Name: Small Is Beautiful
ISBN: 9780099225614

Small Is Beautiful

Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumacher’s teacher Leopold Kohr (1909–1994) advancing small, appropriate technologies, policies, and polities as a superior alternative to the mainstream ethos of "bigger is better". Overlapping environmental, social, and economic forces such as the 1973 energy crisis and popularisation of the concept of globalisation helped bring Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful critiques of mainstream economics to a wider audience during the 1970s. In 1995 The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II. A further edition with commentaries was published in 1999. )

What Hacker News says

OhMeadhbhOct 2025

   I know this isn't the place to chime in with a conversation
   about economics, but when has that stopped me before?

   I read Mokyr's book, A Culture of Growth
   [[ https://search.worldcat.org/title/964805224 ]] a couple years
   ago and enjoyed it.  I had a few nits about the content, but
   then again, I'm not a Nobel Prize winning economist, so maybe I
   should keep my mouth shut about that.  If you're interested in
   either history or economics, you should put it on the list of
   books to consider reading.  If you're interested in both, you
   probably should read it.

   But... I can also recommend von Hipple's Innovation series:
   [[ https://evhippel.mit.edu/books/ ]].

   And for the beginnings of a contrasting view to the "yeehaa!
   growth!" mindset from the timeframe covered by Mokyr's book, I
   would recommend Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful."
   [[ https://search.worldcat.org/title/1239792692 ]] To be honest,
   except for two chapters, I found the writing a little
   uninspired.  But it's worth a read as it introduces concepts you
   hear from "post industrial" types (thinking of the Slow Food and
   Slow Money movements.)  I have a to-do item to write a book
   about the "Slow Code" movement, but the industry probably
   doesn't need help with that.

   I haven't read Aghion's Endogenous Growth Theory
   [[ https://search.worldcat.org/title/1027693933 ]], but worldcat
   tells me it's at my local academic library, so I may have to
   give it a go.

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k310Feb 2025

Walden, by Thoreau

The Myth of the Machine, by Lewis Mumford

Cloud Hidden, by Alan Watts

Computer Lib/Dream Machines, by Ted Nelson (Technology purpose and arrow)

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer

Small is Beautiful, by E. F. Schumacher

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defrostMay 2024

Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973) - E. F. Schumacher

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thsksbdMar 2024

The guy who agrees with me reads Ivan Illich!!!

I've never read too much of him (no time, I have many of his books), but his argument that cars, on average, have an effective speed of 5 kph blew my mind.

That flipped my understanding of cars.

The irony is that he was a far left hippie who flirted with getting defrocked and I am supposed to be a "far right" conservative (whatever that means).

Have you read E.F. Schumacher? "Small is beautiful" is right your alley.

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ttoinouOct 2023

I like Ellul unfortunately he is much more cloudy in his statements and analysis, it takes much more energy to decipher (even in French) and make your own what he's saying.

I'd rather recommend reading basics stuff like Guy Debord (Society of Spectacle), André Gorz (Métamorphoses du travail), Schumacher (Small is Beautiful), Kohr (The Breakdown of Nations). A little bit of Bourdieu cannot hurt either

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sbaiddnNov 2022

Engineering:

Third year math phys and its accompanying book (McQuarrie). It blew my mind when I learned McQuarrie is a chemist.

Engineering's role in society:

Schumacher's "Small is beautiful" and "Guide for the perplexed" was the straw finally broke me free of the technocrat worldview. (Although Illich's argument that a car's average speed is 3mph made me question my love for cars)

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