ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 31, 2024
Buddhism and the State: Rājadhamma after the Sattelzeit
Lajos Brons
Rājadhamma is a list of ten royal virtues or duties that occurs in the jātaka tales and that has been influential in Southeast Asian Buddhist political thought. Like pre-modern political thought in Europe—that is, thought before the Sattelzeit—Buddhist political thought lacks a concept of the “state” and is concerned with kings and similar rulers. Here I propose a modernized interpretation of rājadhamma as virtues/duties of the state. Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 31, 2024
Economic Justice in the Buddhist Tradition
Christopher Queen
Harvard University
Buddhism is widely associated today with progressive values and exemplary models of economic life. The idea of “Buddhist economics” was paired with the slogan “small is beautiful” by the economist E. F. Schumacher in 1973. Voluntary simplicity, renunciation, and a middle path between self-indulgence and self-denial are seen as keys to sustainable levels of acquisition and consumption. Buddhist kindness and compassion are thought to inspire charitable giving to the poor, and right livelihood to promote occupations of service to society. Yet the history of Buddhist economics does not always support these assumptions. Traditional beliefs in karma and merit-making do not align with modern ideas of justice. We examine the Buddhist record in areas of social equality, property, natural resources, products, wealth, income, jobs, and taxation. Each section surveys Buddhist economics in the Theravāda cultures of South and Southeast Asia; the Mahāyāna cultures that flourished in India, China, Tibet, and East Asia; and the modern period, marked by the rise of Engaged Buddhism in Asia and the West. At each stage we find distinctive teachings and practices in the economic sphere. Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Capitalism—its Nature and its Replacement: Buddhist and Marxist Insights. By Graham Priest. London: Routledge, 2021, xviii + 252 pages, ISBN 978-1-032-04911-3 (hardback), $170.00, 978-1-032-04910-6 (paperback), $48.95, 978-1-003-19514-6 (e-book), $44.05.
Reviewed by David Cummiskey
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 30, 2023
Buddhism under Capitalism. Edited by Richard K. Payne and Fabio Rambelli. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 280 pages, ISBN 978-1-350-22832-0 (hardback), $90.00, 978-1-350-22833-7 (paperback), $29.95, 978-1-350-22835-1 (e-book), $26.95.
Reviewed by Stephen Christopher
Read article.
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 28, 2021
Coronavirus and Ill-fated Crowns: Buddhist Lessons in Pandemics and Politics
Alexander McKinley
Loyola University Chicago
Synthesizing three retellings of the story about the Buddha curing a plague in the ancient city of Vesāli, this article argues that lessons from the narrative can help us analyze the modern coronavirus pandemic and critique political responses to it. From the ancient Pāli commentary of Buddhaghosa to Sinhala vernacular retellings by a medieval monk named Buddhaputra and a colonial-era layman named Vijēvikrama, the critical force of the story has seemingly grown over time. Along the way, these authors emphasize how the endless expansion of the city due to the material desires of its rulers was bound to exacerbate suffering by their grasping at impermanent forms. This philosophical insight is applicable to current problems, where the limitless materialism of global capitalism has also been overextended, altering climates and ecologies to generate new pathogens like the coronavirus. Countries that promised uninterrupted economic growth during the pandemic have in turn suffered its worst consequences. The story of Vesāli therefore remains ripe for many more retellings in the modern world, teaching that attention to a higher ideal of transcendent truth is more fruitful than material enrichment alone.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 27, 2020
The Saṃgha and the Taxman: A Tibetan Regent’s Economic Reforms and the Ethics of Rulership
William K. Dewey
Rubin Museum of Art
This article examines how Tibetan Buddhists believed a state should be governed justly by considering the political agenda of the regent Ngawang Tsültrim (1721–1791) and how he was influenced by the Indian nītiśāstra tradition and similar indigenous traditions of ethical rule. Nītiśāstra originally, under Kauṭilya, promoted wealth and power. Later proponents (both Hindu and Buddhist) more strongly emphasized the primacy of Dharma and justice for the poor, and in this form it most influenced Tibetan Buddhist political thought, including the legislative decrees of Ngawang Tsültrim. He tried to relieve the Tibetan peasants from the heavy tax and labor obligations of the Tibetan social system, and otherwise pursued economic justice. In so doing, he also wanted to ensure that resources continued to flow to the Saṃgha, the supreme field of merit. Accordingly, the decrees targeted aristocratic rather than monastic corruption. They prioritized the maintenance and reform of existing economic obligations over economic development or redistribution of wealth. Ngawang Tsültrim’s decrees demonstrate a tension within the nītiśāstra tradition which can also be found when today’s religions (including socially engaged Buddhism) pursue goals of social justice. These goals may conflict with the goal of spreading the faith, and especially with the social and financial structures that support religious institutions, but may be responsible for social ills. Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 26, 2019
A Comparative Analysis of Sustainability Views across the Saemaul Movement in South Korea and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka
Jungho Suh
University of Adelaide
