Small Is Beautiful

Infobox_Book
name = Small Is Beautiful


author = E. F. Schumacher
cover_artist =
genre = Non-fiction
publisher = Hartley & Marks Publishers
release_date = December 1999
media_type = Hardcover & Paperback
pages = 286 pages
size_weight =
isbn = ISBN 0-88179-169-5

"Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered" is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher [Schumacher, E. F.; "Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered : 25 Years Later...With Commentaries" !1999). Hartley & Marks Publishers ISBN 0-88179-169-5] .

First published in 1973, "Small Is Beautiful" brought Schumacher's critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis and emergence of globalization. "The Times Literary Supplement" ranked "Small Is Beautiful" among the 100 most influential books published after World War II.

Author

Schumacher was a respected economist who worked with J.M. Keynes and J.K. Galbraith. For twenty years he was the Chief Economic Advisor to the National Coal Board in the United Kingdom, opposed the neo-classical economics by declaring that single-minded concentration on output and technology was dehumanizing. He held that one's workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature (and the world's natural resources) is priceless.

Schumacher proposed the idea of "smallness within bigness": a specific form of decentralization. For a large organization to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement.

Content

The book is divided into four parts: The Modern World; Resources; The Third World; and Organization and Ownership.

In the first chapter of 'Small Is Beautiful', "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. The natural resources (especially fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on reaching sustainable development, because relatively minor improvements, like education for leisure or technology transfer to the Third World countries, will not solve the underlying problem of unsustainable economy.

Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness," appreciating both human needs, limitations and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed “Buddhist Economics.” Buddhist Economics forms the basis for 'Small is Beautiful's fourth chapter.

He faults conventional economic thinking for failing to consider the most appropriate scale for an activity, blasts notions that “growth is good”, and that “bigger is better,” and questions the appropriateness of using mass production in developing countries, promoting instead “production by the masses.” Schumacher was one of the first economists to question the appropriateness of using GNP to measure human wellbeing, emphasizing that “the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption.”

Quotes

* "Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful"

* " [A modern economist] is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity."

* "It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man's work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products."

* "The most striking about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed."

* "Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful."

* " [N] o system or machinery or economic doctrine or theory stands on its own feet: it is invariably built on a metaphysical foundation, that is to say, upon man's basic outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose. I have talked about the religion of economics, the idol worship of material possessions, of consumption and the so-called standard of living, and the fateful propensity that rejoices in the fact that 'what were luxuries to our fathers have become necessities for us.'

* "Systems are never more nor less than incarnations of man's most basic attitudes. . . . General evidence of material progress would suggest that the modern private enterprise system is--or has been--the most perfect instrument for the pursuit of personal enrichment. The modern private enterprise system ingeniously employs the human urges of greed and envy as its motive power, but manages to overcome the most blatant deficiencies of laissez-faire by means of Keynesian economic management, a bit of redistributive taxation, and the 'countervailing power' of the trade unions.

* "Can such a system conceivably deal with the problems we are now having to face? The answer is self-evident: greed and envy demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, and this type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment. We must therefore study the essential nature of the private enterprise system and the possibilities of evolving an alternative system which might fit the new situation."

* "The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion – political or otherwise – which suddenly seems to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time."

* "Education can help us only if it produces “whole men”. The truly educated man is not a man who knows a bit of everything, not even the man who knows all the details of all subjects (if such a thing were possible): the “whole man” in fact, may have little detailed knowledge of facts and theories, he may treasure the "Encyclopædia Britannica" because “she knows and he needn’t”, "but he will be truly in touch with the centre."

See also

* "A Guide for the Perplexed"
* Appropriate technology
* Simple living

References

External links

* [http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics.html Multiple translations of the essay Buddhist Economics from the E. F. Schumacher Society]
* [http://www.fguide.org/?p=131 Small Is Beautiful: An Introduction to E. F. Schumacher by Noah Enelow]
* [http://www.projectworldview.org/wvtheme23.htm "Sustainability / Enoughness"] from Project Worldview
* [http://www.earthhealing.info/fifty.htm Fifty Possible Ways to Challenge Over-Commercialism]
* [http://www.earthhealing.info/beyond.pdf Beyond Simplicity: Tough Issues For A New Era] by Albert J. Fritsch, SJ, PhD