The Greatest Resource – Education,Ernst Friedrich Schumacher

The Greatest Resource – Education

Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (1911 – 1977) was an influential economist-philosopher and systems thinker. “The Greatest Resource – Education” is extracted from his book “Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered”. He talks about education as our greatest resource: when it deals with and gives answers to the deeper questions about who we are and what our place is in this universe, then education is our greatest resource.

Schumacher starts out by indicating that people usually look at education as the answer or the key to all kinds of problems or challenges. Men have lived and multiplied wherever they have found their means of living on every part of the earth. They have built great civilizations in the course of time and have disappeared and have become a cause for new civilizations that have arisen as a new form of cultures. The fact is that it is the man who is the primary resource for all the economic development but not the nature on this planet. The key factor of all this development is the sudden outburst of men’s daring, initiative, invention and constructive activity in all fields at once. It is strengthened through education which is the most significant of all resources.

           No civilization has ever flourished without organized education. We believe that education is the residual legatee of all our problems.  Strong and better education would bring solution to all our problems such as nuclear dangers, new abuses of genetic engineering and the new temptations of commercialism. As the modern life is becoming more complex, it is the need for everyone to become more highly educated or we ourselves could vanish from this planet.

         It is evident that the global situation at present calls for prodigious educational efforts. Education is a means of prosperity. Hence, we must educate ourselves or we shall be destroyed. Sir Charles Snow talked about two cultures which had greater impact on our lives. According to him, the two cultures are two polar groups… one pole is the literary intellectuals and the other the scientists. He deplores that there is a big gap between these two groups. He wanted this gap should be bridged. It could be to get world-class scientists and professionals to research high-class design and development. Later, many of the other scientists, engineers, politicians, administrators and the entire community should be trained to have a social sense what the scientists are mentioning. Lord Snow tells that the scientists are never exhausted to explain the fruits of their research and innovation is ‘neutral’. It depends on how the humanity makes use of it for their enrichment.

             E. F. Schumacher points out that modern people face many problems thrust upon them by the advancement of science and technology. So, there must be strong education to cope with these problems. Science and Engineering produce ‘know-how’, but the author says that ‘know-how’ is an unfinished sentence because it has got no end. Potential education could help to finish the sentence. The purpose of education should be the transmission of ideas of value and of what to do with our lives. It could be foolhardy to put great powers into the hands of unreasonable people. The whole mankind would be in mortal danger if we tend to uses science and technological knowhow destructively without wisdom. More education could only fill the ignorant minds with wisdom. We are no doubt the inheritors of ‘Dark Ages’ and it is only our mental make-up could pave the way for better life on this beautiful earth.

About the Author:

Ernst Friedrich Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in the UK, who has been the chief economic advisor for the National Carbon Commission of the United Kingdom for many years. He was an internationally renowned economist and author of books entitled "Small is Beautiful: a study of the economy, as if people cared" and "a guide to the perplexed." The term "small is beautiful" is used to defend small and appropriate technologies that supposedly empower people more, unlike phrases such as "bigger is better".

Q& A :

Q1. What motivates the writer to advocate technology with a human face?

Years. The essay "Technology with the human face" is taken from the Book of E. F Schumacher "Klein is Beautiful".

In this essay, Schumacher expresses his fear and concern about the inhumane nature of modern technology that is leading the world from crisis to crisis and shows visible signs of catastrophes and the rupture of humanity in the future.

Everything that makes the technology in the past and in the present seems sick and inhuman. It is therefore time for us to examine whether we could have-"a technology with a human face".

Q2. How, according to the author, is anti-nature technology?

Years. Schumacher differentiates the principles of nature and technology. Nature always follows a principle of auto-limitation, which IE knows where and when to stop. There is a measure in all natural things in their size, speed or violence. Therefore, it tends to be self-balance, auto-tuning, self-cleaning. The technology or the super technology, on the other hand, has no limit principle. Therefore, it acts as a foreign body in nature and is therefore subject to rejection.

Q3. What three crises has the technology generated at the same time?

Years. Modern technology, which has shaped the modern world, is involved in three crises simultaneously. First, people find that the inhumane technological, organizational and political patterns are very stifled and weakened and rebel against them. Second, due to the technology, the living environment gives signs of a partial rupture, and finally, the non-renewable resources of the world, especially fossil fuels are around virtual exhaustion. Schumacher says that one of these three crises can be fatal and eventually lead to a total collapse. This is the result of materialism and the unlimited expansion of technology in a finite environment.

