SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

 A tribute to E. F. Schumacher whose 110th birth anniversary falls on 16th August, this year

                                                                       

Some years ago I bought a book called 'Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered’ by E.F. Schumacher from Reader’s Corner, an old Book shop near the Dak Bungalow Chowk, Patna. I did not know at that time that Schumacher was an internationally influential thinker, statistician and a respected economist in Britain, who had worked with the likes of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith.

 In this wonderful little book he has described why he considers small is beautiful, looking at from the point of view of the wasteful economics practised in today’s world. 'When it was first published in the year 1973  there were no rave reviews for it . Although  modest in the beginning, sales increased  steadily,  until the book and its enormously popular title were suddenly everywhere'. The Times Literary Supplement ranked it amongst the 100 most influential books published since the World War II. The New Republic wrote ’His book is a most unusual economic treatise enormously broad in scope, pithily weaving together from Galbraith and Gandhi, capitalism and Buddhism, science and psychology’.

Life and times:

Schumacher was born in Bonn in Germany on 16th August, in the year 1911. His father was a professor of Political Economy.  He studied in Bonn and Berlin and moved to London in 1930 as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford. Later at the age of 22 he taught economics at Colombia University, New York. For getting firsthand experience, he tried his hands in business, farming and journalism. He moved back to England before the World War11, as he did not like to live in Nazi Germany. John Maynard Keynes was impressed with his work. He soon became a protégé of Keynes and, with his help, found a position in Oxford .It is generally thought that 'by the end of his life he went beyond Keynes, though only second to Adam Smith and was considered the most influential orthodox economist thereafter'.

He became Economic Adviser to the National Coal Board from 1950-70, and also served as the President of the Britain’s largest organic farming organisation - the Soil Association. In later years his advice  was sought by overseas governments. He served as Adviser to the Planning Commission of India. In 1977 he published “A Guide for the Perplexed”, a lesser  known book,  a critique of materialism. He was awarded Commander of The British Empire (CBE) in 1974. He died in 1977.

‘Small is Beautiful’ is a collection of essays and speeches by Schumacher. The book is divided into four parts; the Modern world, Resources, the Third world, and Ownership. It includes titles like Buddhist Economics, The Role of Economics, A Question of Size, and Technology with a Human Face, Development, and New Patterns of Ownership etc. The central theme of the book is that Man’s current pursuit of profit and progress, which promotes giant organisations and increased specialisations, has in fact resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution, and inhuman working conditions.   He opposes the tenets of neo-classical economics and ridicules the notions that growth is good, that bigger is better. For him

• Single minded concentration on output and technology is dehumanising.
• 'Natural resources are finite and priceless. Since they are not renewable, they are subject to eventual depletion.
• Conventional economic thinking  fails to consider the most appropriate scale of an activity,
• Using mass production in developing countries will not be appropriate, instead they should promote 'production by masses.'
• Small appropriate technologies  empower people more
• Production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life.
• Government’s efforts should be concentrated on sustainable development.

Philosophy:

Schumacher was influenced by Gandhi and called him ‘people’s economist’. In 1955 he travelled to Burma and developed a set of principles he called 'Buddhist Economics', with an emphasis on simplicity, nonviolence and a regard for nature’s capital. He wrote “for an economist the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is that amazingly small means can lead to extraordinary results”. Right Livelihood is one of the requirements of Buddha’s noble Eight Fold Path. Buddhist Economics envisages development using technology appropriate for a sustainable world, simple, nonviolent, promoting health, beauty, permanence and enhancing skills. "The prefix Buddhist was a metaphor, of course, for a moral economy: one built on the firm foundation of ethical and spiritual values’ wrote Shri Suresh Kumar,  Editor of Resurgence magazine published from London. ’The essence of civilisation is not in the multiplication of wants, but in the purification of human character’, he said.

 Impact The publication of his book, a critique of western economics, coincided with the oil crisis,   the emergence of globalisation, birth of environmentalism and the growth of ecological concerns. He became a hero to many in the environment movement. However, the world economy is continued to be based on the conventional western model. The birth centenary of Schumacher reminded us how far away we remain from his vision.

According to Schumacher, ‘modern economics- - considers consumption to be the sole end

and purpose of all economic activity’. But it is argued by modern economists that consumerist growth model that dominated the world for past hundred years has led to the fastest improvement in living standards in history, not just for the rich, but also for the poor. Therefore, there is considerable resistance to any divergence from the well- established growth model. Moreover, it is said that most  of the beneficiaries of the conventional economic model are politicians, big businessmen and all those who matter. 99% of the big business and corporations believe that big is beautiful. Therefore, there is considerable resistance to accepting the small is beautiful model.

 It is gratifying to note that environmental concerns have found a place in public policies and have become global concerns today, due to the pioneering efforts of people like him. Schumacher was one of the first economists to question the appropriateness of using the GNP to measure human well- being, emphasising that’ the aim ought to be to obtain maximum well- being with minimum amount of consumption’. Today it is good to think that many governments have accepted the idea of the Happiness Index envisaged by him.

After reading the book I wondered whether the vision contained in it could be applied to a country like India. Almost 70% of our population is still engaged in farming and allied activities and the people have, up to the present, followed the traditional Indian way of life, in tune with nature. However, in recent times, modernity and consumerism are fast spreading even to its interior areas, jolting its people from their traditional way of life. We need to decide whether we should embrace the consumerist model of economics or a more sustainable, ecological, ethical model advocated by Schumacher and others. Faced with global economic and ecological crises, no other option appears to be left for us, as also for the whole world.

Although Schumacher was an atheist through his life, towards the end he is said to have embraced Catholicism, for, he became increasingly interested in the spiritual aspects of life. According to him there has never been a time, in any society, in any part of the world, without its sages and teachers to challenge materialism and plead for a different order of priorities. To that extent he was a prophet of his time and his vision of” Small is Beautiful “will remain true for all time to come.

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