Economic Supplement 4

In the 1960’s, around the name Schumaker, there was concern for an intermediate technology to help the Third World develop. With plentiful labour forks might be better than tractors, especially as tractors need skilled repair. A slogan was ‘small is beautiful’.
At the same time, in the advanced world, the thing was ‘economies of scale’ augmented by technical progress. In those days if the battery in the car went flat you could crank it by hand. Now technical progress has made it inconceivable that the battery goes flat . . . so if it does, (when it does!) cranking is not a solution.
With modern technology most managers have the job of hoping it will work and calling on the experts if it does not. The chap working in the shop can’t do much if the credit card machine breaks down.
Lonergan sees that our technology needs to be efficient so that the world’s teeming millions are fed, but he also sees that there is a problem if our personal capacity is not developed. The Popes make the same point.
I suspect that technology around consumption again could be simplified. I recall a post war wireless which clearly indicated where you turned the dial to get the Light Service or the Third Service. To day I find myself pressing buttons in a random way and occasionally coming up with what I am looking for.
Today in the Chilterns one sees occasionally shepherdless sheep, the odd cow, a stray tractor – what one does not see is any degree of labour intensive agriculture. The fewness of farm workers makes for a lonely life I suspect. In the shops our food comes from the ends of the earth, is very wonderful (I am grateful) and costs a good deal.
I find myself wondering whether there is not scope for an intermediate technology here which involves man more in the way of labour which develops skills and adapts intelligently to problems.
I look after a small vineyard with 400 vines. There is a slow process of coming to understand the vine and the branches – grapes never grow from the main stem. There is the challenge of not using insecticide but keeping the vineyard clear of weeds – a challenge which meets my declining energy levels. There is, occasionally, the undeserved excellence of a good bottle of wine. I am developing and at times failing adequately to develop an intermediate technology. I find there is nothing I do, beyond disturbing about one mouse’s nest a year, that disrupts the ecology. I am free to combine prayer with labour. The task of regular physical labour is a matter of personal discipline and also, I think, understanding oneself.
In vineyards and in moving to intermediate technology – festina lente!