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"Small is Beautiful" is the classic of common-sense economics upon which many recent trends in our society are founded. This is economics from the heart rather than from just the bottom line.
"Small is Beautiful" is the perfect antidote to the
economics of globalization. As relevant today as when it was first
published, this is a landmark set of essays on humanistic
economics. These ideas are particularly relevant
focus for the 21st century by adding contemporary
issues our environmental impact and its global influences. The
impact of this philosophy on current political and economic thought is most relevant today as it ever was
The ideas behind "Small Is Beautiful" has been
inspirational driving polemic behind Smallstudio Design: by virtue of the
approach to architecture, urban & interior design as well as the
general philosophy behind community-based
public participatory visioning. |
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Schumacher was a Rhodes Scholar in economics who was 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. According to Schumacher, For a
large organization to work, it must behave like a related group of small organizations.
His work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism ~ thus he became a hero to many in the environmental movement. |
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Some quotes from Schumacher to think about:
"...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 ... 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 industry ...requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. "
"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."
"...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."
"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."
"Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful"
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