SOCIALISM SCONOMICS POLITICAL

Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice. Finding its roots in Vietnam through the Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Engaged Buddhism has grown in popularity in the West.Asian Origins.

The term was coined by Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay to his students), inspired by the Humanistic Buddhism reform movement in China by Taixu and Yinshun, and later propagated in Taiwan by Cheng Yen and Hsing Yun. At first, he used Chinese characters (a scriptural language of Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism), (lit: Worldly Buddhism, enter + world). During the Vietnam War, he and his sangha (spiritual community) made efforts to respond to the suffering they saw around them. They saw this work as part of their meditation and mindfulness practice, not apart from it. Thich Nhat Hanh outlined fourteen precepts of Engaged Buddhism which explained his philosophy.

This term has since been re-translated back into Chinese as "Left-wing Buddhism" to denote the liberal emphasis held by this type of Buddhism. The term has also been used as a translation for what is commonly understood in China and Taiwan as "Humanistic Buddhism". Western Socially Engaged Buddhism.

In the West, like the East, Engaged Buddhism is a way of attempting to link authentic Buddhist meditation with social action. The current Dalai Lama has voiced a need for Buddhists to be more involved in the social and political realm.

In 1998, while on retreat in Bodh, Gaya, India, ...the Dalai Lama told those of us who were participating in a Buddhist-Christian dialogue that sometimes, Buddhists have not acted vigorously to address social and political problems. He told our group, “In this, we have much to learn from the Christians.”

Organizations such as the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists and the Zen Peacemakers, led by Roshi Bernard Glassman are devoted to building the movement of engaged Buddhists. Other engaged Buddhist groups include the Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight, Gaden Relief Projects, the UK's Network of Buddhist Organisations, Fo Guang Shan and Tzu Chi.

Prominent figures in the movement include Robert Aitken Roshi, Joanna Macy, Gary Snyder, Alan Senauke, Sulak Sivaraksa, Maha Ghosananda, Sylvia Wetzel, Joan Halifax, Tara Brach, Ken Jones, and Bhikkhu Bodhi.

THE FOURTEEN PRECEPTS OF ENGAGED BUDDHISM

1
Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

2
Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

3
Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrow-mindedness.

4
Do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world.

5
Do not accumulate wealth while millions are hungry. Do not take as the aim of your life fame, profit, wealth, or sensual pleasure. Live simply and share time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need.

6
Do not maintain anger or hatred. Learn to penetrate and transform them when they are still seeds in your consciousness. As soon as they arise, turn your attention to your breath in order to see and understand the nature of your hatred.

7
Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings. Practice mindful breathing to come back to what is happening in the present moment. Be in touch with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing both inside and around you. Plant seeds of joy, peace, and understanding in yourself in order to facilitate the work of transformation in the depths of your consciousness.

8
Do not utter words that can create discord and cause the community to break. Make every effort to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

9
Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people. Do not utter words that cause division and hatred. Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain. Do not criticize or condemn things of which you are not sure. Always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety.

10
Do not use the Buddhist community for personal gain or profit, or transform your community into a political party. A religious community, however, should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice and should strive to change the situation without engaging in partisan conflicts.

11
Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to live. Select a vocation that helps realise your ideal of compassion.

12
Do not kill. Do not let others kill. Find whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war.

13
Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.

14
Do not mistreat your body. Learn to handle it with respect. Do not look on your body as only an instrument. Preserve vital energies (sexual, breath, spirit) for the realisation of the Way. (For brothers and sisters who are not monks and nuns:) Sexual expression should not take place without love and commitment. In sexual relations, be aware of future suffering that may be caused. To preserve the happiness of others, respect the rights and commitments of others. Be fully aware of the responsibility of bringing new lives into the world. Meditate on the world into which you are bringing new beings.

Engaged Buddhism, also known as Socially Engaged Buddhism, is not a sect but a Buddhist movement. Founded by Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh in the 20th century, Engaged Buddhism seeks to apply Buddhist teachings in a more activist and social manner than has been traditional.

Engaged Buddhism is a cross-denominational movement that involves the lay community as well as monks, western converts as well as eastern Buddhists. While maintaining the Buddhist emphasis on inward spiritual growth, Engaged Buddhism also aims to reduce social suffering and oppression through political and social reform.

The compassionate bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism (who postpone their own enlightenment to assist others) are looked to as the ideal by engaged Buddhists.

The term "Engaged Buddhism" was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh in 1963, at a time when his country was ravaged by the Vietnam War. The highly-regarded monk, who now lives in a monastery in France, has remained a prominent leader of the movement. He has founded the "Order of Interbeing" to promote social causes, and there are many other Engaged groups as well.

Strong Lessons forEngaged Buddhists

1. Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you,
   and were tender with you, and stood aside for you?
   Have you not learned great lessons from those who reject you,
   and brace themselves against you? or who treat you with
   contempt, or dispute the passage with you?

   — Whitman, “Stronger Lessons”

   
   In the middle of the Vietnam war Thich Nhat Hanh and a few other Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople broke with the 2500-year tradition of Buddhist apoliticism and founded the Tiep Hien Order in an effort to relate Buddhist ethical and meditational practice to contemporary social issues. Members of the order organized antiwar demonstrations, underground support for draft resisters, and various relief and social service projects. Though the movement was soon crushed in Vietnam, Nhat Hanh has carried on similar activities from exile in France, and the idea of “socially engaged Buddhism” has spread among Buddhists around the world. One of its main expressions in the West, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, defines its purpose as being “to bring a Buddhist perspective to contemporary peace, environmental, and social action movements” and “to raise peace, environmental, feminist, and social justice concerns among Western Buddhists.”

   The emergence of engaged Buddhism is a healthy development. Despite the bullshit that Buddhism shares with all religions (superstition, hierarchy, male chauvinism, complicity with the established order), it has always had a core of genuine insight based on the practice of meditation. It is this vital core, along with its freedom from the enforced dogmas characteristic of Western religions, that has enabled it to catch on so readily even among the most sophisticated milieus in other cultures. People engaged in movements for social change might well benefit from the mindfulness, equanimity and self-discipline fostered by Buddhist practice; and apolitical Buddhists could certainly stand to be confronted with social concerns.

   So far, however, the engaged Buddhists’ social awareness has remained extremely limited. If they have begun to recognize certain glaring social realities, they show little understanding of their causes or possible solutions. For some, social engagement simply means doing some sort of volunteer charitable work. Others, taking their cue perhaps from Nhat Hanh’ remarks on arms production or Third World starvation, resolve not to eat meat or not to patronize or work for companies that produce weapons. Such gestures may be personally meaningful to them, but their actual effect on global crises is negligible. If millions of Third World people are allowed to starve, this is not because there is not enough food to go around, but because there are no profits to be made by feeding penniless people. As long as there is big money to be made by producing weapons or ravaging the environment, someone will do it, regardless of moral appeals to people’ good will; if a few conscientious persons refuse, a multitude of others will scramble for the opportunity to do it in their place.

   Others, sensing that such individual gestures are not enough, have ventured into more “political” activities. But in so doing they have generally just followed along with the existing peace, ecological and other so-called progressive groups, whose tactics and perspectives are themselves quite limited. With very few exceptions these groups take the present social system for granted and simply jockey within it in favor of their particular issue, often at the expense of other issues. As the situationists put it: “Fragmentary oppositions are like the teeth on cogwheels: they mesh with each other and make the machine go round — the machine of the spectacle, the machine of power.”¹

   A few of the engaged Buddhists may realize that it is necessary to get beyond the present system; but failing to grasp its entrenched, self-perpetuating nature, they imagine gently and gradually modifying it from within, and then run into continual contradictions. One of the Tiep Hien Precepts says: “Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others, but prevent others from enriching themselves from human suffering or the suffering of other beings.”² How is one to prevent the exploitation of suffering if one “respects” the property that embodies it? And what if the owners of such property fail to relinquish it peacefully?

   If the engaged Buddhists have failed to explicitly oppose the socioeconomic system and have limited themselves to trying to alleviate a few of its more appalling effects, this is for two reasons. First, they are not even clear about what it is. Since they are allergic to any analysis that seems “divisive,” they can hardly hope to understand a system based on class divisions and bitter conflicts of interest. Like almost everyone else they have simply swallowed the official version of reality, in which the collapse of the Stalinist state-capitalist regimes in Russia and East Europe supposedly demonstrates the inevitability of the Western form of capitalism.

   Secondly, like the peace movement in general they have adopted the notion that “violence” is the one thing that must be avoided at all cost. This attitude is not only simplistic, it is hypocritical: they themselves tacitly rely on all sorts of state violence (armies, police, jails) to protect their loved ones and possessions, and would certainly not passively submit to many of the conditions they reproach others for rebelling against. In practice pacifism usually ends up being more tolerant toward the ruling order than toward its opponents. The same organizers who reject any participant who might spoil the purity of their nonviolent demonstrations often pride themselves on having developed amicable understandings with police. Small wonder that dissidents who have had somewhat different experiences with the police have not been overly impressed with this sort of “Buddhist perspective.”

