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1 From the Individual to the Social

We have now established the fundamental piers on which we can build a new Global Economics platform.

As demonstrated so far, our central reference point lies at the depth of our spirituality , and this, in turn, is anchored at its deepest level in the cosmic Void and our ‘non-material’ genesis within a material world. We can see the connectedness of human spirituality with creativity, the basic human power we need to make change happen. The world of creativity is an open world, not closed into self-interested separation. Creativity is fed by ‘tacit knowledge’ , intuition, sharing … trust—the experience-base of humanity.

Tadao Takemoto then demonstrates in his Chap. 11 observation noted earlier, that human experience must not be limited in validity to what is legitimated by scientific explanation—for this is born out of a logic that excludes the irrational, non-recurrent, non-constant phenomena that make up this human experience, and can connect us out of the material and into the immaterial world of the Absolute, the Zero, and the soul. Indeed, to drop this observation into an economics context, limitation to just what can be explained through mathematized basic economic processes, leaves out the ‘Sunspots’ that might well offer wider, more humanistic character to economic explanation.

Additionally, with a primary focus on the genesis of life and progression to ageing, Masatoshi Murase in Chap. 16, observes that in the context of complexity, unexpected, even small, but systemic, forces , such as ‘sunspot’ influences may represent, can lead to system-wide impact. He draws a lesson from fractals, or self-similar static structures—where characteristic patterns of structures appear successively at descending or ascending scales so that at any scale they are similar in shape to the whole. Murase then develops the concept of self-similar dynamic processes in order to explore simple principles that explain complexity. In keeping with the idea of fractals, underlying principles—across all orders of magnitude—should be self-consistent. ‘As above, so below!’ Ultimately, in constructing the Kyoto Manifesto, we are building complexity from universal principles of humanity and spirituality—and these apply at all levels of aggregation and application. At the core of ‘everything’, is a central vision!

Our task now is to build the social platform for a new Global Economics. To do this, we start from the individual within society and reach forward to the essence of sociality—building and sustaining community. From here we then explore social harmony at a global level.

Our starting point lies in Stephen Hill’s observation at the opening of his Chap. 17,

To truly engage with our shared humanity requires bringing others—even from across different cultural worlds—into our very self. We must truly listen—suspend the noise of our own inner dialogue of consciousness that otherwise gets in the way. It is here and in our immediate social world that our meanings and culture are formed, not elsewhere.

This aligns closely with Tadeo Takemoto’s admonition that ‘Being Now’ must be a fundamental principle of consciousness for a future sustainable and fulfilling society.

Hill goes on to demonstrate from work with children caught in major conflict or trauma that, healing occurred when the vehicle of communication was music, not words—moving behind the fears and hostilities that were embedded in their verbal screen of consciousness. Further, he demonstrates from a case study of a hostage crisis involving his own United Nations staff, that negotiation only started to work when the mediators learnt to ‘listen’ to the needs of the tribal West Papuan freedom fighters in their very different cultural terms rather than through the assumptions the negotiators imported with them from their international cultural world. Once we ‘listen’ across cultures , we have much to learn—as in this case of West Papuan tribes, from the integrity of values, strength of acceptance once trusted and admitted to the group (even to fight to the death to protect the person), even in handling inter-group conflict—where the fight is largely symbolic: as soon as one person is killed or seriously injured, victory is declared and the fighting finishes.

Equally, we have much to learn from history. The richness of humanity has been formed over thousands of years. We stand today at the intersection between the cultural history that formed the meanings within which we now participate, and the contemporary diversity of today that both challenges and enriches our connection to humanity as a whole. Again though, we must silence our own language of consciousness, our formed expectations, in order to learn openly from a past where humanity lived within different times, opportunities and constraints

As Hill later goes on to observe in his subsequent Chap. 21, the practical application of ‘sacred silence’ is in the practice of “mindfulness ”, a Buddhist-based concept, but of direct use in the organization and values of business enterprise today. Mindfulness means suspending immediate self-interest, and making decisions in full consciousness of the people, organization and wider community impact of the decision—all informed by the past and previous experience. The goal is minimal harm , maximum benefit to all. Apart from anything else, this makes for good business organization. Most importantly though, mindfulness represents the first line of attack against the ‘ grammar ’, or, underlying assumptions, of global economics. We therefore return to this as an early action point in the Kyoto Manifesto.

