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Small is Beautiful

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Precursor to the science of appropriate technology. 1973 cover

Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher ((WP)). The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr (WP).[1] It is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better".

First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful brought Schumacher's critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis (WP) and emergence of globalization (WP). Wikipedia:The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.[2] A further edition with commentaries was published in 1999.[3]

Small Is Beautiful received the prestigious award Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon in 1976.

Author

Schumacher was a respected economist who worked with John Maynard Keynes (WP) and John Kenneth Galbraith (WP). For twenty years he was the Chief Economic Advisor to the National Coal Board (WP) in the United Kingdom, opposed neo-classical economics (WP) by declaring that single-minded concentration on output (WP) and technology (WP) 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 (WP). For a large organization (WP) to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological (WP) concerns and with the birth of environmentalism (WP) and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement (WP).

Content

The book is divided into four parts: "The Modern World," "Resources," "The Third World," and "Organization and Ownership." (WP) In the first chapter, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (WP) (like fossil fuels (WP)), are treated as expendable income (WP), when in fact they should be treated as capital (WP), since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance to pollution (WP) is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development (WP), because relatively minor improvements, for example, technology transfer (WP) to Third World [[Wikipedia:Third World]|(WP)]] countries, will not solve the underlying problem of an 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," which is the subject of the book'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 well being, emphasizing that "the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption."

Quotes

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.
  • Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.
  • 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.
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Impact and criticism

Small is Beautiful showed the way for countless development programs in developing countries, that built up the most basic of infrastructure (e.g. water wells and grain mills), infrastructure which is quite useless to the economic imperialism of the global economy, and thus would never have been constructed by other means (compare with the miles of highway which are built in any country with a minable resource). This is especially true of NGOs inspired by his work. Most commonly, they inserted Old and New World personnel to add engineering expertise into developing areas (and still do). Less often, and increasingly in recent times, developing nations are influenced either by the original work or the concepts that emerged from it to train for and implement programs.

This concept of practical, on the ground development was without doubt responsible for the creation of Microfinance initiatives (see International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions.

Schumacher was, like Darwin, not ultimately responsible for the abuses of his theories. However, whereas Social Darwinism was soon recognized as an evil, Schumacher's deprecation of the benefits of industrial development in 'Third-World' countries developed into a more insidious influence: the Think Globally, Act Locally (and subsequently NIMBY) fallacies. These influenced an apathetic approach to participation in development and kept many Old and New World people from activism in this area, and do so to this day. Development First,

Further Reading

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Small is Beautiful on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article WP

See also

References

  1. ↑ Dr. Leopold Kohr, 84; Backed Smaller States, New York Times obituary, 28 February 1994.
  2. ↑ The Times Literary Supplement, October 6, 1995, p. 39
  3. ↑ 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

External links

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