I, for one, think they [market values] are ultimately harmful and unite us only in mutual strife and exploitation. Nonetheless, they are be­coming increasingly more widespread and "shared" as "globalization" comes to define and dominate our beliefs and behavior. The concern then of these social thinkers was that the triumph of the "pleasure principle, which leaves people in the end dissatisfied, is not some scientific neutrality but merely a religion without God." For a while, they argued, the old values will survive even as the beliefs which underpin them decline. But eventually the old beliefs and ethical constructs of the Judeo-Christian systems will deplete themselves, leaving nothing to draw on. The analogy one of the contributors gave was that of boat moving through the water. Once the gas runs out, the boat continues for a while propelled by its momentum. But eventually resistance overcomes momentum and the boat comes to a stop. In the same way, in this age of "unbelief" our increasingly desacralized soci­ety is now moving along on the momentum of older beliefs and values. The boat, however, has lost its fuel source, which was the meaning and purpose provided by the older Judeo-Christian framework and theology. Various movements in the Post-Enlightenment period have cut the "motor" so to speak, and as a result the morality and beliefs that many of our generation draw on from our exposure and education as children, become less and less what defines each new generation. The younger generation simply does not internalize, rely on, or be­come inspired by these older beliefs.

I work with students between the ages of 16 to 30, and I find the trends these philosophers are describing are in fact the future. Both the value systems and ethical impulses that we drew upon and the moral map or compass that we still rely on, even if we no longer subscribe to a theistic view, are drying up for the younger generation. So this leaves at the core of life, as this Oxford group observed, "the unfettered market principles and a society fragmenting under eco­nomic pressures and the anti-social philosophies of the market... a society in desperate need of finding a sense of the common good which religion once afforded."

So, regardless of what we call it: capitalism, market economy, globalization—and the values, motives, "ethics" and promises it prof­fers is for most people becoming a "religion," perhaps the "religion" of the age. I put religion in quotation marks because the market-religion is not a transcendental teaching or elevation of consciousness ('lifting up one's mind-heart to God') that brings us beyond the mate­rial realm and returns us to the "soul." But it occupies a position of centrality that religion once held in defining meaning, values, and pur­pose in life. It is increasingly becoming the raison d'etre for most people, and the dominant ideology of the time; it touches and shapes government, education, the arts and music, and religion itself. It is even replacing or displacing identity. People become commodified, rationalized into "consumers" with "purchasing power" valued not for any intrinsic worth but only for external holdings: the "monetization" of life, as Leonard Joy called it. This removes a human face from the macro-level of nations, down to the micro-level as people, and ultimately to the inner-level of our private psyches. It is even replacing nationalism, dividing the world into "haves" and "have-nots," "developed" and "under-developed." It is becoming common­place now to no longer even use the word "country" or "people" or "nation," but simply to talk about less-well-off countries as "emerg­ing economies." Truly an "invisible hand" is at work here, though not perhaps one so benign and benevolent as Adam Smith meant by this term.

Let me jump ahead now. I do believe that Buddhism (among other spiritual traditions from East and South Asia, including the Gandhian system Michael Nagler just presented) offers a radical alternative to the market-religion, but one that requires some thought and investigation. We cannot, however, just casually take these traditions up, as they do challenge, in fundamental ways, a lot of our conven­tional ideas about what the good life is, and what it means to be human.

From a Buddhist view, "everything is made from the mind alone." In short, the "mind" and consciousness is the primary determining factor in human history. It underlies and fundamentally influences all of our myriad affairs economic life included. Mind is the root, the king; phenomena are the branches, the reflections. The external real­ity mirrors the internal; in fact, at some level of understanding they are one-and-the-same, i.e. they are non-dual. So "economics," from a Buddhist point of view, is essentially a spiritual matter or problem; especially now where it has so successfully displaced competing ide­ologies and now so thoroughly occupies and drives our existence.

To be continued