J Med Assoc Thai 2004; 87 (7):860

Views: 1,153 | Downloads: 7 | Responses: 0

PDF XML Respond to this article Print Alert & updates Request permissions Email to a friend


Sufficient Economy
Phaosavasdi S Mail, Taneepanichskul S , Tannirandorn Y , Uerpairojkit B , Pruksapong C , Kanjanapitak A

Buddhism teaches us to live with nature. Its emphasis is about the development of our soul, not material accumulation. Buddhist philosophy is based on the concept of life cycle, which explains that every being has to go prosperity, privation, and death. When we die, we cannot take any material possesion with us. Life is a cycle. Some other religious teachings attempt to separate human from nature. They teach human to control
nature. It is similar to the concept of materialism. In economics, this is similar to the concept of capitalism which relies on capital to solve all sorts of problems related to poverty. In Thailand, there are many projects that give loans to recover the invested projects. This fund binds us to pay loan to financial experts and advisors to these projects. The more we take out loans, the deeper trouble we are in. Why so? For example, in the past three months, we had been negotiating business with a foreign company. This famous company tried to convince the Medical Association of Thailand to publish the journal in collaboration
with their company. Finally, their offer costed us prohibitively much higher than what we used to pay in the past to our Thai publishing company. This price was only for printing cost. If we would like to ask for more services, we had to pay more. If we took this offer, we might have to sell our office and go bankrupt. This is one reason for, we terminated our contact with this foreign company. We almost overlook that the Thai publishing company has been working with us for almost 25 years. They never break the contract and they never raise the printing costs. How can we abandon our friend who have been working side by side? This case might be a good example for an explanation of the word “Sufficient Economy”. This is a real story which already happened and gave a better understanding of His Majesty King Bhumipol’s Excellency.

Keywords: Sufficient Economy


Download: PDF