Buddhist Economics: A Guide to Creating an Equitable, Sustainable, Caring Market Economy

Abstract

This chapter takes a broad view of Conscious Capitalism to include national policies, as well as corporate practices and individual lifestyles, that contribute well-being to the population and help to create a thriving market economy that delivers shared prosperity in a sustainable world. Some broad approaches, including Buddhist Economics, also include the goal of creating an economic system where the human spirit can flourish. In Buddhist Economics, interdependence and altruism along with care for the human spirit play a fundamental role. This chapter begins with a brief comparison of Buddhist economics with the mainstream free market (or neoliberal) approach. Free market economics sees average income as the goal, and income distribution and environmental degradation are left to the marketplace to determine. Buddhist economics guides individuals to live a meaningful, happy life connected to others with compassion; guides companies to evaluate performance to include the well-being of all stakeholders; and guides nations to use resources wisely to improve the well-being of all people while living in harmony with nature and other countries. The government and the business community play very different roles in these two economic systems, with the government in a Buddhist economy in charge of structuring the economy to support specific socio-economic goals. The chapter explains how countries decide their level of inequality and environmental destruction by their policy choices. Over the past four decades, economic growth, measured by market (GDP) growth, has increased both inequality and carbon emissions. Then the chapter looks at the evidence that shows higher inequality reduces both individual and national well-being, and inequality also drives carbon emissions within and across nations. This leads to exploring how people can live meaningful and ethical lives, how corporations can contribute to the holistic economy, and how actual government policies can create an equitable, sustainable, caring economy. The Sustainable Shared-Prosperity Policy Index measures government polices across fifty countries and ranks countries according to how well their policies create a sustainable, equitable, just economy for the well-being of all.