   It is true that many forms of violent struggle, such as terrorism or minority coups, are inconsistent with the sort of open, participatory organization required to create a genuinely liberated global society. An antihierarchical revolution can only be carried out by the people as a whole, not by some group supposedly acting on their behalf; and such an overwhelming majority would have no need for violence except to neutralize any pockets of the ruling minority that may violently try to hold on to their power. But any significant social change inevitably involves some violence. It would seem more sensible to admit this fact, and simply strive to minimize violence as far as possible.

   This antiviolence dogmatism goes from the dubious to the ludicrous when it also opposes any form of “spiritual violence.” There is, of course, nothing wrong with trying to act “without anger in your heart” and trying to avoid getting caught up in pointless hatred and revenge; but in practice this ideal often just serves as an excuse to repress virtually any incisive analysis or critique by labeling it as “angry” or “intellectually arrogant.” On the basis of their (correct) impression of the bankruptcy of traditional leftism, the engaged Buddhists have concluded that all “confrontational” tactics and “divisive” theories are misguided and irrelevant. Since this attitude amounts to ignoring virtually the entire history of social struggles, many richly suggestive experiences remain a closed book to them (the anarchist experiments in social organization during the 1936 Spanish revolution, for example, or the situationist tactics that provoked the May 1968 revolt in France), and they are left with nothing but to “share” with each other the most innocuous New-Agey platitudes and to try to drum up interest in the most tepid, lowest-common-denominator “actions.”

   It is ironic that people capable of appreciating the classic Zen anecdotes fail to see that sharp wakeup tactics may also be appropriate on other terrains. Despite all the obvious differences, there are certain interesting analogies between Zen and situationist methods: both insist on practical realization of their insights, not just passive assent to some doctrine; both use drastic means, including rejecting pointless dialogue and refusing to offer ready-made “positive alternatives,” in order to pull the rug out from under habitual mindsets; both are therefore predictably accused of “negativity.”

   One of the old Zen sayings is: If you meet a Buddha, kill him. Have the engaged Buddhists succeeded in “killing” Thich Nhat Hanh in their minds? Or are they still attached to his image, awed by his mystique, passively consuming his works and uncritically accepting his views? Nhat Hanh may be a wonderful person; his writings may be inspiring and illuminating in certain respects; but his social analysis is naive. If he seems slightly radical this is only in contrast to the even greater political naivet of most other Buddhists. Many of his admirers will be shocked, perhaps even angered, at the idea that anyone could have the nerve to criticize such a saintly person, and will try to dismiss this leaflet by pigeonholing it as some bizarre sort of “angry leftist ideology” and by assuming (incorrectly) that it was written by someone with no experience of Buddhist meditation.

   Others may grant that some of these points are well taken, but will then ask: “Do you have any practical, constructive alternative, or are you just criticizing? What do you suggest that we do?” You don’t need to be a master carpenter to point out that the roof leaks. If a critique stirs even a few people to stop and think, to see through some illusion, perhaps even provokes them to new ventures of their own, this is already a very practical effect. How many “actions” accomplish as much?

   As for what you should do: the most important thing is to stop relying on others to tell you what you should do. Better make your own mistakes than follow the most spiritually wise or politically correct leader. It is not only more interesting, it is usually more effective, to pursue your own experiments, however small, than to be a unit in a regiment of units. All hierarchies need to be contested, but the most liberating effect often comes from challenging the ones in which you yourself are most implicated.

   One of the May 1968 graffiti was: Be realistic, demand the impossible. “Constructive alternatives” within the context of the present social order are at best limited, temporary, ambiguous; they tend to be coopted and become part of the problem. We may be forced to deal with certain urgent issues such as war or environmental threats, but if we accept the system’s own terms and confine ourselves to merely reacting to each new mess produced by it, we will never overcome it. Ultimately we can solve survival issues only by refusing to be blackmailed by them, by aggressively going beyond them to challenge the whole anachronistic social organization of life. Movements that limit themselves to cringing defensive protests will not even achieve the pitiful survival goals they set for themselves

Buddhist socialism

1. Buddhist socialism is a political ideology which advocates socialism based on the principles of Buddhism.

   Buddhist socialists have called for state provision of the Buddhist requisites of food, shelter, clothing and medicine, for the abolition or amelioration of class distinctions, for campaigns for morality based on Buddhist traditions, and for workers and peasants to overcome the love of property.

   
   People who have been described as Buddhist socialists include Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Han Yong-un, U Nu and Norodom Sihanouk.

   Bhikkhu Buddhadasa coined the phrase "Dhammic socialism". He believed that Socialism is a natural state meaning all things exist together in one system.

   Look at the birds: we will see that they eat only as much food as their stomachs can hold. They cannot take more than that; they don’t have granaries. Look down at the ants and insects: that is all they can do. Look at the trees: trees imbibe only as much nourishment and water as the trunk can hold, and cannot take in any more than that. Therefore a system in which people cannot encroach on each other’s rights or plunder their possessions is in accordance with nature and occurs naturally, and that is how it has become a society continued to be one, until trees became abundant, animals became abundant, and eventually human beings became abundant in the world. The freedom to hoard was tightly controlled by nature in the form of natural socialism.

   Han Yong-un felt that equality was one of the main principles of Buddhism. In an interview published in 1931, Yong-un spoke of his desire to explore Buddhist Socialism.

   I am recently planning to write about Buddhist socialism. Just like there is Christian socialism as a system of ideas in Christianity, there must be also Buddhist socialism in Buddhism

2. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet has said that:Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. (...) The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist

