Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Prophecy of the day

From Herman E. Daly, in his book Steady State Economics (1977):

Human institutions should not be allowed to grow beyond the human scale in size and complexity. Otherwise, the economic machine becomes too heavy a burden  on the shoulders of the citizen, who must continually grind and re-grind himself to fit the imperatives of the overall system, and who becomes ever more vulnerable to the failure of other interdependent pieces that are beyond his control and even beyond his awareness. Lack of control by the individual over institutions and technologies that not only affect his life but determine his livelihood is hardly democratic and is, in fact, an excellent training in the acceptance of totalitarianism. (Emphasis added). 
Quoted in Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale (1980), p. 293.

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