Economics and buddhism

Just as the Ocean has a single flavor, the flavor of salt, so this teaching has single flavor, the flavor of freedom.
--The Buddha, The Numbered Discourses (Anguttaranikaya)--

Economics is the study of coping with unease. Buddhism is the study of coping with unease.

Economics' primary concern is with means, and has no way to evaluate the ends of individuals. Buddhism is the science of each individual's evaluation of their own ends.

The social economy optimizes means with given knowledge and resources. Buddhism optimizes ends with given knowledge and resources.

In both, the individual is still the end all be all of the study, although in economics, individual express their values through exchange, leading to money, and therefore prices, which create what is considered a social economy - competition, advanced division of labor, etc. In reality, there is no social economy either, just a cattalaxy of individual evaluations and actions. In buddhism there is no analogy, there is no social-buddhism nor cattalaxy.

In economics we seek choice in order to have satisfaction. In buddhism we want the "softness" that comes from the freedom from delusion.

The question "What do you want?" begins to overflow its material boundries and triviality to become a worthy, philosophical, and pressing question.

In our times, accidental material forces, particularly the expansion of the divison of labor and the improvement of capital and technical means, are making an afluence of means available to many individuals who already possess a scarcity of ends. The study of buddhism promises the enhancement of their individual ends.