"I understand that the current debate on globalization has a broad area of general agreement. This is that globalization is the latest expression of a longstanding strategy of development based on economic growth and liberalization of trade and finance. This results in the progressive integration of economies of nations across the world through the unrestricted flow of global trade and investment. Beyond these points people participating in the debate generally split into two main camps: those who believe that the expansion of the free market economy will benefit the societies and those who do not.

The mainstream approach is generally the former with the underlying assumption that globalization brings jobs, technology, income and wealth to societies. However these societies must be willing to submit to the principles of the free market - limiting public spending, privatizing public services, removing investment, strengthening export production and controlling inflation.

Those against the above policies argue that the "great success story" of globalization production has led to a litany of social and ecological crises. This has resulted in poverty and powerlessness of the majority of people, destruction of community, depletion of natural resources and unendurable pollution."¹

From a Buddhist perspective and from the experience of my country, I have to say that my standpoint is closer to the latter viewpoint, with the awareness that there is a big diversity within both camps and there are people who are trying to work out something in between the two.

When we talk about globalization we must remember such aspects as the globalization of the dominating consumer monoculture and the accompanying devastating environmental effects. On a more positive note, all around the world we can witness evidence of the rising consciousness of the interconnection of ecological systems and the emergence of global networking among civil society.

From a Buddhist perspective, however, the very core of the globalization process is the globalization of tanah, or craving. According to Buddhist analysis, tanah is the root cause of all suffering.

The term globalization may be new but the causes and conditions leading to it are not. Globalization is a continuation and expansion of ideas of development which are rooted in the belief that the progress of humanity is a linear anthropocentric process.

When we look at this worldview in the context of tanah, we can see that it has created a kind of civilization that victimizes its own people, people of other worldviews and other sentient beings. Over the last few hundred years this has been happening in the name of industrialization, colonization and development in both capitalist and communist frameworks.

As tanah becomes globalized the scale of suffering around the world has grown enormously. Vast numbers of largely self-sufficient third-world communities are being transformed rapidly into consumers of capital-intensive goods and services, mainly those provided by the transnational corporations. While a small amount of people perceive benefit through an increased standard of living, the majority falls victim to discontent, dependency and poverty. With the increased emphasis on material goods the quality of life of both the minority and the majority deteriorates and becomes spiritually void.

From the Buddhist perspective, both the anthropocentric element and the belief in progress are basic wrong views. In Buddhism the concept of interrelatedness is essential. If we take this seriously, human beings cannot be the "centre of the universe". We are just one species among many and our wellbeing depends on that of other species and the natural environment.

The belief in progress moves us away from the "present moment". In Buddhism, the causes and conditions of staying in the "present moment", or the "moment of reality", are of prime importance in the art of coping with suffering. The progress ethos stimulate us to expect that things will be better in the future, but at the cost of sacrificing the present reality. This belief in progress is a kind of myth, as it promises something that will never be completely fulfilled - indeed the striving to fulfil this myth is the cause of tanah.

For the sake of modernization, ordinary people have been structured to abandon cultures and ways of life that have evolved over thousands of years and are for the most part extremely appropriate to their local conditions and environment. Workers have been manoeuvred to sacrifice their labour for low wages for the sake of industrialization, farmers have been relocated for the sake of big infrastructure projects, all in the name of development and economic growth. In these processes, the disruption to living in the "present moment" and the resulting upheaval is given little or no consideration at all.

As tanah increases around the world, it goes hand in hand with the creation of a consumer monoculture. This monoculture is "evangelized" through the global advertising agencies, the information highway, satellite and cable television and western studios. These huge "dream factories" and "information creators" come from an alien cultural base with little relevance to the diverse localities to which they beam their acquisitive gospel. Their alluring messages convey an almost totally inappropriate and non-sustainable lifestyle to the most remote corners of the world. The vast majority of people who are manipulated by these messages will never have the means fully to acquire the images portrayed to them so they will feel inferior and culturally backward.

Like the extinct species of the Amazon rainforest, unique cultures - many of them thousands of years old - are being lost around the world in the name of globalization and progress. As world culture becomes homogenized, traditional art and music forms become undervalued and obsolete. All over the world there is a common oral tradition of story-telling with vibrant singers and dancers portraying unique tales of seasons, gods and local events. These largely spontaneous artists whose art stimulates compassion, community and solidarity are the heart and soul of local communities. They are now being ousted by the new icons of pop culture, like Michael Jackson, whose performances to the masses hardly enhance the quality of life.

