Essay on the economy published by the Buddhist blog discuss Japan [discutiamodelgiappone.blogspot.com]. (March 28, 2010)
Buddhism as the overcoming of capitalism
of Christian Martorella
1. Capitalism and religion
After the publication of The Japanese concept of economy (1), which supported and explained the influence of Buddhism in the Japanese economic system, needs require us to consider the historical development and the prospect ahead. Despite the banality of the idea by stating that capitalism is the only possible economic system, and above all that is still capable of remedy and self-correcting cyclical shocks to which it is subjected to, it continues to insist on blindly resubmit. But it is clear that this is false and deceptive. The crisis, which periodically compares capitalism, is neither normal nor physiological. In fact, the crisis has worsened in frequency and complexity. What is surprising analysts and catches them unprepared, is the frequency with which they occur. So crises occurring more frequently and more difficult to solve, so as to have influenced growth of developed countries. The decline of capitalism does not mean the end of the economy, but simply the conclusion of a system, and the inevitable structure of a different social and economic organization. If capitalism is inevitably initiated at sunset, but it is not so clear and obvious that everyone will understand. Many points remain ignored and are not even discussed. For example, what is the relationship between capitalism and religion? After the September 11, 2001, propaganda and populist political movements have spread the vulgate identifies Christianity and capitalism (2). According to this idea that capitalism would be a creation of Western Christian society. The reductionist idea of \u200b\u200bthe origin of capitalism with Christianity often rests on the authority of the sociologist Max Weber. But Max Weber studied the influence of Christianity on capitalism, considering them separately and never the product of each other. Indeed, he pointed to the success of the Protestant against Catholic, distinguishing different types of capitalist development (3). Max Weber did not merely explain the influence of the Christian religion, but economics and sociology of religion and society (4) analyzed the relationship of other religions in the economy. Max Weber was never a dogmatist, and his studies always start from an analysis of various companies through the comparative method and the observation of empirical data.
In the contemporary world's most important economies are in Asia, led by China and Japan, and has no sense in continuing to deny the rise of Asian economic power to promote an interpretative model that identifies capitalism, Christianity and Western society . Capitalism is not exclusive to Western society, and historically was not born in Europe alone. In fact, the Japan of the Edo (1603-1867) knew the bloom mercantilist economy that led to the development of a capitalist structure (5). The phenomenon was described and explained by many scholars, including recall, in particular, Edwin Reischauer, and Claudio Zanier (6), as well as Francesco Gatti, Franco Mazzei, Marcello Muccioli and Piero Corradini.
2. History of crisis
The history of capitalism is the history of its crises. In fact there is a period of expansion of capitalism that is not followed by an abrupt and disastrous fall with the consequent loss of property and other assets. So history tells us that capitalism is an unstable dynamic system. We see this process in detail, its trends, and especially the causes. The most important periods of expansion during the industrial revolution are the following:
1815-1840 Before the industrial revolution. Competition between nascent industry and handicrafts.
1850-1870 Expansion industrial revolution. Competition between firms in the capitalist system and internal competition.
1870-1890 fierce competition conducted nationally and internationally.
1890-1914 Second Industrial Revolution. Technological innovation and scientific management.
1950-1973 Expansion of markets and production favored by the reconstruction and economic reforms led by international organizations and agreements (Bretton Woods, Marshall Plan, IMF, GATT).
crises and their reasons are as follows:
1846-1850 Crisis of '48. Collapse of the domestic monetary liquidity. Collapse due to excessive bank lending. Contraction in domestic demand and production. The crisis was caused by a fall in demand.
1876-1890 Great Depression. Decrease the efficiency of technology, lack of investment and the gap supply and demand. The crisis was essentially a crisis of technology.
1929-1933 Crisis of '29. Stock market crash on Wall Street. This is primarily a crisis due to over production.
1937-1945 recession followed the New Deal. Monetary crisis due to the imbalance of nations and the emergence of protectionist policies.
1970-1985 Crisis of '70. Inadequate investment and international liquidity than the rate of production development. Technological restructuring. Inflation and balance of payments deficit.
