The Polish Rider by Rembrandt represents Youth gazing into the future. Bold, clear-eyed, without sentimentality. Aware of the dangers, yet without fear. David Boyle‘s reflections on the final chapter of E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 landmark book Small Is Beautiful, is dedicated to such young people and the spirit and hope they bring for a transformed society, economy, and culture.
Boyle’s Study Guide, “Small Is Beautiful Revisited 50 Years On“, is available by chapters on our site in addition to a full downloadable PDF.
“One of the crucial tasks of the new century will be to so shape our economic system so that environmental and social safeguards are built into its design. Advocacy for better working conditions and non-polluting methods of production will certainly play a part in this reshaping, but theoretical knowledge by itself will not necessarily stimulate a change in our consumer habits. Rather, we need to be able to picture the manufacturing processes so clearly that we are compelled to demand secure conditions for the workers, and to restore the waters poisoned by toxic waste…
— Susan Witt in the 25th anniversary edition of Small is Beautiful (1999).
EXCERPTS FROM THE EPILOGUE
The Epilogue is Schumacher’s attempt to sum up his message in the book. It is just a few pages long. But it also allows David Boyle to sum up his feelings about the book too…
What the Epilogue Says…
Schumacher starts the chapter by posing a number of rhetorical questions:
“We shrink back from the truth if we believe that the destructive forces of the modern world can be ‘brought under control’ simply by mobilizing more resources – of wealth, education, and research – to fight pollution, to preserve wildlife, to discover new sources of energy, and to arrive at more effective agreements on peaceful co-existence.”
So says Schumacher at the start of his summary. Then he goes into more detail…
“It is of little use trying to suppress terrorism if the production of deadly devices continues to be deemed a legitimate employment of man’s creative powers. Nor can the fight against pollution be successful if the patterns of production and consumption continue to be of a scale, a complexity, and a degree of violence which, as is becoming more and more apparent, do not fit into the laws of the universe, to which man is just as much subject as the rest of creation.”
In the final pages of the book, Schumacher goes back to eternal values: “Out of the whole Christian tradition, there is perhaps no body of teaching which is more relevant and appropriate to the modem predicament than the marvelously subtle and realistic doctrines of the Four Cardinal Virtues – prudentia, justitia, fortitudo, and temperantia.”
Then a concluding rhetorical flourish:
“Everywhere people ask: ‘What can I actually do?’ The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.”
CONTINUE TO “WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?”
Drawing together his conclusions on rereading Small is Beautiful 50 years on, Boyle reflects on the current planetary situation.
“Schumacher probably believed we would have heeded his warnings by now – or faced the consequences.” He writes. “The fact that we are clearly not, though, isn’t necessarily a source of despair. There is something implacable about Small is Beautiful which implies that he will be heard in the end.”
What’s changing now, Boyle suggests, is that “mainstream economics and politics can no longer ignore him.” And, around the globe, a great deal of practical thinking has informed what an economics ‘as if people mattered’ ought to look like.
“As a result,” he reflects, “there exists now a body of practical knowledge, and a plurality of projects that demonstrate how heterodox economics – as the economists label it – is actually possible, and that it works.”
“Although Schumacher may not have won the argument – in fact, precious few people are actually taking part in it – there never was a time of such excitement below the radar of the modern world, as organizations like the New Economics Foundation in London and the Schumacher Center for the New Economics in western Massachusetts – and also now so many others – develop their ideas.”
“It is possible to be quite optimistic – as Godric Bader was (at least at the start) in the 25th anniversary edition (Hartley & Marks, 1999):”
“Consciences are being stirred across the world. Ethics are being taught in business schools. Market economics, currency speculation, soil vitality, air pollution, the destruction of historic social cultures and marginalization of human relationships are all under intense discussion in the media and elsewhere… The continuing violence to the human condition and its environment is being challenged, but often the answer is to apply further violence as a restraint. Possibly even more insidious is the violence that results from the pressure for more intensive growth via capitalism and the many forms of privatization. The real fact of economic life is that the world’s resources (notably fossil fuels, minerals and the land, dependent on sun, rain, wind) are the seedbed of the future, and must be husbanded, recycled, and replaced as one conserves capital, not expended as income.”
Or you can be intensely practical, as Susan Witt was in the same book:
“By intentionally narrowing our choices of consumer goods to those locally made, local currencies allow us to know more fully the story of items purchased, stories that include the human beings that made them and the minerals, rivers, plants, and animals that gave of their substance to form them. Such stories, formed from real life experience, work in the imagination to foster responsible consumer choices and re-establish a commitment to the community. In this sense, local currencies become a tool not only for economic development but for cultural renewal… The multi-layered nature of local currencies has captivated and energized an informal network of practitioners who are issuing scrip in their own communities. When these activists get together, there is no mistaking the positive dynamic at work. The movement has all the energy, idealism, and mobility of young adulthood – still experimenting to find the right form, not afraid to take risks, able to alter direction as needed, and determined to change the economic system to reflect deeply held social and environmental values.”
Boyle goes on, “Clearly, Susan was primarily describing local currencies – and she got the whole global movement together in one room in Bard College in New York state in 2004″
“Experimental new kinds of money – by which I don’t mean bitcoin – tend to rise and fall counter-cyclically. So if we are heading for the economic doldrums, as it seems likely that we are, then the mainstream world will be knocking at Susan’s door and others who have kept he Schumacher flag flying over the years.”
“Re-reading Small is Beautiful again from cover to cover myself, after nearly 50 years, it came as quite a shock – for the following reasons:
- I was fascinated both how relevant and up-to-date it feels.
- Also how religious his focus is – and how Roman Catholic. We tend to think of Schumacher as a Buddhist, but he was also – by the time Small is Beautiful appeared – showing all the enthusiasm for traditional wisdom of the recently converted.
- Except at the end when he focuses on Scott Bader, how very broad he is, how very light on specifics about exactly what needs to be done – it isn’t that kind of book. He wanted to underpin his economic revolution with a change of attitude and a change of heart.”
Happy New Year,
Staff of the Schumacher Center