As the transnationals invade every society they bring with them overpowering media that drown out the gentler, more vibrant, local cultural norms. Personal success in terms of wealth, power, recognition and the futile quest for unsuitable sensual pleasure are the dominating values in globalized society. The result is an inappropriate form of western culture, hungry for the unnecessary, overpackaged, standardized products of the transnational organizations. People are taught to compete and compare in the purchase of excessive consumer goods. In short, greed, violence and illusion, which Buddhists call akusalamula (unwholesome roots), are the norms promoted in different forms in the globalized culture.

However, it seems that the negative result of karma rebounds on its own sources, as we see unemployment, devastation of the environment and disintegration of family and community values in all societies following this destructive direction. This results in deepening criticisms and challenges, both from within these societies and from people of other civilizations.

Some critics even put it dramatically:

"We are witnessing the end of modernity. What this means is that we are in the process of changes in patriarchy (I am male); individualism (I win, therefore I am); materialism (I shop, therefore I am); scientific dogmatism (I experiment, therefore I know better; or I have no values, thus I am right) and nationalism (I hate the other, therefore I am). This is however a long-term process and part of the undoing of capitalism. All these connect to create a new world which is potentially the grandest shift in human history. We are in the midst of galloping time, plastic time, in which the system is unstable and thus can dramatically transform."²

Unfortunately, first our elites and later our ordinary people seem to have lost confidence in our own cultural values. We become convinced that our civilizations are inferior, though we may pay lip service to the forms of our traditions. People in this state of mind are easily lured onto the consumer bandwagon in its many forms. This is especially true of the younger generation, who are so much influenced by the multinational media. Today our young people aspire to expensive western-style schools and inappropriate western-style architecture is springing up all over the world. We are abandoning appropriate and traditional costumes in favour of western-style clothes. In many cases influenced by the hamburger, pizza and Coca-Cola chains, people around the world are even changing their eating and drinking habits in order to emulate the "progressive" nations. Sustainable and wise cultural practices are also changing. The Chinese are no longer proud that they abandoned firearms hundreds of years ago though they had the knowledge to invent them before any western nation, if they chose to. The high-ranking Buddhist monks in my country are forgetting the basic teachings of the Buddha to live a simple life, in order to search for higher wisdom. These modern monks are competing with each other for the latest-model BMWs and Mercedes! The lay Buddhists of my generation and my parents' generation use Buddhism only as a ritualistic function in life, and few live a life according to the real teachings. Today most lay Buddhists actually worship money and success.

Around the world the numbers of single people are rising and isolated "nuclear families" are becoming the norm. Modern people are becoming more and more cut off from communities, societies and the natural environment. Surely, this cannot sustain itself and over the next generations we will witness the further breakdown of societies. Ultimately, this may mean the end of the era of modernity, although what worldview will emerge from the ruins is still unclear.

Problems caused by globalization

Thus it would seem that globalization can mean the spreading of greed, violence and individualism to all corners of the globe. From a Buddhist point of view, when the cultural values of a society are motivated by these unwholesome roots, the society itself will face all kinds of difficulties. Specifically these include corruption, crime, war, exploitation and abuse. Generally they lead to ecological destruction, disintegration of cultural values and the breakdown of all relationships.

This is because, from a non-self point of view, we are one with other beings in the universe, human and non-human. To harm others is to harm ourselves as well. Our social and environmental crises witness to this law of nature. The interrelatedness between human moral conduct and ecological balance is clearly stated in the ancient scriptures, as can be seen in Buddhadasa Bhikku's comments on a Pali Sutta. Here the Sutta is talking about the results of people not acting in accordance with dhamma.

"Now, when the Brahmins and people with money already do not act according to dhamma (the law of nature), the city people and country people do not act in accordance with dhamma, so it follows that both the city and country people do not act according to dhamma... When we have reached the point where all people do not act according to dhamma there arise uncertainties, fluctuations and abnormal conditions in all nature: the orbit of the moon and sun is fluctuating and uncertain... the stellar system has been disturbed by the ambitions of very greedy people, people who do not act according to dhamma."

The Sutta goes on to describe how panjassa (pattern or order) of the universe becomes confused and this affects the patterns of weather which affect the crops and in turn the people and animals cannot survive. Buddhadasa comments:

"Human beings have long since brought about injustices which have left their mark on nature; this has resulted in nature behaving incorrectly. When nature is disrupted, it surrounds humans and brings about their continued downfall until it affects their physical bodies and their heart-mind... then our heart-mind also becomes mixed up."³

We can see these difficulties clearly in all societies as they become touched by modernization. Under the new name of globalization, the catastrophe will intensify. The mad rush towards progress in the last thirty years of development in Siam has left a vast disparity between rich and poor and huge, devastating scars on the culture, the environment and social norms. It is hard to believe that contemporary Thai values have sprung from a Buddhist culture.

