of the greatest influences on the morality of the common people in the Tokugawa Period. Its influence was spread not only through its public lectures, but through the sermons and tracts which were printed in vast numbers and very widely read, through the

2  This theory had already been advocated by Yoshida Kanetomo, founder of Yoshida Shinto, in the fifteenth to sixteenth century, but its promulgation to the commoners accelerated in the Edo period. See Itō, 2020, pp. 168–​175.

Shinto Economic Ethics    291 house codes, many of which were drawn up by Shingaku preachers, and through charitable acts which the movement undertook. (Bellah, 1985, p. 133)

Baigan himself wrote two texts: Tohi-​mondō (都鄙問答, Dialogue between Townsperson and Countryman) and Kenyaku-​seika-​ron (倹約斉家論, On Frugal Economy), in which he expressed his teaching on economic ethics as well as religious thought. We shall examine these two texts in detail to clarify Baigan’s teaching, especially on ‘profit’, ‘honesty’, and ‘frugality’.

On Profit The class society established by the Tokugawa shogunate consisted of samurai, farmer, craftsman, and merchant. In this system, the merchants were classified as the lowest and not treated respectfully. The rising economy of the Edo period, however, changed the power balance of these classes, and the merchants became more and more influential in society. It may be said that Baigan provided these merchants with a timely education to understand the meaning as well as the significance of their occupation in society. Baigan called it ‘the Way of the merchant’ (商人道 shōnin-​dō) (Ishida, 1994a, pp. 32–​33). What is ‘the Way of the merchant’? Baigan explains that the merchant’s occupation from of old has been ‘to take what is in excess and exchange it for what is lacking’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 32) and ‘to help circulate the world’s properties’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 33). By doing so, ‘the merchants can contribute to creating the stability in people’s economic lives and their minds’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 33). Here Baigan emphasizes the social significance of the merchant’s occupation. The merchant’s profit is perfectly permissible because it is a just reward for their services. Comparing their profit to the stipend of the samurai and the reward for the craftsman, Baigan maintains: Increasing one’s profits through commerce is the right path for merchants. The profit in trade of the merchant corresponds to the stipend of the samurai. . . . The merchant’s increase in profits through trade corresponds to the payment the craftsman receives for what he produces. (Ishida, 1994a, p. 82)

Baigan thus gives a moral justification to the merchant’s occupation and to the profit derived from it. The merchant’s mission is to help circulate the world’s properties and thereby contribute to creating stability in people’s economic lives, and further, in their minds. Their mission is therefore as noble as those of samurai, farmers, and craftsmen, and should not be despised. Baigan says, ‘The Way the merchant must follow does not alter for the samurai, the farmer, and the craftsman. Mengzi says that the Way is one’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 90). First spreading among the city classes, Baigan’s teaching gradually grew into a larger movement involving the farmers and samurai until it became one of the most prevalent, influential morality movements of the common people in the Edo period. His theory on

292   Tomoko Iwasawa the moral justification of the merchant’s occupation not only influenced economic rationalization in the Edo period, but further developed it into a political idea that people from all classes should be regarded as equal, since the purpose of human beings, regardless of their class, consists in ‘pursuing the Way’. Here we can find an influence of Mengzi’s philosophy3 on Baigan’s thought. Mengzi asserts that human nature is innately good. Even though this nature may be clouded with selfish desires developed while living in the secular world, if we sincerely pursue the Way, that is, if we engage in the moral cultivation of freeing ourselves from such desires, we can ultimately attain our natural selves: the innate goodness. This way of treating the problem of human nature, in which the concept of radical evil tends to be negated, was widely accepted by the people in the Edo period. Baigan was no exception to it.

On Honesty When Baigan justifies the idea of the merchant’s profit, he at the same time makes a clear distinction between a ‘just’ and an ‘unjust’ profit: ‘The merchant as well should study the Way of the sages and not engage in unjust trade’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 90). Then, what is justice? What is a morality required for a just merchant? According to Baigan, what distinguishes the just from the unjust is the concept of ‘honesty’ (正直 shōjiki), which plays a central role in his thought. Baigan first defines ‘honesty’ in the pragmatic terms which can be applied to any mercantile activity as its foundational ethics: Since the people have been sent down from heaven, they are all children of heaven. Because of this an individual is a small heaven and earth. Being a small heaven and earth, one basically lacks selfish desires. For this reason, my things are my things, another’s things are another’s things. What is lent is received and what is borrowed is returned. Unselfishly doing what one ought, even to the smallest hair, this is honesty. If this honesty is practiced, the world would be harmonized in unity. All within four seas would be like brothers. (Ishida, 1994a, p. 217)

Honesty means not only taking a just profit but also paying one’s debts and having respect for another’s property. By contrast, the conduct of ‘cheat and thief ’ should be strictly blamed because it destroys the harmonious unity of economic society. To be honest is to be genuine and authentic, never to lie, and never to hide the truth. But why is honesty so important? Because it is the foundation of trust in establishing a human relationship, and the trust enables any relationships to function and thrive. The virtue of honesty is therefore indispensable to creating a trustworthy relationship among those

3 

Mengzi (孟子; 372–​289 bc) is the so-​called second Confucian sage.

Shinto Economic Ethics    293 who engage in mercantile activities. Moreover, it is not confined to economic life but can be applied to every other aspect of social existence. How can we cultivate an honest disposition in people’s minds? Baigan approaches this problem by redefining ‘honesty’ in a different context, that is, by moving from the pragmatic to the religious-​ethical context. In expounding on the importance of cultivating an honest mind, he refers to the name of the sun goddess Amaterasu, presupposing that it is one of the most important virtues in facing the kami: Trickery, even though it may bring immediate profit, will inevitably bring on the punishment of kami. As for honesty, though there may be no immediate benefit, it is Amaterasu’s reward that it will receive heaven’s compassion in the end. If you become a criminal to kami, you will have no place to live. You will be unable to live in the broad world, and live confined is a sad thing. . . . But if one practices honesty and is not disjoined in heart, one can live in the broad dwelling space of the limitless world and have profound happiness. What I teach is to cause you to escape the difficulties of the cheat and thief and cause you to be called an honest man. If you become responsive to the mirror-​like mind of kami, will it not be joyous? (Ishida, 1994a, p. 220)

He also says: First base yourself on the Grand Shrine of Ise,4 then, upon that foundation, synthesize and put into practice the doctrines of Confucianism and Buddhism. (Ishida, 1994a, p. 124)

Baigan’s ethical teaching, after all, is religious and not ideological. This can be known from the fact that his teaching was later called Shingaku, the study of kokoro (heart/​ mind), and understood as a religious-​ethical movement that aimed at gaining enlightenment by cultivating one’s mind and putting this enlightened mind into practice through one’s occupation. His teaching was very pragmatic, but at the same time firmly grounded on religious belief.

Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism United in Baigan’s Thought Baigan says, ‘Knowing the kokoro is the beginning of study’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 6). What then does it mean ‘to know the kokoro’? His answer is: to know the kokoro is ‘to know one’s true nature（本性）’ (Ishida, 1994a, pp. 4–​6). Here we come back to the teaching of Mengzi and finds its immense influence on Baigan’s thought. As already noted, Mengzi maintains that human nature is innately good. Even though this nature is obscured by selfish desires, if we sincerely engage in cultivating our minds and 4 

This is where the Goddess Amaterasu is enshrined.

