Editing SG31SBE-T (section)

=== Is Poverty the Result of Previous-Life Karma? ===
'''B:''' Then how exactly have doctrines such as “karmic cause and recompense” been distorted so as to perform the function of religion in the service of established power?

<span id="Page 291"></span>
<div style="float: right; position: relative; z-index: 10; font-weight: normal; font-size: 0.9em; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: -1.75em; padding-top: 1.4em;">[[SG31SBE#Page 291|➣ Original Text of this Page.]]</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">Page 291</div>

'''A:''' Let’s begin with “karmic cause and recompense.” As I said earlier, Buddhism is neither fatalism, creationism, nor a doctrine of chance. Of course Buddhism teaches the law of cause and effect, so differences between rich and poor certainly have causes. The distortion lies in placing the cause entirely on one side and thereby imposing resignation and submission. Take the proletarian masses who remain poor no matter how hard they work. How have priests traditionally explained the cause of their poverty? “It is karma from a previous existence. It is your own karma and your own recompense. It is neither the capitalist’s fault nor society’s responsibility. Therefore, instead of blaming capitalists or society, you should simply work even harder.” That is how they have solemnly explained it.

But anyone with even a little knowledge of the capitalist system can already see through such an explanation; there is hardly any need to belabor the point. Last year’s so-called “bumper-crop hell” is an excellent example. The weather was favorable and the farmers labored until the sweat poured from them, yet that unprecedented bumper crop actually became a cause of increased hardship for farming households. Can that fact really be disposed of through a doctrine of causation from a previous life? Or look at bank interest rates: small borrowers are charged more, while large borrowers receive more favorable rates, pushing the small borrower into an increasingly disadvantageous position. Or consider the grossly unequal distribution of profits generated through the cooperation of labor and capital, and the suppression by governmental authority of those who protest. If economic inequality is produced by such unfair social causes, can all of it really be dismissed as the poor person’s karmic consequence from a former existence?