3. Buddhist Economics is a spiritual approach to Economics.[1] It examines the psychology of the human mind and the anxiety,aspirations and emotions that direct economic activity. Its understanding aims to clear the confusion between what is truly harmful and beneficial in Economics and ultimately tries to make human beings ethically mature.[2] It tries to find a middle way between a purely mundane society and an immobile conventional society.[3] It says that truly rational decisions can only be made when we understand what creates irrationality. When people understand what constitutes desire, they realize that all the wealth in the world cannot satisfy it. When people understand the universality of fear, they become more compassionate to all beings. Thus, this spiritual approach to Economics doesn't rely on theories and models but on the essential forces of acumen, empathy and restraint.[2] The Buddhist point of view intents at giving work a trinal function: to give man a chance to utilize and develop his aptitude; to enable him to overcome his self-aggrandizement by engaging with other people in common tasks; and to bring forward the goods and services needed for a better existence.[4] From the perspective of a Buddhist, Economics and other streams of knowledge cannot be separated. Economics is a single component of a combined effort to fix the problems of humanity and Buddhist Economics works with it to reach a common goal of societal, individual and environmental sufficiency.[2] Contents [hide] 1 History 2 A Buddhist Economist's perspective 3 The differences between Western Economics and Buddhist Economics 4 Other beliefs 5 The Middle Way of living: A model 6 See also 7 References 8 External links [edit] History The term was coined by E. F. Schumacher in 1955, when he traveled to Burma as an economic consultant for Prime Minister U Nu,[5] and is used by followers of Schumacher and by Theravada Buddhist writers such as Prayudh Payutto and Phrabhavanaviriyakhun. Schumacher's essay "Buddhist Economics" was first published in 1966 in Asia: A Handbook, and republished in his influential collection Small Is Beautiful (1973). The 1st Conference of the Buddhist Economics Research Platform, August 23–24, 2007 was held in Budapest, Hungary [6] and the 2nd in Ubon Ratchathani University, Warin Chamrab, Ubon Ratchathani Thailand from April 9–11, 2009.[7] The third conference was supposed to be held in Brisbane, Australia on January 18–19 but was postponed until further notice.[8] [edit] A Buddhist Economist's perspective Suppose we consider the demand for a commodity, say cigarettes and consider that it has been showing an increasing trend. This trend will be supported by an increase in production of cigarettes. These cigarettes are then put into the market and purchased and consumed by people. When it is consumed, the demand is satisfied and normally, nobody bothers about the stage after consumption. But Buddhist Economists go beyond that and investigate how these trends affect the three intertwined aspects of human existence: The individual, society and the environment. Specific to an increase in the consumption of cigarettes, Buddhist Economists try to decipher how this increase affects the pollution levels in the environment, its impact on passive smokers and active smokers and the various health hazards that come along with smoking, thus taking into consideration the ethical side of economics. The ethical aspect of it is partly judged by the outcomes it brings and partly by the qualities which lead to it.[2] [edit] The differences between Western Economics and Buddhist Economics While Western Economics concentrates on self interest, the Buddhist view challenges it by changing the concept of self to Anatta or no-self. It preaches that all things perceived by one's senses are not actually "I" or "mine" and therefore, humans must detach themselves from this feeling. They believe that the self-interest based, opportunistic approach to ethics will always fail. According to them, generosity will work because human beings are Homo reciprocans who tend to reciprocate to feelings(either positively or negatively) by giving back more than what is given to them.[9] The second significant difference is that Western Economists give importance to maximizing profits and individual gains while the underlying principle of Buddhist Economists is to minimize suffering(losses) for all living or non living things. Studies conducted by them have shown that human beings show greater sensitivity to loss than to gains and therefore people should concentrate more on reducing the former.[9] The third difference is with respect to the concept of desire. Western Economics encourages material wealth and desire because of which people try and accumulate more and more wealth- sometimes at the cost of others- to satisfy those cravings. Whereas, in Buddhist Economics, importance is given to simplify one's desires. According to them, apart from the basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing and medicines, other materialistic needs should be minimized. They say that overall well-being decreases if people pursue meaningless desires. Wanting less will benefit the person, the community they live in and nature.[9] The fourth point of difference is related to their views on the market. While Western Economists advocate maximizing markets to a point of saturation, Buddhist Economists aim at minimizing violence. According to them, Western Economists do not take into consideration primordial stakeholders like the future generations and the natural world because their vote is not considered important in terms of purchasing power. They feel that other stakeholders such as poor and marginalized people are under-represented because of their inadequate purchasing power and preference is given to the strongest stakeholder. Therefore, they believe that the market is not an unbiased place, truly representative of the economy. Thus, Buddhist Economists advocate ahimsa or non-violence. According to them, ahimsa prevents doing anything that directly causes suffering to oneself or others and urges to find solutions in a participatory way. Community supported agriculture is one such example of community based economic activities. They believe that it fosters trust, helps build value based communities and brings people closer to the land and the farm. Achieving this sustainability and non-violence requires restructuring of dominating configurations of modern business, which they advocate. This leads to deemphasizing profit maximization as the ultimate motive and renewed emphasis on introducing small-scale, locally adaptable, substantive economic activities.[9] The fifth point of difference is that Western Economists try to maximize instrumental use where the value of any entity is determined by its marginal contribution to the production output. Therefore, Buddhist Economists feel that the real value of an entity is neither realized nor given importance to. They try to reduce instrumental use and form caring organizations which will be rewarded in terms of trust among the management, co-workers and employees.[9] The sixth point of difference lies in the fact that Western Economists believe that bigger is better and more is more whereas Buddhist Economists believe that small is beautiful and less is more.[9] The seventh point of difference is that Western economics gives importance to gross national product whereas Buddhist economics gives importance to gross national happiness.[10] [edit] Other beliefs Buddhist Economists believe that as long as work is considered a disutility for labourers and labourers a necessary evil for employers, true potential of the labourers and employers cannot be achieved. In such a situation, employees will always prefer income without employment and employers will always prefer output without employees. They feel that if the nature of work is truly appreciated and applied, it will be as important to the brain as food is to the body.It will nourish man and motivate him to do his best. According to them, goods should not be considered more important than people and consumption more important than creative activity. They feel that as a result of this, the focus shifts from the worker to the product of the work, the human to the subhuman, which is wrong.[3] According to them, people are unable to feel liberated not because of wealth but because of their attachment to wealth. In the same way, they say that it is the craving for pleasurable baubles and not the enjoyment from them that holds humans back.[3] Buddhist Economists do not believe in measuring the standard of living by the amount of consumption because according to them, obtaining maximum well being as a result of minimum consumption is more important than obtaining maximum well being from maximum consumption. Thus, they feel that the concept of being 'better off' because of greater levels of consumption is not a true measure of happiness.[3] From the point of view of a Buddhist economist, the most rational way of economic life is being self sufficient and producing local resources for local needs and depending on imports and exports is uneconomic and justifiable only in a few cases and on a small scale. Thus, they believe in economic development, independent of foreign aid.[3] Buddhist Economics also gives importance to natural, renewable and non-renewable resources. They feel that non renewable resources should only be used when most needed and then also with utmost care, meticulously planning out its use. They believe that using them extravagantly is violent and not in keeping with the Buddhist belief of non violence. According to them, if the entire population relies on non renewable resources for their existence, they are behaving parasitically, preying on capital goods instead of income. Adding to this, they feel that this uneven distribution and ever increasing exploitation of natural resources will lead to violence between man.[3] They also believe that satisfaction need not necessarily be felt only when something tangible is got back in return for giving something or something material is gained, as stated in modern economics. They say that the feeling of satisfaction can be achieved even when we part with something without getting anything tangible in return. An example is when we give presents to our loved one's just because we want them to be happy.[2] Buddhist Economists believe that production is a very misleading term. According to them, to produce something new, the old form has to be destroyed. Therefore, production and consumption become complimentary to each other. Taking this into consideration, they advocate non-production is certain cases because when you produce lesser of materialistic things, you reduce exploitation of the world's resources and lead the life of a responsible and aware citizen.[2] [edit] The Middle Way of living: A model Let: w - well-being. n - consumption m - meditation. The simple relationship formed using these three variables is w=w(n,m)........(I) Procuring these consumption goods take time because the labour involved in producing them require time and money. Now: Suppose this time required is t. Therefore, n=n(t) ............. (II) Putting equation (II) in equation (I), We get: w=w(n(t), m).................... (III) The concept of the "Middle Way" says that time should be divided between working towards consumption and meditation and the optimal allocation between these two activities will be when some meditation is utilized to lower the desire for consumption and to be satisfied with lesser consumption and the work that it involves.[9] In economic terms this means “the marginal productivity of labour utilized in producing consumption goods is equal to the marginal effectiveness of the meditation involved in economizing on consumption without Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr.[1] It is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better". First published in 1973, Small Is Beautiful brought Schumacher's critiques of Western economics to a wider audience during the 1973 energy crisis and emergence of globalization. The Times Literary Supplement ranked Small Is Beautiful among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.[2] A further edition with commentaries was published in 1999.