E.F. Schumacher wrote in his essay titled, “Buddhist Economics” that buddhists don’t place a high value on material wealth because they believe that human flourishing cannot be achieved through the accumulation of material wealth. Through the lens of a buddhist, when one focuses on the accumulation of material wealth rather than searching for inner peace, one will “cultivate such drives of human nature such as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby peacefulness of man.” Essentially, buddhists are able to live a life free of material desires and be happy. However, there are many people who purchase material goods that are not necessary for survival because it makes them happy. In this paper, I will explain the psychological model that Sigmund Freud and Thorstein Veblen created to describe how individuals utilize material goods that provides them with a false idea of happiness, and then describe how Buddhists are able to disassociate themselves from desiring material goods which results in them being truly happy.
According to Sigmund Freud, consumers are influenced more by emotional appeals rather than by rational appeals. Consider this example- you are a fifteen year old freshman in high school who struggles with acne, and are ashamed with how you look. You see your friends everyday who don’t have acne, and you wish that you were them. Then, while at home, you see a commercial on the television for a magic cream that will rid you of your acne. The commercial shows you instances in which people have gone from having acne ridden faces to completely clear skin over the course of a few months. You then pick up the phone, call the number on the screen, and purchase the cream. You are happy with your decision, because you will finally be able to have clear skin. This would be a prime example of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory that he uses to explain the market economy. He believed that consumers respond to symbolic concerns as much as they respond to economic concerns. Freud believed that consumer motivation lay deep in the psyche, and that people consumed more when appeals to their feelings, hopes, aspirations, and fears were made. The question that arises from this type of consumer behavior is that when the consumer purchases material goods based on emotional desire, are they truly happy? In the example above, the individual would have purchased the acne cream as a way to mask their insecurity of having bad acne. Thus, whether there is acne or not, the insecurity of having acne will always be present. For example, when the individual starts the treatment, they will be frantically checking to see if the treatment is working, and will be worried about the possibility of wasting their money if the treatment were to fail. Furthermore, even in the best case scenario that the acne goes away, the individual will still be anxiously checking their face to see if the acne will return. In essence, the purchase of the cream will increase anxiety, making the person ultimately suffer more than if they wouldn’t have made the purchase. Thus, unless one is able to disassociate themselves completely of their initial insecurity of having acne, there is no way that the individual will be happy. A simple purchase of acne cream will not make the individual happy, it will only add more variables that the individual will be concerned about.
Similar to Freud, Thorstein Veblen believed that individuals consume in the market place out of a desire to conform to the standards of the culture that they live in. He believed that people’s individual needs and desires are created and influenced by group membership. Furthermore, within society, there is a “leisure class,” whom he believed were influenced by the desire for prestige rather than need or fulfillment. In his mind, the leisure class participated in “conspicuous consumption,” which refers to consumers who buy expensive items to display wealth and income rather than to cover the real needs of the consumer. Members of the leisure class would utilize this behavior to gain a higher social status over their peers. According to Veblen, the end result of a society in which a leisure class exists is a society that is characterized by wasted time and resources. This theory is similar to Freud’s theory because individuals are conforming to the symbolic and emotional desires that exist within a society rather than rational desires. Furthermore, like the hypothetical teenager who purchased acne cream in an effort to make them happy, the members of the leisure class are purchasing absurdly expensive things as a way to increase their social status, which makes them happy. However, unless they’re the richest person in the world, they will always have to keep purchasing more ridiculous things in order to increase their social status. They will end up wasting their money and become miserable due to the fact that they’ll be obsessing over wanting to constantly increase their social status, and not purchasing goods that will satisfy their rational needs. Unless they are able to not desire a higher social status, then they will not be happy.
Contrary to what Freud and Veblen believed, Buddhists believe that all wants and desires are the root causes of suffering, and distance themselves from yearning material wealth. In our daily lives, most necessities are given a monetary value, which makes it necessary for humans to strive for wealth to be able to afford necessities. However, Buddhists have developed a way to combat these desires by not having the ownership of material goods be important in their lives. In Schumacher’s essay, he compares the Buddhist economic system to both capitalism and socialism. In his mind, both capitalism and socialism prioritize the ownership of material goods, which thus places the value of goods before the value of people, profit over happiness, and the needs of the individual before the needs of other people. As a result, production and consumption control the actions of communities and people spend the entirety of their lives obsessing over material goods. However, Buddhist countries are able to blend their spiritual beliefs with economics to produce a egoless workforce that works for the common good. To do this, Buddhists aim to have their occupation be in line with the eightfold path and have their work be able to affect the lives of other people while being self fulfilling. The Indian philosopher and economist J.C. Kumarappa wrote that, “If the nature of the work is properly appreciated and applied, it will stand in the same relation to the higher faculties as food is to the physical body. It nourishes and enlivens the higher man and urges him to produce the best he is capable of. It directs his free will along the proper course and disciplines the animal in him into progressive channels. It furnishes an excellent background for man to display his scale values and develop his personality.” This way, the Buddhist is able to focus on their work while also being able to focus on liberating themselves. More specifically, the simple and non-violent way of life allows Buddhists to produce a very high level of satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption of resources. This way, Buddhists are able to stray away from the emotional and irrationally driven lifestyles that Freud and Veblen describe, making them happy.
Individuals participate in consumption and exchange through the market with an effort to enhance their lives and make them happy. However, there are many psychological and economic forces that make individuals miserable by trying to consume and purchase goods to make them happy. Sigmund Freud believed that individuals participated in the market because of emotional desires rather than rational desires, which in theory would make them genuinely unhappy in the long run. Similarly, Thorstein Veblen theorized that individuals consumed in order to conform to social norms. Specifically, he argued that the members of the leisure class would participate in conspicuous consumption, buying items they do not truly need for survival in order to improve their social status. Buddhism is able to allow its followers to be able to rationally consume in a market while ensuring that individuals do not desire to improve their social status. In fact, material desires are considered moot in the eye of a Buddhist, as their main goal is to liberate themselves from all forms of desire, which in their mind is the root cause of all suffering.