On my way to Amsterdam I read “Small is Beautiful” by German economist E.F. Schumacher. Schumacher says,
"from an economic point of view the central concept of wisdom is permanence. Nothing makes economic sense unless its continuance for a long time can be projected without running into absurdities."
Now biking through the streets of Amsterdam I can only ponder it's wisdom in urban design. Separate lanes full of bikers and pedestrians, buses and trams, few cars and tight narrow boat canals for channeling people rapidly through this bustling city of hashish, art, food and amusement. As an American I am humbled by the wisdom of European life which has for centuries allowed its proliferation from a limited natural resource base. There is no denying European expansion beyond its boundaries for needs, but out of this scarcity has come conservation, or a "wiser use of resources." I think about our global society, one pushing the very thresholds of its planetary confines. But do we see it as such? Schumacher pronounces,
“ that 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 the ultimate causes of strife and war.”
In America we have much to learn from history and from our mother Europe, a much wiser and older continent. I feel as if we are a stubborn child that first must fall down and cry before being picked up, brushed off and patted forward in the right direction. I pray we are fast learners. As a global society we need collective agreement on planetary boundaries and a renewed focus on the production from local resources for local needs for the peace, prosperity and permanence of civilization.
