Small Is Beautiful

Although big can be beautiful too

Forty-two years ago a 62-year-old German economist wrote his first book, just four years before his death. It was a book that would capture the imagination of the general public and help to spark the nascent environmental movement, as it turned conventional economics on its head by pointing out a basic flaw (namely that economics assumes nature's resources are unlimited) and suggesting some radical alternatives. The title he had given it was appropriately academic and dusty for an economic work - his publisher overrode him and gave it a title he apparently disliked. E.F. Schumacher's “Small Is Beautiful : A Study of Economics As If People Mattered” hit the bookshelves.

Today there's a Schumacher College in Devon, UK; a Schumacher Center for a New Economics in Massachussetts, USA; a Bristol-based thinktank called Schumacher Institute, plus other organisations which owe their existence at least partly to him without actually putting his name in their title: eg, New Economics Foundation, Practical Action, and the Centre for Alternative Technology.

I climbed Aran Fawddwy on Sunday

This last, as you may well know, is in Wales not far from where I reside. And last weekend it hosted for the first time the “Small Is Beautiful” festival which the alert reader may have already noticed has the same title as EF Schumacher's seminal work. In its own words, Small is Beautiful is “a festival that explores positive responses to our future through low carbon technology, social justice and the arts.” I thought I'd pop along for the day.

First I joined a workshop on pico-hydro power where we all constructed tiny water turbines, held them under some gushing water for a few seconds (getting ourselves soaked in the process) and cheered wildly when a small light lit up on a model of an Indonesian village. Next up was a well-attended seminar based loosely on the economics of the “barefoot economist” Manfred Max Neef.

This is the view from the top. Bala and Lake Tegid in the distance.

After lunch I listened to Andrew Simms, Fellow of the New Economics Foundation, giving a lecture on how Schumacher's book is utterly relevant today and how various aspects of his (Simms') idea of the way things should be are actually implemented in different places - e.g. Bristol's own local currency, Sao Paolo's mayor banning street advertising. He was followed by four short talks by different folk around the themes of land and food sovereignty. In Tanzania, amongst other places, it is now illegal to save seed produced from crops that are grown. Farmers are forced to continue to buy seed every year from companies such as Monsanto.

It's the highest mountain in southern Snowdonia, at 905m.

I lounged near the music stage for a while which had a guy singing old nautical songs accompanied on an accordion, then a sprightly Belgian chap who enraptured us with the haunting melodies he extracted from his violin. Sam Lee, a young folk singer whose star is ascending, arrived without his band (something about a burst appendix) but treated us to a cappela Irish gypsy songs, each one preceded by its full back story. And before I went home to close up the polytunnel I caught Robert Newman's comedic act, he of Newman and Baddiel early 90's fame, and really enjoyed his sharp wit as he subjected us, rather randomly but wonderfully, to a monologue on the brain. 

And I'll end just as randomly with two very baby mice.