294   Tomoko Iwasawa free ourselves from such desires, we can ultimately attain our true nature: the innate goodness. When Baigan talks of this ‘nature’, it is not confined to the realm of humans but encompasses all living beings that are supposed to possess this nature in common: When we speak of nature (性 sei), it is that principle (理 li) which everything from humans to the birds and plants receives from heaven and whereby they develop. . . . Observing the progressions of last year’s seasons, we know those of this year. Looking at the things of yesterday, we know of today. This so-​called looking at the past is what we call knowing the nature of the world. When we know the nature, we see that the way of the five virtues and five relationships are contained within it. The Chung Yung says, ‘What heaven has decreed is called the nature. Following the nature is called the way.’ To follow the nature without knowing the nature cannot be. (Ishida, 1994a, pp. 4–​5)

This Confucian principle does not differentiate humanity from other living beings; it permeates all beings in this world as ‘the ground of being’, the true nature of which is good. This pantheistic idea of Mengzi’s philosophy got along well with the world view of the Japanese kami–​buddha. As noted earlier, the ancient Japanese regarded kami as the intra-​cosmic divine essence that permeated all living beings as life force. Such kami was never thought of as transcendent but as immanent, dwelling in humanity as what was felt, that is, what was experienced through one’s body. Here it is not difficult to find a similar pantheism in both the Confucian principle and the Japanese notion of kami.5 Moreover, this kind of pantheism was not foreign to Japanese Buddhism either. An earlier section notes that the Japanese Buddhist theory of honji suijaku, together with the principle of wakō dōjin, led the Japanese to believe that Buddhahood dwells in all beings in nature, kami being the transmitter to lead them to this enlightened Buddhahood. As such, kami and Buddhahood were almost perfectly identified with each other—​this was the kami–​buddha syncretization in medieval Japan. In this logic, humans have the potential to attain Buddhahood through the cultivation of their mind if they sincerely devote themselves to the pursuit of enlightenment. In Baigan’s time, this principle of kami-​buddha was further united with Mengzi’s notion of ‘true nature’, the innate goodness, and became the focus of one’s pursuit of enlightenment/​spiritual cultivation. The unity of three teachings (Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism) was thus realized without contradiction for the Japanese and widely promulgated in the Edo period. Baigan himself clearly states: ‘Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism all have the same foundation’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 121). This ‘foundation’ meant for him what can be commonly expressed as ‘the ground of being’, with which all humans long to be united. Each religion expressed this ‘ground’ in a different way: the ‘kami’ in Shinto, the ‘nature’ in Confucianism, and the ‘Buddhahood’ in Buddhism. These, however, were not

5  Here we should note that the Japanese kami at this stage did not yet have any fixed character of ‘being good’: it could be either good or bad, depending on circumstances, and was simply manifesting itself as an ‘awful/​awe-​inspiring power.’

Shinto Economic Ethics    295 contrary to each other, but just different expressions of the same essence of reality. Baigan describes this unity as: ‘These are the Triple Gem—​“mercy” in Buddhism, “honesty” in Shinto, and “sincerity” in Confucianism. We know that all these—​mercy, sincerity, and honesty—​are the light emanating from oneself ’ (Ishida, 1994b, p. 145). As this statement shows, by the time of Baigan, the virtue of honesty had become what the Japanese believed to be one of the most important virtues in facing the kami. We have noted that the phenomenon of kami–​buddha syncretization in medieval Japan brought about a new concept of ‘internalized kami’ combined with the notion of Buddhahood, and directed people’s attention to cultivating their minds so that they could attain enlightenment with the teaching of kami–​buddha. Various Shinto as well as Buddhist scholars thus developed their theories focusing on how to cultivate one’s mind. It is in this historical context that the virtue of honesty came to the fore as one of the most important attitudes in facing the divine. People believed that they had to purify their minds to be endowed with the divine protection, and honesty was the foremost step to keep their minds purified. There is a Japanese proverb, one of the most prevalent since the medieval period, saying: ‘Kami dwells in the honest mind (正直の頭に神 宿る)’, meaning that you must be honest if you want to be united with the kami (Kitai, 2001, pp. 100–​109; Itō, 2020, p. 42). This clearly shows that honesty has been one of the central virtues in the Japanese kami worship. In the end, Baigan’s concept of commerce, and further of the economy, was closely connected with this virtue of honesty, which was regarded as one of the most important ethics in facing the divine. Well-​grounded on this widespread ethics in Japanese society, Baigan’s theory appealed strongly not only to the merchants but also to the wider public and became one of the most popular moral teachings for the commoners in the Edo period.

On Frugality Another virtue that Baigan emphasizes in relation to honesty is frugality. Honesty may be expressed as a correct and upright behaviour by which one recognizes one’s proper situation in society so that one does not destroy its harmonious unity, always being attentive to it. Now living a frugal life is equivalent to living an honest life. As Baigan says, ‘Frugality concerns more than the use of things. It is a doctrine correcting the kokoro (heart/​mind) without being unjust’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 223). Then he stresses the benefit of living a frugal life: ‘I have come to learn that frugality is the basis on which to organize the home. The home will be well managed to the degree frugality prevails and extravagance is reduced. Where the home is well-​ordered, filial piety naturally arises, which in turn influences all who come and go, making all comfortable’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 192). Frugality is not merely about saving money for one’s own prosperity; rather, it is a moral attitude required for realizing a well-​ordered home, and therefore, a well-​ordered society. Baigan also notes that frugality is different from stinginess, and makes a clear

296   Tomoko Iwasawa distinction between them: ‘There are those in the world who consider frugality and stinginess to be identical, but this is a mistake. Frugality consists in economizing on things and, in accord with one’s social status, avoiding excess and deficiency by spending appropriately’ (Ishida, 1994a, p. 223). (When he uses the term ‘well-​ordered’, Baigan intends the society in which one is in accordance with one’s proper situation without destroying its harmonious unity.) When he uses the term ‘well-​ordered’, Baigan intends the society in which one recognizes and keeps one’s social standing without destroying the society’s harmonious unity. The opposite of frugality is extravagance which ruins this harmony. He particularly warns merchants that they should be most careful not to fall into an extravagant life: Although there are high and low, the principle which raises up families and destroys families is one. Extravagance easily grows with time. It is something one must fear and be cautious about. (Ishida, 1994a, p. 193) In looking over conditions in the world in general, there is nothing which decays so easily as a merchant family. If you seek the cause of this, it is an illness called foolishness. This foolishness quickly becomes extravagance. Though foolishness and extravagance are two, we must say that they are hard to distinguish. (Ishida, 1994a, p. 196)

Merchants have a great responsibility to society. Only when one has sufficient materials can one be charitable. So, an appropriate profit produced by an economic activity should not be despised but appreciated as a source of developing ‘benevolence’ (仁 jin), the mind of caring and helping others. If, however, that profit becomes a selfish extravagance, society would no longer sustain its harmonious unity and collapse. This idea of a ‘harmonious unity of the economic society’ that does not allow an extreme projection of an individual’s wealth plays an important role in Baigan’s thought. However, we also find this same theme repeatedly in medieval Japanese literature. A good way to understand this tradition is through an analysis of narratives, such as folktales and setsuwa (説話 spoken stories)6 in medieval Japan.

The Relationship between Wealth and the Divine Komatsu Kazuhiko analyses Japanese folktales and setsuwa extensively and demonstrates that, in many of these narratives, wealth is regarded as a good fortune brought by the divine, not by an individual’s resources (Komatsu, 2009). So, humans

6 

Setsuwa is a spoken story that was composed by intellectuals and priests in medieval Japan and used in their sermons and religious performances.

