My recent reading on the circular economy reminded me of a book that I read 36 years ago in one of my classes at the Kings University in Edmonton. I remember how we were challenged to think through some of our assumptions and beliefs regarding culture and economics. I remember the Biblical roots to what we now call a circular economy. I also remember that one of our professors said that if you think you have a new idea, look about about 30 years, and you may find it there.
Small is Beautiful was a great little book that promoted thought and reflection. It was almost as difficult to read now as it was then, but provided some great insights. Here are some quotes as they relate to development of a circular economy. (we accept that now we would use more inclusive language in reference to “man”).
“Man is small, and therefore, small is beautiful”
“The illusion of unlimited power, nourished by astonishing scientific and technological achievements, has produced the concurrent illusion of having solved the problem of production. The latter illusion is based on the failure to distinguish between income and capital where this distinction matters most…the irreplaceable capital which man had not made, but simply found, and without which he can do nothing.”
“To get to the crux of the matter, we do well to ask why it is that all these terms – pollution, environment, ecology etc. – have so suddenly come into prominence…Is this a sudden fad, a silly fashion, or perhaps a sudden failure of nerve?”
“The changes of the last 25 years, both in the quantity and in the quality of man’s industrial processes, have produced an entirely new situation – a situation resulting not from our failures but from what we thought wre our greatest successes. And this has come up so suddenly that we hardly noticed the fact that we were rapidly using up a certain kind of irreplaceable capital asset, namely the tolerance margins which benign nature always provides.”
“The substance of man cannot be measured by Gross National Product. Perhaps it cannot be measured at all, except for certain symptoms of loss.”
“We must thoroughly understand the problem and begin to see the possibility of evolving a new lifestyle, with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a lifestyle designed for permanence.”
“We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men, but also with nature, and above all, with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us.”
“It is always possible to dismiss even the most threatening problems with the suggestion that something will turn up.”
“An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single minded pursuit of wealth… does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited…already the environment is trying to tell us that certain stresses are becoming excessive.”
“We find that the idea of unlimited economic growth, more and more until everybody is saturated with wealth, needs to be seriously questioned on at least two counts: the availability of basic resources and…the capacity of the environment to cope with the degree of interference implied.”
“I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity,…because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroys intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.”
“Our wealth depends on making inordinately large demands on limited world resources and thus puts us on an unavoidable collision course, not primarily with the poor (who are weak and defenseless), but with other rich people.”
“The economics of permanence implies a profound reorientation of science and technology, which have to open their doors to wisdom…Scientific or technological ‘solutions’ which poison the environment or degrade the social structure and man himself are of no benefit, no matter how brilliantly conceived”
“We need methods and equipment that are cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone, suitable for small scale application, and compatible with man’s need for creativity.”
“There is a need for a proper philosophy of work which understands work…as something ‘decreed by Providence for the good of man’s body and soul’….it is work and the relationships established by work that are the true foundations of society.”
“When people ask for education they normally mean something more than mere training, something more than mere knowledge of facts…maybe they cannot themselves formulate precisely what they are looking for, but I think what they are really looking for is ideas that would make the world, and their own lives, intelligible to them. When a thing is intelligible, you have a sense of participation.”
“Science cannot produce ideas by which we could live. Even the greatest ideas of science are nothing more than working hypotheses, useful for purposes of special research but completely inapplicable to the conduct of our lives or the interpretation of the world.”
“Education can help us only if it produces ‘whole men’. The truly educated man is not a man who knows a bit of everything, not even the man who knows all the details of all subjects,…he will not be in doubt about his basic convictions, about his view on the meaning and purpose of life.”
“Among material resources, the greatest, unquestionably, is the land. Study how a society uses its land and you can come to pretty reliable conclusions as to what its future will be.”
“Is the land merely a means of production or is it something more, something that is an end in itself?”
“Man has not made it [land], and it is irrational for him to treat things that he has not made and cannot make and cannot recreate once he has spoilt them, in the same manner and spirit as he is entitled to treat things of his own making.”
“The fundamental ‘principle’ of agriculture is that it deals with life,…Its products are the result of processes of life and its means of production is the living soil. A cubic centimeter of soil contains millions of living organisms, the full exploration of which is far beyond the capacities of man.”
“It remains true that agriculture is primary, whereas industry is secondary, which means that human life can continue without industry, whereas it cannot continue without agriculture”
“agriculture has to fulfil at least three tasks: to keep man in touch with living nature, of which he is and remains a highly vulnerable part, to humanize and enoble man’s wider habitat and to bring forth the foodstuffs and other materials which are needed for life”
“we should be searching for policies to reconstruct rural culture, to open the land for the gainful occupation to larger numbers of people, whether it be on a full time or part time basis, and to orient all our actions on the land towards the threefold ideal of health, beauty and permanence.”
“Modern agriculture relies on applying to soil, plants and animals ever increasing quantities of chemical products, the long term effect of which on soil fertility and health is subject to very grave doubts…there are highly successful farmers in many countries who obtain excellent yields without resort to such chemicals and without raising any doubts about long term soil fertility and health.”
“Their [the Soil Association] methods bear the mark of non-violence and humility towards the infinitely subtle system of natural harmony, and this stands in opposition to the lifestyle of the modern world. but if we now realize that the modern lifestyle is putting us in mortal danger, we may find it in our hearts to support and even join these pioneers rather than to ignore or ridicule them.”
“when the Lord created the world and people who live in it…I could well imagine that He reasoned with himself as follows: ‘If I make everything predictable, these human beings, whom I have endowed with pretty good brains, will undoubtedly learn to predict everything, and they will thereupon have no motive to do anything at all, because they will recognize that the future is totally determined and cannot be influenced by human action. On the other hand, if I make everything unpredictable, they will gradually discover that there is no rational basis for any decision whatsoever and, as in the first case, they will have no motivation to do anything at all. Neither scheme would make sense. I must therefore create a mixture of the two. Let some things be predictable and others unpredictable. They will then amongst other things, have the very important task of finding out which is which.”
“I thus come to the cheerful conclusion that life, including economic life, is still worth living because it is sufficiently unpredictable to be interesting.”
“Any organization has to strive continuously for the orderliness of order and the disorderliness of creative freedom.”
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