Stephen Hill then demonstrates the power of inter-subjective community: “meaning is constructed within our ‘world within reach’, in subjective relations with others, in socially producing together …. In our local world.” It is here that our humanity’s strength resides. Place, as discussed earlier in relation to Manami Oka’s Chap. 6 on Kyoto and Tadashi Yagi’s Chap. 7 Supplement, is therefore important.

Hill refers to the instructive case study of the people of Ladakh , “Little Tibet”, within northern India but on the Tibetetan Plateau. Here, within 20 years, a people living in full harmony with their environment and others, in a reciprocity-based society, were virtually destroyed by an Indian Government initiative to ‘develop’ the society—bring them into the globalized world. In the example of Ladakh, one can see what has happened to our whole global society over 250 years, condensed into one-eighth of this time.

What lies at the heart of the human drive to community is the need, as social animals to ‘belong’, to have an anchor of meaning that allows people to act, to share, to feel appreciated or loved—included—to have a personal identity that others reinforce. At the core of working and living together in true community is the social capital of mutual trust, the importance of which was revealed earlier in Yagi and Yamash’ta’s Chap. 14.

Juichi Yamigawa in Chap. 19 observes from primatology research that whilst humans share sociality with the great apes, ‘community’ —in which two or more different social units support each other via frequent interactions, was a novel characteristic of human societies.

There is a biological basis. Food sharing, he argues, was the first driving force for the evolution of human sociality. Food sharing emerged in species due to the slow maturation of offspring. Whilst food sharing is practiced in some primate groups, only one species, Homo Sapiens, share food with non-kin individuals and outside groups. Partly through the benefit of bipedal movement, and thus the ability to forage and transport the food, hominoid individuals collected more food than they could use, so brought it back to camp to share and eat with their fellows. We use food as a social tool for communication, and according to rituals and practices that vary across cultures. But all human groups have developed a practice of sharing.

The second ‘foraging revolution’ during the period from 2.5 to 1.8 million years ago, was associated with the first sign of an increase in hominoid brain size following the emergence of stone tools and increased meat consumption. The dietary innovation of collecting high quality foods, including meat, preceded encephalization and promoted division of labor between the sexes for foraging. Increased brain size led to allocation of energy during early growth to rapid brain growth and a delay in somatic growth. Again, there was a social/community consequence, unique to humans. Childhood and adolescence periods developed, thus further fostering pair bonding of male and female parents as they needed to care longer for their offspring, and fostering the wider development of ‘community’. Maintenance of community relations required inter-subjective connection, and thus enhanced empathy and sympathy among group members, producing a strong identity of the individual hominoid with his or her wider community.

Yamigawa then explores where violence came from in relation to this emerging sociality. War, even hunting, are not human nature, he argues. For most of human evolutionary history, it was the other way around, being hunted as prey, a basis for collective action to survive.

Aggression between species is normal for the purpose of eating. Aggression within a species is derived from competition over food, resting places or mates. Where the competition is reduced, so too is the need to fight, and the aggression can result in stronger bonds for coexistence via reconciliation and consolation. However, strong empathy and identity with the community enabled our human ancestors to benefit from the power of the collective, and to expand their habitats to include risky environments.

However, development of language and subsequent managed food production (agriculture and animal domestication) led to the emotional traits associated with protecting commodities and land, thus coalitions amongst people within a community along with increased hostility between communities, leading to violent interactions. What is interesting to add here though is, as reported in Stephen Hill’s Chap. 17, traditional indigenous communities such as those in West Papua, have over time, developed inter-tribal traditions and rituals over the last 10,000 years, to contain this inter-community violence.

Yamigawa emphasizes however as noted before that violence is not an intrinsic human character. He observes that in 7 million years of human evolutionary history, distinct hunting tools, such as spears, first appeared just 0.4 million years ago, whilst evidence for violence with weapons among humans appeared only very recently, and seems to be associated with the emergence of agriculture—that is, possessions, territory, and self-interest.

Violence, apart for food capture, is therefore, not an intrinsic quality of being human but a consequence of ‘attachment’ to material goods and territory.

