Small is efficient
Sir: The secret of Iceland's low unemploy- ment despite its high inflation (Notebook, 20 November) is no secret at all. If you want to locate countries with below average rates of most forms of economic malaise and with high levels of social achieve- ment in the fields of schooling, health, housing, crime-avoidance, and general welfare, to say nothing of an absence of the grosser forms of political and social tension coupled with pronounced degrees of political tolerance and liberty, invariably they are small.
This is not to say all small countries achieve these things but we can say none of the giants do. Nor can small countries isolate themselves from the economic and political tremors created by the giants, but they can, by their smallness, and by the more efficient management of their resources on a human scale which their very smallness makes possible, cushion themselves from their effects, as Iceland is doing.
It is all too slowly dawning on an increas- ing number of people that small is not only beautiful but that it is infinitely more effi- cient.
John Papworth
24 Abercorn Place, London NW8
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