Shinto Economic Ethics    297 must be pious and good-​natured if they want to attract favourable attention of the divine and lead a happy life. A typical narrative goes like this: When a poor person accumulates religious virtue, the kami–​buddha bestows upon him/​her good fortune, which results in wealth. By contrast, when he/​she ceases to accumulate religious virtue, his/​her wealth also disappears. This is the thematic story that repeatedly appears in the Japanese folktales and setsuwa. Its main message is that morally adequate behaviour results in a happy life blessed by the divine with economic benefits, but its opposite, immoral behaviour will be punished with poverty. Wealth is essentially understood as ‘the divine gift’. But why so? How was wealth connected with the divine intention? Wealth was understood in medieval Japan in relation to the concept of ‘proliferation’, which people believed the divine brings about. Fabio Rambelli points out how this concept was connected to the divine act in medieval Japan: At least some segments of medieval Japanese society tried to explain the mystery of the production of wealth in terms of conceptual apparatus provided by religious institutions and their doctrines. Agricultural production, financial interests, commercial profit, even gambling: all these activities involved proliferation, that is, the generation of something from nothing. This was explained in terms of the intervention of buddhas and kami in the economic processes. The divinities were at the center of all productive and commercial activities: they generated the crops, and to them the first produce was returned; they generated interests, and they enabled objects to be exchanged for profit; they even controlled the fortune of gamblers. In other words, the intellectual framework of medieval Japanese economy maintained that buddhas and kami bring wealth to this world by intervening directly in the generation of surplus (added value), in agriculture and in any other commercial and manufacturing activities. (Rambelli, 2019, p. 174)

Since ancient times, the Japanese believed that kami was at the centre of all productive activities, manifesting itself as the ‘life force’ that gives birth to all beings in this world. In this world view, there was no clear distinction between the realm of nature and that of humans. A human activity, including the problem of wealth, was regarded as a part of natural phenomena, which consisted in the principle of generation and proliferation. We find that this animistic way of thinking underlies the medieval Japanese narratives, too. In them, wealth is described as the result of the interaction with the Invisible World of kami. The kami would give rewards for morally good actions, while he/​she would punish immoral behaviours with poverty. Very much influenced by this logic, people in pre-​modern Japan came to believe that wealth was brought by the divine, and that the key to get this divine gift was ‘to be honest, not to be greedy’ (Komatsu, 2009, pp. 167–​ 172). As these narratives spread more and more widely in society, the morality of honesty and frugality became one of the basic virtues for the Japanese to lead a blessed life. After all, Baigan’s moral teaching that focused on honesty and frugality might be well understood as a faithful expression, whether consciously or unconsciously, of this Japanese tradition to emphasize the inseparable connection between the divine and the economy, which was developed through the religious narratives repeated across time.

298   Tomoko Iwasawa

Conclusion After Baigan’s death, his teaching was called Shingaku (心学, the Study of Kokoro) and promulgated by his disciples. It spread widely until by the early nineteenth century, there were many Shingaku lecture halls all over Japan. The influence of his teaching is not confined to those days but continues to attract attention today among many Japanese. Since 2010, more than a dozen business books on Baigan have been published in Japan which introduce his teaching as a notable business ethics that can be applied even to contemporary economic society (Kataoka and Kim, 2011; Morita, 2016, 2019; Yui, 2019, etc.). These publications include several new versions of Baigan’s main work, Tohi-​mondō, which appears with a contemporary Japanese translation that is more accessible to today’s readers. In this way, Baigan’s teaching seems to be getting more and more attention among Japanese these days. Nevertheless, we have to ask why Baigan’s teaching has such a lasting influence on people’s minds. We discussed in this chapter how Baigan’s moral teaching is a typical example of the Japanese fusion of plural religious traditions such as Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism. We examined how these traditions could be united in his thought, the foundation of which, he maintained, consisted in the worship of kami. The economic ethics that Baigan thus proposed was honesty and frugality, both of which reflected well the traditional Japanese world view that seemed to have originated from the primordial notion that presupposed the kami’s intervention in all productive activities in this world. This world view did not regard the pursuit of one’s own wealth as the most fundamental principle of economic society but attached importance to the harmony of society, the realization of which may sometimes require restraint on the extreme projection of an individual wealth, as if trying to maintain a balanced ecosystem of the society. It thus emphasized the ethics of honesty, trust, and cooperation among those who participate in market exchange, instead of the maximization of self-​interest as maintained by modern economics. What was even more interesting is that Japanese economic ethics seems to have developed not based on explicit rules and regulations but out of a set of ethical habits internalized by each member of society through the religious narratives repeatedly told in pre-​modern Japan. This observation reminds us of Francis Fukuyama’s insightful remark on how we can establish the ethics required for the post-​industrial society: The liberal democracy that emerges at the end of history is therefore not entirely ‘modern.’ If the institutions of democracy and capitalism are to work properly, they must coexist with certain premodern cultural habits that ensure their proper functioning. Law, contract, and economic rationality provide a necessary but not sufficient basis for both the stability and prosperity of postindustrial societies; they must as well be leavened with reciprocity, moral obligation, duty toward community, and trust, which are based in habit rather than rational calculation. (Fukuyama, 1995, p. 11)

Shinto Economic Ethics    299 Just like many nations, contemporary Japan is also experiencing a gradual decline of its traditional values and norms, for it no longer has the earlier type of community in which religious narratives as well as social values were constantly shared and internalized by its members. The recent phenomenon that Baigan’s teaching is attracting ever more attention from the Japanese might be interpreted as a reflection of their crisis awareness, which confronts the loss of traditional values and seeks a new way to establish the ethics required for the present age.

Suggested Readings Horide, Ichiro (2019). The Mercantile Ethical Tradition in Edo Period Japan. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. Iwasawa, Tomoko (2020). ‘Philosophical Implications of Shinto’. In The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy, edited by Bret W. Davis, 97–​110. New York: Oxford University Press. Komatsu, Kazuhiko and Shin’ichiro Kurimoto (1982). Keizai no tanjō (The Birth of the Economy). Tokyo: Kōsakusha. Sueki, Fumihiko (2018). Chūsei no kami to hotoke (Kami and Buddha in the Medieval Japan) (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha). Teeuwen, Mark and Fabio Rambelli, ed. (2003). Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm (London: Routledge).

Works Cited Ishida, Baigan (1994a). Ishida Baigan Zenshu (Complete Works of Ishida Baigan). Volume 1, edited by Minoru Shibata. Osaka, JP: Seibundō. Ishida, Baigan (1994b). Ishida Baigan Zenshu (Complete Works of Ishida Baigan). Volume 2, edited by Minoru Shibata. Osaka, JP: Seibundō. Bellah, Robert (1985). Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan. New York: The Free Press. Fukuyama, Francis (1995). Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press Paperbacks). Itō, Satoshi (2003). ‘The Medieval Period: The kami Merge with Buddhism’. In Shinto—​A Short History, edited by Nobutaka Inoue, 63–​107. London and New York: Routledge Curzon. Itō, Satoshi (2020). Shinto no chūsei (Shinto in the Medieval Period). Tokyo: Chūō-​kōron-​sha. Kataoka, Ryu and Kim, Tae-​Chang, ed. (2011). Ishida Baigan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Kitai, Toshio (2001). ‘Nihon chūsei shōjiki-​kō’(An Analysis of the Concept of Honesty in the Medieval Japan), Tochigi Shigaku 15: 100–​109. Komatsu, Kazuhiko (2009). Fuku no kami to binbōgami (Gods of Wealth and Gods of Poverty). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Kuroda, Toshio (1981). ‘Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion’, Journal of Japanese Studies 7, no. 1: 1–​21. Kuroda, Toshio (1990). Nihon chūsei no shakai to shūkyō (The Japanese Society and Religion in the Medieval Period). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

