Small Is Beautiful

Small Is Beautiful (a study of Economics As If People Mattered) written by economist from England whose name is E. F. Schumacher. The expression of the name of the book was basically in contrast with phrases bigger is better which is more popular between people. Since human is small (in size) comparing to its environment can we claim that small is more beautiful?

Basically this essay is divided into different divisions including the modern world, resources, the third world and organization and ownership. On the Problem of Production which we were studying he disagrees with the idea of the sustainable modern economy. He argues that in our modern world natural resources are used as replaceable material which is totally wrong and they are not renewable and should get more attention from government and community. Also we should consider the pollution, environmental issues and ecology problems in our surrounding. Essentially he argues about the responsibility of government who expected to be concerned about sustainable development. The government is not only accountable in developed county but in the third world countries as well. On the second part which is Peace and Permanence (chapter two) writer declare a relationship between war and richness. Our historical evidence shows that the rich people usually more peaceful compare to poor people. Basically they don’t need to fight and gain anything since they are rich enough. But is it an only reason to fight? Or culture and environment are involved as well? In my personal idea it is not the only reason and most of the war started base on lack of education more than money. In part of the essay he claimed that we have science and technology to help us along the road to peace and I believe most of the problem for gaining the peace started from here. In fact, wisdom demands a new direction of science and technology to get the right way to the organic, non-violent and beautiful life.

In the part of role of economics the question is how much we should consider economist. Are they trying to draw a future as a despondent view? Who is economic and how much they know about the economic future? Are they making an exaggeration about our life? If they start to talk about the problems on the future they need to have a solution for it. Some of the fact is, it is not really exaggeration in our situation like natural resources, public disease and population growth. We all know they are in the dangers point and no disagree about the face but how much time we have to get to that miserable point.

Other subject is about the Buddhist Economist which basically means right “livelihood”. It is clear that Buddhist economist have to be extremely different from the economics of modern world. The Buddhist sees the spirit of civilization in the strength of the human character not in a development and production. Character of the human is essentially formed primarily by a man's work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.