Many aspects of contemporary Siam are frightening examples of all that is wrong with modernization. The underpinning value system of the capitalist monoculture seems almost totally at odds with the traditional Buddhist philosophy based on interconnection, compassion and awareness of greed, hate and illusion.

Let us start with Bangkok, once renowned as the Venice of the east, a mystic city of canals and golden spires - now one of the most polluted cities in the world and in the truest sense a concrete jungle. Bangkok is known to locals as Krung Thep. The city of angels is full of construction sites, ugly new buildings, superhighways and shopping malls indiscriminately built and tearing the heart out of local communities. Many huge slum areas have materialized and many people live in very basic shacks which might suffice, if in the country near a clean water supply, but in the rat-infested, fume-ridden city are not an abode for healthy living.

To many visitors, Bangkok's angels are the numerous prostitutes in what has now become a global centre for sex tourism, resourced mainly by very young girls from poor rural areas and from indigenous hill tribes both within Siam and from neighbouring countries. Many of these unsophisticated girls have been tricked into becoming prostitutes by unscrupulous employment procurers who recruit from the villages, promising high salaries for jobs in the "entertainment" industry. Most of the girls have little awareness of exactly what this will entail.

This burgeoning sex industry has been encouraged by an emerging consumer society advocating instant gratification. It has been spurred on first, by US soldiers on R&R from Vietnam and later, by sex tourists who were lured to fill the gap.

The landscape of Siam has been stripped of its trees, the coral reefs destroyed through pollution and plundering, the water in the numerous klongs and rivers of this waterbed culture is now so polluted they are unsafe to swim in. The destruction of the rain forests which act as natural sponges during the rainy season has caused extreme flooding. The building of huge dams for hydroelectricity displaced thousands of people and caused them to lose their traditional, self-reliant way of life when they were resettled on infertile land or lured by government schemes to produce cash crops. Only a few decades ago the culture was still based on rural sustainable agriculture that was interdependent with the floods. The farming seasons worked around the flooding, welcoming the fertile silt from the floodwater. If a few simple, thatched houses were damaged, they were easy to replace or repair from the abundant forests. Nowadays, floods are seen as a menace, destroying cash crops and causing unbelievable chaos to the already congested streets of Bangkok. In these days of acquisition the fear of floods has a whole new dimension, as expensive houses and possessions are in danger of water damage.

How could this happen in a Buddhist society? With few exceptions, the monks of Siam welcome globalization naively, as an unavoidable friend. Many monks have consumer goods, such as mobile phone, BMWs and portable computers; many are obsessed with raising money from their newly rich parishioners to build ever bigger Buddhas and useless halls and buildings.

As is the trend around the world, the bright young contemporary minds of Siam are being lured into the fast-paced business world with little time or inclination to develop wisdom through contemplation. Thais, young and old alike, are victims of the huge promotion of a global monoculture by multinationals with a capitalist, individualistic ethos.

Activists, environmentalists and ordinary people affected by big development projects launched campaign after campaign against these tendencies, such as the Forum of the Poor protests. The effect was that Thai-based foreign multinational corporations turned to neighbouring countries for timber, hydroelectric dams and other natural resources.

This kind of development truly benefits very few people. Even those who become rich often become victims of acquisitive desires which rob them of personal fulfilment. In spite of their "success" in wealth, power and recognition they are still haunted by a sense of lack and basic existential insecurity - a basic fact of life to which they never have time to pay attention. These people, expecting instant gratification, have lost touch with the art of coping with basic human suffering. This art has been well developed in the Buddhist tradition through meditation practice and is a wonderful tool for ensuring emotionally mature and stable adults. I believe that the art of coping with suffering is not exclusive to the Buddhist tradition - indeed it is an integral part of most traditional religious and indigenous wisdom.

This new kind of suffering spawned by consumerism which is fuelled by the globalization process is happening in various stages all over Southeast Asia, and indeed the world. Even in countries like Burma and Laos the scars of the consumer society are emerging. This is seen in the ugly modern buildings that are starting to appear in Rangoon and Vientiane, the ubiquitous Coca-Cola available in the smallest villages and the gentle people who feel "left behind" and aspire to western goods they have heard about on television.

Looking at these trends globally, we see some startling facts of structural violence in regard to economic injustice in the world today. The richest 20% of the world's people receive 87% of the world's income. The poorest 20% of the world's people receive barely 1.4% of total income. The combined incomes of the top 20% is nearly 60 times larger than the bottom 20%. This gap has doubled since 1950, when the top 20% had 30 times the income of the bottom 20%. And the gap continues to grow.

