Analysis of E. F. Schumacher’s Views on Economics in "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered"

E. F. Schumacher’s ‘Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered’ is based on alternative economic thinking dealing with the account of natural resources and human behaviour. He inherently talks about human value based thinking of development. Subtitle of this book is more directive than title.

Schumacher, a British economist and philosopher introduced Gandhian and Buddhist thought in economics which are contradictory to the modern economics. He states that Continuous exploitation of nature for the economic growth and discructive development bring the change in attitude of man to see toward nature. Schumacher also mentions that large organization only works on profit-driven motive and stabilizes itself economically. How it take off our work of satisfaction which creates an environment where money is valuable rather than nature for employees and raises the gap between the rich and poor people. In this book he focuses on four main topics are The modern World, Resources, The Third World, Organization and Ownership, to find the solution for nature destruction which we are for our own profit and it is increasing day by day.

In the modern world, he started with the opinion that modern man think that he has solved the problem of production with the help of industrial production and technology. But the main disadvantage of this solution is that it disrupt the relationship of man with nature, which is harmful for every living being. If we tried to solve one problem by technology then it creates ten problems more like unemployment and poverty and the thing is we can’t substitute every natural resources in this world. Schumacher perspective is that technology make work easy but on which cost. We are creating Demand for the unnecessary products by making influence of advertise on the people, this production unnecessary products creates huge negative impact on the resources. He states that we forgot to be happy in what we have. It means that modern man always demand more and more unnecessary things by the influence of consumerism. Now we shift from individual to country, every country want try to protect itself by creating more and more nuclear weapons and explosives, that means we are neglecting that we are living on same planet. That type of irresponsible attitude for peace and permanence makes continuous exploitation of nature. The economics is very important to know economic and uneconomic things and to conclude exploitation in terms of overall consumptions. Buddhist economic is philosophical thing which states that when we see others are consuming more than us we feel anxious and we try to consume more than others without purpose. This mechanisation makes man lose his sovereignty and forgot their creativity, skills and ideas, and not able to think critically. In the question of size Schumacher explains that man consumes resources more than need he gives an examples of the overpopulated are difficult to manage but in the village there is no need of management. We need smallness in the action and the largeness in the thoughts.

In the second part he explain about the resources one of the great resource is education one side this education makes modern man to deal with the science and helps to improve literacy rate but on the other side it's destroying ability of man to think critically, to creates his own values and ideas. civil man create lots of thing but he fail to understand the nature. One of the most important source is Land which carry living organism in the top surface and we are destroying them by acquiring land without any achievement. In the technology with human face he again explain about the ecological balance and key resources for the present economy technology is also important but which has limit. In the third world he concentrated on development and socio economic problems of development. British rulers impose their developing strategy on the other countries by creating opportunities and living life happily. How we just consuming very quickly, but the intermediate technology pushing them downward. He does not mean development is the constructing the biggest infrastructure and creating services in less developed area by outer funding, real development start with the understanding between people. People are most important factor for the development need their participation to make long effect of work.

Schumacher has new economic approach which has its own moral values and assumptions and which is helpful for the poor. In the last he explains about the Organization and ownership. First, Schumacher tries to appreciate attempts to convey smallness into largeness, balancing the order of the massive with the liberty of the small. He figure out the value of sustainability of income and loss statements and motivation of people by means of providing tough, enjoyable work and fostering creative ideas from the people. Nature and human both are in difficulties so Schumacher offer the alternate system to break the modern system. Enlargement of private property diminished the creativeness of the work, to permit only own nationalize industries for the service of people. In the rich countries public and private money is invested for creating capital. They provide infrastructure in centralized manner. This is what Schumacher criticizes urge for the need of more decentralized management of ownership large organization. I think with Schumacher is that the production, profit and capital oriented model of development has emerged as the most despairful fade to human history. The ultimate goal of human society should be to more toward economy of the complexity, Economics is just not about to earning and movement of money. The morale of the economics should tend to equality and utility of happiness as the system goes larger it becomes more complex and vulnerable. Just take an example of the Large dam which creates the problem of migration, rehabilitation and ecological unbalance. If government will do this work on small scale by creating small barrier and watershed treatment then it would be effective for long time. In other example of agriculture small farm have low investment and risk than large farms that's why failure affect less to the small farm but in large farm failure is not easy to assimilate. Meadows (1972) tell us In “The Limit of Growth” same that planetary system has its own limits, how we cross this limits in terms of population, ecological imbalance, pollution. We are the part of system now how it affect us. Everyone talking about the sustainable development, in today's world it is a main concept as we moving towards the destruction in the name of the development by creating.

As per Schumacher point of view smaller ideas may easily forgotten, but when it comes to universal then it is difficult to forget that ideas. Smaller ideas are more attainable and practical easy to adopt. The real mean of development does not mean to goods, GNP and GDP. The real mean economics is the searching for opportunities that can be brought together with solutions of social and economic problems, abuse of nature and humanity. “There is wisdom in smallness if only on account of the smallness and patchiness of human knowledge, which relies on experiment far more than on understanding” (Schumacher) smallness is always better in action, when the power is centralized in the organization then it's only beneficial for some people and they have right to make decisions, on the other side if we decentralize the power it gives right to everyone which is beneficial for everyone.

The books bears ability to orient the mind of the reader towards system thinking approach of economics. Author not only provides theories but he also provides contemporary issues, incidences and examples in context that makes reader to realize the tragedy of current economical thinking in spectacular way. The book is gift for the modern economical world, pointing out the need of a non-violent socio-political economy of permanence. India has neglected Gandhian vision of development and development agenda has followed western orientation since independence. That’s is why despite of being fastest growing economy in the world we have failed to come as self-autonomous economy. The situation is less or more similar for entire third world countries which the author is concerned about. The faulty approach of technology intensive production has broken laws of nature, spoiled resources, produced unemployment, threatened democracy, contempted philosophy of science implementing monopolaric agenda. In addition to dissipate umbrage of society, system comes with poor solutions like MGNREGA and food security which bespeak the nomadic nature of current economical thinking. The concept of ‘Small is beautiful’ is sprout of hope in dehortatory situation. Schumacher express the truth that life for modern man is to earn money only. Nowadays it's obvious but man forgot real meaning of life real and our need. He requires a new way of life based on the moral value of sufficiency, material with what is enough. He indicates that the guide to this new lifestyle is already on hand inside the understanding traditions of humankind, within the super religions of the sector.