You really got a hold on me...

I've begun to read an economics book.

It's OK; you can judge me. I do!

To be straight - I don't like...wait...I don't understand economics. The book, however, is E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered". It is almost 40 years old and reading it it could have been written yesterday. Which is a little depressing as it is so revolutionary and relevant!

However, you read it and it is not all about numbers and economy growth, no it is about people mattering and caring for the world. And not in a hippie way! On the second page he writes

Modern man does not experience himself as part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side... The illusion of unlimited powers, nourished by astonishing scientific and technological achievements, has produced the concurrent illusion of having solved the problem of production.

Every sentence he writes is thought provoking and full of wisdom. I could quote endlessly, but will just leave you with a few more quotes and encourage you too to visit your nearest second hand book shop and look for it, or see what you can come up with!

[start of chapter 2] The dominant modern belief is that the soundest foundation of peace would be universal prosperity... [which he then goes on to argue]

The question with which to start my investigation is obviously this: Is there enough to go round? Immediately we encounter a serious difficulty: What is 'enough'? Who can tell us? Certainly not the economist who pursues 'economic growth' as the highest of values, and therefore has no concept of 'enough'. There are poor societies which have too little; but where is the rich society that says: 'Halt! We have enough? There is none.

No-one is really working for peace unless he is working primarily for the restoration of wisdom. [there is an amazing section on developing this idea.]

I really could quote from every page of this book (I have at least a phrase, if not paragraphs underlined on each page!), but for now I will simply leave you with the fact that this is a truly inspiring and challenging book that you should read!