Dr. E. F. Schumacher: Author of the Book Small is Beautiful

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SCHUMACHER: Yes. In the narrowest material sense, large-scale organization is very efficient. But in human terms, it is inefficient to a degree that surpasses our ordinary powers of imagination.

The bigger our institutions become, the more lost and powerless and alienated most of us feel. The larger our assembly lines grow, the less satisfaction we take in our work. The more our farms are consolidated into agribiz conglomerates, the less taste and nutrition there is in our food.

The simplest things, which only 50 years ago could be done without difficulty, now-in the name of "efficiency"—cannot be done anymore. They "cost too much". They "take too much time". It seems that the richer we become, the less we can afford.

When you really stop to think about it, the most striking thing about modern society—which we constantly tell ourselves is supremely organized for "efficiency"—is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little that we really want to accomplish. It is safe to say that the human race has never known an economic system in which the relationship between the input of irreplaceable resources and output of human satisfaction has been so unfavorable as it is now.

This is what our constant parroting of "the bigger, the better" has brought us. But let me state once again that big is not always bad. It isn't. But neither is it, as our prevailing dogma would have us believe, in and of itself always good. For everything we do—for each of our activities—there is a "critical size" that is best. I merely suggest that, in most cases, this critical size is much smaller than most people in our society have been led to believe.

PLOWBOY: All right. I certainly can't argue with you on that point. But what about the question of simplicity versus complexity?

SCHUMACHER: Karl Marx was right 150 years ago when he said, "Be careful. If you build too many useful machines, you will soon have too many useless people."

We now have cars which are so complicated that you do not even have to subject yourself to the indignity of turning a handle to wind their windows up and down. Instead you press a button and—bzzzzzzz—a little electric motor runs the glass up and down for you. But of course these things break and cost a lot to repair and—unless someone fixes them for you—you can't even open your automobile's windows anymore.

Everything has become too complex. And, just as foreseen 150 years ago, this complexity and sophistication has made us useless. It has taken us away from ourselves. It distracts us and puts so much strain on us and makes us so narrow-minded and so bothered and so specialized that we no longer have time to become wise.

Thomas Aquinas said that, "The smallest knowledge of the highest things is more to be desired than the most certain knowledge of the lower things." But the complexity of modern life forces us to become so specialized that we have no time to consider the higher things at all. We have no time to realize our true potential. Life becomes an agitation and a strain which crowds out the spirit.

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