Yamigawa is thence particularly concerned about the conditions to produce violence in contemporary globalized society. The social cement provided by community is breaking down with the massive growth of cities where anonymity rules both in city design and in life choices. Communication by electronic means rather than direct inter-subjective relations marginalizes empathy and mutual understanding. Action to acquire individual benefits dominates … the rule of neo-classical economic values, the cage within which contemporary society is imprisoned. Globalization separates inter-subjectively at the same time as it pretends to connect us through other means. As a consequence, lethal violence amongst human is now six times higher than the average in all other mammals.

Yamigawa concludes we therefore must pay attention to these lessons learnt from primatology and early human development in constructing our future society. It is not an intrinsic character of being human to be violent, but a product of self-interest and atrophy of community—and ‘community ’ is a unique human feature. At the center therefore of a positive future for humankind is empathy, sympathy, community empowerment, sharing even across community boundaries.

Again, back to “trust”.

‘Trust is basic for relationships of sharing and giving, reciprocity over self-interested exchange. This is precisely the moral philosophy developed by Ed Arrington in his Chap. 20, “the presumption of hospitality”—He quotes from Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”, “To welcome a friend is splendid. To welcome a stranger sublime.”

Humanity’s strength therefore resides here and now in this reciprocal, hospitable local world. As Hill argues in his Chaps. 17 and 18, social empowerment starts in the same place.

Stephen Hill moves on to discuss non-place-based communities within present-day globalization.

Most significant are ‘elective communities’ , spread potentially across enormous territory and not determined by place, formed through networks of common interest, such as religious belief, ethnic origin, hobbies. These offer the individual support for various facets of their personal identity and sense of belonging. But elective communities can only offer a range of identities from which the individual selects to locate themselves within a globalized world, whilst depth of belonging is intrinsically fragmented.

Increasingly, in our internet-communicating world, ‘cyber-communities’ are developing, linking people via networks such as Facebook and Twitter. But others are only known via electronically mediated information (e.g.: 350 “friends” on Facebook), cannot provide full inter-subjective communication and understanding, indeed, may well be used, as with pedophilic ‘grooming’ of young people, as disguise. Certainly, as noted earlier in the Overture to this Conclusions Suite, the new world of internet is a world where “alternative facts”, of ‘un-truths’ can explode across a global population and be accepted without evidence.

These non-place communities can be useful supports in developing and communicating a reciprocal, hospitable personal world, and a sense of belonging. However, social empowerment comes not from here, but from the inter-subjectivity of direct relationships, place and the local.

There are then many examples of newly developed local communities that form and exercise internal cohesion, reciprocity and care. Helena Norberg-Hodge’s “Local Futures” initiative, discussed in Hill’s Chap. 18, is one such movement—to popularize and implement a focus on building and sustaining local economies against the destructive winds of globalization.

What particularly matters though is not stopping at a local level, but instead, to capture an effective dynamic to expand from this cultural and community platform—to capture the power of the local, and explode our connectedness at this human level across the global human world. The problem then is that in the world of the 21st Century, the ‘local’ is embedded in and deeply penetrated by globalism’s economic values and control. Effective change must take these forces into account.

The phrase Hill uses for this dynamic is “global localism ”. He presents a detailed case study of UNESCO’s intervention to assist the local community of Banjarsari in Indonesia not only to transform itself into a resilient, environmentally focused community within an poor urban setting, but also to influence many other communities—like a pebble dropped into a pool, to send out ripples of influence both locally and globally.

A powerful further example is that of the Basque Cooperative Movement, based in Mondragon , Spain. Conceived on a local basis in 1959 between a handful of workers in a disused factory, the Movement is based on workers being co-owners , inclusive democracy on a proportionate basis—whilst allocating adequate proportions to cover education, health and support. Mondragon production employs the latest technologies but members enjoy job security, though all wage rates can go up or down according to overall productivity. The ‘idea’ has expanded rapidly. There are now 266 Mondragon-inspired and linked Cooperatives across the world—all committed to developing employee ownership on a case-by-case basis—consistent with local laws, customs and other cultural and economic considerations. The Mondragon Movement now offers jobs for 83,800 workers and benefit from annual sales of $(US)20 billion. (Mathews 2012).Footnote 1

Indeed, the Cooperative Movement in general is already a major player in the world economy. As Stephen Hill observes in Chapter 21, from United Nations data, there are now 2.6 million Cooperatives across 145 countries, comprising a billion memberships and clients with a collective ‘economy’ larger than the economy of France.