Q4. How does the author confirm his vision that technology is causing more problems than it offers solutions?

Q5. Why does the author say that working with the brain and hands has become very rare, especially in rich countries?

Q6. Does the author argue convincingly that modern technology has evolved increasingly inhumanly and has led to more problems in the rich and poor countries?

Q7. Why does the author say that modern technology does not enrich people, but emptiness?

Schumacher says that the growth of industrialisation in the last twenty-five years has developed more problems than solutions, even in rich countries. Industrialisation has only led to a success of the illusion. It seems that technology has helped us in many respects, but the two major problems of unemployment and poverty cannot be solved in developed and developing countries.

The main task of technology, such as machines and computers, is to reduce the burden of human work so that he can enjoy life and relax. But modern technology eliminates the skillful, productive and creative work of human hands and brains, thereby destroying the enjoyment of work. Modern technology is huge, very complicated and requires a huge investment. Only the rich can afford to operate the modern factories. These labor-saving machines lead to rich and poor wealth and unemployment and poverty to rise around the world.

It is said that a new type of technology called self-help is required, so that everyone, including the older people and children can work with their intelligent brain and with two skillful hands with great satisfaction.

Schumacher never says that the technology itself is bad. However, it calls for us to use scientific techniques that help us to reach the truth of matter and increase our knowledge, focus on technology that does not lead to GIGANTISM, speed or violence and destroys the Enjoyment of work

Q8. How does the technology of the people that the author suggests be different from primitive or super technology?

Q9. How does the author find the assertion that technology only facilitates the workload and does not really carry weight or prestige?

Q10. What strategies does the writer use in this basically essay to persuade readers that the technology is more of a nightmare than a blessing, although there are some explicit benefits for it?

F11. Explain your concept of "technology with a human face" and find out what would be astonished by the crises of the super technology of the wealthy.

According to Schumacher, the modern world, which is made up of technology, is still ill. We wonder whether technology has helped us in many respects, but the underlying factors of poverty reduction and unemployment have not been solved by technology. In this case, we have to ask ourselves whether it is possible to make a technology with a human face better. It is very strange to say that the laws and principles of technology, the product of man, are generally very different from those of the human nature of living nature. There is a measure in all natural things in their size, the speed of violence. The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be the balance of himself, self-tuning, self-determination. But this is not the case with the technology. It does not recognize the principle of self-regulation in terms of size, speed or violence. It has not the virtues of being self-balanced, self-adjustable, self-cleaning. In a way, man is dominated by technology and specialization. Modern technology acts as a foreign body and has become inhumane in the subtle system of nature.

In his opinion, modern technology was involved in three crises at the same time. First, the rebels of human nature against suffocation and weaken inhuman technological models. Secondly, the living environment is partially dismantled. Thirdly, it is clear that the encroachment of non-renewable resources into the world has become a major bottleneck and a virtual exhaustion in the future. This is the result of materialism and unlimited expansion in a finite environment. This is a big question if we can develop technology that can solve all our problems, a technology with a human face.

Schumacher says: "The main task of technology, it seems, is to transport the workload of the human being to stay alive and develop its potential". The technology that facilitates our burden would help us to give us a better time to relax and do what we wanted to increase our creativity, to work with the hands that give us the joy as defined by Thomas Aquinas. Schumacher explains that it is not the actual production of "total social time" spent about a fifth of the third of half, which is 3.5 percent and the rest 96.5 percent of the "total social time" is directly less product. It fades in the insignificance that carries no real weight, but only prestige. Therefore, almost all actual production has become an inhumane task that does not enrich people, but emptiness. By taking the balance of our goals, everyone would have the privilege of working in a useful, creative way with their own hands and the brain can actually produce things and enjoy the society.

Modern industrial society is not romantic and certainly not utopia. He has serious problems and has no promise of survival. We must have the courage to dream if we want to survive and give our children the chance to survive. We need to develop a new way of life that is compatible with the real needs of human nature and the living nature that surrounds us. To avoid the disastrous consequences for rich and poor countries, we need a different kind of technology, a productive technology with a human face.

F12. What forces the author to formulate his first law of business: "The amount of real leisure that a society tends to have in inverse proportion to the amount of the main-d ' œuvre-économie of the equipment that employs them"?