"The thin segment of super rich in the world have formed a stateless alliance that defines global interest as synonymous with the personal and corporate financial interest of its members. They claim the world's wealth at the expense of less affluent people, other species and ecosystems on the planet. This is the true meaning of global competitiveness: competition among localities Large corporations, by contrast, minimize their competition through mergers and strategic alliances."⁴

The result of this structural violence is that for 80% of the world's population globalization means global poverty:

"In the 1960s and before, capitalism needed us, if only to exploit us. They not only needed our land, our natural resources, our forests, our ports; they needed us as workers, to exploit our labour. Now they do not even need us to exploit. We are expendable. So they decided to let us die. To let us have diseases such as cholera, to let us have our shanty-towns around all the major cities, where millions of people live. They are creating another type of society, also capitalist, or rather sub-capitalist. It is the capitalism of poverty."⁵

As human beings we all have a tendency towards greed, hatred and illusion. In the modern world this tendency is greatly encouraged, hence the globalization of suffering described above. In a fairer and more just society these negative trends are warned against, rather than worshipped as something we all should pursue.

An alternative Buddhist vision

How can Buddhism contribute meaningfully to the present crisis of civilizations? I suggest that the main contribution will be the Buddhist view of the meaning of life and its implications for the kind of society that encourages this.

From the Buddhist point of view, happiness doesn't come from trying to satisfy tanah (insatiable cravings), either for material wealth, power, recognition or sensual pleasure, a trend propagated by the present global consumerism. On the contrary, glorifying tanah will lead to meaninglessness, dissatisfaction and alienation. Happiness and real meaning in life comes from the reduction of tanah which will in turn open space for kusalamuta (the wholesome qualities of life) to flourish, eg, compassion, wisdom, generosity, peace of mind. This kusalamuta will connect us to ourselves, our fellow human beings and nature. These qualities of life are considered as ariyadhana (noble wealth), or real qualities that will help us to cope with suffering. Buddhism encourages us to confront this existential suffering in life. In contrast, modern culture offers a way to escape from this suffering in the name of progress with its promises of health, prosperity and consumption. In other words, modern culture encourages the satisfying of tanah which is the root cause of suffering. So this is why there is so much suffering in the modern world despite the high levels of prosperity and technological advance.

In an authentic Buddhist civilization, a good life could be materially simple and in tune with the natural environment. One would have few belongings and abundant time for meditation, friendship and community life.

A good Buddhist society is one that is dominated by values such as cooperation, generosity, compassion, spirituality and a social environment that supports and encourages the growth of kusalamuta among people. In the ideal Buddhist society the economic, political and cultural structures would promote these attributes. This is, of course, the opposite of the present global trends. From this viewpoint, a simple life with many fewer consumer goods than is the present western norm is preferable. This is because less consumption will free our lives from material burdens and allow us to cultivate kusalamuta.

This doesn't mean that Buddhism rejects material wellbeing. The point is to know and understand the limits of material wellbeing, so as not to let the means become the end, as modern people tend to do. A mantra for this kind of living could be "contentment" rather than "the more the better'. This should not be a rigid ideology but should allow a wide range of modes of ownership with upper limits. At one end of the scale would be people living very simply with little "material" security such as authentic Buddhist monks and nuns who consume according to their basic needs but devote their lives to the service of humankind and all sentient beings. These people can be the guiding lights of a society. At the other end are people who only care for the wellbeing of themselves and their immediate family. They may do so, but with an upper limit of ownership that does not allow them to use wealth to exploit others and nature. Greed is not encouraged. Between these two poles there can be a diverse range of modes of ownership and enterprise according to individual choice based on the ideas of economic decentralization.

Another pertinent factor is political decentralization. This is because power, like wealth, can be used both negatively and positively and the tendency to negative use is always there. So for political organizations the smaller the better. We have to bear in mind that the Buddha established the Sangha [assembly of disciples, or Buddhist order] in a very decentralized form, without appointing any of his disciples to be the supreme leader of the Sangha, in spite of the fact that there were many enlightened disciples around in those days.

As a Buddhist I would draw inspiration from this Buddhist tradition to encourage localization/decentralization over globalization/monopolization. This kind of localization/decentralization doesn't conflict with international networking among civil society initiatives, provided it is not in the spirit of centralization.

