Two Paths

I quote the book Stone Age Economics:

"For there are two possible courses to affluence.  Wants may be "easily satisfied" either by producing much or desiring little.  The familiar conception, the Galbraithean way, makes assumptions peculiarly appropriate to market economies: that man's wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although improvable: thus, the gap between  means and ends can be narrowed by industrial productivity, at least to the point that "urgent goods" become plentiful.  But there is a Zen road to affluence, departing from premises somewhat different from our own: that human material wants are finite and few, and technical means unchanging but on the whole adequate.  Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy an unparalleled material plenty--with a low standard of living."

I feel it is the Zen road that is the wise and sane path.  E.F. Schumacher came to the same conclusion in his book Small Is Beautiful as he says, "The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom....it is also the antithesis of freedom and peace...Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war."   Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have said the same idea.  The Buddha's First Noble Truth is that humans suffer.  Duhkha is the word for the suffering that comes from asking of life what it cannot give.  

By pushing the idea of growth, growth, growth and more, more, more, we institutionalize discontent and have created a system that destroys the ecology in which all life depends.   It is time for alternative visions.