1989-1993 Crisis in '90. The public debt is seriously hampering the economies of developed countries. Cuts in public investment, privatization. Neoliberal policies. Inflation falls due to decreased consumption.
2001-2009 crisis beginning of the millennium. Burst the bubbles of the new economy, information technology, real estate and derivatives. The financial crisis strikes on the real economy with the sharp decline in industrial production and consumption, and finally becomes a social crisis with rising unemployment.
Economic crises are intrinsic to the nature of capitalism that is self-defeating. Each time the capital has to be restructured and reorganized, but this process destroys and expels the resources that can no longer be used. Although the supporters of capitalism to the bitter end that the welfare state thus produced is the largest that has ever enjoyed, they do not consider the environmental damage, the resources spent and the victims of the millions of people dying of hunger in the less affluent who however, their resources are plundered by capitalist societies. Despite this, the welfare of a few ephemeral will not last long because the resources that are destroyed are not recoverable, and the calculation of wealth must be set globally and not partially. The planet is a complex system in which every action has an impact on others, and then nothing can survive separately and independently.
Capitalism is a dynamic unbalanced incapable of stable development. Refusing to acknowledge the nature of capitalism is simply the denial of the problem that will not lead to its resolution. It is in this way that accelerates the decline of capitalism is incapable of understanding himself.
3. Buddhist Economics
Among the authors who have placed the Buddhist perspective of an economy alternative, there is the economist Ernst Fritz Schumacher (7). But who has taken this idea strongly, accounting for and disclosure is certainly the Japanese thinker Daisaku Ikeda in his book Citizens of the World (8). Daisaku Ikeda has many points to consider. Especially environmental issue is more pressing. Ikeda says that the economy lacks a conventional ecological perspective (9), and points out that Buddhism, through the notion of dependent origination, it expresses the necessary interdependence between things (10), to give due importance to 'environment. Christianity considers the environment, animals and natural resources as a creation of God available to man. The Bible, in fact, describes the set as a property to be exploited without reserve and on which domains the man (Genesis, 1.26 to 31). Not so with Buddhism. First, there is a duality between the environment and human being (esho ropes, non-duality of life and environment), and besides there teaching respect for nature. Everything on the belief that nature and human being are inseparable one thing (the real aspect of all phenomena, shoho jisso). According
Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhism says that wealth should be distributed in four parts secodo different ways. A quarter of it must be used to support staff and family, and another quarter to be paid to the tax authorities and be used to promote the social good, another part is to be used as capital for production, while the last quarter should be stored for times of need. An example of an economy is provided by the Buddhist kingdom of Ashoka, ruler of the Maurya dynasty of the third century BC, which improved transport network, was opposed to economic discrimination, established a public office to protect women, and undertook public works to plant trees and make the environment healthy (11).
Buddhist economics, therefore, supports the shift from a system based on profit to a system based on the service. What a person would gain from this? The answer is social prestige. It is often underestimated but social prestige, recognition (thymos), is one of the most important values \u200b\u200bof society, and is one of the strongest psychological reasons, probably the most important.
The material factors necessary for the physical well-being would be so neglected? The Buddhist material wealth in the economy is not eliminated, but simply accepted. The property is no longer an obsession. The first and most important Buddhist virtues (param) is the gift. Unlike communism, the abolition of private property, Buddhism does not deny the right to property, but considers it unnecessary or an obstacle to the achievement of higher goals. We must have what we need, has a value and a meaning, but completely eliminating the superfluous. What is superfluous? This is not a matter of accumulated material goods, but rather the relationship with them. The consumer economy is based on the repetition of itself, the propensity on the induction consumption and incitement of desire, no longer makes sense.
