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

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The word metropolis is no longer big enough to describe the 60 million population projected for the Boston-Washington area or the 60 million forecast for the region around Chicago or the 60 million expected for the area reaching from San Francisco to San Diego. We now call such a buildup of people a megalopolis.

And what do we find as industrial production is increasingly concentrated into these supercities? In the highly advanced countries, just as in the emerging ones, the outpouring of mass-produced goods from the cities systematically destroys the economic structure of the hinterland. And that hinterland increasingly takes its revenge by mass migration into the cities, making them utterly unmanageable.

And as we are learning to our sorrow, the way of life which follows is one of unemployment, unemployables, inflation, alienation, stress, social breakdown, crime, widespread drug addiction, "dropouts", and fear of the future.

I call this the "process of mutual poisoning". First the cities poison the countryside and then the countryside takes its revenge.

PLOWBOY: And this is what we get when we think of goods first and people second.

SCHUMACHER: Yes. These are the real riches that our preoccupation with material goods and their production have brought us. After 30 years of the most astonishing and unprecedented economic growth imaginable, we find both the rich countries and the poor countries of the world left in a state of discontent. Our new wealth most certainly has not bought us happiness. There are more miserable people living on earth today—both absolutely and proportionately—than ever before. The pot of gold we have been promised at the end of the rainbow is there all right . . . but it is largely filled with fool's gold.

PLOWBOY: Then you're saying that economic growth is bad.

SCHUMACHER: I'm saying nothing of the sort. Economic growth is like any other kind: it can be either good or bad. Is physical growth a good thing? Yes, of course. When my children grow I am very pleased. But if I should suddenly start to grow again, it would be a disaster.

So I am not saying that economic growth is always bad. What I am saying is that we must stop pretending that such growth is always good.

PLOWBOY: But that concept—the idea that growth is always good—is the very foundation on which all modern societies are based!

SCHUMACHER: Of course. Your country's own Walter Heller, former chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers, was only expressing the view of his profession when he said, "I cannot conceive a successful economy without growth." Dr. Mansholt, the vice president of the European Economic Community, was doing the same thing when he stated that, "More, further, quicker, richer are the watchwords of present-day society." And he added that "there is no alternative", that we must "make this adaption".

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