Li Jing

　　Lecturer, Buddhist Academy of China

　　It can be seen from the very definition of economy and ethics: economics suggests meeting material needs, and ethics should meet spiritual needs. Material culture and spiritual culture are two basic essentials for human life and activities, and none of them are considered dispensable. Materialism forces the mind to be full of ‘money consciousness’ and disregards ethical ideas in our social and living spaces by paying attention only to material needs while ignoring spiritual needs. Buddhist ethical-economics tries to mediate personal attachments between material culture and spiritual culture. Only through economic development under restrictions mandating ethical requirements can our society have harmonious and positive social ethos.Buddhist precepts, and theory of cause and effect can restrict immoralities; hence, when every occupational-material activity runs under standards of law and morality — then and only through such, can one be honest when being officer, business-person, banker, farmer, etc. As it is, only under ethical requirements can the economy really serve human society and built a harmonious and fair economic order. Therefore, we can say Buddhist “ethical economics” is of great realistic significance to construct a good socio-economic system.

　　I. Five Precepts as the Foundation of Ethical Economics

　　The Buddhist “Five Precepts”, are: not killing, not stealing, no sexual misconduct, not lying, no consuming of intoxicants — as standards for being human, and as standards for developing modern enterprises and economic-markets. In society, currently, where materialism excels over anything else, people use all kinds of approaches to make money, even refuse to have anything to do with, or at the expense of kin and friends - bent solely towards profit - severely affecting people’s ethical views. If our social system, with different societies, families, enterprises, units and government-departments, etc., lose minimum “credit” - our societies and families would lose their ethics on their own accord/account. Being rich materially and extremely poor spirituality leads to the disorder of society and breakdown of family; and accordingly, our living circumstances become worse and worse, the consciousness of “credit” becomes weaker and weaker, people worship and become addicted to money, like animals, and our societies become corrupt and degenerated.Both being in business and enterprise, management must submit to being under restrictions of laws and ethics. It is said that “without carpenter’s compasses and square, square and circle can not be drawn”; also mentioned is: “there are laws for a country, as there are rules in families.” Buddhism claims that without precepts, there will be no bodhi (wisdom), and “the five precepts and the ten good acts” are the only rules for being human. Whether the laws of country or precepts for Buddhists — the intention is to build people’s consciousness of “credit”. In Buddhism, “the five precepts and the ten good acts” advise people to be honest with others and to the laws of the nation, as well. If everyone can discipline oneself according to “the five precepts and the ten good acts”, then every place can be friendly, society will be peaceful and there will be harmony in families. Five virtues “human (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and good faith (xin)” of Confucianism have similar meaning, but are defined differently when seen as the Buddhist “five precepts”. It is widely known, that in Confucianism has the ethics of “three obedience and five virtues” — but many have no idea that ethics of “five precepts and ten good acts” are even more detailed than those of Confucianism. Since social morals, family ethics and the consciousness of credit become weaker, everyone urgently needs: “five precepts and ten good acts” to wake up the consciousness of “credit”, and to adjust and improve bad social-ideologies. This is the Buddhist “credit” for ethical economic.II. Ethical Economics takes “Cause and effect” as its Equality-Principle

　　The theory of ‘cause and effect’ is a basic theory in Buddhism. Without the cause and effect theory, all teachings of Buddhism are hazarded. Cause and effect theory is neither a kind of religious belief, nor a so-called “superstition” as people commonly misunderstand; it is a scientific view of certain philosophical significance, and a dialectical judgment for the existence of everything in the world - it has certain significance of scientific value. Buddhism claims that everything in the world originates dependent on the arising of circumstances between one and another thing — and enters into a continuous cycle between cause and effect: from the past to the present and from the present into the future. These three periods of time work as cause and effect, and everything arises consequently, because if there is cause, there will be effect, and vice versa — these causes and effects generate more circumstances for becoming - endlessly. Thus, the cause and effect of richness and poverty come into being, from unethical economics involved with materialism.Buddhism claims everyone’s good fortune and material enjoyment have its cause and effect, and are only partially affected by the effort of this life and largely determined by the cause of good or evil karma in the past life. Good or evil karma in the past life affected the richness and poverty of this life; good or evil behavior in the present will affect the richness and poverty of the future life, hence there is cause and effect ethical-view cycling from the past, into the present, and into the future - continuously. Buddhism claims good and evil affect principles: “good will be rewarded with good, and evil with evil”, so it encourages people to do more good things to affect their good fortune, i.e.: change one’s destiny by changing one’s own deeds — to be ethically-good [wholesome] deeds. It is said that “never avoid doing good deed no matter how trifling; and never do evil deed no matter how trifling.” The purpose of the Buddhist cause and effect theory is to teach people to neither violate social and natural principles, nor violate social-ethical standards in business and corporate management. This ethics guarantees the rules of equal transactions in the market-economy, and the Buddhist cause and effect theory guides the ethical views in people’s mind, and appeals that one should not use immoral/unwholesome approaches to gain personal profit. Good-cause breeds good-effect, evil-cause breeds evil-effect. There is another slogan: “you reap what you have sown” — emphasizing the consistency between well-doing and happiness — wholesome deeds accumulate merit, evil deeds accumulate disaster. In the sense of ethical economics — this tells us that one must become responsible for one’s own deeds, and to undertake the result of one’s own deeds; and further serves as a caution for people to become self-disciplined. It is said that “virtue brings good-fortune while evil-doing brings misfortune”, demonstrating the need of certain rules to be beneficial to everyone, and not work as a particular man’s will. Only under the restriction of ethics can equally developed economic benefits be attained. This is the equality economic ethics view.