This paper compares and contrasts the Saemaul Movement in South Korea and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. The paper identifies and polarizes sustainability views played out from each of the two rural development movements, making use of content and discourse analysis techniques. Although the two movements commonly emphasize the mobilization of human resources available in rural villages, both are premised on contested sustainability views. The Saemaul Movement has been driven by a solely growth-oriented developmentalism and has strived for affluent rural villages whereas the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement has been guided by a Buddhist ethic and has pursued a “no-poverty and no-affluence” society. The former is hardly concerned with the ecological dimension of sustainability, while the latter is very concerned about it. The former tends to risk eroding social capital whereas the latter weighs the overriding importance of social capital. The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement recognizes interdependence between the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability, and also endeavors to put a holistic sustainability view into practice. Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018
The Wisdom of Need: Basic Goods Provision in Buddhist Economic Ethics
Kenneth A. Reinert
Schar School of Policy and Government
George Mason University
Human beings have basic needs, and these needs must be addressed through the provision of basic goods and services. This article reviews the role of basic goods in Buddhist economic ethics, both traditional and contemporary. It suggests that basic goods provision deserves particular attention in economic considerations and that such attention is fully consistent with both Buddhist economic ethics and the idea of moral minimalism in political philosophy. The article proposes and discusses basic goods in the form of “eight requisites,” a modification of the traditional Buddhist “four requisites” of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017
In the Midst of Imperfections: Burmese Buddhists and Business Ethics
Pyi Phyo Kyaw
King’s College, University of London
This article looks at interpretations by Buddhists in Burma of right livelihood (sammā-ājīva) and documents the moral reasoning that underlies their business activities. It explores different ways in which Buddhists in Burma, through the use of Buddhist ethics and practices, resolve moral dilemmas that they encounter while pursuing their livelihood. I give a brief summary of the existing scholarship on Buddhist economics and on economic action in Burma, exemplified by the work of E. F. Schumacher and Melford Spiro respectively. In so doing, I wish to highlight a difference between the approaches of the existing scholarship and that of this article: the existing scholarship analyzes economic issues from the perspective of normative ethics; this research analyzes them from the perspective of descriptive ethics, looking at how Buddhists interpret and apply Buddhist ethics in their business activities, in the midst of moral, social, and economic imperfections. The research presented draws on semi-structured interviews and fieldwork conducted in Burma in the summer of 2010 and relates the interpretations given to the relevant Buddhist literature, the textual authorities for doctrines such as morality (sīla).
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 23, 2016
Valuing Diversity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future. By Peter D. Hershock. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014, vi + 332 pages, ISBN 978-1-4384-4458-1 (paperback), $29.95.
Reviewed by Seth D. Clippard
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 23, 2016
Inaugural Conference on Buddhist Ethics
Daniel Cozort
Dickinson College
A report on the Conference on Buddhist Ethics held at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on June 14-16, 2016.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 21, 2014
The Ethics (and Economics) of Tibetan Polyandry
Jonathan Stoltz
University of St. Thomas
Fraternal polyandry—one woman simultaneously being married to two or more brothers—has been a prominent practice within Tibetan agricultural societies for many generations. While the topic of Tibetan polyandry has been widely discussed in the field of anthropology, there are, to my knowledge, no contributions by philosophers on this topic. For this reason alone, my brief analysis of the ethics of Tibetan polyandry will serve to enhance scholars’s understanding of this practice. In this article, I examine the factors that have sustained the practice of polyandry in Tibet, but do so with the further aim of drawing attention to some of the key ethical implications of polyandrous marriage. I argue that the natural law criticisms raised against the practice of polyandry by St. Thomas Aquinas are unsuccessful, but I also argue that the utilitarian motivations for this marriage practice endorsed by agrarian Tibetans are also highly suspect.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 21, 2014
Buddhism and Intellectual Property Rights: The Role of Compassion
Soraj Hongladarom
Chulalongkorn University
I offer the outline of a theory that justifies the concept of intellectual property (IP). IP is usually justified by a utilitarian claim that such rights provide incentives for further discovery and protect the innovator through a monopoly. I propose to broaden the protection offered by the IP regime. My argument is based on the concept of compassion (karuṇā), the aim of relieving suffering in all others. An analysis of how patented products originate shows that they typically depend not only on scientists in the laboratory, but on numerous factors and elements, many of which do not belong to the corporation in which the experiments are conducted. Because these elements have a necessary role in the discovery of inventions, they also deserve fair treatment. In practice, this could mean that the resulting patented product would be made more accessible to the general population and that the corporation would be more actively involved in society. In the long run, this could prove beneficial for all parties, including the patent holders themselves.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013
Why Buddhism and the West Need Each Other: On the Interdependence of Personal and Social Transformation
David R. Loy
