Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered

1973 cover
Author	Ernst Friedrich Schumacher
Publisher	Blond & Briggs (1973–2010), HarperCollins (2010–present)
Publication date	1973
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	288 pages
ISBN	978-0-06-091630-5
OCLC	19514463
Dewey Decimal	330.1 20
LC Class	HB171 .S384 1989

Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economistE. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumacher's teacherLeopold Kohr^[1] (1909–1994) advancing small,appropriate technologies, policies, and polities as a superior alternative to the mainstream ethos of "bigger is better".

Overlapping environmental, social, and economic forces such as the1973 energy crisis and popularisation of the concept ofglobalisation helped bring Schumacher'sSmall Is Beautiful critiques ofmainstream economics to a wider audience during the 1970s. In 1995The Times Literary Supplement rankedSmall Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published sinceWorld War II.^[2] A further edition with commentaries was published in 1999.^[3]

Honoring the 50th anniversary ofSmall is Beautiful in 2023, theSchumacher Center for a New Economics commissioned an updated study guide from British author and JournalistDavid Boyle.^[4]

Small Is Beautiful is divided into four parts: "The Modern World", "Resources", "The Third World", and "Organization and Ownership".

• Part I – summarizes the economic world of the early 1970s from Schumacher's perspective. In the first chapter, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable.Natural resources (likefossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated ascapital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance topollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated onsustainable development, because relatively minor improvements, for example,technology transfer toThird World countries, will not solve the underlying problem of an unsustainable economy. Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness", appreciating both human needs and limitations, and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termedBuddhist economics, which is the subject of the book's fourth chapter.
• Part II – casts Education as the greatest resource, and discusses Land, Industry, Nuclear Energy and the human impact of Technology.
• Part III – discusses the gap between the center of theWorld System and the developing world as it existed then, with a focus on village culture and unemployment in India.
• Part IV – presents a sketch of a Theory of Large Scale Organization, takes issue with platitudes about capitalism as a social order and discusses alternatives. Chapter 3 of this part concludes with advice to socialists:

"Socialists should insist on using the nationalised industries not simply to out-capitalise the capitalists – an attempt in which they may or may not succeed – but to evolve a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilization of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort. If they can do this, they have the future in their hands. If they cannot, they have nothing to offer that is worthy of the sweat of free-born men." (Part IV, Chapter 3 'Socialism')

• Full Text ofSmall is Beautiful at ditext.com
• The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems home page

• 1973 non-fiction books
• Appropriate technology advocates
• Blond & Briggs books
• Environmental non-fiction books
• Simple living
• Sustainability books
• 1973 neologisms
• 1973 quotations
• Quotations from literature
• Books in philosophy of technology
• 1973 oil crisis
• British essay collections

• Articles with short description
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