The great development in the last century has been the rise of materialism. Quite apart from philosophical system that have extolled materialism there has also been a growth of materialist objectives in many people.

Philosophical materialism may not be very detrimental to Buddhism because much of the argument which materialists have directed at religion has been against theistic religion. However political movements which have formally proclaimed materialism as their creed have acted against religions, and Buddhism has suffered perhaps relatively more from such movements.

What is unsatisfactory if philosophical materialism is that it often denies the existence of absolute, objective moral standards. Buddhism of course insists on the existence of such a moral code. The failure of materialism is been mainly due to its lack of a universal norm of goodness, truth and justice.

The increase in the materialist motivation of people has been seen even in people who would consider themselves as being religious. Where this leads to an increase in greed it would reduce the ability of these people to practice Buddhist values. However Buddhism is not against the growth of material affluence provided that it results from the pursuit of right livelihood. But much of the pressures that result from the scramble to reach the top of the economic pile often lead to an abandonment of the principles of right livelihood.

The growing conflicts of the modern world arise from a continuous proliferation of greed and craving. The ethical systems of both the leading forms of theism and materialism encourage and endorse this tendency by giving a license to humans to prevail over other forms of life, and encouraging the "prudent" and ceaseless accumulation of material wealth as an individual and social blessing. While such ethical systems may have given a measure of material affluence to their followers, this material gain has been at the cost of seriously heightening conflict within these societies as well as in the world at large, even endangering the very future of mankind itself. The Buddhist ethic, which involves the pursuit of a middle policy, by dampening the acquisitive instinct, could offer mankind with a viable and more appropriate alternative.

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