The highest ideal of the Western tradition has been the concern to restructure our societies so that they are more socially just. The most important goal for Buddhism is to awaken and (to use the Zen phrase) realize one’s true nature, which puts an end to dukkha—especially that associated with the delusion of a separate self. Today it has become more obvious that we need both: not just because these ideals complement each other, but also because each project needs the other. The Western (now world-wide) ideal of a social transformation that institutionalizes social justice has achieved much, yet, I argue, is limited because a truly good society cannot be realized without the correlative realization that personal transformation is also necessary. On the other side, the traditional Buddhist emphasis on ending individual dukkha is insufficient in the face of what we now understand about the structural causes of dukkha. This does not mean simply adding a concern for social justice to Buddhist teachings. For example, applying a Buddhist perspective to structural dukkha implies an alternative evaluation of our economic situation. Instead of appealing for distributive justice, this approach focuses on the consequences of individual and institutionalized delusion: the dukkha of a sense of a self that feels separate from others, whose sense of lack consumerism exploits and institutionalizes into economic structures that assume a life (and motivations) of their own.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013
Buddhist Reflections on “Consumer” and “Consumerism”
Peter Harvey
University of Sunderland
This article starts with a characterization of “consumerism” and the idea of “the consumer.” It then explores Buddhist attitudes on wealth and “Buddhist economics” before drawing on these to develop a critical assessment of consumerism as an ineffective and wasteful route to human happiness.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 18, 2011
Can Buddhism Inform the Contemporary Western Liberal Debate on the Distribution of Wealth?
Caroline Mosler
Dhaka, Bangladesh
The contemporary Western liberal debate on the distribution of wealth revolves around whether the right to property may be subordinated to the good of society. Both Liberal Egalitarians and Libertarians make various negative assumptions concerning individuals, rights and duties. Buddhism, on the other hand, can offer the debate, and thereby the topic of human rights, a different perspective on the role of rights and duties and can introduce to the debate the issue of social, economic and cultural rights (“socio-economic rights”), as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) or the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 15, 2008
Business within Limits: Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics. Edited by Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut Johannesssen Ims. Bern: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006, 324 pages, ISBN 3039107038, US $62.95 (paperback).
Reviewed by Jason McLeod Monson
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 14, 2007
The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations
Michael M.Tophoff
Limmen, The Netherlands
Good Corporate Governance was explicitly formulated in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which became federal law in 2002. It includes ethical guidelines to regulate employee behavior and the interrelations between organizations and their shareholders. While these guidelines are exterior to the person, this paper discusses the construct of an internal beacon for right managerial action, in the Buddhist sense, as well as ways not only to access it mentally but also to extend it into the outside world. Within this perspective, it also presents the ethical teaching of the Chinese Ming philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529). Although Wang is considered to be a Neo-Confucian philosopher, in this article he is considered a seminal thinker within the Chan Buddhist tradition Wang’s method of self-cultivation is presented to access the person’s innate knowledge which in itself implies right action.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996
Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism: Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China and Japan
Gregory K. Ornatowski
Boston University
This paper offers an outline of the development of Buddhist economic ethics using examples from early Theravāda Buddhism in India and the Mahāyāna tradition as it evolved in India, medieval China, and medieval and early modern Japan, in order to illustrate the pattern of continuities and transformations these ethics have undergone. By “economic ethics” the paper refers to four broad areas: (1) attitudes toward wealth, i.e., its accumulation, use, and distribution, including the issues of economic justice and equality/ inequality; (2) attitudes toward charity, i.e., how and to whom wealth should be given; (3) attitudes toward human labor and secular occupations in society; and (4) actual economic activities of temples and monasteries which reflect the lived-practice of Buddhist communities’ economic ethics.
Read article
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 17, 2010
Sufficiency Economy and Santi Asoke: Buddhist Economic Ethics for a Just and Sustainable World
Juliana Essen
Soka University of America
Mainstream economic thought and practice has resulted in wide-spread socioeconomic disparity and environmental devastation in all corners of the world, unmitigated by a multi-billion dollar development industry informed by these same economic models. To reverse this trend, the dominant forms of economic thought and practice must be reunited with ethics that are more caring of the human-nature base. Such ethics may be found in alternative economic models based on religious, spiritual, environmental, or feminist values. This essay considers one such alternative: Buddhist economics. After outlining a theory of Buddhist economics, this essay considers two models: the Royal Thai Sufficiency Economy Model and the approach adopted by the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement of Thailand. Both are conducive to economic activity that is more socially just and environmentally sustainable, particularly due to their ethics of self-reliance, moderation, and interdependence.
Read article
An online journal of Buddhist scholarship