The power of community, and the wider influence of community based on place and social values rather than those of neo-classical economics, is therefore emerging within global society. The task however is to strengthen this movement and to escape the stranglehold of globalized neo-economics control.

Stephen Hill’s Chap. 21 then goes on to draw these dynamics together into an overall synthesis at the global level. He looks at the market place from ‘the other way around’, that is from the perspective of human needs and aspirations. From this he develops a number of strategies we can capture to ‘listen to the harmony of humanity’ in order to explore the dimensions of a new paradigm for economic-oriented action. These include exercising the power of listening and mindfulness , developing public awareness programs, promoting economic strategies that follow a mindful objective, developing social business into ‘normal’ economic business, stimulating and supporting cooperative ecologically-sensitive business organizations—and, fundamentally, transforming a shared economic vision towards one based on our humanity and its ultimate source of power in spirituality, social resilience and reciprocity. These strategies are carried forward directly into the Kyoto Manifesto which follows.

Additionally, the strategies carried forward must reflect a realistic view of the accelerating impact of technological transformation on current economic productivity and its organization, as discussed in Hill’s Chap. 25. Serious consideration has to be given to the very real possibility of a future ‘economy of unemployment’ as one quoted author describes it, where alternate means of acquiring and distributing wealth will need to be conceived and ‘universal basic income’ considered—along with serious action to reduce the massive and destructive gap between the very rich and the very poor.

2 Some Lessons from Economic Action Based on Alternate Systems of Belief or Action

Taking these foundations and construction lessons into account we now move on towards final resolution in a human-centered economics.

Here, we reflected against alternative economic systems based on alternative belief systems and social/economic dynamics as platform—in this Movement—for the Conclusions Suite which follows.

The book therefore includes two Chapters which specifically explore practicing economic activity under the umbrella of alternate religious values—Islamic and Buddhist, as well as from economic philosophies such as is practiced in a village-level Indian economy which supports rather than marginalizes the micro-producer and the value of ‘small is beautiful’.

We can learn from these accounts, so include their lessons into our subsequent Conclusions Suite.

In the case of the Chap. 22 exploration of the future of capitalism and the Islamic Economy, Shinsuke Nagaoka points to the failure of both capitalism and Soviet-style socialism. He further observes that the Islamic Economy and its leading practice, Islamic Finance, do not, as many may assume, represent an anti-capitalist movement, but is an alternative practice within global capitalism.

Consequently, from a conceptual base in a 1941 lecture at Aligarh Muslim University in pre-independence India by Abul A’la Maududi on the economic problem of man and its Islamic Solution, the movement grew, particularly from 2002 onwards. Over the period from 2002 to 2012, the Islamic Banking Sector expanded at a growth rate of 73% per year, to the control of global assets of $(US)1.2 trillion. With 600 financial institutions providing Islamic financial services to over 50 countries, Islamic Banking has a market share of banking up to 65% in Bangladesh and 45% in Bahrain. Islamic finance is therefore a rapidly emerging new force within the global financial market place.

Nagaoka argues that whilst Islamic finance still requires renovation to fit into the ‘wisdoms’ of capitalism to meet the demands of the modern world, lessons may be adopted into the current global economic system, thus representing a change in global economic values.

Specifically he points to two key principles of Islamic finance—forbidding of ‘riba ’ or unequal exchange—hence, ‘interest-free finance’; and the demand for ‘zakat ’—return of a percentage of income to God—in general within the modern world, 2.5%.

Thus, ‘riba’ is avoided through both investors and the bank sharing proportionately in the final profits. Interest on the loan may or may not be adjusted continuously according to demand and market conditions, but the investor gains only at the end from the success or failure of the borrower’s business. Meanwhile, ‘zakat’ contributors receive their full benefit, not now, but in the afterlife. Additionally, investment, according to Islamic values is ‘Haram ’, forbidden, in areas regarded as unethical or immoral, such as casinos, alcohol, nuclear energy and the military, though what is included as Haram rather than ‘Halal’ , permitted, is debated.

