Intermediate Technology

Post date: Jan 31, 2011 6:9:4 AM

[Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action.org)] has been under increasing criticism that we devote all our humble efforts to the third world and the rest of the world says to us, "What about us? We need an intermediate technology—an efficient technology." One province of Canada said, "We hear that you are dealing with intermediate technology for rural areas, but look what's becoming of the province. We are a colony of Toronto. We have been reduced to monoculture: wheat, wheat, wheat, nothing but wheat. Life is becoming intolerably dull. The things that we used to make ourselves now come in cellophane packages from Toronto. All the young people are leaving," they said. "The average age of the rural population of Saskatchewan is sixty-six years. We are a dying society! We don't want to die. We don't want the young people to leave, and they don't want to leave and crowd together in Toronto. But there is nothing else but wheat. So your intermediate technology, couldn't it help us?"

It was lunchtime and they served me some bread. I looked at this surrogate bread (already sliced) and I said, "Where does this come from?" "Toronto." "And the wheat in the bread?" "Oh, maybe that comes from Saskatchewan." "And why, please, don't you make your bread in Saskatchewan?" "Oh, in this day and age, surely that would be entirely uneconomic!" The reply was obvious; "Make up your minds whether you want to die economically or survive uneconomically."

If they put only a small part of their intelligence in the direction of systematically developing a small-scale technology that would fit their area, then they could even live economically, instead of only dying uneconomically. But this is not always easy to sell to people, the majority of whom cannot imagine anything except what they have in front of their eyes. They say, Our whole life experience is just the opposite; now you come with this sort of crazy notion.

We had very interesting negotiations with the brick industry in Britain. A hundred years ago the brickworks would produce ten thousand bricks a week. Around fifty years ago, a hundred thousand, about ten years ago, a million. And now two or three million. What does this mean? It means enormous units, and either they are near the biggest markets or require enormous commitment to transport. With the increased cost of transport, of oil, of labor, it costs as much to ship a brick two hundred miles overland as to make it. Therefore, a big brickworks witli a market scattered all over the country is economic nonsense. But this economic nonsense doesn't correct itself until somebody creates the efficient mini-brickworks. We are in a phase where nobody believes this is possible, and, therefore, bricks simply become more expensive. The situation doesn't correct itself. Our task is to persuade our friends in big industry to make these design studies, and we have got a long way in our work, primarily for the developing countries. At the same time our brick expert builds a very big brickworks in England near Bristol, where there is a very big market—and a mini-brickworks in Ghana.

People talk about paper recycling, but do they really think about it properly? Here is a huge paper mill or a huge printing office—let's say the New York Times— and the paper is scattered all over the country. Are you going to collect it all and bring it back to one point? That would be foolish. It can't possibly pay. It would be too demanding on transport. Once it's scattered, it can be recycled only on a small scale...(103-5).

E.F. Schumacher.

Good Work.

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers (now HarperCollins), 1979. ISBN 0060138572.

(OOP, but link to E.F. Schumacher's page @ HarperCollins.ca is here.)