People Matter

I began reading E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study Of Economics As If People Mattered, today. I requested it from the new library; it was in central storage and took some time to track down, I don't expect it gets much of an airing. It's a book I think I should have read in the 70s but I didn't know of it then. The writing is of that period, quite text-bookish, not the chatty, let-me-explain, easy style of most recent books on ''serious'' issues. I find myself going over paragraphs again, getting into the style; often it seems to be written for economists: there's jargon and terms I can only guess at the meaning and he has an annoying habit of putting many terms in inverted commas.
Despite this the overall message so far is familiar. There's even parallel sentiments I recognise from The Ragged Trousered Phil. Just how far back does this wisdom go? And why hadn't I noticed then, and why are people not noticing still? The so called ''Business As Usual'', I guess.