[3] Small Is Beautiful received the prestigious award Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon in 1976. Contents [hide] 1 Author 2 Content 3 Quotes 4 See also 5 References 6 External links [edit] Author Schumacher was a respected economist who worked with John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, and for twenty years as the Chief Economic Advisor to the National Coal Board in the United Kingdom. He was opposed to the tenets of neo-classical economics, declaring that single-minded concentration on output and technology was dehumanizing. He held that one's workplace should be dignified and meaningful first, efficient second, and that nature (like its natural resources) is priceless. Schumacher proposed the idea of "smallness within bigness": a specific form of decentralization. For a large organization to work, according to Schumacher, it must behave like a related group of small organizations. Schumacher's work coincided with the growth of ecological concerns and with the birth of environmentalism and he became a hero to many in the environmental movement. [edit] Content The book is divided into four parts: "The Modern World," "Resources," "The Third World," and "Organization and Ownership." In the first chapter, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable. Natural resources (like fossil fuels), are treated as expendable income, when in fact they should be treated as capital, since they are not renewable, and thus subject to eventual depletion. He further argues that nature's resistance to pollution is limited as well. He concludes that government effort must be concentrated on sustainable development, because relatively minor improvements, for example, technology transfer to Third World countries, will not solve the underlying problem of an unsustainable economy. Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness," appreciating both human needs, limitations and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed "Buddhist economics," which is the subject of the book's fourth chapter. He faults conventional economic thinking for failing to consider the most appropriate scale for an activity, blasts notions that "growth is good," and that "bigger is better," and questions the appropriateness of using mass production in developing countries, promoting instead "production by the masses." Schumacher was one of the first economists to question the appropriateness of using gross national product to measure human well being, emphasizing that "the aim ought to be to obtain the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption." [edit] Quotes Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.... The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity. It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man's work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products. The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed. Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful. The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want.[1][2] Although asceticism generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury and indulgence, not all proponents of simple living are ascetics.[3] Simple living is distinct from those living in forced poverty, as it is a voluntary lifestyle choice. Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality, health, increase in 'quality time' for family and friends, personal taste, frugality, or reducing personal ecological footprint and stress. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism and conspicuous consumption. Some cite socio-political goals aligned with the anti-consumerist movement, including conservation, degrowth, social justice, ethnic diversity and sustainable development. Whilst others choose simple living to resist taxes, as their conscience will not allow them to fund war.[4] Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Religious and spiritual 1.2 Secular 2 Practices 2.1 Reducing income, consumption and possessions 2.2 Increasing self-sufficiency 2.3 Reconsidering technology 2.4 Simplifying diet 3 Politics 4 Economics 5 See also 6 Notes and references 7 Further reading 8 External links [edit] History [edit] Religious and spiritual The Amish are known for their simple living and plain dress. The recorded history of voluntary simplicity, often associated with asceticism, begins with the Shramana traditions of Iron Age India. Buddha and biblical Nazarites (notably John the Baptist) were early ascetics. Various notable individuals have claimed that spiritual inspiration led them to a simple living lifestyle, such as Francis of Assisi, Ammon Hennacy, Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore, Albert Schweitzer, and Mohandas Gandhi.[5][6] Simple living has traditions that stretch back to the Orient, resonating with leaders such as Zarathustra, Buddha, Laozi, and Confucius and was heavily stressed in both Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian ethics.[6] Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek cynic who advocated extreme voluntary poverty and purportedly lived in a barrel in the agora. Epicureanism, based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.[7] Plain people are Christian groups who have for centuries practiced lifestyles in which some forms of wealth or technology are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons. Groups include the Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, Harmony Society, and some Quakers. There is a Quaker belief called Testimony of Simplicity that a person ought to live her or his life simply. Jean-Jacques Rousseau strongly praised the simple life in many of his writings, especially in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) and Discourse on Inequality (1754).[8] [edit] Secular Henry David Thoreau's cabin on the shores of Walden Pond. Henry David Thoreau, a North American naturalist and author, is often considered to have made the classic secular statement advocating a life of simple and sustainable living in his book Walden (1854). Thoreau conducted a two year experiment living a plain and simple life on the shores of Walden Pond. In Victorian Britain, Henry Stephens Salt, an admirer of Thoreau, popularised the idea of "Simplification, the saner method of living".[9] Other British advocates of the simple life included Edward Carpenter, William Morris, and the members of "The Fellowship of the New Life".[10] C.R. Ashbee and his followers also practiced some of these ideas, thus linking simplicity with the Arts and Crafts Movement.[11] British novelist John Cowper Powys advocated the simple life in his 1933 book A Philosophy of Solitude.[12] John Middleton Murry and Max Plowman practised a simple lifestyle at their Aldephi Centre in Essex in the 1930s.[13] Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh championed a "right simplicity" philosophy based on ruralism in some of his work.[14] George Lorenzo Noyes, a naturalist, mineralogist, development critic, writer, and artist, is known as the Thoreau of Maine. He lived a wilderness lifestyle, advocating through his creative work a simple life and reverence for nature. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Vanderbilt Agrarians of the Southern United States advocated a lifestyle and culture centered upon traditional and sustainable agrarian values as opposed to the progressive urban industrialism which dominated the Western world at that time. Thorstein Veblen warned against the conspicuous consumption of the materialistic society with The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899); Richard Gregg coined the term "voluntary simplicity" in The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (1936). From the 1920s, a number of modern authors articulated both the theory and practice of living simply, among them Gandhian Richard Gregg, economists Ralph Borsodi and Scott Nearing, anthropologist-poet Gary Snyder, and utopian fiction writer Ernest Callenbach. E. F. Schumacher argued against the notion that "bigger is better" in Small Is Beautiful (1973); and Duane Elgin continued the promotion of the simple life in Voluntary simplicity (1981). [edit] Practices [edit] Reducing income, consumption and possessions Some people practice simple living by reducing consumption. By lowering expenditure on goods or services, it is possible to reduce income and the time spent earning money. The time saved may be used to help family or others. For example during the Christmas and holiday season, some people often perform alternative giving. Others may spend the extra free time to improve their quality of life, for example pursuing creative activities such as art and crafts (see starving artist). Another approach is to focus more fundamentally on the underlying motivation of buying and consuming so many resources for a good quality of life.[citation needed] Though our society often seeks to buy happiness, materialism very frequently fails to satisfy, and may even increase the level of stress in life. It has been said that "the making of money and the accumulation of things should not smother the purity of the soul, the life of the mind, the cohesion of the family, or the good of the society."[15] There are eco-anarchist groups in the United States and Canada today promoting lifestyles of simplicity. Simple living can entail only consuming the resources needed to sustain life. The grassroots awareness campaign, National Downshifting Week (UK)[16] (founded 1995) encourages participants to positively embrace living with less. Campaign creator, British writer and broadcaster on downshifting and sustainable living, Tracey Smith says, "The more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you have to spend with the ones you love". National Downshifting Week encourages participants to 'Slow Down and Green Up' and contains a list of suggestions for individuals, companies, children and schools to help adopt green or eco-friendly policies and habits, develop corporate social and environmental responsibility in the workplace, and create eco-protocols and lessons that work alongside the national curriculum, respectively. Reducing possessions can also form part of simple living. The 100 Thing Challenge is a grassroots movement to whittle down possessions to a mere 100 items, with the aim of decluttering and simplifying people's lives.[17] [edit] Increasing self-sufficiency Robert Hart's forest garden in Shropshire, England. One way to simplify life is to get back-to-the-land and grow your own food, as increased self-sufficiency reduces dependency on money and the economy. Tom Hodgkinson believes the key to a free and simple life is to stop consuming and start producing.[18] Forest gardening, developed by simple living adherent Robert Hart, is a low-maintenance food production system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables.[19] Hart created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m²) orchard on his farm at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire.[20] The idea of food miles, the number of miles a given item of food or its ingredients has travelled between the farm and the table, is used by simple living advocates to argue for locally grown food. This is now gaining mainstream acceptance, as shown by the popularity of books such as The 100-Mile Diet, and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. In each of these cases, the authors devoted a year to reducing their carbon footprint by eating locally.[21] City dwellers can also produce fresh home grown fruit and vegetables in pot gardens or miniature indoor greenhouses. Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, strawberries, and several types of herbs can all thrive in pots. Jim Merkel says that a person "could sprout seeds. They are tasty, incredibly nutritious, and easy to grow... We grow them in wide mouthed mason jars with a square of nylon window screen screwed under a metal ring".[22] One argument against gardening at home is how often people begin a garden and later stop it. Farmer Matt Moore spoke on this issue: "How does it affect the consumer to know that broccoli takes 105 days to grow a head?," [...] "The supermarket mode is one of plenty — it's always stocked. And that changes our sense of time. How long it takes to grow food — that's removed in the marketplace. They don't want you to think about how long it takes to grow, because they want you to buy right now".[23] One way to change this viewpoint is also suggested by Mr. Moore. He placed a video installation in the produce section of a grocery store that documented the length of time it took to grow certain vegetables.