Chester Mind-Body Philosophy Seminar Series ~ Seminar No. 5: Buddhist Economics: How to Measure True Wealth

Friday, April 11th, 5:30 to 7:30 PM at the Cave, 19-1 Bates Road Chester (directions), Suggested donation: $20

For more info call 526-9186 or email vood@cummings-good.com

What is wealth? What kind of economic system would actually produce real wealth? How do you measure wealth? In this class we will explore the most famous essay by the legendary British economist E. F. Schumacher. This essay, “Buddhist Economics” appeared in Schumacher’s great book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered which articulated a compelling vision of a just and sustainable global economic system over thirty years ago. 

Readings

1. E. F. Schumacher, “Buddhist Economics”

“From the point of view of Buddhist economics, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale. Just as the modern economist would admit that a high rate of consumption of transport services between a man’s home and his place of work signifies a misfortune and not a high standard of life, so the Buddhist would hold that to satisfy human wants from faraway sources rather than from sources nearby signifies failure rather than success. The former tends to take statistics showing an increase in the number of ton/miles per head of the population carried by a country’s transport system as proof of economic progress, while to the latter-the Buddhist economist-the same statistics would indicate a highly undesirable deterioration in the pattern of consumption.” – E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beauty Economics As If People Mattered