Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (Vintage classics)

How does our economic system impact the way we live? Does it really affect what we truly care about? Oxford economist E. F. Schumacher provides an enlightening study of our economic system and its purpose, challenging the current state of excessive consumption in our society. Offering a crucial message for the modern world struggling to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalisation, Small Is Beautiful puts forward the revolutionary yet viable case for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations. ‘One of the 100 most influential books published since World War II’ _The Times Literary Supplement_ _---- _ The original eco-bible,_ Small is Beautiful _paved the way for today’s books on environmentalism and micro-economics. Schumacher’s detailed collection of essays was published in 1973, right when the energy crisis hit, and has become ever-more relevant since. His straightforward message is that we must stop mindless consumption and “gigantism”, and build our economic systems around communities, not corporations. This book is the perfect introduction to environmental politics and economics for someone who has never read anything of the sort. _Small is Beautiful _will open your eyes to why mass-everything was never a good idea and why, decade after decade, our inclination for small, people-centred systems is something we have to start listening to if we want to survive.