Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered on Superphysics

The Modern World

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The Problem of Production

Based on a lecture given at the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Rüschlikon, Nr. Zürich, Switzerland, 4th February 1972. One of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that ’the problem of production’ has been solved. Not only is this belief firmly held by people remote from production and therefore professionally unacquainted with the facts – it is held by virtually all the experts, the captains of industry, the economic managers in the governments of the world, the academic and not-so-academic economists, not to mention the economic journalists. They may disagree on many things but they all agree that the problem of production has been solved; that mankind has at last come of age. For the rich countries, they say, the most important task now is ’education for leisure’ and, for the poor countries. the ’transfer of technology',

Buddhist Economics

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First published in Asia: A Handbook, edited by Guy Wint, published by Anthony Blond Ltd., London, 1966. ‘Right Livelihood’ is one of the requirements of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. It is clear, therefore, that there must be such a thing as Buddhist economics.

A Question of Size

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Based on a lecture given in London, August 1968, and first published in Resurgence, Journal of the Fourth World, Vol. II, No. 3, September/October 1968.

I was brought up on an interpretation of history which suggested that in the beginning was the family; then families got together and formed tribes; then a number of tribes formed a nation; then a number of nations formed a ‘Union’ or ‘United States’ of this or that; and that finally, we could look forward to a single World Government.

The Greatest Resource -- Education

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Throughout history and in virtually every part of the earth men have lived and multiplied, and have created some form of culture. Always and everywhere they have found their means of subsistence and something to spare. Civilisations have been built up, have flourished, and, in most cases, have declined and perished. This is not the place to discuss why they have perished; but we can say: there must have been some failure of resources. In most instances new civilisations have arisen, on the same ground, which would be quite incomprehensible if a had been simply the material resources that had given out before. How could such resources have reconstituted themselves?

The Proper Use of Land

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Among material resources, the greatest, unquestionably, is the land, Study how a society uses its land, and you can come to pretty reliable conclusions as to what its future will be.

Resources for Industry

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Long quotation from Prospect for Coal by E. F. Schumacher, published by the National Coal Board, London, April 1961. The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one’s ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed.

Nuclear Energy -- Salvation or Damnation?

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Based on The Des Voeux Memorial Lecture, 1967, “Clean Air and Future Energy – Economics and Conservation,” published by the National Society for Clean Air, London, 1967.

The main cause of the complacency – now gradually diminishing – about future energy supplies was undoubtedly the emergence of nuclear energy, which, people felt had arrived just in time. Little did they bother to inquire precisely what it was that had arrived. It was new, it was astonishing, it was progress, and promises were freely given that it would be cheap. Since a new source of energy would be needed sooner or later, why not have it at once?

Technology with a Human Face

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Based on a lecture given at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Teilhard Centre for the Future of Man, London, 23rd October 1971. The modern world has been shaped by its metaphysics, which has shaped its education, which in turn has brought forth its science and technology. So, without going back to metaphysics and education, we can say that the modern world has been shaped by technology. It tumbles from crisis to crisis; on all sides there are prophecies of disaster and, indeed, visible signs of breakdown.

Development

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Part 3 The Third World

A British Government White Paper on Overseas Development some years ago stated the aims of foreign aid as follows:

Social and Economic Problems Calling for the Development of Intermediate Technology

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INTRODUCTION

The Problem of Unemployment in India

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When speaking of unemployment I mean the non-utilisation or gross under-utilisation of available labour. We may think of a productivity scale that extends from zero, i.e. the productivity of a totally unemployed person, to 100 per cent, i.e. the productivity of a fully and most effectively occupied person. The crucial question for any poor society is how to move up on this scale. When considering productivity in any society it is not sufficient to take account only of those who are employed or self-employed and to leave out of the reckoning all those who are unemployed and whose productivity therefore is zero.

Two Million Villages

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First published in Britain and the World in the Seventies: A Collection of Fabian Essays, edited by George Cunningham, published by George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., London, 1970.

The results of the second development decade will be no better than those of the first unless there is a conscious and determined shift of emphasis from foods to people. Indeed, without such a shift the results of aid will become increasingly destructive.

Organisation and Ownership

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A Machine to Foretell the Future?

The reason for including a discussion on predictability in this volume is that it represents one of the most important metaphysical – and therefore practical – problems with which we are faced. There have never been so many futurologists, planners, forecasters, and model-builders as there are today, and the most intriguing product of technological progress, the computer, seems to offer untold new possibilities. People talk freely about ‘machines to foretell the future’. Are not such machines just what we have been waiting for? Ah men at all times have been wanting to know the future.

Towards a Theory of Large-Scale Organisation

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First published in “Management Decision,” Quarterly Review of Management Technology, London, Autumn 1967. Almost every day we hear of mergers and takeovers: Britain enters the European Economic Community to open up larger markets to be served by even larger organisations. In the socialist countries, nationalisation has produced vast combines to rival or surpass anything that has emerged in the capitalist countries. The great majority of economists and business efficiency experts sup- ports this trend towards vastness.

Socialism

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Both theoretical considerations and practical experience have led me to the conclusion that socialism is of interest solely for its non- economic values and the possibility it creates for the overcoming of the religion of economics. A society ruled primarily by the idolatry of enrichissez-vous. which celebrates millionaires as its culture heroes, can gain nothing from socialisation that could not also be gained without it.

Ownership

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All quotations in this chapter are from The Acquisitive Society by R. H. Tawney. ‘It is obvious, indeed, that no change of system or machinery can avert those causes of social malaise which consist in the egotism, greed, or quarrelsomeness of human nature. What it can do is to create an environment in which those are not the qualities which are encouraged. It cannot secure that men live up to their principles. What it can do is to establish their social order upon principles to which, if they please, they can live up and not live down. It cannot control their actions. It can offer them an end on which to fix their minds. And, as their minds are, so in the long run and with exceptions, their practical activity will be.’

New Patterns of Ownership

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J. K. Galbraith has spoken of private affluence and public squalor. It is significant that he referred to the United States, reputedly, and in accordance with conventional measurements, the richest country in the world. How could there be public squalor in the richest country, and, in fact, much more of it than in many other countries whose Gross National Product, adjusted for size of population, is markedly smaller?

Epilogue

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In the excitement over the unfolding of his scientific and technical powers, modern man has built a system of production that ravishes nature and a type of society that mutilates man. If only there were more and more wealth, everything else, it is thought, would fall into place. Money is considered to be all-powerful; if it could not actually buy non-material values, such as justice, harmony, beauty or even health, it could circumvent the need for them or compensate for their loss. The development of production and the acquisition of wealth have thus become the highest goals of the modem world in relation to which all other goals, no matter how much lip-service may -still be paid to them, have come to take second place. The highest goals require no justification all secondary goals have finally to justify themselves in terms of the service their attainment renders to the attainment of the highest.