Transcript Document
Small Is Beautiful Economics as if People Mattered E.F. Schumacher • • • • German (1911-1977) intelligent fool can make Studied and later"Any taught economics at Oxford things bigger, more complex, German recovery and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the Consultant for developing nations opposite direction." Small is Beautiful • Originally published in 1973 – What was going on at this time? • Richard Nixon inaugurated for second term – Clean Water, Clean Air, and Endangered Species Act • Limits to Growth published 1972 • OPEC and embargo on oil imports – Rising gas prices – Energy shortage? – Sound familiar? • Followed by President Carter saying in 1977: – Americans agreed and most were anti-growth • What happened? “In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship selfindulgence and consumption” “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does by what one owns” Small was Ugly • Solar panels came down along with the budget for R&D for “Thererenewables are no…limits to the(Reagan) carrying capacity of the earth that • No limits to growth (Bush, Clinton, Bush, are likely bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn’t any Obama) risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea • Larry Summers: that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error” Small is Beautiful (again?) • Financial collapse • Peak Oil • Global Warming Small is Beautiful • Internal External For at and least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair consequences of modern is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair economics is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must our gods for a little longer still. For only they – be Environmental can lead us out of the tunnel of economic • Naturalnecessity Capital into anddaylight. waste – Spiritual and Societal • How can we expect peace and prosperity if our ways of getting there are through greed and violence? • Will we ever be rich? John Maynard Keynes Schumacher and Buddhist Economics Buddhist Economist • Work and leisure are complementary • Focus on liberation • Scale: smaller is better Modern Economist • Work is a necessary evil • Focus on goods • Scale: Bigger is better Buddhist Economics • Creatures and land are inherently valued (ends) Modern Economics • Creatures and land are factors of production (means) Small is Beautiful • Lead to: – Local Agriculture Movement – Main Street not Wall Street – Fair Trade • "Only after the last tree has been cut down…the last river has been poisoned…the last fish caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten." - Cree Indian Prophesy