supporters of capitalism could mock the Buddhist economy, saying it would not be likely to generate wealth and poverty and misery. But Buddhism is not opposed to wealth, but the attachment to wealth, and this is very different. The idea that wealth is created only by greed is a personal injury (12). Many East Asian countries have a great wealth for the community services work better (public transport, security, health care, education, scientific research, etc.).. They are considered a priority, while in the West is not so. According to a neoliberal vision, the state should be as unobtrusive as possible, and allow citizens the most absolute freedom should also include services that should be privatized in the hands of the market, obviously including the possibility of making a profit on this. This Western view of the market as the supreme coordinator of human life is not shared Buddhist economics, indeed it is challenged and replaced by a completely different view that puts the social interest before profit. The idea that the free market is able to regulate itself has been historically proven as false (13), and no longer makes sense to continue to resubmit it as a fetish. A similar system based
Buddhist economics is a utopia? It is not at all because the Asian countries have a cultural tendency to promote community services and manage the order, especially the local people have a great propensity to cooperate. When the ruling classes and elites in Asia will understand, and this is already happening, that western capitalism is unable to manage the globalization of the planet, they will seek a new model of development and will find it in themselves. We must prepare for that moment, to understand the change process and follow a development model that is not without uncertainties, in addition to the hopes and expectations that we have. Buddhism as the overcoming of capitalism will the success of the cooperation that is the exact opposite of the competition (14). The values \u200b\u200bof capitalism are completely reversed. Max Weber distinguished between different types of rational action: to act consistent with the purpose and act in accordance with the value. Buddhist economics is based on a prevalence of action corresponds to the value, and it is this difference that gives it energy. Now is the time that these values \u200b\u200bbecome universal and are disseminated for the benefit of all, because the decline of capitalism can bring a lot of damage and suffering if it is resisted. Fortunately, knowing that there is an alternative ground of tremendous encouragement.
Notes 1. See Chris Martorella, the concept Japanese economy. The sociological and methodological implications, Proceedings of the XXV Congress of Studies on Japan, Paper Publishing Veneziana, Venezia, 2002.
2. See Chris Martorella, The decline of capitalism, "D La Repubblica", n.685, year XV, Saturday, March 13, 2010, p. 290. The same work was published by the newspaper Il Secolo XIX ". See Chris Martorella, Capitalism is a system that feeds on contradictions, "Il Secolo XIX", Monday, February 1, 2010, p.20. The deconstruction of the economy in its ideological and mythological has been made by many scholars, in particular, has been addressed more effectively by Serge Latouche. See Serge Latouche, The Invention Economy, Basic Books Bollati, Torino, 2010.
3. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Sansoni, Firenze, 1945.
4. See Max Weber, Sociology of religion, UTET, Torino, 1976, Max Weber, Economy and Society, Community Editions, Milan, 1961, Max Weber, Sociology of Religion, the Community Editions, Milan, 1982.
5. The capitalist systems are characterized by the widespread use of money and intense, by capital accumulation and reinvestment of it, the existence of free markets and the process of urbanization. Everything was present and well developed in Japan in the seventeenth century.
6. Claudio Zanier is very controversial with those who underestimates the Japanese capitalism and ignores the birth and growth. See Claudio Zanier, Accumulation and Economic Development in Japan. Since the end of the sixteenth to the late nineteenth century, Einaudi, Torino, 1975. Edwin Reischauer identifies the same mechanisms of development of European capitalism in Japan. See Edwin Reischauer, History of Japan, Rizzoli, Milano, 1994.
7. See Ernst Fritz Schumacher, Buddhist Economics, "Resurgence", vol.1, no.11, January-February 1968.
8. See Daisaku Ikeda, Hazel Henderson, world citizens, Sperling & Kupfer, Milano, 2005.
9. Ibid, p.80.
10. Ibid, p.161.
11. Ibid, p.217.
12. Ibid, pp.214-215.
13. The most interesting criticism and valid are those of Karl Polanyi. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Einaudi, Torino, 1974. On the question of self-regulated market, wrote unequivocally even the economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter. According to Schumpeter, a social system based solely on a network of free contracts led by its utilitarian purposes can not work. What Schumpeter critical from a technical point of view, is that the market can self-regulate itself. The myth that the market is constantly refuted by the periodic crises that are summarily ignored and undervalued. See Joseph A. Schumpeter, the capitalist process, Boringhieri Bollati, Torino, 1977, Joseph A. Schumpeter, History economic analysis, Basic Books Bollati, Torino, 1990, Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Community Editions, Milan, 1955.
14. See Daisaku Ikeda, Hazel Henderson, Citizens of the World, op. cit., p.203 and p.214.
0 comments:
Post a Comment