300   Tomoko Iwasawa Matsumura, Takeo (1959). Nihon Shinwa no Kenkyū(A Study of Japanese Myth). Volume 4. Tokyo: Baifūkan. Morita, Kenji (2016). Sekimon shingaku to kindai (Shingaku and the Modern Society). Tokyo: Yachiyo Shuppan. Morita, Kenji (2019). Naze mei-​keieisha wa Ishida Baigan ni manabunoka (Why Would a Smart Manager Learn from Ishida Baigan?). Tokyo: Discover 21 Co. Ltd.. Nelson, John K. (2019). ‘Japanese Traditions’. In A Concise Introduction to World Religions, edited by Amir Hussain, Roy C. Amore, and Willard G. Oxtoby, 560–​591. New York: Oxford University Press. Nishida, Masayoshi (1980). Kami to hotoke no taiwa (The dialogue between kami and buddha). Tokyo: Kōsaku-​sha. Otto, Rudolf (1958). The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pye, Michael (2020). ‘What is Shinto?’ In Exploring Shinto, edited by Michael Pye, 3–​33. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd. Rambelli, Fabio (2019). ‘The Mystery of Wealth and the Role of Divinities: The Economy in Pre-​Modern Japanese Fiction and Practice’, Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 2, no. 2: 164–​201. Sakakura, Atsuyoshi (1982). ‘Gogen—​Kami no Gogen wo Chūshin ni’ (‘Etymology—​Focusing on the Etymology of Kami’). In Kōza: Nihongo no Goi. Volume 1: Goi Genron, edited by Kiyoji Satō, 89–​107. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Satō, Hiroo (2021). Nihonjin to kami (The Japanese and Kami). Tokyo: Kōdansha-​gendai-​shinsho. Sonoda, Minoru (1998). Daredemo no Shinto (Shinto for Everyone). Tokyo: Kōbundō. Sonoda, Minoru (2005). Japan, Land of Forests. Mizugaki No. 200. Tokyo: Jingūshichō. Sonoda, Minoru (2006). ‘Nihon ni okeru Reiteki Seimei-​kan to Gendai’ (‘The Japanese Concept of Life and Soul and its Implication to the Present Day’), Journal for the Comparative Study of Civilizations 11: 185–​195. Teeuwen, Mark (2002). ‘From Jindō to Shinto: A Concept Takes Shape’, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 29, nos 3–​4: 233–​263. Tsuchihashi, Hiroshi (2000). Nihongo ni saguru Kodai Shinkō (An Ancient Religious Belief Explored through the Japanese Language). Tokyo: Chūkō Shinsho. Yui, Tsunehiko (2019). Tohi-​mondō to Sekimon Shingaku (Tohi-​mondō and Ishida Baigan’s Shingaku) Tokyo: Fuzanbō International.

Chapter 13

Ab original Au st ra l ia n Spirituali t y a nd Ec onomy victoria grieves williams

Introduction Contemporary Aboriginal Australians are a part of the oldest human civilization on Earth dating back as much as 75,000 years. Originally inhabiting the ancient continent of Sahul, Aboriginal people became isolated from the rest of the world with the rising of the oceans around 10,000 years ago (Malaspinas et al., 2016). Thus, amongst surviving Aboriginal cultural leaders and the published research of hundreds of anthropologists, linguists, archaeologists, and historians, we have a repository of the human culture of the Holocene. The Holocene is estimated to have begun about 12,000 years ago and it is the time when humans lived within the bounds of nature. This is the basis and the core values of the spirituality of Aboriginal people. Importantly, Aboriginal people are hunter gatherers or if now urban-​based, from a tradition of hunter gatherers. They may be moving in and out of hunter gatherer lifestyles. Hunter gathering means they are people whose economic mode of production centres on ‘wild’ rather than cultivated resources. The shared subsistence economy of the hunter gatherer belies a behavioural diversity that exceeds that of other economic systems. In short, there is more freedom, especially freedom of physical movement, in hunter-​gatherer ways of being. Moving within a framework of connectedness to all animate and inanimate things, means that people are in a web of reciprocity with the natural world rather than exercising stewardship of it. And, this is a social and economic system without the necessity for a surplus or any material value. Why then is it often referred to as sophisticated and complex? The anthropologist Peter Sutton recently wrote that the sophistication and complexity is found in:

302   Victoria Grieves Williams the intricate webs of kinship and social structure; in the richness of the grammars of the languages; in the innumerable mythic narratives that bind place to place and engage the full range of the emotions; in the thousands of song series and the prodigious feats of memory by which they have been locally maintained; and in the elaborate intertwining of totemic religion, linguistic group organisation and land tenure systems. (Sutton and Walshe, 2021, p. 44)

While holding true to a set of core principles, Aboriginal people’s spiritual beliefs arise from the multiplicity of life-​worlds and local experiences that exist across a continent of almost three million square miles and a small island to the south, Tasmania, comprised of some 25,000 square miles. These beliefs inform distinctly Indigenous ways of being that are recognized by unique and complex understandings of time, place, and interconnectedness with the sacred including ancestors, universally referred to in Aboriginal English as the Old People, and all of creation. Importantly, Aboriginal people hold true in various ways and degrees to their spirituality that has existed since before the colonization of their lands by the British (Grieves, 2006, 2009). While the spiritual understandings and practices held by Aboriginal people have been significantly devalued, disregarded, and demeaned, at the same time they have a critical relationship to Western beliefs and practices that have been used to suppress them. In the face of racist and colonialist terror and violence, theft and disregard, Aboriginal people have continued to view their world through their own cultural lens and within their spiritual belief systems as they can. What else can they be? Importantly, this belief system is the basis of the resistance and resilience that has been evident in our survival. The Aboriginal population is now less than 800,000 people and approximately 3.3 per cent of the total Australian population. Of these, 33 per cent live in major cities, 44 per cent live in regional areas, and only 18 per cent live in remote and very remote areas (AIHW, 2021). While there is an assumption that city-​living impacts on Aboriginal people’s capacity to practise cultural ways, research indicates that urban-​dwelling Aboriginal people hold spirituality as the greatest contributing factor to their wellbeing (Grieves, 2006). Estimates of the population of Australia in 1788 are difficult to gauge but there is no doubt that there has been a tremendous loss of life and populations through disease, starvation, vigilantism, and state-​based violence over more than 200 years. There is a huge continuing gap in the indicators of disadvantage between Aboriginal people and the general population including earlier deaths, greater rates of infant mortality, lower incomes and employment rates, lower educational achievement, higher incarceration, and absurdly high rates of child removal from families. I have argued elsewhere that Aboriginal people live in a state of exception (as theorized by Georgio Agamben) to the settler colonial state. This means there are deep structural issues that prevent them from enjoying the rights of citizens, and they are caught in an exclusionary, violent state of being, without which the democratic nation state could not exist (Agamben, 1998; Grieves, 2017).

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    303 The Walpiri people from the Tanami Desert west of Katherine in the Northern Territory, Australia, have a prophecy about extremely hard times, a strong attack on culture and people, that manifests like an almost irresistible wind. I was told this by one of only three fully initiated men, Wanta Jampijinpa Likaitiy Napangardi also known as Steven Patrick, who lives in Lajamanu, a small Walpiri settlement. The prophecy includes that the people can survive this challenge, that they must hold on to culture and see it through (Patrick, pers.comm.). It is possible that this is what is now happening, that history has caught up with Aboriginal people in Australia, and they are having to withstand huge global forces that, if not genocidal in intent, are certainly so in effect. There is no doubt that the people have shown extraordinary resilience over generations. The basis of this resilience is the persistence of Aboriginal spirituality. Aboriginal spirituality connects to a philosophy, ontology, and epistemology that is not easily accessible to the modern so-​called ‘Western’ way of thinking. However, those outsiders who have had the opportunity to understand Aboriginal lifeways become intrigued. Aboriginal spirituality is extremely foreign to the Western materialist values that predominate in the world today because it is predicated on a deep love of ‘country’, from where all life comes, and gratitude and acceptance of that which has been provided. Aboriginal spirituality is more than complex, it is the product of an entirely different human consciousness to that of the West such that, at first glance, it may seem to make no sense at all. It has often been wrongly apprehended as very simple. In an attempt to cut through the consciousness differential in understanding a complex spirituality that is lived as a celebration of the sacred nature of life itself, I will present some of what I have come to know of Aboriginal spirituality and economy from several different practitioners and observers over time. This is in the hope that by approaching the same phenomenon from several different angles, the reader will be able to catch a rare glimpse of that other world. There is no manual and no shortcuts. The book Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy and the Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal People (2009) is the result of an extensive literature review and remains the most comprehensive overview of this subject. However, I too am on a lifelong journey towards understanding my own humanity and my place in the natural order that is described in what follows. And now, fifteen years later there is so much more that has become apparent and so much more that I may get a grasp of. An important part of understanding is the opportunity to live this culture; it is difficult to confine it to the pages of a book. Indigenous Australian spirituality has been described as embodying a reverence for life as it is—​it does not promise a life after death, salvation, nirvana, or anything similar that is offered by other religions. Thus, life is as it is, a mixture of good and bad, of suffering and joy, and it is celebrated as sacred. The focus is on the spiritual, that connection to the big picture of creation and connectedness that also includes the universe as observed through the night sky. The individual is not centred within this schema of the beauty and complexity of physical and spiritual connections in the natural world—​humans are just one part of this immense whole. Nonetheless the remarkable resilience of Aboriginal people is partly explained by the legacy of a spirituality that

