The author has found the true villain of the 20th century, and
it is a concept--bigness. The answer to such disparate questions as
why do we experience global wars, mass dictatorships, economic
tornadoes, a population explosion and a mounting resource
environment crisis lie, according to Papworth, far back in history.
They are the direct result, he attempts to show, of the forces
unleashed by the collapse in the 16th century of the laws against
usury. Having diagnosed this problem as stemming from this
destruction of the power of people to control their work, Papworth
goes on to propound a new politics which is the politics of Small
is Powerful--a new and hopeful approach to the problems of modern
politics which merits the careful consideration of every person
with any claim to political literacy.
The author asserts that the way forward is not bigger units of
government or, indeed, in any other units, but rather that all
units which represent power in whatever form should be reduced to a
size which makes them susceptible to genuine democratic citizen
control. Mass society must be dismantled, local communities must be
rebuilt in their stead, but above all people must take the power
back that they have lost to the Giant State. Giant States have
failed their inhabitants, Papworth contends, with records on human
rights, economic well-being, and on general stability inferior to
the records of the smaller nations of Europe. The way forward,
according to Small is Powerful, is to restore localized community
life, the extended family, the nuclear family, and thereby
civilization itself through deliberately empowering people through
neighborhood communities.
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