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Roots of Renewal
A Call from the Heart: A Moral and Spiritual Approach to Economics
Throughout the many years of teaching, I tried repeatedly to make economics relevant, interesting, and appealing to my students.
Schools of economics that cultivate the mind but neglect spiritual/ moral economic education leave their students unanchored in a challenging world
For the Love of Teaching
...'I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.'-Lao Tzu
“No one should teach who is not in love with teaching”- Margaret E. Sangster
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Springing back in April with a Renewed Sense of Hope and Optimism
A selection of April poems, thoughts, reflection and hopes by my guest editor, my wife, Anne Mofid, which was originally published online on 22 March 2021.
Photo: World Meteorological Organization
‘Heaven is my father and earth is my mother,
and I, a small child, find myself placed intimately between them.
What fills the universe I regard as my body;
what directs the universe I regard as my nature.
All people are my brothers and sisters; all things are my companions.’- Zhang Zai (1020–1077)
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Neoliberalism, this false ideology, is devoid of courage, grace, kindness, compassion and empathy, whilst it champions individualism, selfishness, arrogance and greed. It fuels wars, bombs, missiles, death, destruction, environmental degradation and global warming, as well as extreme inequality and abject poverty,..., for the 99%, who bear the inherent costs of immoral capitalism, whilst ushering in a beautiful socialism with all its benefits for the 1%: This is the legacy of the neoliberal economists who have corrupted and distorted the legacy of the real Adam Smith
Adam Smith, the moral philosopher and then, the economist: 'The Father of ‘Three Primary Virtues- Prudence, justice and benevolence.’ They all constitute a sine qua non condition for the achievement of “human excellence” and are dependent on each other.' Without these virtues, the “invisible hand of the market” will become nothing but the visible hand of destruction. Exactly what has happened 250 years later, lest we forget.
Excerpts (in italics) above and photo via Shapero Rare Books
‘The philosopher Adam Smith wasn't the free-market fundamentalist many assume he was. It's time we started reading him properly.’-Amartya Sen in The Economist manifesto
…So, it is my sincere hope that in contrast to the dishonest neoliberal economists who in the 1970s and 80s corrupted the legacy of Adam Smith for the interests of Thatcher and Reagan, this time around, the honest, progressive economists will be able to give the world the gift of the real Adam Smith, a moral philosopher first and foremost, and then an economist, so that all may become free from the chains of immoral, neoliberal capitalists and capitalism! Carpe diem!