In every era of human history humanity has faced a unique challenge. Not long ago, the challenge was to reconcile science and religion. And, as we all know, that reconciliation process was not problem free; e.g., in fact, many people died because they argued that the Earth was round!
Today, the major challenge in front of us is the reconciliation between the material and non-material dimensions of our human existence. What I would like to call "the reconciliation between economics and spirituality". For many people this may sound a serious contradiction in terms, when economics is seen as the best representative of any material-based-science. It is obvious that people see economics as money and as the science of material scarcity; i.e., how to allocate existing and finite material goods and services among our infinitely large human needs. But even the most material of sciences have already come to terms with the importance of the non-material elements of life in this Planet. Scientific materialism peaked at the beginning of our last century.
At the center stage of the debate of what economics should be all about there is a fundamental fact we must not forget; i.e., that we, human beings, are living on this Planet not just in the pursuit of material welfare. And, therefore, 'material welfare' is only one aspect of 'human welfare'. So, in this rapid transformation process, one of the questions we must address today is whether the economics we practice today will be the economics we will be practicing in the future. Furthermore, whether we would be able to formulate economic policies and programs that are essentially void of, or indifferent with regard to, the spiritual dimensions of people's lives. In my view, the answer is a flat "No". But the story does not end here and, thus, it is important to establish few grounds to enable us to understand the full implication of the type of transformation everyone is looking for.
First, the public is demanding this transformation and it demands it because judging economic policy making by its results, there is a lot that has not worked. Simply focus on poverty, environmental degradation, discrimination of all sorts, and so many other negative results of the so- called economic progress.
Second, a large number of issues economists are trying to resolve are multidimensional in nature, with major ethical and moral overtones; whereby the material dimensions, or the economic and financial dimensions, are simply only one of many; that in many instances may be not the most important ones. In the pursuit of eradicating poverty, examples of these issues are equity, social justice, governance, participation, equality, empowerment and many more.
Third, it is essential to have in mind that economic analysis, policy making and development implementation, are not 'neutral' with respect to equity, social justice, and other desired and undesired outcomes. Thus, economics cannot remain indifferent with regard to the influence it strongly exercises with regard to these issues.
Fourth, a major revolution in value systems is taking place today, and its foundation has been led by civil society, like NGOs, spiritual and religious movements and by the leaders in business, academia, and so on. The key to this revolution is the move towards the humanization of welfare economics. Too much attention has been paid to the 'human doing', the 'human having' and the 'human knowing' and much less to the 'human being'. While 'having', 'doing' and 'knowing' are extremely important, the intrinsic value, direction and identity of human life (like solidarity, caring, sharing,.) are given by, and are in the nature of, the 'being'.
Fifth, many of the solutions to our everyday problems are as much individual as they are collective; country specific as they are regional, and regional as they are global. Indeed, the process of globalization has opened levels and experiences of interconnectedness like we have never experienced before. Thus, an economics that remains individualistic - "just compete to get what I need" -- will simply not do. Thus, slowly but surely economics must become the science of the collective.
Certainly, there are many more dimensions which demand that we question how economics is practiced today. Most people know that its value system is essentially "exclusive", and it is because of this exclusion that many people have been left behind. Economic practices have marginalized nearly half of the Planet, as more than two billion people earns less than two dollars a day. Addressing the challenge of inclusion is what collective human welfare is all about.
In addition, there is another important consideration. Most economists, and certainly Adam Smith - one of the founders of economic thinking - proposed that individuals could pursue their own interest, and in doing so, through the power of an "invisible hand", societies will attain their social or collective optimum. However, empirically we know that this has not happened, and we see that the material wealth gap is increasing between the rich and the poor and between rich countries and poor countries. One immediate lesson is that we have either failed by design or buy default with respect to this invisible hand, and that the instruments we have used to translate it into economic practice have simply not worked for all people. For example, the 'market mechanism' alone has not and will not yield the acceptable social optimum. The government alone -another expression of the invisible hand - has also not been able to get to the social optimum. And one can name many more instruments that have resulted in discrimination, misery and injustice for too many people. In this millennium we will see that the real invisible hand is human consciousness, a subject of critical importance.
It is also worth pointing out that the founders of economic thinking have not begun as economists, in the way we understand the profession today. Many of them were philosophers, moralists, ethicists, priests, etc.
For those of us who would really like to see a major human transformation of the world it is important to ask whether one can practice economics in a moral, ethical and spiritual vacuum. Not any longer. But, is this a new question? Certainly it is not. In fact in the Dumbarton Oaks Declaration of the United Nations, December 1944, the UN forefathers understood many of the functions of the institution in the context of both material and spiritual growth. Not long ago, Mr. Koffi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, stated that policies in the social sector must also be understood within the context of spiritual well being (3rd Committee of The General Assembly, 1998-99). Also, Mr. James Wolfensohn, President of The World Bank, has strongly addressed "the challenge of inclusion", which is at the root of the desired collective actions. And some leaders, including those in the business sector, have begun to alert us to the fact that it would be impossible to live in a world of 10-12 billion people without questioning the fundamentals of business and economics.
To finish, let us identify the critical strategic dimensions of the process towards spiritual economics and of the conditions we will all need in order to reconcile spirituality with economics.
The first is to realize that many of the states of human welfare we are all seeking belong to our non-material existence. And, that attaining our own goals in life - material and non-material, individual or collective - depend mainly on our process of 'self realization'. This is to say, nothing will change if we do not change from within. Inner change is a the roots of all change. It goes without saying that we will not be able to buy world peace in the supermarkets. We will not be able to eliminate economic discrimination just by pouring more money into the economy. A world at peace and free of discrimination begins in our inner soul.
The second is that we should promote the humanization of economics and of economists. Someone told me that the best definition of economics is "What economists do". If this is the case, let us start within us first (I am an economist. And, by implication, one should not be allowed to practice economics unless one is on the path of self realization, at least in the arena of public policy at the national and global levels). The prime step towards the humanization of economics, on the other hand, is to move away from aggregated categories of analysis that do not tell the real story. Economics with a human face must be practiced now. But not only that - the ultimate step would be to move from an economics with "human face" to an economics with a "human soul", so we understand and interact with the true dimensions of human change and transformation. An economics that is not just the residual of market transactions (where the fittest is the only one who wins).
The third is that economics must be at the service of our societal vision (also a global vision), at the service of what we want our society to be(come), and not vice-versa. The material expression of our vision should not be the result of economic and financial transactions. It is our vision the one that must guide economic thinking and procedures. And our spiritual dimension is always an essential ingredient of this vision, as we are not 'material beings' having a spiritual experience but 'spiritual beings' having a material experience.
Lets us bring the "being" into economics. It is only spiritual economics and spiritual entrepreneurship that truly embody the being of what humanity is all about.
As all fields of human existence, including science and religion, are rapidly evolving towards finding and embracing the true nature of our human existence - why shouldn't economics do it too?
* The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, including errors and omissions and should not be attributed to the World Bank or any of its Affiliates.