ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1976
Oblast: Ekonomija
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Ernst Friedrich Schumacher - Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered
Abacus, 1976
255 str.
meki povez
stanje: vrlo dobro

`Nothing less than a full-scale assault on conventional economic wisdom.`
—Newsweek

One the 100 most influential books published since World War II
—The Times Literary Supplement

Hailed as an `eco-bible` by Time magazine, E.F. Schumacher`s riveting, richly researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and vital with each year since its initial groundbreaking publication during the 1973 energy crisis. A landmark statement against `bigger is better` industrialism, Schumacher`s Small Is Beautiful paved the way for twenty-first century books on environmentalism and economics, like Jeffrey Sachs`s The End of Poverty, Paul Hawken`s Natural Capitalism, Mohammad Yunis`s Banker to the Poor, and Bill McKibben`s Deep Economy. This timely reissue offers a crucial message for the modern world struggling to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalization.

Small Is Beautiful is divided into four parts: `The Modern World`, `Resources`, `The Third World`, and `Organization and Ownership`.

Part I - summarizes the economic world of the early 1970s from Schumacher`s perspective. In the first chapter, `The Problem of Production`, Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (like fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature`s resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development, because relatively minor improvements, for example, technology transfer to Third World countries, will not solve the underlying problem of an unsustainable economy. Schumacher`s philosophy is one of `enoughness`, appreciating both human needs and limitations, and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed Buddhist economics, which is the subject of the book`s fourth chapter.
Part II - casts Education as the greatest resource, and discusses Land, Industry, Nuclear Energy and the human impact of Technology.
Part III - discusses the gap between the center of the World System and the developing world as it existed then, with a focus on village culture and unemployment in India.
Part IV - presents a sketch of a Theory of Large Scale Organization, refutes and exposes some commonplace and false platitudes about capitalism as a social order and discusses alternatives. Chapter 3 of this part concludes with advice to socialists:

Socialists should insist on using the nationalised industries not simply to out-capitalise the capitalists – an attempt in which they may or may not succeed – but to evolve a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilization of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort. If they can do this, they have the future in their hands. If they cannot, they have nothing to offer that is worthy of the sweat of free-born men.

Chapter 1: The Problem of Production
Chapter 2: Peace and Permanence
Chapter 3: The Role of Economics
Chapter 4: Buddhist Economics
Chapter 5: A Question of Size
Chapter 6: The Great Resource - Education
Chapter 7: The Proper Use of Land
Chapter 8: Resources for Industry
Chapter 9: Nuclear Energy – Salvation or Damnation?
Chapter 10: Technology with a Human Face
Chapter 11: Development
Chapter 12: Social and Economic Problems Calling for the Development of Intermediate Technology
Chapter 13: Two Million Villages
Chapter 14: The Problem of Unemployment in India
Chapter 15: A Machine to Foretell the Future?
Chapter 16: Towards a Theory of Large-Scale Organization
Chapter 17: Socialism
Chapter 18: Ownership
Chapter 19: New Patterns of Ownership
Epilogue


Nonfiction, Economics, Philosophy, Politics