304   Victoria Grieves Williams demonstrates ‘an enthusiasm for living, a readiness to celebrate life as it is, a will to survive and to pass the baton of life to the next generation’ (Stockton, 1995, pp 77–​78). As the Kakadu Man (1989), Bill Neidje, said, ‘This is a story about feeling.’ While feelings may be discounted in this materialist, commodified world, they are the stuff of human wellbeing and resilience. Aboriginal spirituality values conservation in an age of resource extraction; it is about gift-​giving rather than receiving in a society that rewards wealth accumulation. It is about the group over the individual in a popular culture that promotes what can often be seen as narcissistic individuality. And Aboriginal people value this knowledge above all else, constantly holding out a hand to offer this philosophy and its concomitant lifeways as a gift. David Mowaljarlai, a senior lawman of the Ngarinyin people of the West Kimberley, echoed the sentiments of many Aboriginal cultural leaders when he expressed a deep desire to be able to share this spirituality with Westerners in order to have them live well in the country known as Australia. We are really sorry for you people. We cry for you because you haven’t got meaning of culture in this country. We have a gift we want to give you. We keep getting blocked from giving you that gift. We get blocked by politics and politicians. We get blocked by media, by process of law. All we want to do is come out from under all of this and give you this gift. And it’s the gift of pattern thinking. It’s the culture which is the blood of this country, of Aboriginal groups, of the ecology, of the land itself. (David Mowaljarlai, 1995)

Mowaljarlai speaks of the importance of ‘pattern thinking’ and he drew a map of Australia that was connected by criss-​crossed lines illustrating the connections and the relatedness of all things. This is the core of Aboriginal spirituality, and it demands of human beings that we support and sustain this relatedness in the natural world. The reward for this is wellbeing: a state of being in concert with all that is around you—​of having fulfilled your responsibilities and enjoyed certain rights—​of being in balance, of being ‘straight’ or ‘level’ as expressed in Aboriginal English. A modern Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins also reiterated how Aboriginal cultures are there for everyone when he told the historian Peter Read: My expectation of a good Australia is when White people would be proud to speak an Aboriginal language, when they realise that Aboriginal culture and all that goes with it, philosophy, art, language, morality, kinship, is all part of their heritage. And that’s the most unbelievable thing of all, that it’s all there waiting for us all. White people can inherit 40,000 or 60,000 years of culture, and all they have to do is reach out and ask for it. (Griffiths, 2018, p. 293)

The Dreaming—​the Morality of the World As the creation stories contain the blueprint for all life, some Aboriginal Elders prefer to use the word Law. The Dreaming or the Law are so much more than either term can

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    305 convey in English, and so much more than a spirituality or philosophy confined to religion in the Western understanding. The basis of Aboriginal understanding of creation is that it occurred, and continues to occur, when powerful creator spirits or heroic spirit ancestors separate and organize matter into the species and the landforms as they now exist. When these anthropomorphic super-​heroes had done their original work, they then lay down to rest or took to the sky where they are also present in constellations. Stories of these ancestors and what they achieved and continue to achieve are told, and some of these have been documented (Andrews, 2004; Johnson, 1998; Tripcony, 1999). The creation stories have a common formula: Before life as we know it as human beings, there was a complex chaotic mass of matter that included these powerful anthropomorphic beings. They were so powerful that they were able to change form and shape the chaos into form. They developed order and life out of the chaos by filling it with their activity and power. In intense bursts of activity, they were able to transform and develop formless matter into landscapes. The names of the features that they brought into being hold the stories of their own creation. The ancestors in the same way gave rise to living forms, the animal species, all manner of plants, as well as the landforms, watercourses (which, though inanimate, are understood to have their own spirit or being) and, of course, people. Each person or specific plant or place is linked to the spirit of its creation and thus to each other. This is a relationship of mutual spirit being, often referred to as totemism. (Grieves, 2009, p. 15)

While the English word Dreaming has become a gloss used to describe Aboriginal understandings of creation and spiritual beliefs, it is not nearly equivalent to the concepts that exist in Aboriginal languages that refer to the time and events of creation and the laws laid down at the time, nor to the active and powerful ongoing work of these sustaining spirits. The concept meant to describe the common core of Aboriginal spirituality that exists across the whole continent has lost its specific and significant meaning when translated into English. Words such as Dreaming, totemism, and Spirituality are not equivalent to the meaning that is held in Aboriginal languages. This is the basis of the philosophy that has guided Aboriginal lifeways for so many thousands of years. These English terms carry the burden of communicating what life itself is all about, in every manifestation and meaning, in all time. In the late nineteenth century, Baldwin Spencer, anthropologist and F. J. Gillen, ethnographer, met with isolated Aboriginal groups along the telegraph line through Central Australia, specifically at the Telegraph Station near Alice Springs. They translated the Arrente words: altjira ngambakala as ‘dreaming’ and altjirarama as ‘to dream’. However, the word altjira also came to be understood as meaning ‘eternal’, and the idea of ‘dreaming’ also means seeing eternal things during sleep (Stockton, 1995, p. 54). W.E.H. Stanner (1905–​1981), anthropologist, is an outstanding example of a Western-​ educated person who came to admire Aboriginal spirituality and philosophy. He recalls a very intelligent old man telling him: ‘White man got no Dreaming, him go 'nother way. Whiteman, him go different. Him got road belong himself ’ (Stanner, 1979, pp. 23–​24).

306   Victoria Grieves Williams Without Dreaming, known as tjukurpa by Arrente people, there is no connection to country, the species, landscape, people—​it is the sacred Law. Without tjukurpa, that is, the rationale and prescription for living in the country well, people do not really belong. Tjukurpa is the past, present, and future all in one. Stanner explains: The central meaning of The Dreaming is that of a sacred, heroic time long ago when man and nature came to be as they are; but neither time nor history as we understand them is involved in this meaning . . . Although the dreaming conjures up the notion of a sacred, heroic time of the indefinitely remote past, such a time is also, in a sense, still part of the present. One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen . . . Clearly, The Dreaming is many things in one. Among them, a kind of narrative of things that once happened; a kind of character of things that still happen; and a kind of logos or principle of order transcending everything significant for Aboriginal man . . . It is a cosmonogy, an account of the begetting of the universe, a study about creation. It is also a cosmology, an account or theory of how what was created became an ordered system. To be more precise, how the universe became a moral system. (Stanner, 1979, pp. 23–​24, 28)

