Ernst Friedrich Schumacher was born in Bonn, Germany on the 16th of August 1911 and grew up in Bremen and would become one of the most influential economic thinkers of the 20th Century. Often seen as ‘a prophet who stood
against the tide’, Schumacher pioneered the ideas of environmental
awareness, sustainable development, and human scale organisation and
technology in the 1960s and 1970s.
He studied economics in Berlin, then at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and later at Columbia University in New York. He returned to Germany, but disgusted with the Nazis,and his hatred of Adolf Hitler, Schumacher moved to England before the beginning of the Second World War After the outbreak of war he worked for a time as an agricultural labourer, before being offered a job as an economist at the 'Oxford Institute of Statistics' which had connections with Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatam House. He wrote articles for the Observer and other papers, and worked with William Beveridge on plans for the welfare state, he would remain in Britain for the remainder of his life.
Forty two years after his death, the ideas of E.F. Schumacher still resonate through the environmental movement. With his deep spiritual vision and rejection of Western materialism and economic exploitation, Schumacher saw the need to give societies, communities and individuals practical tools for change, and argued that Earth could not afford the cultural and environmental costs accompanying large-scale capitalism. Known as a great thinker he warned the world that bigness, specifically large industries and large cities, and continued over-consumption of oil would bring higher living standards at the cost of deteriorating culture and depletion of natural resources.
Schumacher’s subsequent career, given his later views on economics, was one of considerable contradiction, surprisingly, for someone we see as an environmentalist, he was a strong advocate of continued coal production in the UK. He served as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. At its height the NCB controlled over 1,600 mines, possessed more than a million acres of land and employed 700,000 people. Much of Britain’s industry relied on coal, so the NCB and hence the Government were at the very heart of the country’s economy. In terms of scale, importance and (literally) power, the NCB was big. Very big. Schumacher stressed the importance of both producing and conserving the coal (at a time when oil production elsewhere in the world had led many to suggest that coal production could be scaled down significantly). He was also an opponent of nuclear energy, because of the issue of dealing with nuclear waste. Schumacher came to believe that the state had a central role to play in directing and planning a nation’s economy. Schumacher was convinced that such planning would address the instability and inequality of capitalism while also using the vast concentration of resources and power available to governments to deliver a more efficient and innovative economy. With such convictions Schumacher was perfectly placed to take on the chief economist role at the NCB.
However, around this Schumacher broke with the script. To the utter bewilderment of his colleagues and friends, this man brimming with intellectual self-confidence began to question the very principles around which he had built his career and which underpinned the economic policy and business practice of the time. Schumacher was discovering that the great things promised by big government and big corporations amounted to far less in reality. When he finally summarised all of his thoughts in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered,in 1973 he found a world enormously receptive to his ideas.,and it was hailed as an “eco-bible” by Time magazine, and one the 100 most influential books published since World War II by The Times Literary Supplement. This riveting, richly researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and vital with each passing year since its initial groundbreaking publication during the 1973 energy crisis.
He studied economics in Berlin, then at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and later at Columbia University in New York. He returned to Germany, but disgusted with the Nazis,and his hatred of Adolf Hitler, Schumacher moved to England before the beginning of the Second World War After the outbreak of war he worked for a time as an agricultural labourer, before being offered a job as an economist at the 'Oxford Institute of Statistics' which had connections with Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatam House. He wrote articles for the Observer and other papers, and worked with William Beveridge on plans for the welfare state, he would remain in Britain for the remainder of his life.
Forty two years after his death, the ideas of E.F. Schumacher still resonate through the environmental movement. With his deep spiritual vision and rejection of Western materialism and economic exploitation, Schumacher saw the need to give societies, communities and individuals practical tools for change, and argued that Earth could not afford the cultural and environmental costs accompanying large-scale capitalism. Known as a great thinker he warned the world that bigness, specifically large industries and large cities, and continued over-consumption of oil would bring higher living standards at the cost of deteriorating culture and depletion of natural resources.
Schumacher’s subsequent career, given his later views on economics, was one of considerable contradiction, surprisingly, for someone we see as an environmentalist, he was a strong advocate of continued coal production in the UK. He served as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. At its height the NCB controlled over 1,600 mines, possessed more than a million acres of land and employed 700,000 people. Much of Britain’s industry relied on coal, so the NCB and hence the Government were at the very heart of the country’s economy. In terms of scale, importance and (literally) power, the NCB was big. Very big. Schumacher stressed the importance of both producing and conserving the coal (at a time when oil production elsewhere in the world had led many to suggest that coal production could be scaled down significantly). He was also an opponent of nuclear energy, because of the issue of dealing with nuclear waste. Schumacher came to believe that the state had a central role to play in directing and planning a nation’s economy. Schumacher was convinced that such planning would address the instability and inequality of capitalism while also using the vast concentration of resources and power available to governments to deliver a more efficient and innovative economy. With such convictions Schumacher was perfectly placed to take on the chief economist role at the NCB.
