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What can I hope for (from politics)? 1105 in the capitalist economic competition ever since from favouring a better solution from a creative, healthy, environmentally friendly, safe or any other perspective. It shepherds them towards the use of technologies that replace man rather than lighten his work, with no regard to social consequences, moral considerations or anything else. According to Ernst Schumacher, this will remain thus as long as the logic of the economic system compels the participants to increase production. He recommends the opposite, the decrease of production, in the interest of work done with greater care and an increase in quality and jobs. “As Gandhi said, the poor of the world cannot be helped by mass production, only by production by the masses. The system of mass production, based on sophisticated, highly capital-intensive, high energy input dependent, and human labour-saving technology, presupposes that you are already rich, for a great deal of capital investment is needed to establish one single workplace. ‘The system of production by the masses mobilises the priceless resources which are possessed by all human beings, their clever brains and skilful hands, and supports them with first-class tools. The technology of mass production is inherently violent, ecologically damaging, self-defeating in terms of non-renewable resources, and stultifying for the human person. The technology of production by the masses, making use of the best of modern knowledge and experience, is conducive to decentralisation, compatible with the laws of ecology, gentle in its use of scarce resources, and designed to serve the human person instead of making him the servant of machines." 4. (free the power of imagination!) People can find many worthy reasons for protecting their natural and built environment and demanding fair treatment for their fellow beings or a healthier way of life for themselves. The distinguishing feature of the ecological worldview is that its adherents do all this out of a comprehensive conviction they have formed of the good life. They recognise the connection between the self-contained operation of the technologicaleconomic system broken loose from any social interests or control and the destruction of the fundamental resources needed for life, between joyless waste and the destitution of millions, between the collapse of local cultures and the population explosion, between security of life and the spread of violence and between joyless work and the amassing of material goods. Honestly, these connections are quite obvious. The chief 9 Ernst F. Schumacher: Small is Beautiful: a Study of Economics as if People Mattered, p.106. Harper&Row, New York, 1975.
