Everything about Small Is Beautiful totally explained
Small Is Beautiful is the title of a series of books by
E. F. Schumacher. The original
1973 publication is a collection of
essays that brought Schumacher's ideas to a wider audience, at a critical time in history. It was released soon after the effects of the
1973 energy crisis shook the world and dealt with the crisis and various emerging trends (such as
globalization) in an unusual fashion.
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
In the first chapter of 'Small Is Beautiful', "The Problem of Production", Schumacher points out that our
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're not renewable and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further points out that similarly, the capacity of nature to resist
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 won't 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.”
The book is divided into four parts: The Modern World; Resources; The Third World; and Organization and Ownership.
Quotes
- Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful
"[Amodern 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, don't represent progress: they're 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's invariably built on a metaphysical foundation, that's to say, upon man's basic outlook on life, its meaning and its purpose. I've 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're 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 can't 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're 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 isn't 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'll be truly in touch with the centre."Further Information
Get more info on 'Small Is Beautiful'.
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