Blaine Johnson and Professor David A. Shuler, Kennedy Center
Microenterprise activities have increased significantly in South-East Asia during the past five years. Many non-governmental organizations have now incorporated microcredit and/or microfinance schemes into their developmental agendas. Such projects abound throughout the lower-income regions of South-East Asia. These projects are often styled after the Grameen Bank model and other foreign models and are based on social mechanisms (e.g. peer collateral) that depend on cultural and community values specific to the communities they were developed within. To date, all replication attempts in South-East Asia have been direct imitations of preconstructed models. These foreign systems, although successful within their specific contexts, are not always effectively grafted into other cultural systems. In particular, the economies of Theravada Buddhist communities, spread throughout South-East Asia, may prove to be very unreceptive to the stimuli of microentrepreneurial activity as represented by these popular foreign models. The replication of economic models based on alien social values are likely to fail, or even worse, damage the values and general well-being of Theravada Buddhist individuals and communities.
Despite its positive effect on the economic sector, very little is known about the non-economic consequences of microcredit activity on these communities, and no effort to date has been made to align microcredit mechanisms with the traditional values of affected communities. My inquiry into the possibilities of such an alignment began in May with a visit to India. I began in Dharamsala at the Tibetan Government in Exile’s Department of Human Development. During my time I interviewed several staff members involved in the government’s endeavor to implement microcredit projects in Tibetan settlement camps throughout South Asia. I spent my mornings in the Tibetan archives interviewing scholars and monks on social issues surrounding the forced entrance of Tibetan Buddhism into modernity. In a lot of ways the attempts of the Tibetan community in exile to establish economic self-sufficiency in an economically liberalized India without losing grasp of their cultural identity and values is a perfect representation of the problem facing Buddhism today. Indeed I have since seen the same struggle in communities, in perhaps a more advanced stage, in Theravada communities throughout Asia. The efforts of the Vajrayana Buddhists, as encouraged through the teachings of the Dalai Lama, to remain in touch with both the rational and the spiritual elements of economics presented me with numerous examples of the problems that this research intends to address.
I have spent the last few months in Thailand interacting with Buddhist scholars and their writings. In particular, I have had numerous opportunities to meet with Sulak Sivaraksa, Thailand’s leading intellectual, who has been nominated twice for the Noble Peace Prize for his work in preserving Buddhist identity in the face of one-sided globalization. He has assisted me tremendously in my research and has led me to others who have become invaluable sources of information.
My endeavor has not been without difficulty. It is obviously no easy task to synthesize objective economic instruments with subjective socio-cultural values. The trouble arises from the perceived necessity of keeping our economic systems free from values. But it is precisely the efforts to remain value free that have condemned the science to its Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde approach to human development. It seems that economic involvement in traditional communities either presents itself as an impotent force for the generation of well-being or a vile monster that spooks the human values out of those who value them. Economist’s misinterpretation of ‘secularism’ as a system with no room for values has not allowed traditional Buddhist communities the breathing room they need. The argument seems to be that there is only one rational interpretation of reality, and the Western philosophical interpretation claims that spot without leaving any room for rival perspectives. It can, and should, be argued that the Buddhist psychology actually represents a rational and pragmatic interpretation of reality that is in fact more in line with contemporary philosophical theories and recent discoveries within quantum physics. There is no reason why a Buddhist psychology could not serve as an operative and ‘value-free’ foundation for a microentrepreneurial system that caters to individuals who respond more effectively to Buddhist values.
Amartya Sen, recipient of the 1998 Noble Peace Prize in Economics, has developed a system of economic analysis that, with some effort, would permit the implementation of micro-credit structures in both Western and Buddhist communities. His analytical system measures the capacity of individuals to pursue the things that the value for their long-term benefits (Pali: chanda). This is an important development in economic analysis that until now has been programmed to measure growth solely in quantifiable terms based on short-term utilitarian choice preferences (tanha). Such a measurement speaks little about the Buddhist who measures his/her well-being through the development of non-materialistic qualities (anicca) and selflessness (anatta).
A microcredit system based on capability analysis will allow the Buddhist, the Christian, the Muslim, the Hindu etc. to more freely choose his/her personal approach to well-being without compromising the ‘hardness’ required by economic science. My research into this area continues. I will be here in Thailand until October attempting to develop a microcredit system that incorporates the capability analysis with a Theravada Buddhist psychology. I appreciate your assistance in making this research possible, it has been an invaluably educational experience.