　　III. Ethical Economics takes ‘Charity’ as an Altruistic Idea

　　The basic idea of Buddhism is having a pure mind with few desires, eliminating all kinds of greed from one’s mind; thus it is quite contradictory between altruistic ideas and economic conceptions. In another respect, it is not contradictory: the purpose of Buddhist ethical economics values “altruism”; Buddhism believes the purpose of economic development is not merely to meet personal benefits, but to strive for the benefit and salvation of all beings. There are two kinds of giving: “monetary giving and dharma giving”, in Buddhism; money-giving assists those who need helps materially - hence, this kind of economic view is based on “charity”.From the viewpoint of Buddhism, economic benefit, such as ‘money’ — there is nothing wrong with it in ‘itself’, but it should be earned wholesomely or used properly — to be beneficial to all sentient beings and society. But, owing to being too greedy and too self-conscious, people become slaves to paper — ‘money’, unconsciously, in economic tidal waves; bad ideas such as self-enjoyment and self-display through material prosperity are results from giving up “ethical economics”. Hence, being aware of “ethical economics” is important for socio-economic development now, for all of us. When people become aware that economic development is not merely for personal enjoyment and display, but serves for whole society and humanity, then people would utilize the economy to benefit society and future generations of offspring, for building greater environments and opportunities for future lives. Therefore, “ethical economics charity” in Buddhism not only has moral implications, but also serves as a fundamental guarantee for building economic benefits for future generations of life. As the Discourse on the Theory of Consciousness-Only (Vijnaptimatratasiddhi-sastra) states:“those Dharmas that are beneficial and helpful to both this life and next life are named wholesome.” In itself, good deeds are not only beneficial to this life, but also to future life. As far as both self and others are concerned, good deeds not only can benefit one, but also benefit all people in society. This is charitable-ethical economics from a Buddhist standpoint.

　　IV. The Eightfold Path as Legal-Ethical Economic Preconditions

　　Confucianism states: “a gentleman should earn money in the right way though everyone needs it”; the Buddhist “Eightfold Path” also emphasizes being engaged in right-livelihood. Buddhist teachings formulate that Buddhists should not benefit from harming others and not to use unjust approaches. For example, the fifth precept from the Brahmajala-sutra (or Bodhisattva-sila-sutra, Sutra of Brahma's Net) says: “as a Buddhist, selling or purchasing alcohol, biding others to sell or purchase alcohol, conditions of alcohol, causes of alcohol, methods of brewage, practices of brewage, and all kinds of alcohol are prohibited to sell or purchase.” Alcohol deludes the mind, enabling one to commit crimes accordingly, even harming one’s reputation, life, or another’s life. Those who sell alcohol as their profession to make money commit great-evil volitional-activities from violating one of the main precepts - just as those who traffic in narcotics nowadays commit crimes by their unjust profession and illegal approaches to making money. The twelfth precept in Brahmajala-sutra says: “as a Buddhist... trafficking people, slaves, maids, domestic animals, coffins and other wood-made boxes for funeral by oneself is unacceptable, not to speak of bidding others to do so.” Just as those who traffic people living and dead, commit crime by immoral behavior and illegal approaches for staggering profits. All of these violate “ethical economics” and lead to socially-unhealthy tendencies.Particular stress must be laid on the development of market-economics, and not to ignore the need of ethical-moral characteristics. In order to make more money or to seek greater economic benefits, they use any kind of exploitive-means, finally leading to: malfeasance, enmity between parents and children, between siblings, between relatives, and between friends - taking various kinds of positive social phenomena for granted — turning to looting and murder, and becoming a potluck of unwholesome activity. Thus there are dangers everywhere and everyone becomes defensive — lacking minimum trust and failing to give mutual aid.If you emphasize and publicize “ethical economics”, bad phenomena centering more on economic-benefits and less on ethics can be adjusted for positive/wholesome change. “Right Livelihood/Employment” can be found in the “Eightfold Path” — demanding people to engage in just/wholesome professions, confining one’s behavior to ethical-moral pursuits leading to one’s own benefit. Harming another’s benefit or chance is called: “akusala-karma” (evil activity) — the “cause” of future poverty. One should strictly recollect to only accept money earned righteously, and not to accept money earned unwholesomely - not to strive for staggering profits by unjust approaches, and not to do business unlawfully from exploiting economic-ventures. Therefore, Buddhist ethical-economics is a fundamental guarantee to legally manage modern corporations, taking justice and legality, seriously, as preconditions; this encourages and leads people to abide in commercial-transactions morally, maintaining the national economic code. This is “legal” ethical economics, developed from Buddhism.

　　V. Conclusion

　　It is impossible to list all the sutras and treatises about “ethical-economic” viewpoints from Buddhism in this limited space. It can be seen from the above, that Buddhist “ethical economics” would greatly awaken society to really-bad social phenomena and degradations in social-morality. It reveals that one should not develop the economy while neglecting ethics. Only through developing economically, under an ethical code, can life be really prosperous and our living environment becomes harmonious. This Buddhist “ethical economics” would establish consciousness-credit in the economic markets, guaranteeing equality and mutual benefits in the management and operation of enterprise; strengthen the development of the “legal” management consciousness in the corporate-management; and cultivate “charitable” enterprise ideas that regard and serve society with love. Through the Buddhist “ethical economics” discussed above, the wish is that we all can consummate and promote the healthy development of our modern enterprises and endeavors.