The Dreaming is not a wholly past event, it encompasses ‘all the instances of being, whether completed or to come’ (Stanner, 1979, pp. 23–​24). But this is not two coexistent realities but more the incorporation of seemingly incompatible realms into one. Sansom argues for ‘a single supervening reality that has ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ truths and stories and therefore ‘dreamings and people are co-​presences in one world, treating knowledge as the great discriminating and modifying force’ (Sansom, 2001, pp. 2–​3). Although humans cannot hope to grasp the full knowledge of truths that are embedded in the Dreaming, they have the opportunity to develop this understanding over a lifetime. People who have a deep understanding of the spiritual are referred to in creole or Aboriginal English as clever men and women; they are often called elders. In central Australia, they are referred to as tjilpi. They have a privileged understanding and can see right through, their vision penetrating all the way to the inside. This idea of knowledge ‘allows each person the opportunity to live a life of progressive revelations’ and ‘anyone who lives a fortunate life should come to participate more and more fully in the unity of the Dreaming’ (Sansom, 2001, pp. 2–​3). In fact, sudden and unasked for revelations of the power of the Dreaming can occur, what anthropologists call irruptions, and these are met with joy, manifest as laughter in the cases Sansom reports from the Northern Territory (Sansom, 2001, pp. 2–​3). In my experience in south-​east Australia, the reaction is of agreed and pleased recognition, often with the remark, ‘Well, there you are, see?’ meaning there’s the proof of the reality of the Dreaming in our lives. The late Minoru Hokari, Japanese historian, spent time with Gurindji elders and recorded their conversations. His reports of these have helped me to grasp the meaning of the interconnectedness and relatedness of all things. Hokari tells us that Jimmy Mangayarri explained that a handful of soil is not dead but alive ‘like a man’. Thus, the earth can tell us the right way and ‘everything coming from the earth’, the earth or

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    307 ‘place’ (as in totemic site) creates and maintains life. Earth is ‘the original cause and reason of every life and its existence’. Hokari came to understand that when Dreaming beings shaped a hill and made law, the hill became law itself. ‘The landscape is not just the product of Dreaming but is itself Dreaming. . . . Dreaming did not just create the law—​Dreaming is the law. Since Dreaming itself is law, a place becomes the law as well.’ Further, Billy Bunter told Hokari, ‘Our law is this hill, that river, (so that) nobody can change that law.’ Hokari came to understand that ‘Law does not only come from earth; law also is the earth. Law is tangible visible and physical.’ Hokari explains that he came to understand that earth, Dreaming, and law are identical through incorporating the moral dimension, what Mangayarri called the right way. This right way is a Dreaming track on land as well as ethical behaviour, making morality spatial as well as behavioural. ‘The earth, Dreaming and law are identical because all of these have the same essential quality, namely the “right way” or the morality of the world’ (Hokari, 2011, pp. 96–​97). Hokari came to understand the meaning of morality in the Gurindji world as following the Dreaming, law, or the right way in order to maintain the Earth. Morality being an attitude to the world as well as the physical evidence of a maintained world. ‘Attitude’ that maintains the world includes ritual practices, visiting country, communicating with country and ancestral beings, for example. And all of this is about maintaining a whole that humans are a part of—​‘people can exist because the world is alive and keeps its morality and the world exists because people are alive and keep their morality; the world maintains you as you maintain the world’. This is the basis of reciprocity in Aboriginal lifeways that extends out to encompass all living things. Hokari found that Gurindji took notice of physical evidence of the world maintaining its morality, the physical, geographical indicators of the Dreaming. This is to take note and remember that ‘visible memories of the word’s creation’ are in place. He explains: In fact, such memories themselves are visible morality because if these objects and landscapes are broken, the world loses its morality. The ‘right way’ or law is moral, in the same way the land is moral, and the Dreaming is moral. You may still ask, ‘morality for what purpose?’ The answer is, however, now clear: for maintaining the living world, a part of what is the people themselves. Therefore, Dreaming is not just a story of the past; it contains the present and the potential future at the same time . . . it should be in any time. Earth, Dreaming, ‘right way’ and law are the origins of the world and the history of maintaining the world. (Hokari, 2011, pp. 97–​99)

The moral behaviour required to maintain the integrity of the earth such as visiting ancestral beings, ritual, and ceremony, requires movement. Hokari realized that it was the movement of the Dreaming around country that created the Earth as we know it. In fact, it was the movement that was creating—​and since creation it has been the activity and mobility of the Dreaming beings on country that maintain life, including human life. And people maintain their Dreaming through their movement—​following Dreaming tracks through song, dances, and drawings. People look after country by visiting and

308   Victoria Grieves Williams communicating with it, paying attention to the world as they move through it. This is the ethical movement that maintains the world and is in fact movement for movement’s sake, simply because movement is the essence of life. Hokari was struck by the association of this idea of creation with that of Christian cosmology expressed in John 1 in the Bible—​‘In the beginning there was the word . . .’ and he wrote his understanding of the Gurindji cosmology as follows: In the beginning was the movement and the movement was with the Dreaming, and the movement was Dreaming. Movement was with the Dreaming in the beginning. Through the movement all things were made; without movement nothing was made that has been made. (Hokari, 2011, pp. 102–​103)

The world is maintained because Dreaming beings are always active and mobile—​and so people maintain the Dreaming through their movement—​their travel, ritual, song, and dance. Not to negate something as simple as just being there, observing, remembering, talking to country, singing. They may not always be following pathways but if they do, they are not only geographical but also spiritual, and flow like streams. These are the continent-​wide connections that Mowaljarli spoke of and the gift highway as explained by Steven Wanta Jampijinpa Patrick.

The ‘Gift Highway’ or a Web of Connection without a Centre Aboriginal society as it existed before first contact with Europeans was marked by an absence of materialism, of surplus, and of accumulation of anything much at all. The question remains: What was it that could sustain human sociality and lifeways for so many thousands of years without an economy dependent on any surplus, including agricultural surplus, and material appropriation? The answer lies in the rich intellectual traditions of the many interrelated clans and language groups across the vast land mass that is Australia. These traditions and belief systems were not cognisant of a need to accumulate material goods but focussed on the need to move around country, fulfilling the requirements of spirituality and connectedness or relatedness. This important principle, in itself, was acting to support the natural world rather than plunder it. If you understand the deep relatedness between humans and the natural world, then you do not tend to destroy that which sustains you but rather you reciprocate that attention and care. Westerners who have studied Aboriginal history and culture have sometimes referred to trade networks across the country. Professor John Mulvaney (1925–​2016), recognized as the father of Australian archaeology, remarked on the vast networks of Aboriginal Australia that became visible through archaeological excavation. He said: ‘In theory, it is possible for a man who had brought pituri from the Mulligan River and ochre from Parachilna to own a Cloncurry axe, a Boulia boomerang and wear shell pendants

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    309 from the Carpentaria and Kimberley’ (Griffiths, 2011, p. 48). For those unfamiliar with Australian geography these places embrace the whole of the country from north to south and east to west, demonstrating the range of products exchanged across the continent. This is proof of the interconnectedness of all Aboriginal societies. And it also indicates a system of exchange of knowledge, stories, songs, and ceremonies as these movements around country mirror the travels of the ancestral heroes of the Dreaming. The rational for this movement would be focussed on fulfilling responsibilities for spiritual management of lands; the method of exchange would be as gifts in a system of reciprocity. Walpiri senior law man Steven Wanta Jampijinpa Patrick talks of the gift highway that exists across the whole of the continent of Australia and that it is potentially worldwide. This is a spiritual as much as it is a geographical or physical concept. The gift highway is rational in a world where to give is considered much better than to receive. It is necessary in a society where the absence of material goods is a point of pride rather than a sign of poverty. Patrick says that it is the gift highway that ‘gets you to where you are going’ (pers. comm.) meaning that embarking on this highway is a life’s journey towards the sacred that will become apparent to you. The gift highway is resplendent with dance, song, ceremony, stories, exchange of gifts, and a love of life. Hokari found that the Gurindji cosmology holds that movement is the essence of maintaining the world, and that this means there is no central place, no hub in country. Since the totemic sites that must be visited in order to maintain food and water supplies are far and widely scattered, there is a necessity to move (Hokari, 2011, p. 104). These are the circumscribed patterns of the nomads’ movement over country, nomads who by this practice come to absolutely know place. This is how you know your country and your Dreaming beings whose paths intersect with yours at the Dreaming or totemic site. In moving through country in this way there are sites that are shared by neighbouring groups and so there are opportunities to meet, particularly in times of abundance. Hokari says: ‘The world is maintained through the web of connection between Dreaming beings, people and their countries and ceremonies.’ In considering this, it becomes apparent that the stone axes and the pearl and bailer shells, the ochre, are not the objective in this movement around country. They are but incidental to the main project that is spiritual obligation and reciprocity. Hokari again: ‘Humans are not the central source of agency in the world.’ Instead, ‘Human activities are relationalised by Dreaming activities’ (Hokari, 2011, p. 105). Neither are these movements over country related to the directions as circumscribed by the Earth’s centre as in latitude and longitude—​rather they are related to the universe as seen in the night sky. Humans are not only a product of the Earth but also a product of the universe and nowhere is this more evident than in the spirituality of Indigenous people worldwide who look to the universe for the paradigms of human behaviour on Earth. As well as the constellations that have their stories, the dark patches around the Milky Way reveal the flying emu whose head is the nebula known as the Coal Sack that resides in the Southern Cross. There are deep meanings to this phenomenon that are difficult to share (Patrick, pers. comm.). Aboriginal people look to the universe for direction, in travelling across country as well as in their spirituality

310   Victoria Grieves Williams and so, as the night sky moves, so do their movements on country. This is the web of connections without a centre that Hokari discovered in his research. The movements are not aligned with any hub on Earth but rather move in response to the movements of the universe.

