Natural growth

Interesting passage from Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher:

Nature always, so to speak, knows where and when to stop. There is a measure in all natural things-in their size, speed, or violence. As a result, the system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology, or perhaps I should say: not so with man dominated by technology and specialization. Technology recognizes no self-limiting principle "

We speak of natural growth more often than natural limits to growth. Maybe we should consider the latter more often.

Schumacher's book was written in 1973 and seems to embody some of the hippie romanticism of its day. That does not make its arguments right or wrong, but it shows what some of the author's influences were.

The book's back cover has an endorsement describing Schumacher as "eminently practical, sensible, " versant in the subtleties of large-scale business management "" I haven't read the whole book, only parts here and there, but the romantic overtones stand out more to me, maybe because they contrast more with the contemporary atmosphere. When the book was published, maybe the pragmatic overtones stood out more.