Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

This New York Times bestselling “Eco Bible” (Time magazine) teaches us that economic growth must be responsibly balanced with the needs of communities and the environment.

“Embracing what Schumacher stood for--above all the idea of sensible scale--is the task for our time. Small is Beautiful could not be more relevant. It was first published in 1973, but it was written for our time.” — Bill McKibben, from the Foreword

Small Is Beautiful is Oxford-trained economist E. F. Schumacher’s classic call for the end of excessive consumption. Schumacher inspired such movements as “Buy Locally” and “Fair Trade,” while voicing strong opposition to “casino capitalism” and wasteful corporate behemoths. Named one of the Times Literary Supplement’s 100 Most Influential Books Since World War II, Small Is Beautiful presents eminently logical arguments for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations.

Small Is Beautiful is Oxford-trained economist E. F. Schumacher’s classic call for the end of excessive consumption. Schumacher inspired such movements as “Buy Locally” and “Fair Trade,” while voicing strong opposition to “casino capitalism” and wasteful corporate behemoths. Named one of the Times Literary Supplement’s 100 Most Influential Books Since World War II, Small Is Beautiful presents eminently logical arguments for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations.

“Embracing what Schumacher stood for--above all the idea of sensible scale--is the task for our time. Small is Beautiful could not be more relevant. It was first published in 1973, but it was written for our time.” - Bill McKibben, from the Foreword

“Small Is Beautiful changed the way many people think about bigness and its human costs.” - New York Times

“Nothing less than a full-scale assault on conventional economic wisdom. Economists, Schumacher says, have established material growth as the most important measure of social progress. . . . Schumacher believes economists need a new set of values . . . to obtain maximum well-being with minimum consumption." - Newsweek

“An eco-bible.” - Time magazine

“Schumacher articulated truths that a funamentally true regardless of time, culture, or prevailing economic system . . . Small Is Beautiful is and always has been one of those rare books--a book that can inform a lifetime.” - Paul Hawken, author of Natural Capitalism