{"id":15973,"date":"2011-11-28T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=15973"},"modified":"2011-11-25T19:59:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-25T19:59:16","slug":"who-was-fritz-schumacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/11\/who-was-fritz-schumacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Was Fritz Schumacher?"},"content":{"rendered":"

E F Schumacher, the economist-philosopher, was born 100 years ago this year. The following\u00a0article is edited from a longer paper written for the Schumacher Society.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ernst Friedrich (Fritz) Schumacher was an unlikely pioneer of the\u00a0Green Movement. He was born in Bonn in 1911, studied at Oxford as a\u00a0Rhodes Scholar and returned to England before the Second World War to\u00a0avoid living under Nazism. He died prematurely on a visit to Caux,\u00a0Switzerland, in September 1977.<\/p>\n

Although from a distinguished intellectual background, and having\u00a0himself experienced a short but meteoric academic career in Germany,\u00a0England and America, Schumacher always believed that \u201can ounce of practice\u00a0is worth a tonne of theory<\/em>\u201d. Like Gandhi in both his outer and inner life he\u00a0was a searcher of truth and dedicated to peace. Unlike so many of his\u00a0contemporary academics, however, he needed to see these ideals translated\u00a0into practical actions.<\/p>\n

Fritz observed that throughout his own school and university careers he\u00a0had given \u201cmaps of life and knowledge\u201d on which \u201cthere was hardly a trace of\u00a0many of the things I most cared about and that seemed to me of the greatest\u00a0possible importance to the conduct of my life<\/em>\u201d. He saw the need to provide\u00a0his colleagues and audiences with philosophical \u2018maps\u2019 and guidelines which\u00a0related to actual reality. In the process, his life was one of constant\u00a0questioning, including challenging most of the basic assumptions on which\u00a0Western economic and academic theory have been based. What are the \u2018laws\u2019\u00a0that govern the \u2018science\u2019 of economics? What is the true value of money?\u00a0What is the relationship between time and money? What is the real worth of\u00a0work? And of development? These were the everyday questions which\u00a0interested him as an economist.<\/p>\n

In 1937, owing to Hitler\u2019s frenzied ascendancy and his own feeling of the\u00a0intellectual and political betrayal of Germany and its heritage by his\u00a0nationalistic compatriots, he decided to abandon all social, family and\u00a0business ties and to bring his young wife and son to London.<\/p>\n

During the war, the family faced the hostility of being regarded as\u00a0German aliens. They had to give up their home, and after being briefly\u00a0interned, Fritz was hidden away with his family in Northamptonshire working\u00a0as a farm labourer and was referred to by the very English name of James. At\u00a0the same time (with the support of J M Keynes) he was seconded to do\u00a0government research at the Oxford Institute of Statistics whilst at the same\u00a0time working on his own \u2018world improvement scheme\u2019. Sometimes his ideas\u00a0were appropriated by others, such as his contribution to the Beveridge Report\u00a0in the early 1940s and to the Marshall Plan of 1947. Although he never\u00a0received official recognition for his input to such prestigious schemes because\u00a0of his German background, this did not disquiet him.<\/p>\n

Although the expanding family was again domiciled in England from\u00a01950 onwards, his quest for patterns of sustainability took him all over the\u00a0world. He had experienced poverty, social injustice and alienation first hand,\u00a0and felt that with his uniquely varied and practical background, he had\u00a0something useful to contribute. As an economist he was derided by his peers\u00a0for pointing out the fallacy of continuous growth in a finite world dependent\u00a0on limited fossil fuel resources, but at the same time he became a champion of\u00a0the poor, the marginalised and those who felt misgivings over the shallowness\u00a0of contemporary values.<\/p>\n

Philosophy and Religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

From his youth Fritz had always read prolifically. At one stage or\u00a0another during his life, Fritz questioned all the main traditions, whether\u00a0intellectual, national, economic or religious. As a young man he claimed to be\u00a0a dedicated atheist, lecturing that religion and morality were mere products of\u00a0history; they did not stand up to scientific examination and could be modified\u00a0if regarded as inappropriate. Politically he was a person-loving socialist, the\u00a0antithesis to Hitler\u2019s fascism and an idealist with a restless mind. His values\u00a0were very modern, based on the speed, measurement, efficiency and logic of\u00a0the industrialised Western world which he inhabited. It was only later that he\u00a0understood that such criteria were too inflexible, and totally incompatible\u00a0with the more subtle \u2018unconscious\u2019 rhythms of the natural world. As a\u00a0commuter from suburban Caterham (where he finally lived), to the National\u00a0Coal Board headquarters in London\u2019s Victoria (where he worked from 1950 to\u00a01970), he used the train travelling time to study comparative religions and\u00a0was greatly influenced by the French philosopher Fritjof Schuon\u2019s The\u00a0Transcendent Unity of Religions<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This \u2018commuting\u2019 period proved a most fruitful turning point in his\u00a0inner life. He first studied notably those religions from the East, attending\u00a0meetings and lectures on the spirituality of other faiths and began to practice\u00a0meditation. Gradually he came to relinquish the atheism of his youth and to\u00a0admit to the possibility of a \u2018higher order of Being\u2019. His changing economic\u00a0and metaphysical views (which sometimes seemed contradictory)\u00a0chronologically mirrored his own spiritual struggles and development.<\/p>\n

