Buddha Economy

What Would Buddha Do About the Economy?
Clair Brown suggests that the moment may be ripe for Buddhist thought to insert itself into Western economics.


The financial collapse of 2008, coupled with growing income and wealth disparity, has made many Americans question the benefits of a free market economy. Are our current economic policies really the best we can do?

According to Clair Brown, a UC Berkeley economics professor and director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society, the answer is no. An expert in economic theory and a practicing Buddhist, Brown believes we should consider integrating a Buddhist value system into economics, arguing that if we focused more on relieving suffering, on our interdependence with each other and nature, and on sustainability, our economy would work better for more people. Her thinking is explored in a newly published book, Buddhist Economics.

I talked with Brown about the promise and potential of Buddhist economics, what went wrong in our current economic framework, and how it all connects to individual well-being.

Jenara Nerenberg: How do you define “Buddhist economics”?
Clair Brown Clair Brown

Clair Brown: Buddhist economics is based upon three main assumptions: People are interdependent with each other, people are interdependent with nature, and happiness requires helping others and reducing suffering, because the suffering of one person is the suffering of all people.

JN: What prompted you to write a book on this topic?

CB: Students care a lot about inequality and sustainability, but somehow both are discussed outside of economics, as though it’s separate. But that’s not satisfying. Students want something that’s much more integrated and holistic.

Economists have worked a lot on these problems, but once again by the time we’ve worked on a problem and beat it to death, it’s still separate. So we know a lot about inequality and sustainability. We also know all the reasons that free markets don’t work and that the assumptions don’t hold. But it’s very hard to find a way to integrate it all.

So for me, as a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, I thought, “How would the Buddha teach introductory economics? How would he bring it all together?” And my students loved it and really helped push my thinking along.

JN: What is some of the most compelling research you came across when working on the book?

CB: I started off with Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner, whose work looks at how people are living to evaluate their quality of life. When Amartya Sen read my book, he thanked me for pushing along what he’d been doing, especially because sustainability wasn’t a big part of his work at the time. Ecological economics is the reason why I say humans are interdependent with nature. Our well-being is interdependent. And in looking at human suffering, I turned to the United Nations—they were working on sustainable development and basic needs, relieving suffering of extreme starvation and extreme poverty.

Then there’s the fascinating topic of how economists disagree over what is human nature. The competitive market model assumes we are selfish, as Adam Smith shows. But new research shows just how altruistic people actually are and so economists finally have proof and can no longer say that humans are just selfish. And that was a big breakthrough. Of course only economists need such proof!