Monday, April 25, 2016

Dan Nixon — Less is more: what does mindfulness mean for economics?


The first thing that it is interesting about this post is that it is about Buddhist economics — remember E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed? Since then the interest in mindfulness, based on mediation adapted from Vipassanā (Pāli) or Vipaśyanā (Sanskrit). Scientific research is being out the advantages of this Westernized version of the practice, and it has become accepted in business circles as a management technique.

The second thing that it is interesting about this post is that appears on the blog of the Bank of England.

The third thing that is interesting is that the author goes beyond the usual emphasis that mindfulness is a personal technique that improves performance to draw implications from Buddhist teaching about desire and contrasts this to the liberal economic view of utility maximization.

While it can be criticized for only scratching the surface and missing the point of mindfulness, it is a beginning and it is interesting to see that beginning being broached a major Western institution.

Bank of England — Bank Underground
Less is more: what does mindfulness mean for economics?
Dan Nixon, Stakeholder Communications & Strategy Division, Bank of England

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Mindfulness is highly essential in our daily actions to act as a kickstarter for us to make good decisions for every situation that we face in our life. The same concept would definitely be beneficial when it concerns our finance standing as we prepare for sustained stability for a prolonged period of time.