Turn Back, O Man: a review of "Small is Beautiful" by E. F. Schumacher

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher (Blond & Briggs Ltd., London, 1973; reprinted by Harper Perennial 2010.)

In some ways the title of this classic 1973 book is a misnomer, leading one to think in terms of small ideas. Nothing could be further from the truth; these ideas are huge. Schumacher, a colleague of John Maynard Keynes at Oxford University, takes us on a tour of twentieth century human behavior as if he were in outer space photographing the earth from afar. His message is just as relevant today, and even more urgent.

Schumacher points out that the study of economics, far from being about mathematics and statistics alone, needs to answer the most basic questions of who we are and why we are here. To measure our success in terms of Gross National Product is not only stupid but downright dangerous, as it feeds into our already enlarged appetites for material goods and expensive, energy-hogging, huge scale technologies. Our problem is not a lack of production or even economic activity; it goes much deeper than that. Our problem is that our entire economic world system is based on greed, envy and the lust for more, as well as a self-centered and extremely short-sighted vision of where we are going and what the consequences might be.

We are out of touch with reality, Schumacher says, and we fail to see that all of our wealth comes ultimately from the earth, something that we did not make. We take this “capital” for granted, as if it is a limitless resource. He specifies “three categories of this 'capital'; fossil fuels, the tolerance margins of nature, and the human substance.” We fail to recognize that our economic system is consuming the very basis on which it is built. Our most important task, he says, is to get off the present collision course and develop a life-style designed for permanence.

We live in a society where the vices of greed and envy are systematically cultivated. This leads us, Schumacher says, to the destruction of intelligence, happiness and peace. “The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom....Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.” Is this just naïve, wishful thinking? Or is this the way we were intended to live, and we deviate from this path of wisdom at our peril?

The image comes to mind of the frog in the pot of boiling water. At first the cold temperature is comfortable, but little by little the temperature increases unnoticed by the frog until it is too late. Are we like that frog, unaware that the choices we have made are heating up the pot (quite literally in the case of global warming)?

Schumacher, who obviously has a brilliant mind capable of pondering the deep intricacies of science, nevertheless sees knowledge of the sciences as subordinate to, for instance, the study of Shakespeare. “Science cannot produce ideas by which we could live,” he says. “...it tells (man) nothing about the meaning of life and can in no way cure his estrangement and secret despair.” At the same time, he deplores the direction the humanities have gone beginning in the nineteenth century. He questions the “canon” of the ideas of Darwin, Marx and Freud, as well as the ideas of relativism and materialism, much of which bypasses true ethics or wisdom. As these “sins of the fathers,” in his words, have percolated through the generations, we are left with no anchor of meaning and purpose and no guidance in answering the desperate questions we now face. If we were to conceive, for example, of a "Buddhist" economics, much of what passes for economics today would be obviously ridiculous. Traditional wisdom, he says, will speak to us, if we have ears to hear.

Note: Schumacher converted to the Catholic Church at age 60 (as did this blog author).