[23] This raises awareness in people of the length of time actually needed for gardens and could easily be combined with online lectures to help new gardeners. The do it yourself ethic refers to the principle of undertaking necessary tasks oneself rather than having others, who are more skilled or experienced, complete them for you. [edit] Reconsidering technology Although simple living is often a secular pursuit, it may still involve reconsidering personal definitions of appropriate technology, as Anabaptist groups such as the Amish or Mennonites have done. People who eschew modern technology are often referred to as Luddites or Neo-Luddism adherents.[24] People who practice simple living have diverse views on the role of technology. Some simple living adherents, such as Kirkpatrick Sale, are strong critics of modern technology,[24] while others see the Internet as a key component of simple living in the future, including the reduction of an individual's carbon footprint through telecommuting and less reliance on paper. Simple living may include high-tech components—indeed computers, Internet, photovoltaic arrays, wind and water turbines, and a variety of other cutting-edge technologies can be used to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable. Advertising is criticised for encouraging a consumerist mentality. Many advocates of simple living tend to agree that cutting out, or cutting down on, television viewing is a key ingredient in simple living. Some see the Internet, podcasting, community radio or pirate radio as viable alternatives.[citation needed] [edit] Simplifying diet Another practice is the adoption of a simplified diet. Diets that may simplify domestic food production and consumption include vegan diets and the Gandhi diet. In the United Kingdom, the Movement for Compassionate Living was formed by Kathleen and Jack Jannaway in 1984, to spread the vegan message and promote simple living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploitation of humans, animals, and the Earth. [edit] Politics Many Green Parties often advocate simple living as a consequence of their "four pillars" or the "Ten Key Values" of the United States Green Party. This includes, in policy terms, their rejection of genetic modification and nuclear power and other technologies they consider to be hazardous. The Greens' support for simplicity is based on the reduction in natural resource usage and environmental impact. This concept is expressed in Ernest Callenbach's "green triangle" of ecology, frugality and health. Many with similar views avoid involvement even with green politics as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of green anarchism that attempt to implement these principles at a smaller scale, e.g. the ecovillage. The alleged relationship between economic growth and war, when fought for control and exploitation of natural and human resources, is considered a good reason for promoting a simple living lifestyle. Avoiding the perpetuation of the resource curse is a similar objective of many simple living adherents. Opposition to war has led some to a form of tax resistance in which they reduce their tax liability by taking up a simple living lifestyle.[4][25] [edit] Economics A new economics movement has been building since the UN conference on the environment in 1972,[26] and the publication that year of Only One Earth, The Limits to Growth, and Blueprint For Survival, followed in 1973 by Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered.[27] Recently, David Wann has introduced the idea of “simple prosperity” as it applies to a sustainable lifestyle. From his point of view, and as a point of departure for what he calls real sustainability, “it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: what is the point of all our commuting and consuming? What is the economy for? And, finally, why do we seem to be unhappier now than when we began our initial pursuit for rich abundance?”[28] In this context, simple living is the opposite of our modern quest for affluence and, as a result, it becomes less preoccupied with quantity and more concerned about the preservation of cities, traditions and nature. A reference point for this new economics can be found in James Robertson's A New Economics of Sustainable Development,[27] and the work of thinkers and activists, who participate in his Working for a Sane Alternative network and program. According to Robertson, the shift to sustainability is likely to require a widespread shift of emphasis from raising incomes to reducing costs. The principles of the new economics, as set out by Robertson, are the following: systematic empowerment of people (as opposed to making and keeping them dependent), as the basis for people-centred development systematic conservation of resources and the environment, as the basis for environmentally sustainable development evolution from a “wealth of nations” model of economic life to a one-world model, and from today's inter-national economy to an ecologically sustainable, decentralising, multi-level one-world economic system restoration of political and ethical factors to a central place in economic life and thought respect for qualitative values, not just quantitative values Appropriate technology is an ideological movement (and its manifestations) originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr. Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his influential work, Small is Beautiful. Though the nuances of appropriate technology vary between fields and applications, it is generally recognized as encompassing technological choice and application that is small scale, labor intensive, energy efficient, environmentally sound and locally controlled.[1] Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people centered.[2] Appropriate technology is most commonly discussed in its relationship to economic development and as an alternative to transfers of capital-intensive technology from industrialized nations to developing countries.[2][3] However, appropriate technology movements can be found in both developing and developed countries. In developed countries, the appropriate technology movement grew out of the energy crisis of the 1970s and focuses mainly on environmental and sustainability issues.[4] Appropriate technology has been used to address issues in a wide range of fields. Well-known examples of appropriate technology applications include: bike- and hand-powered water pumps (and other self-powered equipment), the universal nut sheller, self-contained solar-powered light bulbs and streetlights, and passive solar building designs. Today appropriate technology is often developed using open source principles, which have led to open-source appropriate technology (OSAT) and thus many of the plans of the technology can be freely found on the Internet.[5] Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 History 1.1.1 Predecessors 1.1.2 E.F. Schumacher 1.1.3 Growing Trend 1.1.4 Decline 1.2 Terminology 1.3 Appropriate technology practitioners 1.4 Appropriate Technology and Development 1.5 Appropriate technology in developed countries 2 Applications 2.1 Building and Construction 2.2 Agriculture 2.3 Water and Sanitation 2.3.1 Water 2.3.2 Sanitation 2.4 Energy Generation and Uses 2.5 Transportation 2.6 Health Care 2.7 Food Preparation and Storage 2.8 Information and Communication Technologies 2.9 Finance 3 Determining a sustainable approach 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links [edit] Background [edit] History [edit] Predecessors Indian ideological leader Mahatma Gandhi is often cited as the "father" of the appropriate technology movement. Though the concept had not been given a name, Gandhi advocated for small, local and predominantly village-based technology to help India's villages become self reliant. He disagreed with the idea of technology that benefited a minority of people at the expense of the majority or that put people out of work to increase profit.[2] In 1925 Gandhi founded the All-India Spinners Association and in 1935 he retired from politics to form the All-India Village Industries Association both organizations focused on village-based technology similar to the future appropriate technology movement.[6] China also implemented policies similar to appropriate technology during the reign of Mao Tse-tung and the following Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, development policies based on the idea of "walking on two legs" advocated the development of both large-scale factories and small-scale village industries.[2] [edit] E.F. Schumacher Despite these early examples, Dr. Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher is credited as the founder of the appropriate technology movement. A well-known economist, Schumacher worked for the British National Coal Board for more than 20 years, where he blamed the size of the industry's operations for its uncaring response to the harm black-lung disease inflicted on the miners.[2] However it was his work with developing countries, such as India and Burma, that helped Schumacher form the underlying principles of appropriate technology. Schumacher first articulated the idea of "intermediate technology," now known as appropriate technology, in a 1962 report to the Indian Planning Commission in which he described India as long in labor and short in capital, calling for an "intermediate industrial technology"[7] that harnessed India's labor surplus. Schumacher had been developing the idea of intermediate technology for several years prior to the Planning Commission report. In 1955, following a stint as an economic advisor to the government of Burma, he published the short paper "Economics in a Buddhist Country," his first known critique of the effects of Western economics on developing countries.[7] In addition to Buddhism, Schumacher also credited his ideas to Gandhi. Initially, Schumacher's ideas were rejected by both the Indian government and leading development economists. Spurred to action over concern the idea of intermediate technology would languish, Schumacher, George McRobie, Mansur Hoda[8] and Julia Porter brought together a group of approximately 20 people to form the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in May 1965. Later that year, a Schumacher article published in the Observer garnered significant attention and support for the group. In 1967, the group published the Tools for Progress: A Guide to Small-scale Equipment for Rural Development and sold 7,000 copies. ITDG also formed panels of experts and practitioners around specific technological needs (such as building construction, energy and water) to develop intermediate technologies to address those needs.[7] At a conference hosted by the ITDG in 1968 the term "intermediate technology" was discarded in favor of the term "appropriate technology" used today. Intermediate technology had been criticized as suggesting the technology was inferior to advanced (or high) technology and not including the social and political factors included in the concept put forth by the proponents.[2] In 1973, Schumacher described the concept of appropriate technology to a mass audience in his influential work, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. [edit] Growing Trend The Universal Nut Sheller in use in Uganda, an example of appropriate technology Between 1966 and 1975 the number of new appropriate technology organizations founded each year was three times higher than the previous nine years. There was also an increase in organizations focusing on applying appropriate technology to the problems of industrialized nations, particularly issues related to energy and the environment.[9] In 1977, the OECD identified in its Appropriate Technology Directory 680 organizations involved in the development and promotion of appropriate technology. By 1980, this number had grown to more than 1,000. International agencies and government departments were also emerging as major innovators in appropriate technology, indicating its progression from a small movement fighting against the established norms to a legitimate technological choice supported by the establishment. For example, the Inter-American Development Bank created a Committee for the Application of Intermediate Technology in 1976 and the World Health Organization established the Appropriate Technology for Health Program in 1977.