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Small Is Beautiful - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Small Is Beautiful
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People

Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F.
Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a
phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr.[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".

Small Is Beautiful

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
since World War II.[2] A further edition with commentaries
was published in 1999.[3]
Small Is Beautiful received the prestigious award Prix
Europen de l'Essai Charles Veillon in 1976.
1973 Cover

Contents
1 Author
2 Content
3 Quotes
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Author

Author

E. F. Schumacher

Genre

Non-fiction

Publisher

Blond & Briggs

Publication 1973
date
Media type Hardcover
Pages

288 pages

ISBN

978-0-06-091630-5

OCLC

19514463
(//www.worldcat.org/oclc/19514463)

Dewey
Decimal

330.1 20

Schumacher was a respected economist who worked with

John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, and for
HB171 .S384 1989
LC Class
twenty years as the Chief Economic Advisor to the National
Coal Board in the United Kingdom. He was opposed to the tenets of neo-classical economics, 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 (like its 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
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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, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable.
Natural resources (like 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 sustainable
development, because relatively minor improvements, for example, technology transfer to Third World 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 gross national product 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
Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.
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 thing 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.
Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the nonviolent, the elegant and beautiful.
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.
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See also
A Guide for the Perplexed
Appropriate technology
Distributism
Simple living

References
1. ^ Dr. Leopold Kohr, 84; Backed Smaller States (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9404EFDE143AF93BA15751C0A962958260), 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
Practical Action home page (http://www.practicalaction.org)
The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems home page (http://www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk)
Multiple translations of the essay Buddhist Economics from the E. F. Schumacher Society
(http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/schumacher/buddhist-economics)
"Sustainability / Enoughness" (http://www.projectworldview.org/wvtheme23.htm) from Project Worldview
Fifty Possible Ways to Challenge Over-Commercialism (http://www.earthhealing.info/fifty.htm)
Beyond Simplicity: Tough Issues For A New Era (http://www.earthhealing.info/beyond.pdf) by Albert J.
Fritsch, SJ, PhD
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Categories: 1973 books Appropriate technology advocates Economics books
Environmental non-fiction books Simple living
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