The main implication is that the Islamic economy tolerates the universal principle of capitalism which seeks infinite growth of capital by the endless pursuit of profit, and encourages self-centered profit-oriented business activity as this provides greater ‘zakat’ for God and the cause of Islam. Exercise of these values in practice varies and mechanisms developed such as for Islamic banks to legitimately sell receivables at a discount price to be fully compensated on maturity (developed originally within Malaysia), remain contested.

The main difficulties of absorbing Islamic financial practices into a reform agenda of global capitalism is that the system supports strong growth-oriented capitalist development through a values focus on self-interest, and, whilst the return of a percentage of income to charitable pursuits is an excellent principle, the reward within Islam is in a later life. In an ecumenical world, belief in later life is very divided, so the principle of zakat cannot be applied universally. Perhaps, reference to the mechanism developed within the Mondragon Movement for allocation of a percentage of shared incomes to be to social support is more workable—but this fundamentally depends on a core principle of economic activity being the sharing benefit from mutual labor rather than self-interested benefit from others’ labor.

The Mondragon model focuses on organization values. Juewei Shi takes us, in her Chap. 23 discussion of Buddhist Economics back to the personal level, to the power of integrity and inner-peace to influence society as a whole.

Shi points out that there is no necessary conflict between Buddhist values and economic activity. What matters is the objective, and personal values in action. Basic is the consciousness of the “Noble Eightfold Path ”: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. The objective is to relieve suffering not just for oneself, but for all. At a personal level, relief of suffering requires recognizing the reality identified in the earlier discussion of spirituality in this Chapter Suite, i.e.: everything is impermanent, including, in particular, matter. To be ‘attached ’, for example, to income or wealth therefore can only provide very temporary satisfaction, and certainly will distract personal values from the principles expounded in the Noble Eightfold Path, and from inner peace.

Wealth, instead, is to be used for social good rather than personal gratification …… and greater happiness is the product, not just for oneself but for all others. Shi refers to the teaching of Venerable Master Hsing Yun that people and nature co-exist—thus, the principle of ‘dependent co-origination’ or all events arising out of a complex set of relationships and factors. The healthy and sustainable society starts from the individual recognizing this, so acting as a kind of ‘beam of light’ within this complexity—starting with one’s own inner peace and radiating out ultimately to create social harmony , even to a global level. Happiness and inner peace catches on. In generating this power, one’s own karma is formed, or one’s unintended impact on the positive or negative character of the complex surrounding conditions for oneself in the future.

Indeed, the idea of ‘happiness’ rather than ‘economic wealth’ being the measure of a society’s welfare is now gaining ground internationally, led from the tiny Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. As Shi points out, Bhutan developed its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index to replace the traditional Gross National Product (GNP) economic index generally used to measure national welfare. Bhutan has a mixed economy and seeks to chart a ‘Middle Way’—between the extremes of capitalism and communism, mixing market forces with some central government leadership, whilst maintaining a more holistic and human life understanding. Similar values are successfully carried into the economic mainstream, as Shi observes. Shinichi Inoue, former President of the Japanese Miyazaki Bank, claims that one should not engage in businesses that do not serve the world; instead, the goal of business should be to serve the community with profit coming as a by-product.

In alignment with the idea of a ‘gift’ giving or ‘hospitality’ based social order developed in Ed Arrington’s Chap. 20, Buddhist practice teaches that compassion , giving unconditionally, are basic to social harmony—as well as for acquiring ‘merit’. The benefit of Arrington’s analysis is that he constructs it from deep interrogation of Western philosophic literature. The ‘idea’ of a ‘hospitality’-based social order is therefore not just an Eastern phenomenon, but a global concern. Indeed, the idea is represented in totally practical terms in the Spanish Basque community’s Mondragon Movement discussed earlier.

Juewei Shi points to practical models of Buddhism applied to national economic activity to demonstrate, as with the Royal Thai Sufficiency Economy Model , that avoidance of greed leads to more sustainable and happy business enterprise, that is, activity based on principles of moderation , reasonableness, self-immunity, wisdom and integrity. Material benefits are to be cherished. Waste is to be avoided.

