The Buddha and the State

In the West, Buddhism is typically seen as a socialist's religion. Its adherents are, not without reason, assumed to be advocates for extensive government redistribution of wealth and strict regulation of industry. When the Dalai Lama declares himself "half Buddhist, half Marxist," one can hardly dismiss the typical image of a Buddhist as a hippie socialist as just an unjustified stereotype.

But the Buddha himself says little about how to organize a state. In the Cakkavatti-Sihanada Sutta, the duties of a good Buddhist ruler are described as follows:

You should establish righteous guard, ward, and protection for your own household, your troops, your khattiyas and vassals, for brahmins and householders, town and country folk, ascetics and brahmins, for beasts and birds. Let no crime prevail in your kingdom, and to those who are in need, give wealth.

The laws a good Buddhist ruler should establish are also described:

Do not take life. Do not take what is not given. Do not commit sexual misconduct. Do not tell lies. Do not drink intoxicating drinks. Enjoy your possessions as before.

The third and fifth are problematic for a libertarian Buddhist, but it is worth keeping in mind that nowhere in the Buddhist scriptures does the Buddha advocate violence or coercion against those who do not obey the Dhamma. Indeed, in one of the most famous passages from the Pali Canon, the Buddha commands his followers not to believe and obey blindly, but to investigate their teacher and confirm for themselves that what he says is true:

Do not go by oral tradition, by lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of texts, by logic, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming competence of a speaker, or because you think, "The ascetic is our teacher." But when you know for yourselves, "These things are unwholesome; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; these things, if undertaken and practiced, lead to harm and suffering," then you should abandon them.

The Buddha does not justify his teachings with the Judeo-Christian "thus says the Lord," but rather through prolonged, closely reasoned discourse. The Buddha does not enjoin against sexual misconduct because it is an abomination in his sight, but because of the harmful effects it has on one's self and on one's community. Intoxicating beverages are not forbidden because they are "unclean," but because they cloud the mind and thus impede the journey to enlightened self-knowledge. Nowhere does the Buddha prescribe punishments to be inflicted on those who disobey, but merely describes the consequences that will naturally follow. Adulterers are not to be stoned, but they will suffer for deceiving their spouses. Those who gossip are not to be beaten or otherwise punished, but instead will suffer the natural consequence of social discord and eventual ostracism. Throughout the Buddha's teaching is an emphasis not on imposed consequences but on the natural chain of cause and effect, and implicit, I believe, in that emphasis is a belief that this natural chain of cause and effect is largely adequate for regulating the community. Social legislation is simply unnecessary under Buddhist doctrine; those who do wrong will be punished by their own actions.

The stereotypical Buddhists described above understand all this very well, and are often at the forefront of efforts to block or repeal government interventions in private morality. However, on economic matters, these same individuals often advocate the most serious of intrusions into individual lives.

But what are the Buddha's economics? Like most 5th century thinkers, the Buddha is largely silent on economic matters. His followers have not been, unfortunately. Buddhist economics are essentially socialist economics, devoted to 'social justice' through redistributive mechanisms and even outright state control of industry. I believe that the Buddha's teachings are instead supremely adapted to life in a free market economy, and that these redistributivist schemes are extremely difficult to justify through Buddhist teaching.

"Do not take what is not given." Again and again this command rings through the Pali Canon, the oldest compendium of Buddhist teaching. We are all enjoined, without exception, not to take anything that is not offered to us. Nowhere can I find an exception for rulers. But what of the injunction that rulers should provide for the needy? Remember that in the Buddha's time states were ruled by monarchs who held their own lands and had their own wealth. When the Buddha enjoined that a good monarch should give wealth to the poor (as he repeatedly does), assuming taxation and redistribution is a leap too far. Indeed, in one passage describing how best to rule, the Buddha argues explicitly against taxation:

Your Majesty's country is beset by thieves. It is ravaged; villages and towns are being destroyed; the countryside is infested with brigands. If Your Majesty were to tax this region, that would be the wrong thing to do. [...] With this plan you can completely eliminate the plague: To those in the kingdom who are engaged in cultivating crops and cattle, let Your Majesty distribute grain and fodder; to those in trade, give capital; to those in government service, assign proper living wages. Then those people, being intent on their own occupations, will not harm the kingdom. Your Majesty's revenues will be great; the land will be tranquil and not beset by thieves; and the people, with joy in their hearts, playing with their children, will dwell in open houses.

Here the Buddha sounds almost like a supply-sider discussing the Laffer Curve. But doesn't that imply taxation? Again, not necessarily. If the land is beset by thieves and brigands, then the king's holdings will suffer too, and when the plague is relieved, the king's revenues will grow.

I am not saying the Buddha is explicitly opposed to taxation or was a 5th century anarchist. But I am saying that the historical facts of the Buddha's era, combined with the repeated injuction against taking what is not given, create a very high hurdle for Buddhist advocates of socialism to clear.

But what does the Buddha say about living in a market? Again, nothing explicit, but life by Buddhist precepts does seem very well suited to life in a market-based society. To householders (the Buddha's term for laity), the Buddha enjoins diligence, thrift and prudence, but also that we use our wealth to make ourselves and our household happy, a far cry from the Puritan insistence on always earning, never spending. In economic terms, the Buddha calls on laity to find a healthy balance between consumption and investment, ensuring that we do not feel that we labor without end or in vain.

The Buddhist teaching that we should minimize our attachments also works well in a free market. Often Buddhists try to make a false distinction between free market ideology and Buddhist ideology by arguing that the Buddha teaches us to avoid desire, while the market requires that we cultivate it. Nothing could be more wrong. The market is simply voluntary association and exchange. Further, by showing us always the full range of possible objects of desire and making their acquisition possible for anyone willing to try, the market more than any other system promotes the realization that desire itself is the cause of suffering, and that more attachments merely worsen the problem. A man forced into poverty by a government that smothers the economy can go his entire life believing that if only he had a house of his own he'd be truly happy; in a market the same man with the same belief can work to acquire that house and realize that he is still unhappy. Will everyone in a market realize that desire itself causes suffering? Of course not. But the possibility of making that realization is open to many more in a market than in any other system. Perversely, the system that is the most effective at creating material wealth is also the most effective at spreading the realization that money can't buy happiness.

I know what I am saying is not something Buddhists traditionally say. Buddhists typically argue for massive state programs designed to achieve laudable ends. But I think what I say must be said, especially when the Dalai Lama, the most public face of Buddhism, publicly espouses the most murderous doctrine in human history. For too long Buddhist economics has been neither good Buddhism nor good economics. But good Buddhism is, I believe, good economics. Both Buddhism and economics are concerned with reducing suffering, and only by properly applying the principles of each to the other can we arrive at a truly informed (dare I say enlightened?) understanding of the problems facing our society.


[All translations are from Bikkhu Bohdi's translation of the Pali Canon, and it goes without saying that he'd probably have an apoplectic fit if he saw what I was writing.]