Following up the last post on population growth and rebirth -- A few days ago I came across an online discussion of population and economies that reminded me of Buddhist Economics.
Birth rates in many parts of the world are declining, and the question is, what will this do to the world's economies? Economies are all about growth growth growth bigger bigger bigger. A Colorado State philosophy professor named Philip Carfaro says, sensibly, that growth as an end in itself needn't be the driving principle of economics.
"The real purpose of an economy," he says, "is not to grow ever larger, but to provide for people's sustenance, security and well-being." Yes. It's so simple, yet people lose sight of that.
If you listen to a lot of politicians and experts, you realize they believe people exist to serve the economy, not the other way around. Indeed, recalling Sunday's post on the Stephen Batchelor interview, you can catch people speaking of The Economy and The Markets in a quasi-theistic way.
They seem to think that The Economy has an independent existence and follows some kind of cosmic law, and will lead us all to The Good Life is we honor It and keep Its commandments. And if our planet is ever consumed in nuclear holocaust, when the dust settles The Economy will be left alone, to wander forlornly about the lifeless globe.
Of course, in truth the economy and money and markets and all that stuff are contrivances of human civilization. They are all projections of our desires and needs and ambitions. I would say these things are all manifestations of karma, since they all are creations of volitional acts. As such, intrinsically they are neither "good" nor "bad," but they can have both beneficial and harmful effects.
However, when you realize most of the people with the most power in the economy these days are acting under the influence of the Three Poisons, we might expect more harmful effects than beneficial ones.
Philip Carfaro argues that the ideal is sustainable economies in support of stable populations, and that the ideal of growth growth growth bigger bigger bigger� ought to be as extinct as the dodo. Or else humans may be as extinct as the dodo, if we over-deplete resources and render the planet unfit for human habitation.
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