Zen Economics

by Rob Urie

Economics are often considered a drab and meticulous study reserved for those with a few degrees under their belt. Zen Economics proposes a different approach: instead of leaving economics to the "experts," we should embrace economics as part of our everyday lives, and merge our intellectual understanding with our intrinsic desire to be unified with the natural world. What if economics was an intuitive field that considered the needs of the many against those of the few? Capitalist economics is premised on a narrow, anti-historical concept of what people are and what motivates us. Its broader context is Western "idealism," the view that the life of "the mind," as conceived in Western philosophy, is the fundamental locus and determinant of existence. "Zen," as taken from the dialogue between D.T. Suzuki and philosopher Martin Heidegger, removes the partitions that separate "us" from each other, "the world," and ourselves. Rob Urie develops a post-Marxian (non-deterministic) materialism to reimagine the fundamental premises of economics and places them into debate over key economic issues—work and labor, income and wealth distribution, environmental degradation and animal rights. Rob Urie is an artist and political economist living and writing in New York.

Get BookMosh