Yawn

"I suggest that the foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man..."

 "It could well be that rich people treasure peace more highly than poor people, but only if they feel utterly secure -  and this is a contradiction in terms. Their wealth depends on making inordinately large demands on limited world resources and thus puts them on an unavoidable collision course- not primarily with the poor (who are weak and defenceless) but with other rich people."

 "In short, we can say today that man is far too clever to be able to survive without wisdom. No one is really working for peace unless he is working primarily for the restoration of wisdom...The hope that the pursuit of goodness and virtue can be postponed until we have attained universal prosperity and that by single-minded pursuit of wealth, without bothering our heads about spiritual and moral questions, we could establish peace on earth, is an unrealistic, unscientific, and irrational hope."

 "There can be "growth" towards a limited objective, but there cannot be unlimited, generalized growth. It is more than likely, as Gandhi said, that `Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not for every man's greed`...The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace. Every increase of needs tends to increase one's dependence on outside forces over which one cannot have control, and therefore increases existential fear. Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are ultimate causes of strife and war." 

 A warm clean space to live, good walkies in nature, delicious healthy seasonal food, loving family, inter-species respect and love...the dogs knew it all along.

Photos by Lelantos
Source: E.F. Schumacher (1973) Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. New York, Harper Perennial pp.33-4