Subverting Greed is a religious novel that explores the economy and its impact on many religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and more. One religion that the authors highlight is Buddhism, and its perspective on globalization and greed. Living in a society consumed by greed and capitalization, Buddhist views oppose our desires for financial profit and economic wealth, as it’s not a necessity to live happily. The honest and moral way to live understand that material possessions shouldn’t define our success, but how we eliminate our attachment to materialistic belongings and strive to be on a path to liberation and enlightenment.
Buddhist views of life are very simplistic and minimalistic. The main goals are to be strive to be …show more content…
We can to continue to use our developments to promote consumerism. In other words, we are globalizing our efforts to produce goods and services that weren’t available decades before. Overall, globalization is good because countries can trade and distribute goods effectively, but not in terms of limiting wealth. This distribution involves capitalism and acquired wealth that stays within the corporations, only to produce more goods. In turn, the corporations use social media, advertisement, and marketing strategies to endorse consumption in unhealthy ways, resulting in greed from corporations and consumers. “Paving the planet” encourages globalization and subtly implies the idea of self-limitation among consumers. It challenges our knowledge in realizing that “consumerism never really gives us what we want from it” (Knitter and Muzaffar, 69). Overall, we rely on globalization to improve as a nation in the technological world, masking the issue that we must adjust our understanding of globalization and its impact to …show more content…
One Buddhist view that I value and respect is their concept of wealth and distributing it evenly. They acknowledge that even one person might be more financially stable, it’s that individual’s duty to help others in need so they don’t become destitute. Many individuals, especially Americans, are taught to work hard to attain financial security and wealth. However, we invest our wealth in stocks and other businesses to earn more wealth. Most individuals do this to secure their money for life and make sure that they don’t encounter financial hardships in the near future. In a Buddhist viewpoint, this displays selfishness and an “economic emphasis on competition, individual gain, and private possession encourages the development of ill will rather than loving-kindness” (Knitter and Muzaffar, 71). However, we can only fault this selfishness to an extent, as this is what most Americans are taught. It’s hard to accept a viewpoint that we aren’t educated on, but if we learn to embrace it, maybe poverty won’t be a ongoing issue that we struggle to
Buddhist views of life are very simplistic and minimalistic. The main goals are to be strive to be …show more content…
We can to continue to use our developments to promote consumerism. In other words, we are globalizing our efforts to produce goods and services that weren’t available decades before. Overall, globalization is good because countries can trade and distribute goods effectively, but not in terms of limiting wealth. This distribution involves capitalism and acquired wealth that stays within the corporations, only to produce more goods. In turn, the corporations use social media, advertisement, and marketing strategies to endorse consumption in unhealthy ways, resulting in greed from corporations and consumers. “Paving the planet” encourages globalization and subtly implies the idea of self-limitation among consumers. It challenges our knowledge in realizing that “consumerism never really gives us what we want from it” (Knitter and Muzaffar, 69). Overall, we rely on globalization to improve as a nation in the technological world, masking the issue that we must adjust our understanding of globalization and its impact to …show more content…
One Buddhist view that I value and respect is their concept of wealth and distributing it evenly. They acknowledge that even one person might be more financially stable, it’s that individual’s duty to help others in need so they don’t become destitute. Many individuals, especially Americans, are taught to work hard to attain financial security and wealth. However, we invest our wealth in stocks and other businesses to earn more wealth. Most individuals do this to secure their money for life and make sure that they don’t encounter financial hardships in the near future. In a Buddhist viewpoint, this displays selfishness and an “economic emphasis on competition, individual gain, and private possession encourages the development of ill will rather than loving-kindness” (Knitter and Muzaffar, 71). However, we can only fault this selfishness to an extent, as this is what most Americans are taught. It’s hard to accept a viewpoint that we aren’t educated on, but if we learn to embrace it, maybe poverty won’t be a ongoing issue that we struggle to