Could Buddhism Save The Global Economy?

Tracy Alloway (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:14)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

Joe, we've said this before, but it feels like we've gotten off to a really dark start for 2017 And doesn't it just feel like everyone is sort of really emotional right now and unhappy and quite negative?

Joe Weisenthal (0:31)

Wait, when you say we've gotten off to a dark start in 2017, do you mean the world or are you referring to our podcast? Because I guess they're both kind of true, maybe.

Tracy Alloway (0:40)

Yeah, I think you could take your pick. I did mean the podcast specifically. I mean, we've been going through some not sunshine and light topics, right?

Joe Weisenthal (0:51)

Right. Kidnapping, the mafia, the French Revolution. Yeah, I'd say we've had several bleak episodes.

Tracy Alloway (0:59)

All right. So do you ever kind of wonder about why everyone is so unhappy and so dissatisfied, particularly at this moment in time? Now I'm not talking about the podcast. Now I'm talking about the wider world.

Joe Weisenthal (1:13)

It certainly does feel like there is some sort of deeper crisis that is not something that just started this year, that's not something particularly related to politics in any given country, though it may manifest itself as such from time to time.

But and it could be narcissism. Maybe everyone just sort of feels like they're ages in crisis. But I remember the 90s. I think people were pretty happy then. And it feels like things have turned a darker corner in terms of perceptions of the state of the world and people's material being.

Tracy Alloway (1:48)

Right. So you mentioned material being, but it's weird, right? Because by most measures, people's standards of living have actually increased quite dramatically. Everyone has fridges and washing machines. We have Netflix. We can watch whatever we want to watch.

Lots of entertainment options. And everyone still feels economically deprived in some way, right?

Joe Weisenthal (2:13)

Absolutely. And you see these charts, and there are these optimists out there who say, look, fewer and fewer people die of ecstasy every year, or we're close to curing this, or everybody has this now, and they didn't have that 10 years ago.

But strangely, it doesn't seem to really satisfy many people.

Tracy Alloway (2:30)

Right. And economics hasn't really been able to discuss that issue either, because again, if you look on a pure economics perspective, like sure, you can look at sluggish wage growth, you can look at low productivity, but overall things should be reasonably okay.

Joe Weisenthal (2:49)

You'd think so. So what's the answer?

Tracy Alloway (2:52)

How about Buddhism?

So today we are actually going to talk about what we can learn from Buddhism when it comes to economics. And if you think about it, it's a really interesting question because at first glance, you would think Buddhism is almost totally different to economics, right? Economics is all about goods, it's all about increasing wealth, and Buddhism is pretty much the polar opposite.

Joe Weisenthal (3:22)

Yeah, absolutely. It would not be intuitive that there would be an episode of this podcast where the two were combined.

Tracy Alloway (3:31)

But there's not just an episode, there's actually a class being taught called Buddhist economics. And today we are going to speak with the professor behind that class.

She is Claire Brown. She's a professor of economics at UC Berkeley.

Clair Brown (3:45)

Thank you.

Tracy Alloway (3:55)

Claire, thanks so much for joining us.

Clair Brown (3:58)

I'm delighted to join you on Odd Lots to talk about Buddhist economics.

Joe Weisenthal (4:02)

Well, what's Buddhist, I'm just going to start with the obvious question. What is Buddhist economics?

Clair Brown (4:08)

Buddhist economics rests upon a lot of economics that's already been done about inequality, how it occurs, what we can do about it, about sustainability and how to create an economy that can move us to clean energy and low carbon emissions, and about how to reduce suffering and increase happiness. So Buddhist economics basically brings together a lot of economics that's already out there, but it's done in a very fragmented way.

So what I wanted to do was to bring together a lot of the economics that we already know into a system where we have equity, we have sustainability, and we simultaneously are reducing suffering and increasing happiness. And then it's in the last part that Buddhism plays a big role. Because in Buddhism, we're all interconnected with each other and with nature, and we are supposed to reduce suffering. And so there's a way to integrate all of these ideas into an economic structure that can make some sense.