Buddhist Economics

Buddhist economics is an approach to economic thought, formulated by the economist E. F. Schumacher beginning with a 1966 essay and popularized in his 1973 collection Small Is Beautiful, that applies Buddhist ethical principles, particularly the reduction of craving and attachment, to economic life. Where conventional economics typically treats the maximization of production, consumption and profit as the measure of success, Buddhist economics takes the reduction of suffering and the maximization of well-being with the least possible use of resources as its organizing goal, treating consumption as a means to human flourishing rather than an end in itself. It emphasizes right livelihood, meaningful and dignified work rather than work treated purely as a cost to be minimized, and it stresses the interdependence of human beings, other species and the natural environment, favoring rates of resource use and consumption that can be sustained rather than maximized in the short run. Later writers, including the Sri Lankan economist Neville Karunatilake, the Thai scholar Prayudh Payutto and the American economist Clair Brown, have extended Schumacher's original essay into a broader body of scholarship. The field remains active today, with academic conferences and a growing literature applying its framework to sustainable consumption and alternatives to gross domestic product as a measure of economic success. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/