E. F. Schumacher
E. F. Schumacher | |
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Contributions | Appropriate technology Buddhist economics |
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher
In 1995, his 1973 book
Early life
Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany in 1911. His father was a professor of political economy. The younger Schumacher studied in Bonn and Berlin, then from 1930 in England as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford,[1] and later at Columbia University in New York City, earning a diploma in economics. He then worked in business, farming and journalism.[1] His sister, Elizabeth, was the wife of the physicist Werner Heisenberg.
Economist
Protégé of Keynes
Schumacher moved back to England prior to the outbreak of
According to
Adviser to the Coal Board
After the War, Schumacher worked as an economic advisor to, and later Chief Statistician for, the
His position on the Coal Board was often mentioned later by those introducing Schumacher or his ideas. It is generally thought that his farsighted planning contributed to Britain's post-war economic recovery. Schumacher predicted the rise of OPEC and many of the problems of nuclear power.[6]
Thinking outside the box
In 1955 Schumacher travelled to
E. F. Schumacher was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and J. C. Kumarappa and Gandhi's concepts of "economy of permanence" and appropriate technology. While delivering the Gandhi Memorial Lecture at the Gandhian Institute of Studies at Varanasi (India) in 1973, Schumacher described Gandhi as the greatest "people's economist" whose economic thinking was compatible with spirituality as opposed to materialism.[8]
Influence
Schumacher was influenced by
Schumacher as writer
Schumacher wrote on economics for London's
The 1973 publication of
In 1976, he was awarded the Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon for Small Is Beautiful.
His 1977 work A Guide for the Perplexed is both a critique of materialistic scientism and an exploration of the nature and organisation of knowledge.
Question of Size
Just like his mentor Leopold Kohr, Schumacher discusses the problems of
Schumacher then notes that the myth of "bigness" also appears in case of corporations, as it's "generally told that gigantic organisations are inescapably necessary".[10] For Schumacher, however, as soon as an organisation of a great size is created, it inevitably entails "a strenuous attempt to attain smallness within bigness" in order to remain efficient; he argues that the General Motors was organised as a federation of medium-sized firms, and recalls his experience in the British National Coal Board, which was decentralised into a "federation of numerous quasi-firms" under Lord Robens.[10] Schumacher asserts that while many still engage in "idolatry of large size", in practice nobody can deny the "convenience, humanity, and manageability of smallness". He repeats the arguments of Leopold Kohr – when any body grows too big, it also becomes unmanageable and highly dysfunctional, naming London, New York City and Tokyo examples of overgrown cities, where "the millions do not add to the city's real value but merely create enormous problems and produce human degradation".[10]
He also discusses
The factor of footlooseness is, therefore, the more serious, the bigger the country. Its destructive effects can be traced both in the rich and in the poor countries. In the rich countries such as the United States of America, it produces, as already mentioned, 'megalopolis'. It also produces a rapidly increasing and ever more intractable problem of 'drop-outs', of people, who, having become footloose, cannot find a place anywhere in society. Directly connected with this, it produces an appalling problem of crime, alienation, stress, social breakdown, right down to the level of the family. In the poor countries, again most severely in the largest ones, it produces mass migration into cities, mass unemployment, and, as vitality is drained out of the rural areas, the threat of famine. The result is a 'dual society' without any inner cohesion, subject to a maximum of political instability.[10]
Schumacher then moves his attention to nation-states, which he also considers endangered by "bigness", defined as annexation or unification into larger states. He notes that Denmark or Belgium being annexed to Germany and France respectively would stunt their growth, cause their economic potential to be completely neglected, threaten their language and culture, and lastly cause their separatist cause to be dismissed by modern media and politicians:
Imagine that in 1864 Bismarck had annexed the whole of Denmark instead of only a small part of it, and that nothing had happened since. The Danes would be an ethnic minority in Germany, perhaps struggling to maintain their language by becoming bilingual, the official language of course being German. Only by thoroughly Germanising themselves could they avoid becoming second-class citizens. There would be an irresistible drift of the most ambitious and enterprising Danes, thoroughly Germanised, to the mainland in the south, and what then would be the status of Copenhagen? That of a remote provincial city. Or imagine Belgium as part of France. What would be the status of Brussels? Again, that of an unimportant provincial city. I don't have to enlarge on it. Imagine now that Denmark a part of Germany, and Belgium a part of France, suddenly turned what is now charmingly called 'nats' wanting independence. There would be endless, heated arguments that these 'non-countries' could not be economically viable, that their desire for independence was, to quote a famous political commentator, 'adolescent emotionalism, political naivety, phoney economics, and sheer bare-faced opportunism'.[10]
Schumacher continues – nations and states are composed of people, and people are only "viable" when they "can stand on their own feet and earn their keep".[10] He notes that people won't become viable when forced into one huge community, and that they likewise won't become "non-viable" when divided into smaller, more coherenent and manageable communities.[10] He argues that separatism should be applauded rather than mocked, as it entails the desire to become a free and self-reliant region. He also mocks unionism, arguing that "if a country wishes to export all over the world, and import from all over the world, it has never been held that it had to annex the whole world in order to do so".[10] He identifies the question of regionalism as the "most important problem", but stressed that regionalism does not mean combining states into free-trade systems, but rather developing all the regions within each country.[10]
Schumacher calls separatism a "logical and rational response to the need for regional development" and argues that there is no hope for the poor communities beyond successful regional development.[10] He states that most modern developments only result in widening the gap between the rich and the poor, as they almost exclusively focus on the capital or already wealthy areas instead, as these yield the most profit. Thus modern industrialists seek to make the already very profitable regions even richer, while the poor regions remain miserable.[10] This keeps the poor in the "weakest possible bargaining position", as the impoverished regions see no development despite needing it the most. Schumacher considers the "economics of gigantism" to be "a left-over of nineteenth-century conditions and nineteenth-century thinking" which no longer applies to modern problems.[10] He argues that modern technological and scientific potential must focus on fighting human degradation, in "intimate contact" with individuals and small groups rather than large states.[10] For Schumacher, democracy is a matter of people, who can only "be themselves" in small and comprehensible groups. He argues that economic thinking is useless if it only engages in "vast abstractions" such as "the national income, the rate of growth, capital/output ratio, input-output analysis, labour mobility, capital accumulation" instead of addressing "the human realities of poverty, frustration, alienation, despair, breakdown, crime, escapism, stress, congestion, ugliness and spiritual death."[10]
Later life
As a young man, Schumacher was a dedicated atheist, but his later rejection of materialist, capitalist, agnostic modernity was paralleled by a growing fascination with religion.
