artificial environments; that is, environments made of materials which are nearly completely manmade. Such a movement, according to Schumacher, removes a vital link between human beings and the earth which surrounds them, nourishes them, and of which they are the caretakers. Instead of seeking out ways to imitate nature, Schumacher finds that human beings must seek out ways to live in harmony with nature.
At the heart of Schumacher's arguments in favor of a symbiotic relationship with nature is the recent rise of agribusiness, made possible by modern economic thought and the industrial revolution.
Modern economic thought seeks to quantify as much information as possible. Nature is difficult to quantify. Once it is presented as merely another factor of production, however, with estimated returns and losses estimated and assigned to it, equations can be used to determine the best use of land as a factor of production. The problem with this course, according to Schumacher, is that it ignores the nature of land itself, that land is not a quantifiable entity, and that it cannot be subject to the same calculus equations which economists and accountants are able to apply to human labor and machinery. This inability to include nature in such calculations is what confounds economists, and the desire to quantify all elements of economics partially contributed to the destruction of nature. In order for the situation to be rectified, economists and other analysts must come to terms with the idea that nature is not quantifiable, that it is not merely a factor of production, and that its properties are unique and valuable unto themselves.
The industrial revolution is important to the current view of nature because machinery made it possible for fewer humans to produce more food from the same amount of land. After World War I, 27 percent of the nation's workers were engaged in agriculture. After World War II, 14 percent were so e...