Can an Anarchist Take Refuge?
The first of the Bodhisattva vows is to liberate all sentient beings (from suffering) and it isnโt a stretch to include sociopolitical liberation in that goal. It shouldnโt come as a surprise, then, that Buddhist anarchism has been a small, but persistent undercurrent within Buddhism and anarchism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. One may wonder, however, whether it is really possible to be both a Buddhist and an anarchist, although this very much depends on the definitions of โBuddhistโ and โanarchistโ. The term โanarchismโ suggests that an anarchist opposes or rejects (แผฮฝ-) (coercive/opaque) power/authority (แผฯฯฮฎ) and the institutionalization thereof...
Rent, Debt, and Power
In 2009 Rolling Stone published an article by Matt Taibbi about Goldman Sachs. Taibbi writes: โThe worldโs most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.โ The statement is rather unfair to vampire squids, but aside from that detail the characterization is quite appropriate and, moreover, equally applicable to the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector as a whole. A revised version of this article is part of chapter 15 of A Buddha Land in This World (Punctum Books, 2022). In Killing...