Small is Beautiful

I have really enjoyed the book Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumaker. It has been a book that has significantly changed my views on ‘the invisible hand” that Adam Smith speaks of. I agree that if left to it’s own devices, that the invisible hand will come to the optimum economic outcome. This is where my thinking has been changed by this book. I have thought that the best economic outcome = the best human outcome, which is obviously not true. If we look at industrialized agriculture, big business in many cases (including wal-mart), mass produced almost anything… It seems we lose the human component in our quest for efficiencies and economies of scale.

In the argument about Wal-Mart coming into a new community, I have always been on the side of- “let’s not tinker with the invisible hand- it will always come to the best conclusion, and beside, I appreciate the low prices that Wal-Mart provides me as a consumer.” I think I have officially moved to the other side of this argument. Even though Wal-Mart can provide me cheap, Chinese made stuff, and Tyson can sell me cheap chicken, I no longer feel the high human cost of cheap stuff is worth the real price we pay as a society. For a couple years I have been interested in locally grown foods and smaller scale agriculture. What I am learning now, is that this model fits “life” not just agriculture. I hope we will again see the day when the “little man” can compete well against the Wal-Mart’s of the world because we are interested in more than just low prices.