There was, after all, a transcendent \u2018vertical perspective\u2019 to life: a\u00a0hierarchy of orders from inanimate matter, through different levels of\u00a0consciousness to a supreme consciousness or Being. After years of searching\u00a0and inner struggles he had realised a way of bringing his lifelong paths of\u00a0study and social concerns to a point of convergence and had reached his own\u00a0spiritual homecoming. Finally, to the astonishment of Schumacher\u2019s Marxist\u00a0and Buddhist friends alike, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church\u00a0in 1971, six years before he died. It was a formal renouncement of his\u00a0previously cherished views of the supremacy of the intellect and reason over\u00a0the Christian virtues of compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love, the\u00a0acknowledgment of a Divine Creator, and the integrity of all creation.<\/p>\n

Buddhist Economics<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1955, whilst working at the National Coal Board, Schumacher\u00a0accepted a three-month assignment as Economic Development adviser to the\u00a0Government of the Union of Burma, where he immediately attached himself\u00a0to a Buddhist monastery. He soon concluded that the last thing the Burmese\u00a0people needed was economic development along Western lines. They needed\u00a0an economics suited to their own culture and lifestyle \u2013 a \u2018middle way\u2019\u00a0between the Western model which sought to increase material wants and\u00a0consumption to be satisfied through mechanised production and the\u00a0Buddhist model which was to satisfy basic human needs through dignified\u00a0work which also purified one\u2019s character and was a spiritual offering. The\u00a0tools of economics therefore had to be adapted to people\u2019s needs and values\u00a0and not vice versa. Unsurprisingly, his report was not well received in official\u00a0quarters, but the experience proved yet another turning in Fritz\u2019s spiritual\u00a0and intellectual development. He was later to coin the term \u2018Buddhist\u00a0Economics\u2019 which, like Marxism, implies a complete rejection of the greed\u00a0and materialism on which so much of modern economics is based and a\u00a0respect for the value and dignity of meaningful work.<\/p>\n

Sustainable Development<\/strong><\/p>\n

In tandem with his job at the Coal Board, Schumacher also undertook\u00a0an intensive programme of international travel, initially to give substance to\u00a0his proposals to save the collapsing British coal industry, and to encourage\u00a0independence from the Western world\u2019s industrial reliance on cheap oil\u00a0imports from the Middle East. Alas \u2013 and to our cost today \u2013 he was successful\u00a0in neither.<\/p>\n

His aim was also to promote sustainable development strategies in the\u00a0First and Third World alike. Food and fuel he saw as the two basic necessities\u00a0for survival and sustainability. All communities and regions should strive to\u00a0be self-sufficient in these as far as possible \u2013 otherwise they become\u00a0economically and politically vulnerable. In this respect he was an early\u00a0proponent of harnessing renewable energy in all its different forms and\u00a0upgrading the existing traditional technologies.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately Fritz was many years ahead of his time, and few took\u00a0much notice. Putting his own self-sufficiency theories into practice, his was\u00a0one of the first UK houses to have solar panels installed on its roof. He also\u00a0personally became involved in sustainable agriculture; an enthusiasm which\u00a0he claimed had its seeds in his work as a farm labourer. He spent much time\u00a0on his organic garden, was President of the UK Soil Association, ardently\u00a0supporting Richard St Barbe Baker and his Men of the Trees, and was an\u00a0unflagging advocate of tree planting and forest farming schemes wherever he\u00a0went.<\/p>\n

India and Intermediate Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was during an official visit to India in 1970 to advise the Indian\u00a0Government on a Five Year Development Plan, that Fritz became deeply\u00a0moved by the hopeless poverty and deprivation of countless thousands of\u00a0people. He encountered a despair such as he had not met in other poor\u00a0countries and realised that all the official government and other Western aid\u00a0schemes proposed so far were completely inadequate. As a heartfelt\u00a0response, in 1966 with a small group of committed colleagues including\u00a0George McRobie from the National Coal Board, he founded the Intermediate\u00a0Technology Development Group (ITDG), a London-based charity concerned\u00a0with technology transfer. The aim was to give practical \u2018tool aid\u2019, skills and\u00a0education to poor rural communities in developing countries rather than\u00a0expensive highly mechanised equipment which was not appropriate to the\u00a0understanding and needs of the illiterate majority and which put them out of\u00a0work. What was needed was \u2018production by the masses and not mass\u00a0production\u2019 using \u2018technologies with a human face\u2019. With Indian colleagues,\u00a0he helped to set up in Lucknow the Appropriate Technology Development\u00a0Association (ATDA), working very much along the same lines and supported\u00a0financially by the UK India Development Group of which Fritz was Chair.<\/p>\n