Whilst there are undoubtedly many factors at work, I agree in principle with David Korten's argument that "we do not have a globalized economy because of some historical inevitability. We have it because a small group of people who have enormous political and economic power chose to advance their narrow and short-term economic interest through a concerted, well-organized and well-funded effort to rewrite the rules of the market to make it happen. In other words, economic globalization came about as a consequence of conscious human choices. It is the right, indeed the responsibility, of those who were not party to those decisions to reclaim the power we have yielded to those who have used it against the public interest and to make different choices."⁶

Globalization and non-self

Globalization, like anything else, is impermanent and thus non-self, and will last as long as causes and conditions allow it. Like all other tempting matters, we need to be aware of both positive and negative effects of globalization. Once we have enough critical awareness that the negative aspect outdoes the positive aspect then we will be able to go beyond or liberate ourselves from it.

At least in my country, the poor are the ones who have seen the negative sides very clearly.

As a Buddhist, I believe that without real moral legitimacy no institution can last long, however powerful it may be. In regard to the multinational corporations manipulating the globalization process mainly for their own benefit and creating so much suffering for other people, I agree with people who foresee the end of the present trends towards globalization.

"The future of the planet can not be and will not be the simple continuation of the present neoconservative capitalism. That economic system will never deliver the good of development and welfarism to all of us. The frustration and anger of the jobless and of the hungry (and unfulfilled?) will be increasingly corroborated by the loss of confidence by a growing part of humankind in the progress and happiness promised by capitalism and its "development'. Immanuel Wallerstein believes that capitalism may collapse, not primarily because it is lacking economic technology to adjust to the crises but due to the fundamental lack of legitimacy in the eyes of both the north and the south."⁷

A Buddhist response is not just sitting and waiting for mara (evil forces) to cause collapse. We have to cultivate our parami (spiritual strengths) to liberate ourselves and our communities from this corporate-imperialist process.

In Siam a number of grassroots initiatives led by farsighted farmers and NGO workers are attempting to liberate their communities from the mainstream market forces. Their approach is to return from cash crop agriculture promoted by the government in the last 30 years to growing food primarily for community consumption with only the surplus sold for cash.

Over the last ten years or so some farmers and villages have been experimenting with alternative agricultural projects emphasizing organic fertilizer and insecticide and on a subsistence economy basis. After a decade, the improved quality of life can be clearly seen. It is the visible demonstration of a viable alternative.

However, the general picture for rural Siam over the last decade is much more depressing. Many, many farmers have gone into debt and bankruptcy through joining the cash-crop economy. Thousands of rural people have been relocated from their fertile homelands due to big development projects such as hydroelectric dams and power stations. These are major reasons for the protests of the Forum of the Poor over the last ten years. With the severe problems of the growth-oriented economy and the protests of the poor, my country is close to a crisis situation. Many people are starting to look to the few innovative examples of alternative agriculture as a solution, especially among the poor. Prompted by the demands of the Forum, government departments are planning to encourage around 8 million farmers to join this movement. This is an exciting new direction although it is too early to predict any real and positive change.

As for the middle and upper classes, the failing of the Thai economy may help to awaken people to the real situation of globalization. During the last 15 boom years, many Thais worshipped globalization and development as their businesses flourished. Now as the bottom starts to fall out of the economy they are left wondering how they can survive. Many may not yet see that there is now an opportunity for people to develop a true critical self awareness of the dangers of globalization. Hopefully the voice of mindfulness from Buddhist thinkers such as the late Venerable Buddhadasa and Sulak Sivaraksa will be listened to more than those of the secular technocrats and money makers who have been determining the fate of the country for the last half century.

Pracha Hutanuwatr is a Buddhist monk and scholar.

Notes

1. G. Power, "Globalization and its Discontents in Development" in The Case against the Global Economy: And for a Turn to the Local, edited by Jerry Mander & Edward Goldsmith (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996), pp.76f.

2. S. Inayatullah, "Global Transformation in Development" in Development: The Journal of the Society for International Development, Vol.40 No.2 (June 1997), p.33.

3. Buddhadasa, translated by G. Olsan, "A Notion of Buddhist Ecology", in Seed of Peace, Vol.3 No.2 May 2530 (1987) Bangkok, Siam, pp.22-27.

4. David C. Korten, "The Failure of Bretton Woods" in The Case against the Global Economy: And for a Turn to the Local, edited by Jerry Mander & Edward Goldsmith (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996), p.24.

5. E. Hoidobro, quoted in R. Carmen, "How much is Enough" in Development: The Journal of the Society for International Development, Vol.40 No.2 (June 1997), p.57.

6. Korten, art.cit., pp.65f.

7. Yerhelst, quoted by Carmen, art.cit., p.57.