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

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

jkirk schreef:

>
> "Reinfeldt successfully argued during the election campaign that the 
> Social Democrats, who've been in power for 12 years, had failed to 
> create jobs and promote new businesses. At the same time, he pledged 
> to maintain the bulk of Swedish welfare programs, the fruit of the 
> Social Democrats' domination of government for 61 of the past 70 
> years." Quoted from  http://tinyurl.com/hfxnx  
> What's discouraging is that discussions of socialism vs. capitalism, 
> not just on this list but almost everywhere, in the USA anyway, tend 
> to ignore what's been going on in Scandinavia for almost a century 
> with their successful (if not generous for the rich tenth of the 
> population) results. Compare their welfare and national health care 
> systems to what we have in the US, the land par excellence of 
> unrestrained capitalism, and you will see the difference. Sure, people 
> over there gripe about taxes, but people gripe about taxes everywhere.

Comparing economies is a hazerdous method if you want to decide what's best. And the most disappointing point is that economies are compared by thier system, which implies the modernist view that there is a system which can do the job best in any place at any time. What if the system doesn't matter? What if social cohesion and ethics are equally important? There is an article in the latest edition of The Lancet about an investigation which suggests that people live longer in a social democratic country because of the smaller differences in income. 
Anyway I wonder if the increase of giftware and freeware in a sensitive branch as the software industry could be a sign of the advent of a more Buddhist oriented sort of economy, where dana would be an important factor.  

Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950