I am a Marxist monk: Dalai Lama

I suppose this is not really new, but the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist. He says this is because "Marxism is more ethical, unlike capitalism," according to the express news service in India.

Apparently the Dalai Lama doesn't understand Buddhism's 2nd precept which is:

I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.

There's really no way around the fact that Marxism, in whatever form, expressly requires that property be taken from someone. I'm a little confused as to how this is more ethical than "capitalism" which essentially says that people have a right to own personal property and not have it stolen from them.

I'd also like to know how the fact that the Dalai Lama charges for his lectures fits in with the whole Marxist thing. I don't see other Buddhist monks doing this. I especially don't see the "right wing" Buddhist monks charging people money.

In any case, I fail to see anything inherently unethical about capitalism. You can have both greedy and generous people in all kinds of political and economic systems. I personally don't see how forcing people to give up their property is generous. Taking property from unwilling persons is inherently unethical regardless of why it's being done, just as killing is always unskillful.

Real generosity comes from a willingness to give away your own property, not take property from others and give it to those who you think are more deserving.

Furthermore, Marxist economic theory totally ignores the very Buddhist concept of developing skillfulness. In economic terms, skillfulness makes one more efficient and able to produce things of greater value. In fact, we see that in reality wealth is not simply "distributed" as some sort of fixed zero-sum resource, but actually produced by people depending on their skill. So what is more Buddhist here, something that acknowledges the role of and encourages the development of skill or something which doesn't?

The Dalai Lama has, unfortunately, bought into the Marxist lie of capitalism being inherently greedy and Marxism somehow being "fair" and generous. This is necessary to make the leap into the idea that "Buddhism supports Marxism because Marxism is non-greedy" or something. This claim about Marxism is not supported by Dhamma though, and as previously stated, Marxism even violates the second of the fundamental Buddhist precepts.

Really the ideal Buddhist state would probably be "capitalist" in the sense that people would own and trade their own property freely, but it would be populated with people who are simply generous enough to fund all public institutions voluntarily, without having to be taxed through threat of force.

This level of idealism in society will probably never come about though. For this reason it seems reasonable to fall back on the Buddhist concept of moderation and the philosophy of the middle path. In this sense, I'd say that Buddhism supports something more like a mixed economy in which some property is public and some is private. As for what degree of government intervention is required, it depends on what is most beneficial for people. This is why we have people who study economics; good intentions alone are not sufficient. We must develop skillfulness in how we govern, and ensure that programs designed to help people don't turn out to cause more harm than good as they have in every single communist country.

The Buddha, though practice of extremes such as self mortification, realized that extremes don't work. Evidence shows us that the same is true of political and economic extremes as well. It's very sad that the Dalai Lama hasn't come to this realization yet.