If "small is beautiful," is micro marvellous?: a look at micro-computing as if people mattered

Abstract

E. F. Schumacher, in Small is Beautiful and his more recent work, has drawn attention to the role that technology plays in the shaping of our present society and to the need for technologies of smaller scale in the growth of a more humane society. He identifies the criteria of smallness, simplicity, capital cheapness, and non-violence as being particularly important. Micro-computer technology, which is the basis of computing systems for home and personal use, seems to satisfy these criteria in many respects, and so it potentially represents a technology appropriate for future general use.