Reading the October issue of The Sun the other day I came across an excerpt from E.F. Schumacher’s classic 1973 book Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered.

When comparing Buddhist economics with modern economics, Schumacher writes “The former, in short, tries to maximize human satisfactions by the optimal pattern of consumption, while the latter tries to maximize consumption by the optimal pattern of productive effort.”

Similarly, peer conferences try to maximize satisfaction by providing just the content and format that attendees request, rather than trying to offer everything in the context of a big impersonal event.

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