Centrally, as also demonstrated in Stomu Yamash’ta’s and Tadashi Yagi’s Chap. 14, trust becomes the core dynamic of relationships, yielding both a happy and productive work environment as well as personal satisfaction. Workers have to trust that by not being self-centered, they will benefit more. Shi demonstrates further that trust is basic to all Buddhist economic activity, for harmony , happiness and merit are achieved by giving without expectation of immediate return and ‘trusting’ that rewards will accrue anyway.

Reward comes from “karma”. In keeping with the way minor interventions can alter a total complex physical or organizational system, karma represents the ‘rippling’ influence of even a tiny small act on the entire cosmic (non-material) (timeless) environment of which the person is part and from which he or she will, depending on actions, be rewarded with wholesome benefits—either in this life or the next. Consequently, greater ‘merit’, the currency, as it were, of karma, is measured by the extent of one’s altruism and how far-reaching the benefits are to others and into the future.

Juewei also seeks to clarify the often-mistaken assumption that Buddhism in daily life requires commitment to poverty , though this is the principle of non-attachment required of nuns and monks within the monastic sanctuaries. The Buddha did not advise his disciples to give up everything, but admonished them to not get ‘attached’ to material things for self-reward. Instead, economic activity can be beneficial to the self-cultivation if the service and economic rewards received are used to help others. Shi also notes, that there has to be some level of abundance before a gift economy is going to work anyway. Reflecting back to Juichi Yamagiwa’s Chap. 19 observations on early humans, ‘community’ was specifically a product of some level of abundance beyond immediate individual needs.

Juewei Shi observes the difficulties which some Buddhist Temples and movements have had with being embedded within a wider neo-classical economic environment, principally, in marketing objects, prayers or teaching for wealth. However, she concludes from examination of a number of implemented economic models based on Buddhism but in the wider community, harmonious co-existence and the existing system of the State is possible—but at the center there has to be an altruistic view of possessions and wealth and their purpose, and … trust. As she concludes:

Through moderation in production and consumption, ethical behavior, mindful consumption and altruistic compassionate action that are aligned to the Buddha’s teachings (and incidentally, not very different from Adam Smith’s propositions of moral sentiments), there will be respectful consideration for resources (natural and manmade), dignity accorded to the human being (rather than being relegated to the role as a factor of production), and analysis of impact to environmental, human, social, cultural and other factors before production.

Shi also refers to the work of E.F. Schumacher and his classic, ‘Small Is Beautiful’, the original Western work that introduced Buddhist practice into economics.

This takes us directly to the Tadashi Yagi’s Chap. 24 and his argument concerning “micro-producers” and the “informal economy ”. As in the case of India, even against the onslaught of the economies of scale from very large and international corporations, micro-producers exist and improve the functioning of the whole economy by providing diversity that is largely written out of very large companies’ business practice. Yagi observes indeed that the competitiveness of value chains depends on business models which link small producers into the global value chain, even if the small units are financially weak. However, to sustain and develop the micro-producer enterprise, systems of micro-financing are vital for their survival and improvement of quality of life through engagement in creative activities.

Yagi then explores the conditions needed to maintain micro-producer diversity through extending and applying the Dixit- Stiglitz mathematical diversity model. If price alone is the arbiter of business survival, then micro-producers are likely to fail in a competitive economy. However, other endogenous signals, such as trust come into play. Large international companies are remote, often making it difficult to find information about the processing quality or exploitation that stand behind the product on the shelf. Not only price, but trust and reputation are also exchanged in the market—thus providing an advantage for the local small-scale producer who is likely to have direct and repeated face-to-face contact with the purchaser.

Additionally, as is the case in India, micro-producers are embedded in a highly diverse cultural context. Community, generally however, is highly valued. Respect for tradition, history and local culture helps to maintain local diversity even against cost efficiencies of large producers seeking to penetrate the market. The local culture will call forth specifically local products—from clothing to musical instruments. In this case, the market vitality is a direct result of common shared values of the community—both product of and sustenance for social unity and harmony.

Trust, valuing diversity, sharing and care. Basic principles for market success by people-centered standards.

From here, we move on to the wrap-up of the main messages of this book in Chap. 31, ‘The Way Forward’ from our Conclusions Suite, the next ‘composition’.