John B. Cobb Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

Whereas traditional Christianity calls for the subordination of all other commitments to the commitment to God, Buddhism teaches us to give up all craving and attachment, just those aspects of the human psyche that ground economism.

John B. Cobb
Schumacher... rightly saw that in the world today Buddhism is a more potent basis for resisting the economism that rules the West and through it most of the East.

John B. Cobb
Economism is the view that the economy is the most important part of society and that the other dimensions such as politics and education should serve it. Economism has become the ruling ideology, not because of claims of economists, but because of the decisions of political leaders, financiers, corporate leaders, and the general public.

John B. Cobb
The sustainable alternative is one in which smaller and smaller regions produce more and more of the goods they need closer to where they are consumed. These economies will contribute little to the greenhouse effect and will survive the exhaustion of oil.

John B. Cobb
Criticism of growth arose with the discovery that growth beyond a certain point is destructive of the earth. We are already using resources much faster than they can be replenished. We are producing wastes much faster than nature's sinks can process them. The growth economy will end. The only questions are when its end will come, and whether humanity will be able to survive its demise.

John B. Cobb
Placing economic activity in the context of the whole earth requires attention to the question of scale. Bigger is obviously not better, so the optimum scale of human economy in relation to the total economy becomes basically a question of sustainability. When the effects of the economy on the environment undercut the possibility of its own continuance, the scale is too large.

John B. Cobb