ABSTRACT
Modern technology has traditionally been seen as the driving force behind economic growth and prosperity. The appropriate technology idea became known in industrialized countries through E. F. Schumacher's seminal book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. "Appropriate technology" is a broad political-economic critique and proposal for a fundamental revision of the sociotechnical systems of industrialized nations. The technologies are environmentally destructive and ultimately destroy the affluent lifestyle they created. Judged on the basis of social equity, humane values, and ecological sustainability, they must be considered inappropriate. The social impacts of technology are central in the critique of appropriate technology advocates. Rural America's dispersed, small-scale social units are well suited for implementing appropriate technologies. If small-scale and decentralized technologies do not fulfill their promise to improve rural life, there is in fact little basis for calling them more appropriate than the competing technologies.
