[Buddha-l] Buddhism and Marxism: where the twain could meet

[Richard Hayes]

On Thursday 21 September 2006 10:41, Richard Hayes wrote:

> IIn fact, it's almost axiomatic 
> that a Western Buddhist will have a leftist orientation.

Some of you might be interested in a new book by Kevin M. Brien, <cite>Marx, 
Reason, and the Art of Freedom</cite>. In this revised second edition, Brien 
has an appendix on Marxism and Buddhism in which he argues that not only are 
Marxism and Buddhism fully compatible, but each complements the other. He 
quotes a fellow with the title the Dalai Lama, who says that in his view the 
failure of the Soviet Union was not the failure of Marxism but the failure of 
totalitarianism. If one could have Marxism without totalitarianism---and why 
not?---then one could have a Marxist economy that is fully in keeping with 
the main social principles of Buddhism. So argues the Dalai Lama and 
Professor Brien. I have not yet read the book carefully, but I find myself 
quite intrigued at the outset and hope to learn from it. (My Marxist theory 
has become a bit rusty of late, so I look forward to this refresher course.)

Quick, somebody had better report me in to Fox news. I might be another one of 
those fellows that Bill O'Reilly talks about so obsessively: a radical 
leftist professor corrupting the minds of our nation's youth with all kinds 
of weird ideas drawn from Eastern mysticism and other suspicious 
non-Christian sources.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes