I just managed to finish Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher, a leading economist of 60’s and 70’s who raised some very serious questions about economic policies of development and promoted theory of people centric development instead of ‘goods centric development’.

“Development does not start with goods; it starts with people and their education, organization and discipline.”

Small Is Beautiful is one of those rare books which have potential to guide humanity to the next level and provide you enough practical wisdom to equip us to successfully achieve this. Published in 1973, it is rated as one of the most influential books after World War 2.

The book is divided in three parts viz. The Modern World, Resources and The Third World. Schumacher has brilliantly describe the Production problem in the first part. Natural Resources which are being treated as income, should be part of capital, which are using without any discretion. He also put serious question over the universal belief and application of of ‘Bigger is Better’ and ‘Economy of Scale’.

" …if we make a list of all the most prosperous countries in the world, we find that most of them are very small; whereas a list of all the biggest countries in the world shows most of them very poor indeed."

” What scale is appropriate? It depends on what we are trying to do.”

In second part of his book, discussing Resources, he points out that Education is the most valued and most needed resources for development. Though he stretched the concept of education to new dimensions and put focus on development of ‘whole man’. The insight he provides clearly makes you think over the current education system, which has failed on many counts.

This book also introduced the concept of Intermediate Technology or Appropriate Technology. Most of today’s technologies have been developed by developed countries and are not suitable for adoption by developing countries or poor countries as first these technologies are quite expensive and second they fail to utilize the skills of natives and local resources resulting in unemployment and imbalanced growth, while Indigenous Technologies are not competent enough in modern context, the Intermediate Technology comes in between. His paper on Intermediate Technology resulted in formation of Intermediate Technology Development Group which works for developing people centric technology which helps in balanced growth.

” Such an Intermediate Technology would be immensely more productive than the indigenous technology, but it would be also immensely cheaper than the sophisticated, highly capital intensive technology of modern industry. At such a level of capitalization, very large number of workplaces could be created within a fairly short time and the creation of such workplaces within the district, not only in financial terms but also in terms of their education, aptitude, organizing skills and so forth.”

I have been quite familiar with his works through http://resurgence.org, yet this book is a real treasure of wisdom and insight. Highly recommended (if you give weightage to my opinion) for those who are looking for thought provoking take on current economic policies and on economies.

If you have liked Fritjof Capra’s Works, Silent Spring and other books in this genre, surely you would not like to miss this one. And for those who have not heard of this book and want to move out of clutches Sheldon, Cook, King for a while and indulge in some thought provoking reading, this is a worth a try.