Small Is Beautiful

Economics as if People Mattered

E. F. Schumacher

1973


Contents

Introduction by Theodore Roszak

Part I THE MODERN WORLD

  1. The Problem of Production
  2. Peace and Permanence
  3. The Role of Economics
  4. Buddhist Economics
  5. A Question of Size
Part II RESOURCES
  1. The Greatest Resource -- Education
  2. The Proper Use of Land
  3. Resources for Industry
  4. Nuclear Energy -- Salvation or Damnation?
  5. Technology with a Human Face
Part III THE THIRD WORLD
  1. Development
  2. Social and Economic Problems Calling for the Development of Intermediate Technology
  3. Two Million Villages
  4. The Problem of Unemployment in India
Part IV ORGANISATION AND OWNERSHIP
  1. A Machine to Foretell the Future?
  2. Towards a Theory of Large-Scale Organisation
  3. Socialism
  4. Ownership
  5. New Patterns of Ownership
Epilogue

Few can contemplate without a sense of exhilaration the splendid achievements of practical energy and technical skill, which, from the latter part of the seventeenth century, were transforming the face of material civilisation, and of which England was the daring, if not too scrupulous, pioneer. if however, economic ambitions are good servants, they are bad masters.

The most obvious facts are most easily forgotten. Both the existing economic order and too many of the projects advanced for reconstructing it break down through their neglect of the truism that, since even quite common men have souls, no increase in material wealth will compensate them for arrangements which insult their self-respect and impair their freedom. A reasonable estimate of economic organisation must allow for the fact that, unless industry is to be paralysed by recurrent revolts on the part of outraged human nature, it must satisfy criteria which are not purely economic."

R. H. Tawney
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism


By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodelling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel, and are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use.

Aldo Leopold
A Sand County Almanac