Great article in Tricycle about His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Marxism.
I don’t know why I’m surprised but I am. Not that his personal politics are this way (so similar to mine) but that he is willing to describe it as Marxism. When I was a kid (literally, when I was 11) I was already a feminist socialist humanist. I didn’t need those labels to describe myself but that was really the easiest shorthand later on to use. His Holiness is also a feminist and obviously, a humanist. But he is so incredibly radical in his quiet understated way, that he is willing to just speak directly and without care for buzz words. That’s not unusual when he is teaching Dharma or talking about human nature, but when it comes to the realm of politics (personal philosophy) I think he is radical. In the best possible sense.
Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned with only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes—that is the majority—as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair… The failure of the regime in the Soviet Union was, for me not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.
Read the whole article!! Occupy Buddhism | Tricycle.