Spiritual Propagation There has been a recent controversy in Australia when a newcomer to Aboriginal cultural ways of being was keen to defend pre-​contact Aboriginal people as early, that is, primitive agriculturalists. This idea caused a great deal of excitement and generated huge book sales while many Aboriginal people and their allies have looked on in disbelief. The anthropologist Peter Sutton and an archaeologist Keryn Walshe have published a book Farmers or Hunter-​Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate (2021) in which they draw on their own relationships with cultural leaders and seek to reference the huge amount of scholarly work that exists. As a result, they have been able to dismiss the idea of Aboriginal people as farmers, gardeners, or any other form of secularized ‘husbandry’, domination over Earth and species, or interference with the work of the ancestral heroes and the Old People. The evidence indicates that widespread practices of spiritual propagation provided all that was needed. Sutton and Walshe quote the anthropologist John Bradley who described these practices as follows: ...speaking to the spirits of ancestors at resource sites, carrying out ‘increase rituals’ at special species related sites, singing resource species songs in ceremonies, maintaining rich systems of totems for various species that were found in the countries of the totem holders and handling food resources with reverence. (Sutton and Walshe, 2021, p. 24)

Aboriginal people have been depending on the reproduction of plant and animal species through spiritual propagation in most areas, if not all of the continent. All indicators are that Aboriginal people did not employ any physical cultivation because they never needed to. However, the main reason is because it does not fit with the spiritual beliefs and lifeways of the people. The spiritual way of life that comes from the Earth, observing the Law and moving around country the right way, provided all that was needed. As you may now understand, Aboriginal people do not see themselves as managers of the environment because they are following the Law that has been alive and moving through the landscape since the creation times. They do not position themselves as the centre of creation. Sutton and Walshe quote Bradley who explains how the Yanyuwa and Garrwa peoples are ‘in constant apprehension and negotiation . . . following the Law established during the formative activities of the Dreaming’. Moreover, he says that centres of abundant foods, that might be called gardens, are not sown gardens or human creations. ‘Their fertility is inherent’ (Sutton and Walshe, 2021 p. 43).

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    311 Nonetheless, Aboriginal groups’ knowledge of the country including the increase and maintenance sites for all the various species could keep them very busy all year round ensuring that each one was tended as it should be for the arrival of foods in the appropriate season. For example, Sutton draws on the work of Ursula McConnel, an early anthropologist with the Wik-​mungkan people on the coastal flood plains of the Gulf of Carpentaria in north Queensland. In 1930, McConnel published in much detail the ritual attached to sites that in Wik-​mungkan are called auwa. These are often totem centres and sometimes the nests and breeding grounds of the species concerned. The information McConnel collected includes detail attached to sites for dugong, shark, carpet snake, oyster, goose, pigeon, sea turtle, crab, pelican, curlew, flying fox, wallaby, fresh young crabs, scrub fowl, honey, freshwater crocodile, bandicoot, blue-​tongued lizard, waterlily (4 sites), snake, stingray, barramundi fish, wallaby, fresh young grass, small root, chicken hawk, iguana, opossum, pandanus palm, bloodwood flowers, black snake, praying mantis, crow, catfish, bream, black snake, baby crane, small shark, emu, catfish, shooting star, quail, tortoise, anteater, swamp turtle, kangaroo, bush rat, dingo, leech, swamp fish bird, yellow fruit, swamp ducks, fish hawk, dilly bag, fishing net, parrot, rock cod, mudshell, nailfish, man-​eating crocodile, bullroarer frog, banana bird, bonefish, peewit, mangrove, spear handle, big tide and thunder, milkwood tree and yam (Sutton and Walshe, 2021, p. 27). This vast list gives an idea of the variety in Aboriginal people’s diet through spiritual propagation, and also of the immense responsibility to country involved in visiting all of these places to perform obligatory ritual at different times and in different seasons. The ritual involved often includes cleaning up a site, for example waterholes, to ensure the waters stay fresh and clean. There may be special songs to activate sites by ‘stirring up’ or ‘waking up’ the essence of the species associated with that site. It may also involve spreading of substances or beating with leaves, or cutting nearby trees. People talk in a loud voice on approach, introducing themselves to the Old People, the ancestors, in both a reverent and a demanding way. Sutton indicates there may be more sites on Wik country than McConnel documented because he and colleagues documented a further 53 between 1969 and 1995 (Sutton and Walshe, 2021, p. 28). We get to see one of these visitations to the site of a creation ancestor in the film Lalai Dreamtime (1972), developed by director Michael Edols when Sam Woolgoodja agreed to take his family back out into their country to live as they had been, before ‘coming in’ to live on the mission lands. In the film we accompany Sam and his son Stanley on a pilgrimage to the site of Namarali the law-​giving Wandjina, creation ancestor, of Sam’s people, the Worora of the Kimberley region in NW Australia. Sam introduces his son Stanley to Namarali as they approach and while there Stanley dreams of the name of his new daughter, that is, her spiritual connection to the natural world. Sam Woolgoodja always underlined the importance of keeping the Wandjina ‘fresh’ by repainting their images in the rock overhangs regularly and was responsible for repainting the sacred Wandjina in many of the rock shelters that dot the Kimberley landscape. He was among the first to paint the sacred stories on bark and board to bring the events of Lalai to the children now living far from their homelands. Sam’s son, Donny Woolgoodja, designed

312   Victoria Grieves Williams a giant Wandjina figure that was prominent in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Sydney 2000.

Contemporary Expositions of Aboriginal Spirituality Aboriginal political activism gained new momentum with bark petitions sent to Parliament by the yolngu people of Arnhemland in 1963, and then centred on the Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 (Grieves Williams, 2020). This national uprising of Aboriginal people heralded a new wave of cultural expression, and the Australia Council for the Arts developed an Aboriginal Arts Board in 1975 to promote Aboriginal culture through arts developments. Aboriginal people took to modern forms to express culture and resistance to settler colonial hegemony. For example, the political activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker 1920–​1993) was an accomplished poet, writer, and artist amongst a group of activist writers and poets (Grieves Williams, 2020a). The bands Mantaka and Coloured Stone adopted reggae forms and enjoyed immense success under the leadership of Willie Brim and Bart Willoughby respectively (Grieves, 2018). Black dance forms fusing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disciplines with modern dance began at the Tent Embassy through the agency of Carole Johnson, an African American dancer visiting the Adelaide festival with the Elio Pomare Dance Company from the USA. At the request of Aboriginal people she returned to train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers alongside the local dance masters for many years. This was the beginning of a continuum that has resulted in the world-​famous Bangarra Aboriginal Dance Theatre of today (Grieves, 2020). Warraimaay actor and acting coach Bryan Syron returned to Australia from the USA and began various initiatives in theatre, film, and television, teaching for some time at the newly formed Eora College for the Arts in Redfern during the 1980s (Suzanne Ingram, pers. comm.). Aboriginal art flourished with the emergence of artists who work in a myriad of ways with a wide range of mediums to represent culture and history (Caruana, 2013; Croft, 2008). Many Aboriginal groups have cultural festivals in Australia. For example, the yolngu clans of Arnhemland in the Northern Territory hold an annual four-​day festival near Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory in August of each year. The festival site Gulkula has been chosen as a place where the freshwater and the saltwater meet, a site of increase and change. The township of Laura on the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland hosts a bi-​annual dance festival, the Laura Quinkan Dance Festival, on a bora ground that has been in use for thousands of years. The Aboriginal people of the inner city of Redfern in Sydney, New South Wales, hold an annual Survival Day festival on 26 January called Yabun. As part of Walpiri people’s responsibilities to maintain movement and encourage exchange, Wanta Steven Patrick has developed a bi-​annual festival at Lajamanu called Milpirri. The visually spectacular performances include the natural panorama of the desert and the open night sky as well as ceremonial pageantry, dance, and song. Patrick says that the eve of the wet season when the hot and cold air meet to produce the