Schumacher gave interviews and published articles for a wide readership in his later years. He also pursued one of the loves of his life: gardening. He died of a
Legacy
Schumacher's personal collection of books and archives is held by the Schumacher Center for a New Economics library in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The center continues the work of Schumacher by maintaining a research library, organising lectures and seminars, publishing papers, developing model economic programs, and providing technical assistance to groups all for the purpose of linking people, land, and community to build strong, diverse local economies.[17]
Schumacher Circle
The Schumacher Circle is a family of organisations which were founded in Schumacher's memory or were inspired by his work, and which co-operate to support each other. The circle includes[18] the Schumacher College in Totnes, Devon, Resurgence Magazine (now Resurgence & Ecologist), publishing company Green Books, international non-governmental organisation Practical Action, the New Economics Foundation[citation needed] in the UK, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (heir to the legacy programs of the former E. F. Schumacher Society) founded in New England,[19] the Soil Association, the educational Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) North Wales, the Jeevika Trust, and the research organisation the Schumacher Institute in Bristol.
Dr. E. F. Schumacher Society
The Dr. E. F. Schumacher Society, commonly known as Schumacher UK, was founded in 1978 in Bristol, England.[20][21]
Schumacher UK and the E. F. Schumacher Society in the USA both spread Schumacher's ideas.[22]
Schumacher College
Schumacher College was founded in 1991.[20][21]
Selected bibliography
- ISBN 0-88179-169-5)
- ISBN 0-06-090611-1)
- This I Believe and Other Essays (1977; reissued, ISBN 1-870098-66-8)
- Good Work (1979, ISBN 0-06-013857-2)
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Biography on the inner dustjacket of Small Is Beautiful
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement, 6 October 1995, p. 39
- ^ E. F. Schumacher, "Multilateral Clearing" Economica, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 38 (May 1943), pp. 150–165
- Harper & Row, 1980.
- ^ Daniel Yergin. The Prize, Simon & Schuster, 1991, p. 559.
- ^ Small Is Beautiful Section 2, Chapters 3–4. Schumaker, EF. Harper and Row Publishers. 1989.
- ^ "Scott Bader". Scott Bader. Archived from the original on 26 September 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
- ^ "Surur Hoda (1928–2003)". Gandhi Foundation. 7 September 2008. Archived from the original on 23 March 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
- ^ "Chapter 12: Influences – E. F. Schumacher: Ideas That Matter". www.schumacher-haney.info. Retrieved 20 September 2019.[permanent dead link]
- ^ ISBN 9780060916305.
- .
- ^ Diana Schumacher. "Who was Fritz Schumacher?" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Julia Forster. "E. F. Schumacher"
- Christian Century, 6 April 1977.
- ^ Pearce, Joseph (2008). "The Education of E.F. Schumacher". God Spy.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
- ^ Schumacher Center for a New Economics web site.
- ^ Schumacher Circle links Archived 26 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Schumacher Society
- ^ "An Economics Embodying Our Highest Ideals". Schumacher Center for a New Economics. 17 June 2010. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- ^ a b "Sustainability & Engineering". 2013.
- ^ a b "Schumacher Society History and Mission".
- ^ Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy. "The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization". 2013.
Further reading
- Kirk, Geoffrey, ed. Schumacher on Energy (London: Sphere Books, 1983)
- Wood, Barbara, E.F. Schumacher: His Life and Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1984)
- Etherden, Peter, "The Schumacher Enigma", Fourth World Review, 1999
- Pearce, Joseph, Small is Still Beautiful, (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2006)
External links
- New Economy Coalition (following the merger of the New Economics Institute and New Economy Network)
- Schumacher Center for a New Economics (formerly The E.F. Schumacher Society) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which houses his personal library and archives.
- Schumacher pic.
- Intermediate Technology Development Group / Practical Action
- About E. F. Schumacher, from British Schumacher Society website
- The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems is an independent research organisation working to continue Schumacher's legacy.
- Essay on Buddhist Economics
- "The Education of E.F. Schumacher"
- Small is Still Beautiful an interview with Joseph Pearce by Angelo Matera, Godspy, 2004
- Economics as if People Mattered, E. F. Schumacher observed
- Dialogue with E.F Schumacher and Fritjof Capra
- E.F. Schumacher: A Retrospect and Reflection After September 11, 2001 Archived 17 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine
- Interview with E. F. Schumacher published in Manas Journal, May 19, 1976
- The world improvement plans of Fritz Schumacher by John Toye. Published in Cambridge Journal of Economics, 36,2: 387–403
- Fifty Possible Ways to Challenge Over-Commercialism
- Beyond Simplicity: Tough Issues For A New Era by Albert J. Fritsch, SJ, PhD
- Introduction to Schumacher (MP3)
- Watch the documentary Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
- ef-schumacher.org site set up by Schumacher's family to mark his centenary
- Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher at Find a Grave