Years: So far we have an enormous accumulation of new knowledge that includes excellent scientific techniques to increase this knowledge and immense practical experience in your application. This is known as true knowledge. But so far we have made an unwise and destructive use of our technology because we never get pleasure from our work. Therefore, Schumacher suggests that the productive time of 3.5% of the total social time will be increased to 20% of the total social time. If this wonderful idea is implemented into practice, even children and elders would be able to do creative, productive and useful work and enjoy it with their intelligent brain and two skillful hands. The therapeutic and pedagogical value of this pleasant and useful work will be the blessing for all the peoples of the world. So no one wants to raise the age of the school or less the retirement age. Everyone would be glad to be able to work in a useful and creative way with their own hands and brains at their own pace and with excellent tools. People who work in this way do not know the difference between work and leisure, because the work itself is full of pleasure and enjoyment!

Schumacher is a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and tries to follow his teaching in scientific ideas about the new lifestyle he has visualized in this essay.

Gandhiji says that the world's poor cannot be helped by mass production, but only through mass production. According to Schumacher, a new technology with a human face must be introduced. The current inhuman technology is based on mass production with high investment and high input energy, where workers are simple slaves at work and the wealthy owner makes huge profits. This system needs to be changed and a new technology with a human face must be introduced. Instead of mass production, the new system is based on mass production. All people, young and old can work with their clever hands and brains with first-class tools in their own time and speed, then the job would be a great pleasure for them.

Concluding his essay, Schumacher says that mass production technology is called "intermediate technology" because this technology is far superior to the primitive technology of yesterday, but at the same time much easier, cheaper and it is freer than the rich Super technology. Intermediate technology can also be called "self-help technology or Democratic or popular technology". This technology uses the best modern knowledge and experience that is adapted to the laws of ecology, soft in its use of natural resources and designed to serve the man rather than the servant of the machine.

 

                                  A Dilemma: A Layman Looks at Science

Raymond Blaine Fosdick (1883-1972), lawyer, public servant, and author, was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of a high school principal. He was a lifetime disciple of Woodrow Wilson. Raymond B. Fosdick  in the lesson  ‘A Dilemma: A Layman Looks at Science’  says  that  science  should  be used only for the constructive purpose and not to be  aimed  at  the degeneration of the society. August  6,  1945,  a  day  of  unfortunate,  on  which  the atomic bomb  was  dropped  on Hiroshima  brought  home  to all of us about the significance (or) importance of science in  human  life.

 Mankind  was frightened by science and bewildered  by  its  enormous  power.  This  instance  has realised the mankind how unequipped we are in terms of ethics, law, and government, to know how to use it. The author says that science  is based  on  truth and should spring from the noblest attribute of the human spirit.
There are certain inventions that can evoke both positive and negative responses. Invention of radio, automobiles, penicillin, radar and jet propulsions shall be aimed towards the betterment of the society rather  than  creating  ugliness and desolation. The gifts of science,  the  author  vehemently  feels, should not blow our civilization into  drifting  dust. The  research  and Technology  yield  right  fruits  when  they  are  related  to  human welfare.
Science is the search for truth. But it is the same search for truth that has brought our civilization to the brink of  destruction.  The  writer  strongly  feels that research shall be subjected to some kind of restraint if it is not linked  to human constructive purpose; it is really  disheartening  to  read  about  that  leading scientists associated with atom bomb saying that one should  not hold  back progress because of fear of misuse of   science.
Fosdick says that some inventions are purely accidental and the scientists never had any evil intentions while discovering them. For instance Albert Einestein never thought of atom bomb while working for his transformation equation in 1905. Yet, from this it has come out one of the principles  upon which atom bomb is based. Similarly sulphur drugs and mustard gas which are offshoots of German dye industry  was  not  created  to  deal  with  either  medicine or weapons of  war.  Willard  Gibbs, was  a  gentle  spirit  whose  life  was spent in his laboratory at Yale University, had never dreamt that his research  in the mathematical physics might have even a remote  relationship  to  World War I & II. These discoveries are classic examples  where  the gifts  of science  can  be used by evil men to do evil even more  obviously  and dramatically than it can be used by men of goodwill to do good.
The author concludes that the towering enemy of mankind is not science but  war.  Science  merely  reflect  the  social  forces  by  which  it is surrounded. When there is peace, science is constructive and when there is war, science is perverted to destructive ends.  Our  problem  therefore  is  not  to  curb  science but to stop war- to substitute law for force and international government for anarchy in the relations of  one  nation  with  another.  He  feels  that  our  education should be  based  on  tolerance  understanding  and  creative intelligence that should run fast enough to put an end to the evil effects of the science. Formally, Science must help us but the decision lies within ourselves ie., the sole responsibility  is of human beings.