[9] Appropriate technology was also increasingly applied in developed countries. For example, the energy crisis of the mid-1970s led to the creation of the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) in 1977 with an initial appropriation of $3 million from the U.S. Congress. The Center sponsored appropriate technology demonstrations to "help low-income communities find better ways to do things that will improve the quality of life, and that will be doable with the skills and resources at hand." However, by 1981 the NCAT's funding agency, Community Services Administration, had been abolished. For several decades NCAT worked with the US departments of Energy and Agriculture on contract to develop appropriate technology programs. Since 2005, NCAT's informational web site is no longer funded by the US government.[10] [edit] Decline In more recent years, the appropriate technology movement has continued to decline in prominence. Germany's German Appropriate Technology Exchange (GATE) and Holland's Technology Transfer for Development (TOOL) are examples of organizations no longer in operation. Recently, a study looked at the continued barriers to AT deployment despite the relatively low cost of transferring information in the internet age. The barriers have been identified as: i) AT seen as inferior or “poor person's” technology, ii) technical transferability and robustness of AT, iii) insufficient funding, iv) weak institutional support, and v) the challenges of distance and time in tackling rural poverty. [11] A more free market-centric view has also begun to dominate the field. For example, Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises (an organization that designs and manufactures products that follow the ideals of appropriate technology), declared appropriate technology dead in a 2010 blog post.[12] Polak argues the "design for the other 90 percent" movement has replaced appropriate technology. Growing out of the appropriate technology movement, designing for the other 90 percent advocates the creation of low-cost solutions for the 5.8 billion of the world's 6.8 billion population "who have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted."[13] Many of the ideas integral to appropriate technology can now be found in the increasingly popular "sustainable development" movement, which among many tenants advocates technological choice that meets human needs while preserving the environment for future generations.[14] In 1983, the OECD published the results of an extensive survey of appropriate technology organizations titled, The World of Appropriate Technology, in which it defined appropriate technology as characterized by "low investment cost per work-place, low capital investment per unit of output, organizational simplicity, high adaptability to a particular social or cultural environment, sparing use of natural resources, low cost of final product or high potential for employment."[9] Today, the OECD web site redirects from the "Glossary of Statistical Terms" entry on "appropriate technology" to "environmentally sound technologies."[15] The United Nations' "Index to Economic and Social Development" also redirects from the "appropriate technology" entry to "sustainable development."[16] Despite the decline, several appropriate technology organizations are still existence, including the ITDG which became Practical Action after a name change in 2005.[17] [edit] Terminology Appropriate technology frequently serves as an umbrella term for a variety names for this type of technology. Frequently these terms are used interchangeably; however, the use of one term over another can indicate the specific focus, bias or agenda of the technological choice in question. Though the original name for the concept now known as appropriate technology, "intermediate technology" is now often considered a subset of appropriate technology that focuses on technology that is more productive than "inefficient" traditional technologies, but less costly than the technology of industrialized societies.[18] Other types of technology under the appropriate technology umbrella include: Capital-saving Technology Labor-intensive Technology Alternate Technology Self-help Technology Village-level Technology Community Technology Progressive Technology Indigenous Technology People’s Technology Light-engineering Technology Adaptive Technology Light-capital Technology Soft Technology A variety of competing definitions exist in academic literature and organization and government policy papers for each of these terms.[9][18][19] However, the general consensus is appropriate technology encompasses the ideas represented by the above list. Furthermore, the use of one term over another in referring to an appropriate technology can indicate ideological bias or emphasis on particular economic or social variables. Some terms inherently emphasize the importance of increased employment and labor utilization (such as labor-intensive or capital-saving technology), while others may emphasize the importance of human development (such as self-help and people's technology).[18] It is also possible to distinguish between hard and soft technologies. According to Dr. Maurice Albertson and Audrey Faulkner, appropriate hard technology is “engineering techniques, physical structures, and machinery that meet a need defined by a community, and utilize the material at hand or readily available. It can be built, operated and maintained by the local people with very limited outside assistance (e.g., technical, material, or financial). it is usually related to an economic goal.”[20] Albertson and Faulkner consider appropriate soft technology as technology that deals with “the social structures, human interactive processes, and motivation techniques. It is the structure and process for social participation and action by individuals and groups in analyzing situations, making choices and engaging in choice-implementing behaviors that bring about change.”[21] [edit] Appropriate technology practitioners Some of the well known practitioners of the appropriate technology-sector include: M K Ghosh, B.V. Doshi,[22] Buckminster Fuller, William Moyer (1933–2002), Amory Lovins, Sanoussi Diakité, Victor Papanek, Johan Van Lengen, Frithjof Bergmann, Arne Næss (1912–2009) and Mansur Hoda.[8] [edit] Appropriate Technology and Development Schumacher's initial concept of intermediate technology was created as a critique of the currently prevailing development strategies which focused on maximizing aggregate economic growth through increases to overall measurements of a country's economy, such as gross domestic product (GDP).[19] Developed countries became aware of the situation of developing countries during and in the years following World War II. Based on the continuing rise in income levels in Western countries since the Industrial Revolution, developed countries embarked on a campaign of massive transfers of capital and technology to developing countries in order to force a rapid industrialization intended to result in an economic "take-off" in the developing countries.[19][23] However, by the late 1960s it was becoming clear this development method had not worked as expected and a growing number of development experts and national policy makers were recognizing it as a potential cause of increasing poverty and income inequality in developing countries.[24] In many countries, this influx of technology had increased the overall economic capacity of the country. However, it had created a dual or two-tiered economy with pronounced division between the classes. The foreign technology imports were only benefiting a small minority of urban elites. This was also increasing urbanization with the rural poor moving to urban cities in hope of more financial opportunities. The increased strain on urban infrastructures and public services led to "increasing squalor, severe impacts on public health and distortions in the social structure."[18] Appropriate technology was meant to address four problems: extreme poverty, starvation, unemployment and urban migration. Schumacher saw the main purpose for economic development programs was the eradication of extreme poverty and he saw a clear connection between mass unemployment and extreme poverty. Schumacher sought to shift development efforts from a bias towards urban areas and on increasing the output per laborer to focusing on rural areas (where a majority of the population still lived) and on increasing employment.[25] [edit] Appropriate technology in developed countries The term appropriate technology is also used in developed nations to describe the use of technology and engineering that results in less negative impacts on the environment and society.[26] E. F. Schumacher asserts that such technology, described in the book Small is Beautiful[27] tends to promote values such as health, beauty and permanence, in that order. Often the type of appropriate technology that is used in developed countries is "Appropriate and Sustainable Technology" (AST); or appropriate technology that, besides being functional and relatively cheap (though often more expensive than true AT), is also very durable and lasts a long time (AT does not include this; see Sustainable design).[28][29] [edit] Applications [edit] Building and Construction In order to increase the efficiency of a great number of city services (efficient water provisioning, efficient electricity provisioning, easy traffic flow, water drainage, decreased spread of disease with epidemics, ...), the city itself must first be built correctly. In the developing world, many cities are expanding rapidly and new ones are being built. Looking into the cities design in advance is a must for every developing nation. Further information: Autonomous building and Earthship Adobe (including the variation called Super Adobe), Rammed earth, Compressed earth block, Dutch brick, Animal products, Cob and/or other green building materials could be considered appropriate earth building technology for much of the developing world, as they make use of materials which are widely available locally and are thus relatively inexpensive. The local context must be considered as, for example, mudbrick may not be durable in a high rainfall area (although a large roof overhang and cement stabilisation can be used to correct for this), and, if the materials are not readily available, the method may be inappropriate. Other forms of natural building may be considered appropriate technology, though in many cases the emphasis is on sustainability and self-sufficiency rather than affordability or suitability. As such, many buildings are also built to function as autonomous buildings (e.g. earthships, ...). One example of an organisation that applies appropriate earthbuilding techniques would be Builders Without Borders. The building structure must also be considered. Cost-effectiveness is an important issue in projects based around appropriate technology, and one of the most efficient designs herein is the public housing approach. This approach lets everyone have their own sleeping/recreation space, yet incorporate communal spaces e.g. mess halls, Latrines, public showers, ... In addition, to decrease costs of operation (heating, cooling, ...) techniques as Earth sheltering, Trombe walls, ... are often incorporated. Organizations as Architecture for Humanity also follows principles consistent with appropriate technology, aiming to serve the needs of poor and disaster-affected people. Chunche, naturally ventilated sheds for drying raisins in Xinjiang Natural ventilation can be created by providing vents in the upper level of a building to allow warm air to rise by convection and escape to the outside, while cooler air is drawn in through vents at the lower level. Electrical powered fans (e.g. ceiling fans) allow efficient cooling, at a far lower electricity consumption as airconditioning systems. A solar chimney often referred to as thermal chimney improves this natural ventilation by using convection of air heated by passive solar energy. To further maximize the cooling effect, the incoming air may be led through underground ducts before it is allowed to enter the building. A windcatcher (Badgir; بادگیر) is a traditional Persian architectural device used for many centuries to create natural ventilation in buildings. It is not known who first invented the windcatcher, but it still can be seen in many countries today. Windcatchers come in various designs, such as the uni-directional, bi-directional, and multi-directional. A passive down-draft cooltower may be used in a hot, arid climate to provide a sustainable way to provide air conditioning. Water is allowed to evaporate at the top of a tower, either by using evaporative cooling pads or by spraying water. Evaporation cools the incoming air, causing a downdraft of cool air that will bring down the temperature inside the building. [edit] Agriculture Appropriate technology has been applied extensively to improve agricultural production in developing countries. [edit] Water and Sanitation [edit] Water Further information: drinking water Hand-operated, reciprocating, positive displacement, water pump in Košice-Tahanovce, Slovakia (walking beam pump). As of 2006, waterborne diseases are estimated to cause 1.8 million deaths each year while about 1.1 billion people lack proper drinking water.