Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

by Ernst F. Schumacher

He deplores that 'many rationally unjustifiable' things have been written in recent years - some by very reputable scientists - about the sacredness of natural ecological systems, their inherent stability and the danger of human interference with them'. What is 'rational' and what is 'sacred'? Is man the master of nature or its child? If it becomes 'economical' to synthesise food from inorganic materials - 'which is likely to happen sooner or later' - if we become independent of plants, the connection between topsoil and civilisation will be broken. Or will it? These questions suggest that 'The Proper Use of Land' poses, not a technical nor an economic, but primarily a metaphysical problem. The problem obviously belongs to a higher level of rational thinking than that represented by the last two quotations.