Now awake, he wiped the drool. Always strange to dose off, especially in a strange place like San Francisco, only to wake up and find someone sitting next to you reading the same book. Now granted, "I'm OK, You're OK" is not exactly high on his recommended list, but at that moment it spurred a long meaningful conversation that began to increase his world view. Persuasions aside.
However, a current reread of the 'other' book in his backpack has shown him how much of what we need today was thought of previously, though not taken seriously at the time. Our culture seems to work this way.
It is becoming clear that some saw our current set of economic and environmental circumstances long ago. The prescient writings of E.F. Schumacher establish this notion as true.
In his 1973 book 'Small Is Beautiful' (subtitled Economics as if People Mattered), Schumacher points out that our economy is unsustainable. The natural resources (especially 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 describes the capacity of nature to resist pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on reaching sustainable development.
Schumacher asserts that it is education, well beyond natural resources in fact, that is our greatest resource. He shares historical examples where civilizations have perished only to be started again by humans with more innovative ideas and systems. He stresses that it will be through human education that we will solve our obstacles.
Schumacher writes:
Systems are never more no less than incarnations of man's most basic attitudes. . . . General evidence of material progress would suggest that the modern private enterprise system is--or has been--the most perfect instrument for the pursuit of personal enrichment. The modern private enterprise system ingeniously employs the human urges of greed and envy as its motive power, but manages to overcome the most blatant deficiencies of laissez-faire by means of Keynesian economic management, a bit of redistributive taxation, and the 'countervailing power' of the trade unions.
"Can such a system conceivably deal with the problems we now have to face? The answer is self-evident: greed and envy demand continuous and limitless economic growth of a material kind, without proper regard for conservation, and this type of growth cannot possibly fit into a finite environment. We must therefore study the essential nature of the private enterprise system and the possibilities of evolving an alternative system which might fit the new situation."
E.F Schumacher
