"labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil

There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider "labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it can not be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a "disutility"; to work is to make a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment.

The consequences of these attitudes both in theory and in practice are, of course, extremely far-reaching. If the ideal with regard to work is to get rid of it, every method that "reduces the work load" is a good thing. The most potent method, short of automation, is the so-called "division of labour" and the classical example is the pin factory eulogised in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. 4 Here it is not a matter of ordinary specialisation, which mankind has practiced from time immemorial, but of dividing up every complete process of production into minute parts, so that the final product can be produced at great speed without anyone having had to contribute more than a totally insignificant and, in most cases, unskilled movement of his limbs.

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.


A fan of Schumacher about how the current economic crisis evokes fundamental questions about the future of capitalism and provides a unique opportunity to reorganize financial markets for sustainability. He explains the simple notion that if we slow down, we can enjoy life more, and challenges us to bring this concept into financial markets:

Buddhist Technology: Bringing a New Consciousness to Our Technological Future.

This brilliant 1997 lecture by a leading physicist and humanist focuses on the relationship between technology and work, on one hand, and right values and livelihood on the other. Zajonc shows how traditions and culture once provided a right moral context for work and how that context has been broken apart by the dramatically increasing capacity of amoral technology to replace human work. Citing fascinating examples from literature and mythology, Taoism and Studs Terkel, Zajonc makes a powerful case for the restoration of the links between technology, love, and beauty that must be re-established if we are to be fully human.

Obama’s “cap-and-dividend” Road to Copenhagen

There is considerable debate about the form which a cap and a price signal should take — in recent weeks a carbon tax has even been a topic of renewed discussion. None of the options is perfect, but one of them is rising as a preferred choice because it protects low-and middle-income families from rising energy prices.



Peter Barnes, senior fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute

It’s called “cap-and-dividend.” Under this program, permits to pollute the air with greenhouse gases would be auctioned and the proceeds returned to citizens. The extra income, which should be targeted especially to the poor, will protect the most vulnerable American families from rising energy prices and will help build a long-term constituency for climate action. In the present economic crisis, the prospect of sending monthly dividend checks to families is a political winner. It makes a cap-and-dividend plan largely immune from criticism that it will be costly to the public, and it increases the chances of passage this year.


GHG Emission Simulator