[30] Water generally needs treatment before use, depending on the source and the intended use (with high standards required for drinking water). The quality of water from household connections and community water points in low-income countries is not reliably safe for direct human consumption. Water extracted directly from surface waters and open hand-dug shallow wells nearly always requires treatment. Appropriate technology options in water treatment include both community-scale and household-scale point-of-use (POU) designs. The most reliable way to kill microbial pathogenic agents is to heat water to a rolling boil.[31] Other techniques, such as varying forms of filtration, chemical disinfection, and exposure to ultraviolet radiation (including solar UV) have been demonstrated in an array of randomized control trials to significantly reduce levels of waterborne disease among users in low-income countries. Over the past decade, an increasing number of field-based studies have been undertaken to determine the success of POU measures in reducing waterborne disease. The ability of POU options to reduce disease is a function of both their ability to remove microbial pathogens if properly applied and such social factors as ease of use and cultural appropriateness. Technologies may generate more (or less) health benefit than their lab-based microbial removal performance would suggest. The current priority of the proponents of POU treatment is to reach large numbers of low-income households on a sustainable basis. Few POU measures have reached significant scale thus far, but efforts to promote and commercially distribute these products to the world's poor have only been under way for a few years. On the other hand, small-scale water treatment is reaching increasing fractions of the population in low-income countries, particularly in South and Southeast Asia, in the form of water treatment kiosks (also known as water refill stations or packaged water producers). While quality control and quality assurance in such locations may be variable, sophisticated technology (such as multi-stage particle filtration, UV irradiation, ozonation, and membrane filtration) is applied with increasing frequency. Such microenterprises are able to vend water at extremely low prices, with increasing government regulation. Initial assessments of vended water quality are encouraging. Whether applied at the household or community level, some examples of specific treatment processes include: Porous ceramic filtration, using either clay or diatomaceous earth, and oriented as either cylinder, pot, or disk, with gravity-fed or siphon-driven delivery systems. Silver is frequently added to provide antimicrobial enhancement Intermittently operated slow-sand filtration, also known as biosand filtration Chlorine disinfection, employing calcium hypochlorite powder, sodium hypochlorite solution, or sodium dichloroisocyanurate (NaDCC) tablets Chemical flocculation, using either commercially produced iron or aluminum salts or the crushed seeds of certain plants, such as Moringa oleifera Mixed flocculation/disinfection using commercially produced powdered mixtures Irradiation with ultraviolet light, whether using electric-powered lamps or direct solar exposure membrane filtration, employing ultrafiltration or reverse osmosis filter elements preceded by pretreatment Some appropriate technology water supply measures include: Deep wells with submersible pumps in areas where the groundwater (aquifers) are located at depths >10 m. Shallow wells with lined walls and covers. rainwater harvesting systems with an appropriate method of storage, especially in areas with significant dry seasons. Fog collection, which is suitable for areas which experience fog even when there is little rain. Air well, a structure or device designed to promote the condensation of atmospheric moisture. Handpumps and treadle pumps are generally only an option in areas is located at a relatively shallow depth (e.g. 10 m). The Flexi-Pipe Pump is a notable exception to this (up to 25 meter). For most deeper aquifers (<10 m), submersible pumps placed inside a well) are used. Treadle pumps for household irrigation are now being distributed on a widespread basis in developing countries. The principle of Village Level Operation and Maintenance is important with handpumps, but may be difficult in application. Condensation bags and condensation pits can be an appropriate technology to get water, yet yields are low and are (for the amount of water obtained), labour intensive. Still, it may be a good (very cheap) solution for certain desperate communities. The hippo water roller and Q-drum allow more water to be carried, with less effort and could thus be a good alternative for ethnic communities who do not wish to give up water gathering from remote locations, assuming low topographic relief. The roundabout playpump, developed and used in southern Africa, harnesses the energy of children at play to pump water. [edit] Sanitation Further information: Greywater treatment Further information: Water purification A clivus Multrum composting toilet A. Second floor, B. First floor, C. Ground floor, 1. Humus compartment, 2. Ventilation pipe, 3. Water closet. As of 2006, waterborne diseases are estimated to cause 1.8 million deaths each year, marking the importance of proper sanitation systems. It is clear that the developing world is heavily lacking in proper public sanitation and that solutions as sewerages (or alternatively small-scale treatment systems) need to be provided.[32] Ecological sanitation can be viewed as a three-step process dealing with human excreta: (1) Containment, (2) Sanitization, (3) Recycling. The objective is to protect human health and the environment while limiting the use of water in sanitation systems for hand (and anal) washing only and recycling nutrients to help reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers in agriculture. Small scale systems include: Composting toilets are the most environmental form of excrement disposal systems. In addition, the toilets design allows the nutrients to be reused (e.g. for fertilising food crops). Also, DIY composting toilets can be built at a very low cost. BiPu is a portable system suitable for disaster management, while other forms of latrine provide safe means of disposing of human waste at a low cost. The Orangi Pilot Project was designed based on an urban slum's sanitation crisis. Kamal Kar has documented the latrines developed by Bangladeshi villagers once they became aware of the health problems with open defecation. Treatment ponds and constructed wetlands can help to purify sewage and greywater. They consist mostly of plants (e.g. reed, ...) and therefore require only little power, and are hugely self-sufficient. The SanPlat is a simple sanitary platform that can easily be built from local materials, and enables latrines that are easy to clean and maintain.[33][34] Certain other options as Slow sand filters, UV filters, ... may also be employed [edit] Energy Generation and Uses Further information: Microgeneration and Remote-area power supply Small-scale (DIY) generation system The term soft energy technology was coined by Amory Lovins to describe "appropriate" renewable energy.[35] "Appropriate" energy technologies are especially suitable for isolated and/or small scale energy needs. Electricity can be provided from: Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, and (large) Concentrating solar power plants. PV solar panels made from Low-cost photovoltaic cells or PV-cells which have first been concentrated by a Luminescent solar concentrator-panel are also a good option. Especially companies as Solfocus make appropriate technology CSP plants which can be made from waste plastics polluting the surroundings (see above). Solar thermal collector wind power (home do-it yourself turbines and larger-scale) micro hydro, and pico hydro[36] human-powered handwheel generators[37] other zero emission generation methods Some intermediate technologies include: Biobutanol, biodiesel, and straight vegetable oil can be appropriate, direct biofuels in areas where vegetable oil is readily available and cheaper than fossil fuels. Anaerobic digestion power plants Biogas is another potential source of energy, particularly where there is an abundant supply of waste organic matter. A generator (running on biofuels) can be run more efficiently if combined with batteries and an inverter; this adds significantly to capital cost but reduces running cost, and can potentially make this a much cheaper option than the solar, wind and micro-hydro options. Feces (e.g. cow dung, human, etc.) can also be used. For example DEKA's Project Slingshot stirling electricity generator works this energy source to make electricity. Biochar is another similar energy source which can be obtained through charring of certain types of organic material (e.g. hazelnut shells, bamboo, chicken manure, ...) in a pyrolysis unit.[38] A similar energy source is terra preta nova. Finally, urine can also be used as a basis to generate hydrogen (which is an energy carrier). Using urine, hydrogen production is 332% more energy efficient than using water.[39][40] Electricity distribution could be improved so to make use of a more structured electricity line arrangement and universal AC power plugs and sockets (e.g. the CEE 7/7 plug). In addition, a universal system of electricity provisioning (e.g. universal voltage, frequency, ampère; e.g. 230 V with 50 Hz), as well as perhaps a better mains power system (e.g. through the use of special systems as perfected single wire earth returns; e.g. Tunisia's MALT-system, which features low costs and easy placement)[41][42] Electricity storage (which is required for autonomous energy systems) can be provided through appropriate technology solutions as deep-cycle and car-batteries (intermediate technology), long duration flywheels, electrochemical capacitors, compressed air energy storage (CAES), liquid nitrogen and pumped hydro.[43] Thanks to Daniel Nocera, and other hydrogen home station manufacturers, low-cost hydrogen storage is now also possible as a mid to short-term storage solution.[44][45][46] Many solutions for the developing world are sold as a single package, containing a (micro) electricity generation power plant and energy storage. Such packages are called remote-area power supply LED Lamp with GU10 twist lock fitting, intended to replace halogen reflector lamps. White LEDs and a source of renewable energy (such as solar cells) are used by the Light Up the World Foundation to provide lighting to poor people in remote areas, and provide significant benefits compared to the kerosene lamps which they replace. Certain other companies as Powerplus also have LED-flashlights with imbedded solar cells.[47] Organic LEDs made by roll-to-roll production are another source of cheap light that will be commercially available at low cost by 2015. Compact fluorescent lamps (as well as regular fluorescent lamps and LED-lightbulbs) can also be used as appropriate technology. Although they are less environmentally friendly then LED-lights, they are cheaper and still feature relative high efficiency (compared to incandescent lamps). The Safe bottle lamp is a safer kerosene lamp designed in Sri Lanka. Lamps as these allow relative long, mobile, lighting. The safety comes from a secure screw-on metal lid, and two flat sides which prevent it from rolling if knocked over. An alternative to fuel or oil-based lanterns is the Uday lantern, developed by Philips as part of its Lighting Africa project (sponsored by the World Bank Group).