The importance of Schumacher's 'smaller' life

Nearly 40 years ago we were urged to embrace a “smaller” life.

The late E.F. Schumacher.

German-born British economist, E.F. Schumacher, developed the concept of intermediate technology and wrote about small being beautiful.

Schumacher’s idea quickly developed something of a cult following, but proved inadequate in the face of the growth-juggernaut that crushed all 20^th Century alternatives.

The appeal of growth has swept all before it, but promises of riches for all are unrealized with, in fact, many being plunged into poverty.

Some, very few, have become fabulously rich and many are equally fabulously poor.

Schumacher, who died in 1977, wrote about his ideas in his book, “Small is Beautiful”.
Sadly, those with the power in the early 70s took no note of Schumacher’s advice and today the world suffers because of those intellectual inadequacies and marches blindly toward the abyss because of that “short-termism”.

Today we need to turn away from the corporate structure of the world and work with urgency toward the concept articulated by Schumacher.

There is an urgency for “smaller”, which works in tandem with “slower”, and along with those concepts there is a need for an intense focus on localism.

We all need to work fewer hours and enable the enrichment of our lives through the freeing up of more purposeful leisure time.

Working hours should be restricted to four-hours a day, no overtime and no double-shifts, with those limitations being relaxed significantly for small privately owned businesses (employing no more than four people) or genuinely publicly owned and run enterprises, such as health, law and public transit systems, but not military forces as traditionally understood.
Some argue that a change should come from the bottom up, but such a change is so dramatic and launches us into such a significantly different paradigm that it needs to be a top-down led systemic change.

Such change demands leaders with hitherto unseen courage and a deep sense of fairness, individual rights and equality.

Schumacher's
 book.

Such super-souls are rare, but to ensure the future has a human history it is time that person; a compassionate, understanding, bold, patient and forgiving person stepped forward.

Those leaders need to be forthright about the incorporation of markets and government: markets as elucidated by Schumacher and a genuinely transparent democratic government unencumbered by the financial machinations that presently have civilization in a choke-hold.

A cursory look at the world economy illustrates manipulation of many by the power elite giving conspiratorial theorists something genuine to chew on, but conspiracies only become realities when good men do nothing.

Those driving the hedonistic growth economy promise a better life, but say nothing of the environmental or human costs while those of the Schumacher mindset promise only austerity and hard-work, but a good life.

A smile brings an understanding about life's complexities

A pretty young woman smiled at me recently.

That, in itself means nothing beyond the fact that it makes near 65-year-old bloke feel pretty good, but it does tap into the far broader psychological questions of life.

Edward O. Wilson.

The smile, altruistic and given in a moment of fleeting inclusive friendship, illustrated that what is best about life is simple, uncomplicated and without cost to either the giver or the receiver.

In fact a smile and its more exuberant cousin, laughter, is an international human language, just as are those other emotions of sadness, fear and distress – they make sense and we relate to them irrespective of colour or creed.

However, the simplicity of a smile and the force of its message are a timely reminder of the insistence and urgency of a message of which we should all take heed.

Human life is of such complexity that it now stands in direct conflict with the intricate biology that sustains all life on earth, including you and me.

Trying to make sense of a life he considered to be burgeoning out of control, E.F. Schumacher sat down in the early 1970s and wrote “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People mattered” to quickly secure something of cult following.

The implication of Schumacher’s “small” was that something as uncomplicated as a smile and so simple seemed closely related and stands in contrast to the complexity to which humanity is now heavily embroiled.

Climate change, oil scarcity and the world’s economic difficulties are or little significance according to American biologist and author, Edward O. Wilson.

Edward O. Wilson's
"Biophilia".

Wilson, writing in “Biophilia” and then “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth”, repeatedly emphasised of humankind’s need to ensure the sustenance and survival of every species, from the microscopic to the massive, to equally ensure its own survival.

Wilson explains that fewer than 10 per cent of the life forms on earth are known to science and of those, less than one per cent has been studied beyond simple anatomical description and few notes on natural history.

He said we don’t need a moon base or a manned trip to Mars, rather an expedition to planet earth.

Considering Wilson and Schumacher’s views, we don’t need the gigantism or complexity of our modern world, instead we need certain smallness, an understandable simplicity of life and a way of living that is on a decided human scale.

Contemporary growth, many claim, hinges on complexity, size and speed, but within such sophistication are often unintended consequences that alienate humanity and solutions are to be found in something that is smaller, slower and simpler.

That, by its very nature, would less demanding on our biosphere and so would make everyone smile, young or otherwise.