Social accounting for sufficiency: Buddhist principles and practices, and their application in Thailand

Gordon Boyce*, Wanna Prayukvong, Apichai Puntasen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Social and environmental accounting research manifests varying levels of awareness of critical global problems and the need to develop alternative approaches to dealing with economy and society. This paper explores Buddhist thought and, specifically, Buddhist economics as a means to informing this debate. We draw on and expand Schumacher's ideas about 'Buddhist economics', first articulated in the 1960s. Our analysis centres on Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path and associated Buddhist teachings. The examination includes assumptions, means and ends of Buddhist approaches to economics; these are compared and contrasted with conventional economics.To consider how thought and practice may be bridged, we examine a practical application of Buddhism's Middle Way, in the form of Thailand's current work with 'Sufficiency Economy'.Throughout the paper, we explore the implications for the development of social accounting, looking for mutual interactions between Buddhism and social accounting thought and practice.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)55-119
Number of pages65
JournalAdvances in Public Interest Accounting
Volume14
Publication statusPublished - 2009

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