Buddhist view of cash handouts to remove poverty

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358878262_Buddhism_and_Poverty_Reduction_in_Sri_Lanka is written by W.Wimalaratana. It is an excellent article and review the market forces and planned economy. The conclusion of this article was: “Buddhism emphasizes the supply of basic needs of life for all through economic activities and government intervention. Poverty is unacceptable to the Buddhist doctrine as it focuses on the well-being of everyone.”

Therefore, Buddhists are also concerned about poverty eradication. This article was writtenn in 2003 where market forces were respected and very little subsidies were implemented. “Majorcomponents of the post 1977 reforms were liberalization, privatisation, and encouraging foreign direct investments, removing/discouraging of price controls and consumer/producer subsidies and encouraging the market to be the engine of economic growth.”

The impact on the removal of subsidies and other planned economic mechanisms is interesting for others to compare: “The subsidies for essential food items and price controls have gradually been removed. The real value of remaining subsidies has gone down due to higher inflation.” In return the following policies were implemented:

“The promotions of foreign direct investment and export processing zones,large infrastructure development programs such as roads, housing, water supply, irrigation,and electricity by the public sector, promotion of completion, decentralization of theadministration, and legal reforms are some of the commendable salient features.”

The poverty eradication instead of subsidies were implemented and the author commended the Samurdhi the most:

“Samurdhi, which was the morerecent program of two was formulated to overcome the weaknesses of the former. The mainvehicle of the two programs was a monthly cash transfer for a fixed period of time wherehouseholds were supposed to attain self-reliance. The cash transfer, which comprised of twocomponents, one for consumption, and one for savings.”

Samurdhi is essentially a cash handout and certainly not a subsidy or partial payment of targeted assistance.

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