Aboriginal Australian Spirituality and Economy    313 rainstorms over the desert is an important learning time. The combination of the hot and cold air is a time for change that is mirrored in the festival, bringing together the young and old, the yapa and gardiya, the Walpiri and Western ways of being to produce shared futures. As sacred beings transformed the landscape, their actions formed the connections between people and the rules for living that still underpin Warlpiri thinking today. Much of the ceremonial dance in Milpirri is more than a reenactment of the ancestral being’s journeys. Through dance, the performers reconnect and channel the power of these sacred beings and reaffirm their strength and relevance to people today. (Tracks, n.d.)

A closer examination of the philosophy behind the Milpirri festival illuminates the ways in which Aboriginal lifeways are based on a deep understanding of the nature of human beings and their relationship to the natural world. Steven Wanta Jampijinpa Patrick says: Milpirri is a Warlpiri way to get country to express itself. Country is expressing itself all the time. All around Australia, Indigenous people, culture and art express (in various forms) what animals, plants and the elements, including weather and the seasons themselves—​look like and speak like. How they tell history stories and knowledge that becomes history. This is how culture teaches us and cultivates us, as the soil is cultivated, and as if we are its cultivators. Who is the gardener ultimately and who is the garden? (Patrick, 2015)

Australia has been and is a Law-​ful country. Aboriginal people share a similar philosophical, spiritual, and cultural approach to being human when deeply interconnected with country. Understanding the Walpiri methodology is a way of gaining insight into the way this works for all the people. The paradigms for human behaviour, the right way to be, is given to Warlpiri people through the Jukurrpa that tends to be a fixed set of principles, values, and ethics, inscribed in the landscape and the night sky. They are not open to change. This is diametrically opposed to Western law that is rather a set of rules designed and constantly modified by humans to regulate society. The issue of property that has grown out of the materialism of the West does not exist in Aboriginal law. The Walpiri ceremony Jurntu Purlapa teaches about Law and the primacy of Justice, Respect, Discipline, and Responsibility in human relations. This is how we can avoid conflicts, violence, and bloodshed and in the case of the Walpiri, all are bound by the Law and must face the consequences of their actions. Kuruwarri is a mark or pattern identifiable with creative spirits associated with the Law. This Law or Jukurrpa (translated as Dreaming in English) explains the proper functioning of the world—​essentially humans’ relationships to each other, the species, the landscape, and the universe. Kuruwarri was famously represented in the paintings developed by law men on thirty doors of the Yuendumu School in 1984. Known as the Yuendumu Doors this event was the beginning of the desert arts movement whereby

314   Victoria Grieves Williams artists began to work in acrylic paint rather than the coloured sand and ochres of their sand painting (Warlukurlangu Artists, 1987). Their aim? To educate the broader public about the Jukurrpa. To take their message to the world.

Conclusion In Warraimaay country and Law, Seal Rocks and the Southern Cross connect us to the epic journey of Birrugun, an ancestral hero who is sometimes manlike and sometimes the Magpie Goose. Birrugun travelled down the coast from Gumbaingirr country to Seal Rocks, and his journey exemplifies his manliness. He was hunting, proved he could fight, and he was chosen by a young woman to be her husband. She and her sister travelled with him and at Seal Rocks, they ascended into the sky to form the constellation the Southern Cross. The paradigm for the proper marriage exists in this story and in this constellation, connecting the people to the universe and eternal time. Whenever the Southern Cross is viewed from that place, the story is alive to the people and until relatively recently, the people from tribes to the north followed those tracks, and they now plan to do this again. They sang the songs of Birrugun on their journey, they celebrated his life and emulated his feats. Then they were hosted by the Warraimaay to camp at Seal Rocks, to join in with the netting of the sea mullet. The people feasted, danced and sang, traded and exchanged ideas, songs, and stories. They also negotiated upcoming liaisons through marriage law. This is but a taste of what life is like living within the bounds of nature, eschewing material goods and maintaining a reverence for the world as it is, gaining meaning from the intellectual and creative possibilities of a rich natural world and natural Law. The relatedness of all things in the natural world, including people, has created breathtaking possibilities for drama, theatre, art, song, and dance. Aboriginal cultural expression is strong and is showcased globally. Aboriginal people, their spirituality, and cultural ways of being, have been long derided as Stone Age, primitive and even that of ‘the missing link’ between humans and animals. What is becoming clear in contemporary times is that Aboriginal philosophy and cultural values can demonstrate to the people of the world a great deal about how to live well. It is an irony—​that the philosophy developed by an ancient civilization has a great deal to offer as we move into an uncertain future, following the collapse of modernity and increasingly extreme climate change events. The Aboriginal Australian archive is a repository that can inform us of a particular way of being human that is not dependent on material goods, a way of achieving a sense of wellbeing that is based on connectedness to others and the whole of nature, and a way of becoming closer to the sacred. Importantly, Aboriginal knowledge incorporates a way of playing out that connectedness through ceremony, dance, theatre, and art. Aboriginal spirituality is celebrated as an intrinsic part of everyday existence, with the potential to inform the whole of people’s lives with gratitude and reverence.

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Suggested Reading Caruana, W. (2013). Aboriginal Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Grieves, V. (2009). Aboriginal Spirituality: Aboriginal Philosophy, the Basis of Aboriginal Social and Emotional Wellbeing. Darwin NT: CRCAH Darwin. Hokari, M. (2011). Gurindji Journey: A Japanese Historian in the Outback. Kensington NSW: UNSW Press. Johnson, D. (1998). Night Skies of Aboriginal Australia: A Noctuary. Oceania Monograph. Sydney NSW: University of Sydney Press). Neidje, B. (1989). Story about Feeling. Magabala Books: Broome. Stockton E. (1995). The Aboriginal Gift: Spirituality for a Nation. Newtown NSW: Millenium Books. Sutton, P. and K. Walshe (2021). Farmers or Hunter-​Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. Melbourne Vic: Melbourne University Press. Woolagoodja, Yornadaiyn (2020). Yornadaiyn Woolagoodja Autobiograhy. Broome WA: Magabala Press.

Works Cited Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) (2021). ‘Profile of Indigenous Australians’. https://​w ww.aihw.gov.au/​repo​rts/​aus​tral​ias-​welf​are/​prof ​ile-​of-​ind​igen​ous-​aust​rali​ans, accessed 20 November 2021. Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. California: Stanford University Press. Andrews, M. (2004). The Seven Sisters of the Pleiades. Melbourne Victoria: Spinifex Press. Caruana, W. (2013). Aboriginal Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Croft, B. (2008). Culture Warriors: Australian Indigenous Art Triennial. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia. Grieves, V. (2006) ‘Indigenous Wellbeing: A Framework for Governments’ Cultural Heritage Activities’. NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, Sydney.