Economics and Buddhism

For my 100th post, I chose one of my favorite quotations, from E.F. Schumacher:

"Economics without Buddhism, i.e., without spiritual, human and ecological values, is like sex without love."

Quoted by Satish Kumar in a commentary note in Small is beautiful.

Some explanation is necessary, because some people may wonder what Buddhism has to do with Economics. Here is a good summary, taken from this web page:

"Early in Schumacher’s tenure at the Coal Board, the British government sent him to Burma to teach its citizens how to achieve progress based on the Western economic model. But he quickly determined the Burmese were better served drawing from their own tradition. He coined the term “Buddhist economics” to describe the opposite of the Western economic model, one that didn’t allow for unlimited growth and consumption and emphasized renewable resources."