However, around this Schumacher broke with the script. To the utter bewilderment of his colleagues and friends, this man brimming with intellectual self-confidence began to question the very principles around which he had built his career and which underpinned the economic policy and business practice of the time. Schumacher was discovering that the great things promised by big government and big corporations amounted to far less in reality. When he finally summarised all of his thoughts in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered,in 1973 he found a world enormously receptive to his ideas.,and it was hailed as an “eco-bible” by Time magazine, and one the 100 most influential books published since World War II by The Times Literary Supplement. This riveting, richly researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and vital with each passing year since its initial groundbreaking publication during the 1973 energy crisis.
The phrase “small is beautiful” became a counterculture slogan against
the industrial threat to the environment and the scarcity of resources.
Arguing against excessive materialism and meaningless growth, he
promoted the use of small-scale technology to benefit both humankind
and the environment. As an economist trained in a market-oriented
discipline, his thinking evolved from believing that large-scale
technology could be salvation for industrial civilization to believing
that large-scale technology is the root of degrading human beings and
the environment.
The title of his book was coined by Schumacher’s teacher, Leopold Kohr. Leopold described himself as a philosophical anarchist (someone who believes that the State has no legitimacy and we should
not be required to obey it or its laws). He argued against the “cult of
bigness” and centralisation, while promoting the ideal of small
community life. In his own words: “…there seems to be only one cause
behind all forms of social misery: bigness”
What
made Schumacher’s book unique, as it’s subtitle suggests, was Schumacher’s appeal for a
move away from technological gigantism to smaller and more human scale
technologies and economies. He
was also concerned that the environment be regarded as precious
resource to be conserved rather than exploited. “Infinite growth of
material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility,” he wrote. This is now a common refrain, but when published in 1973 it was radical stuff.
In Small Is Beautiful, he argued that although capitalism brought
higher living standards, the cost was environmental and cultural
degradation. Large cities and large industries caused correspondingly
large problems, and raised their cost beyond what Earth could bear.
Small, decentralized, energy-efficient production units would better
serve human needs.He thought that traditional economics is based on the fallacy that
commodities and goods, and money and materialism, are all more important
than people and the good things that people can do and create. In that
sense, his was a people-centred economist. He particularly applied it to
developing countries, suggesting an alternative to the dominant
modernisation theory of the period, that suggested that all countries
should follow a path through industrialisation to eventually become
based on mass consumption.. Instead, economics
and technology should ensure that people have enough - there is no need
to create excess and deplete resources beyond what is actually required.
Developing world economics should be self-reliant and use the
appropriate technology for their society (what he called intermediate technology). His ideas about the developing world were partly based on his personal observations on a trip to Myanmar (then Burma).Influenced by people as diverse as Keynes, Marx and Gandhi, it is Schumacher's work on the finite nature of resources that has had the greatest impact on environmentalism. The economic orthodoxy of the 20th century was one that would lead to us running out of the natural resources upon which our economy was based: a sustainable economy needed to be based on quite different principles.
To pursue his ideas he established the Intermediate Technology Development Group in London in 1966.Complementary to Intermediate Technology was his involvement with sustainable agriculture; he spent much time on his organic garden and became President of The Soil Association. He spent the last few remaining years of his life basking in the reflected glory of his best-selling book, secure in the knowledge that he had radically changed the outlook of millions of people. By 1977 his views had become so popular that he was invited by President Carter for a half-hour talk in the White House and the President was keen to be photographed holding a copy of Small is Beautiful.
Hugely overworked through endless travel, lectures and meetings with the powerful, Fritz Schumacher died suddenly on September 4, 1977whilst travelling on a train through Switzerland on yet another speaking tour. He was 66. His ideas though are just as relevant today, and continue to be influential and attract new adherents. After his death the Schumacher Circle was formed in his memory and to help continue his work.
Although I don’t necessarily agree with everything he wrote, many of his prophetic warnings have come to pass, but he bought a profound wisdom and humanity on the practical challenges of our time , his ideas are well worth considering as we struggle to deal with the worlds continuing environmental problems, such as global warming, and the recognition that oil (upon which so much of modern civilisation depends ) is a finite resource, and we struggle to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalization. We should remember EF Schumacher’s advice: “Do not break down problems into isolated compartments, but look at the world and see it whole”. Had we acted on this advice when it was first given, we might be better equipped to deal with the many inter-locking financial, environmental, security and social problems which we face today, and it just about conceivable that if our leaders over many years had acted more intelligently to address some of the concerns he expressed, we would perhaps be in less dire straits today.
Schumacher also suggested we “widen the concept of violence beyond human warfare”, and include the environment and social wellbeing as well. The loss of community and of place should be included, alongside the loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation. If the march of industrial society is towards ever-bigger size, complexity, capital intensity, and violence, “then it would seem to follow” said Schumacher, “that the cure must be sought in the opposite direction.” What with the continuing concern about the influence of corporate wealth on culture and politics, his message of extraordinary universality,and exploration of a socially and environmentally just way of living is as relevant today as it was in 1973, when his seminal book was first published, still, speaking clearly today to all those working for a better future for our planet.His thinking can help turn our present crisis into a more kind, just and ecolofgically sustainable society.where surely the planet matters more than profit.
