I'm reminded that, as an undergraduate student, I was deeply influenced by a book by E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. Schumacher was a British statistician and an influential socialist and economic thinker during the 1970s. He is best known for his plea for a human-scale and decentralized approach to economic development. The subtitle of his book tells it all: Economics as if People Really Mattered.
According to Schumacher, the most powerful actions we can take as individuals are small and personal ones. Help a disadvantaged youth through school. Start a village library. Plant trees. Until being reminded by Johnson's story, I hadn't given the book much thought in almost ten years. I aim to pick it up again when I get home.
It's ironic I should come back to Schumacher after all of these years. In my first attempt to apply to economic graduate programs, I made the (fatal) mistake of devoting my personal statement to Jane Jacobs and E.F. Schumacher--a radical urban planner, and a socialist.
Needless to say, I was roundly rejected from PhDs.
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