Summary of Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

E.F. Schumacher wrote a book called "Small Is Beautiful." It is an excellent book. It is a little hard to read. The level of English is a little complicated, but I still think it is worth it. The book Small is Beautiful is for people who speak good English. It is a great book. A person who was an economist is still an economist.

Moreover, he penned Small Is Beautiful as a commentary on the current state of the global economy. I think this book was first released in the late 1970s, but it has since been revised. According to Small is Beautiful, our global economies have become too large, as have the enterprises that make up those economies. And they're no longer viable.

In other words, we are ruining the planet Earth by overeating. Our economies are too large; our populations are too large, and our businesses are too large. Everything has become too big, and his answer is, as you would expect, smaller economies, more local economies, and more green economies. So, he was writing about it long before Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth and a slew of other things that are now quite prevalent. However, he was writing on similar topics in the 1970s.

He recognized we'd have to make some adjustments. Our Earth is being destroyed, and we must act. And we must begin at the economic level. We need to restructure our economic system so that it is more human it helps people rather than just giant corporations. And, of course, he goes into great depth about these economies and his remedies. He was and still is an economist, as I have said. So as a result, he has a lot of highly comprehensive economic reasoning and examines everything from an economic standpoint. It is a lot of fun.

Today, I would want to give you a small piece from his book, and this book and this chapter, in his view, honestly speak to the essential, basic core issue. What is the most fundamental issue? What is the core cause of all the economic issues we see around the globe, all the environmental degradation, and all the conflicts we witness all the time?

So, he's suggesting that our current issue, our economic crisis, stems from greed and jealousy. The issues include greed and jealousy. Because our civilizations today promote greed and jealousy, nurturing implies growth. As a consequence, greed and jealousy are becoming more prevalent in our society and civilizations. They instill in people greed and jealousy. People are becoming more greedy, hungry, greedy... jealous, envious, envious.

Furthermore, as individuals get more selfish and jealous, they generate a slew of superfluous desires. They begin to want more, more, more, more... Always yearning for more, more, more. So he said that this sin, this issue of greed, have made us slaves to machines. That is what he's saying: he's given us into the machine's power. He's talking about how it's made us slaves to our large corporations, slaves to computers, machines, and this contemporary existence, that we are no longer free because of greed and jealousy.

And then he speaks about how you can see that it is true because the wealthiest nations, the areas where people have the most, such as the United States, are the most merciless in their desire for more and more and more. To put it another way, there is never enough. The wealthiest nations are the cruelest, fiercest, most merciless, always wanting to acquire more and more and more. So he is saying it is never going to stop. If someone is wealthy, they will crave even more money. It never ends. Moreover, he claims that the second issue is that individuals who are not wealthy are trapped in soul-destroying occupations that are essentially useless, mechanical, tedious, and idiotic. Moronic is slang for foolish.

Most professions and occupations in the majority of the globe are just miserable. You may like your job, but he is thinking about thousands of people, for example, working in dreadful factories in China... well, millions, not thousands, millions and millions. Poor people all around the globe are working in dreadful jobs, soul-destroying occupations, and jobs that damage their health, life, and happiness. So, he is claiming that these are facts. Everyone knows they are correct. Nevertheless, there is a deafening hush about it. So, he is stating that no one talks about it. This isn't something you hear about in the news. People don't speak about how bad most people's jobs and working circumstances are in most nations. There is quiet on the subject. Nobody brings it up. They don't oppose it because it's ludicrous and insane. They are unable to denounce it. They can't claim that it's not true since everyone knows it is. But they can't speak about it since doing so would be akin to condemning our society's core interests.

What we think about, our aim is referred to as preoccupation. So, he's suggesting that everyone simply ignores it. We act as if nothing is occurring. So, he's claiming that this is the issue. The basic issue is that we are instilling so much greed and envy across society that our whole economic system is driven by greed and envy. Our entire culture, global culture, is founded on greed and envy. And that is what the majority of advertising is about. That is what most of our entire economic systems and even our governments encourage: greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, greed and envy, And this is doing havoc on the globe. It is wreaking havoc on our society. It is killing people's employment and livelihoods. It is wreaking havoc on everything.

So that is not a joyful notion, but I believe he is correct. I believe we can all agree that he is correct. Fortunately, the book is quite positive. So, he is talking about the issue here, and we can all see it, and it is a horrible thing. Moreover, we all know that people are suffering all throughout the globe as a result of these heinous occupations. And we all know that greed and envy are at the helm of most of our governments, nations, and civilizations. However, the good news is that he has a lot of beautiful answers for developing local economies that aren't focused on greed and jealousy in his book Small is Beautiful—and developing sustainable economies, which may exist year after year, decade after decade, century after century, without killing the land or people. As a result, this is a highly useful book. Furthermore, he gives a lot of extremely practical ideas about how we might improve.

So, I strongly suggest reading E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful. And if you don't read it, I hope you will at least start studying more about ecology, the green movement, and sustainable economics since these are huge concerns for our planet and everyone who lives on it. So, Small is Beautiful;

I hope you like it.