[48] The Faraday flashlight is a LED flashlight which operates on a capacitor. Recharging can be done by manual winching or by shaking, hereby avoiding the need of any supplementary electrical system. HID-lamps finally can be used for lighting operations where regular LED-lighting or other lamps will not suffice. Examples are car headlights. Due to their high efficiency, they are quite environmental, yet costly, and they still require polluting materials in their production process. [edit] Transportation A man uses a bicycle to cargo goods in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2007) Human powered-vehicles include the bicycle (and the future bamboo bicycle), which provides general-purpose transportation at lower costs compared to motorized vehicles, and many advantages over walking, and the whirlwind wheelchair, which provides mobility for disabled people who cannot afford the expensive wheelchairs used in developed countries. Animal powered vehicles/transport may also be another appropriate technology. Certain zero-emissions vehicles may be considered appropriate transportation technology, including compressed air cars, liquid nitrogen and hydrogen-powered vehicles. Also, vehicles with internal combustion engines may be converted to hydrogen or oxyhydrogen combustion. Bicycles can also be applied to commercial transport of goods to and from remote areas. An example of this is Karaba, a free-trade coffee co-op in Rwanda, which uses 400 modified bicycles to carry hundreds of pounds of coffee beans for processing.[49] Other projects for developing countries include the redesign of cycle rickshaws to convert them to electric power.[50][51] However recent reports suggest that these rickshaws are not plying on the roads.[52] [edit] Health Care According to the Global Health Council, rather than the use of professionally schooled doctors, the training of villagers to remedy most maladies in towns in the developing world is most appropriate.[53] Trained villagers are able to eliminate 80% of the health problems. Small (low-cost) hospitals - based on the model of the Jamkhed hospital – can remedy another 15%, while only 5% will need to go to a larger (more expensive) hospital. Before being able to determine the cause of the disease or malady, accurate diagnosis is required. This may be done manually (through observation, inquiries) and by specialised tools. Herbalist medicines (e.g. tinctures, tisanes, decoctions, ...) are appropriate medicines, as they can be freely made at home and are almost as effective as their chemical counterparts. A previous program that made use of herbal medicine was the Barefoot doctor program. A phase-change incubator, developed in the late 1990s, is a low cost way for health workers to incubate microbial samples. Birth control is also seen as an appropriate technology, especially now, because of increasing population numbers (overpopulating certain areas), increasing food prices and poverty. It has been proposed to a certain degree by PATH (program for appropriate technology in health).[54][55] Jaipur leg was developed by Dr. P. K. Sethi and Masterji Ram Chander in 1968 as an inexpensive prosthetic leg for victims of landmine explosions. Natural cleaning products can be used for personal hygiene and cleaning of clothing and eating utensils; in order to decrease illnesses/maladies (as they eliminate a great amount of pathogens). Note that many Appropriate Technologies benefit public health, in particular by providing sanitation and safe drinking water. Refrigeration may also provide a health benefit. (These are discussed in the following paragraphs.) This was too found at the Comprehensive Rural Health Project[56] and the Women Health Volunteers projects in countries as Iran, Iraq and Nepal.[57] [edit] Food Preparation and Storage Further information: Grow house Food production has often been included in autonomous building/community projects to provide security[citation needed]. Skilled, intensive gardening can support an adult from as little as 15 square meters of land[citation needed]. Some proven intensive, low-effort food-production systems include urban gardening (indoors and outdoors). Indoor cultivation may be set up using hydroponics with Grow lights, while outdoor cultivation may be done using permaculture, forest gardening, no-till farming, Do Nothing Farming, etc. In order to better control the irrigation outdoors, special irrigation systems may be created as well (although this increases costs, and may again open the door to cultivating non-indigenous plants; something which is best avoided). One such system for the developing world is discussed here.[58] Crop production tools are best kept simple (reduces operating difficulty, cost, replacement difficulties and pollution, when compared to motorized equipment). Tools can include scythes,[59] animal-pulled plows[60] (although no-till farming should be preferred),[61] dibbers, wheeled augers[62][63] (for planting large trees), kirpis, hoes, ... Greenhouses are also sometimes included (see Earthship Biotincture). Sometimes they are also fitted with irrigation systems, and/or heat sink-systems which can respectively irrigate the plants or help to store energy from the sun and redistribute it at night (when the greenhouse starts to cool down). According to proponents, Appropriate Technologies can greatly reduce the labor required to prepare food, compared to traditional methods, while being much simpler and cheaper than the processing used in Western countries. This reflects E.F. Schumacher's concept of "intermediate technology," i.e. technology which is significantly more effective and expensive than traditional methods, but still an order of magnitude (10 times) cheaper than developed world technology. Key examples are: the Malian peanut sheller the fonio husking machine the screenless hammer mill the ISF corn mill the ISF rice huller all other types of electrical or hand-operated kitchen equipment (grinders, cutters, ...) Special multifunctional kitchen robots that are able to perform several functions (e.g. grinding, cutting, and even vacuum cleaning and polishing) are able to reduce costs even more. Examples of these devices were e.g. the (now discontinued) Piccolo household appliance from Hammelmann Werke (previously based in Bad Kissingen.) It was equipped with a flexible axis, allowing a variety of aids to be screwed on.[64][65] In Ghana, Zouzugu villagers use solar cookers for preparing their meals Solar cookers are appropriate to some settings, depending on climate and cooking style. They are emission-less and very low-cost. Hybrid variants also exist that incorporate a second heating source such as electrical heating or wood-based. Hot plates are 100% electrical, fairly low cost (around 20€) and are mobile. They do however require an electrical system to be present in the area of operation. Rocket stoves and certain other woodstoves (e.g. Philips Woodstove[66]) improve fuel efficiency, and reduce harmful indoor air pollution. The stoves however still make use of wood. However, briquette makers can now turn organic waste into fuel, saving money and/or collection time, and preserving forests. Solar, special Einstein refrigerators and thermal mass refrigerators reduce the amount of electricity required. Also, solar and special Einstein refrigerators do not use haloalkanes (which play a key role in ozone depletion), but use heat pumps or mirrors instead. Solar refrigerators have been built for developing nations by Sopology.[67][68] The pot-in-pot refrigerator is an African invention which keeps things cool without electricity. It provides a way to keep food and produce fresh for much longer than would otherwise be possible. This can be a great benefit to the families who use the device. For example, it is claimed that girls who had to regularly sell fresh produce in the market can now go to school instead, as there is less urgency to sell the produce before it loses freshness.[69] [edit] Information and Communication Technologies See also: Information and Communication Technologies for Development Netbooks such as the Asus Eee PC accommodate low cost information sharing and communication The OLPC XO, Simputer, Asus Eee PC, and other low cost computers are computers aimed at developing countries. Besides the low price, other characteristics include resistance to dust, reliability and use of the target language. Eldis OnDisc and The Appropriate Technology Library are projects that use CDs and DVDs to give access to development information in areas without reliable and affordable internet access. The Wind-up radio and the computer and communication system planned by the Jhai Foundation are independent from power supply. There is also GrameenPhone, which fused mobile telephony with Grameen Bank's microfinance program to give Bangladeshi villagers access to communication. Mobile telephony is appropriate technology for many developing countries, as it greatly reduces the infrastructure required to achieve widespread coverage. However, mobile phone network may not always be available (it depends on the location) and may not always provide both voice and data services. Loband, a website developed by Aptivate, strips all the photographic and other bandwidth-intensive content from webpages and renders them as simple text, while otherwise allowing one to browse them normally. The site greatly increasing the speed of browsing, and is appropriate for use on low bandwidth connections as generally available in much of the developing world. An increasing number of activists provide free or very inexpensive web and email services using cooperative computer networks that run wireless ad hoc networks. Network service is provided by a cooperative of neighbors, each operating a router as a household appliance. These minimize wired infrastructure, and its costs and vulnerabilities. Private Internet protocol networks set up in this way can operate without the use of a commercial provider. Rural electrical grids can be wired with "optical phase cable", in which one or more of the steel armor wires are replaced with steel tubes containing fiber optics.[70] Satellite Internet access can provide high speed connectivity to remote locations, however these are significantly more expensive than wire-based or terrestrial wireless systems. Wimax and forms of packet radio can also be used. Depending on the speed and latency of these networks they may be capable of relaying VoIP traffic, negating the need for separate telephony services. Finally, the Internet Radio Linking Project provides potential for blending older (cheap) local radio broadcasting with the increased range of the internet. satellite-based telephone systems can also be used, as either fixed installations or portable handsets and can be integrated into a PABX or local IP-based network. [edit] Finance Through financial systems envisioned especially for the poor/developed world, many companies have been able to get started with only limited capital. Often banks lend the money to people wishing to start a business (such as with microfinance). In other systems, people for a Rotating Savings and Credit Association or ROSCA to purchase costly material together (such as Tontines and Susu accounts). Organisations, communities, cities or individuals can provide loans to other communities/cities (such as with the approach followed by Kiva, World Vision Microloans MicroPlace and LETS). Finally, in certain communities (usually isolated communities such as small islands or oases) everything of value is shared. This is called gift economy. [edit] Determining a sustainable approach Features such as low cost, low usage of fossil fuels and use of locally available resources can give some advantages in terms of sustainability. For that reason, these technologies are sometimes used and promoted by advocates of sustainability and alternative technology. Besides using natural, locally available resources (e.g. wood or adobe), waste materials imported from cities using conventional (and inefficient) waste management may be gathered and re-used to build a sustainable living environment. Use of these cities' waste material allows the gathering of a huge amount of building material at a low cost. When obtained, the materials may be recycled over and over in the own city/community, using the cradle to cradle design method. Locations where waste can be found include landfills, junkyards, on water surfaces and anywhere around towns or near highways. Organic waste that can be reused to fertilise plants can be found in sewages. Also, town districts and other places (e.g. cemeteries) that are subject of undergoing renovation or removal can be used for gathering materials as stone, concrete, or potassium. bringing about any change in satisfaction” “

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