Schumacher also understood that Western aid to poor communities frequently simply served to increase their cultural and economic dependence,\u00a0and to increase the gulf between rich and poor, educated and illiterate, young\u00a0and old, even within their own societies. This still holds true. On the other\u00a0hand, by respecting communities\u2019 own indigenous and cultural traditions,\u00a0providing them with skills and upgraded tools and recognising that each\u00a0individual could play their part the communities would be enabled to achieve\u00a0long term sustainability and security. This \u2018middle way\u2019 has gained increasing acceptance over the past forty years, particularly among the poor countries\u00a0themselves. The \u2018development\u2019 charities which Fritz founded continue to\u00a0flourish today, although ATDA has become the Schumacher Centre Delhi.\u00a0The India Development Group became the Jeevika Trust; and the ITDG has\u00a0been renamed Practical Action.<\/p>\n

In 1950 Schumacher accepted the post of Economic Adviser to the\u00a0National Coal Board, partly because of his socialist conviction that true\u00a0economic sustainability would most readily come about through proper\u00a0organisation and use of energy resources. He was also an early advocate of\u00a0the principle of subsidiarity and realised that the workers themselves needed\u00a0to operate within \u2018human scale\u2019 structures even within large organisations.\u00a0The National Coal Board he hoped would be an excellent springboard for\u00a0testing his ideas in practice.<\/p>\n

Small is Beautiful<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite growing recognition of Schumacher\u2019s numerous projects, broadcasts,\u00a0writings, and public lectures, the real breakthrough only came with the\u00a0publication in 1973 of his first book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if\u00a0People Mattered<\/em>. This was written in layman\u2019s terms, since it was mainly\u00a0based on previous lectures and articles, but somehow caught the spirit of the\u00a0times. Small is Beautiful <\/em>was not just about appropriate size. It articulated\u00a0what millions of \u2018little people\u2019 worldwide subconsciously believed: that unlike\u00a0any previous culture or civilisation, twentieth century Western society,\u00a0whether agricultural or industrial, was living artificially off the Earth\u2019s capital\u00a0rather than off its income. Its lifeblood was the ever-increasing use of non-renewable\u00a0resources primarily by the rich countries at the expense of the\u00a0poor. The world could not continue sustainably on the increasing curve of\u00a0production and consumption without material or moral restraint.<\/p>\n

A Guide for the Perplexed <\/em>followed in 1977; other publications such as\u00a0Good Work <\/em>and This I Believe <\/em>were produced posthumously and were based\u00a0on his earlier writings in different publications. Over thirty years after\u00a0Schumacher\u2019s death, the wisdom, warnings and predictions contained in\u00a0these controversial writings, are seen to be more relevant than ever. Many\u00a0organisations worldwide have since developed one or other aspect of his\u00a0work. Nevertheless the trend towards gigantism, the vast growth of mega\u00a0cities, mass unemployment, unsustainable patterns of energy use, rampaging\u00a0environmental degradation and social violence demonstrate that none of\u00a0Schumacher\u2019s simple, human-scale solutions have been interpreted correctly\u00a0by those in a position to change policies. There is now an even more urgent\u00a0need to revisit some of these fundamental prerequisites for sustainability.\u00a0These include, above all, the transcendence of moral values; the equality and\u00a0dignity of all people; the integrity of human work as the resource base of any\u00a0economy; the value of local communities; and the need for decentralised\u00a0decision-making and regional self-sufficiency wherever practicable,\u00a0particularly with respect to food and fuel.<\/p>\n

There is always a great danger to freeze a human icon such as\u00a0Schumacher in the situation of their time, and not to allow for the fact that\u00a0their own ideas would be constantly changing and moving on with changed\u00a0circumstances. The revolutions in information technology, virtual reality and\u00a0genetic engineering would have occupied Schumacher\u2019s attention insofar as\u00a0they affect our overall human condition. It is now up to a new generation to\u00a0arm itself with the necessary knowledge and moral courage to find its own\u00a0solutions to the contemporary interrelated crises and to build peace with all\u00a0levels of Creation.
\nAs Fritz Schumacher said in Good Work:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly never feel discouraged. I can\u2019t myself raise the winds which\u00a0might blow us, or this ship, into a better world. But I can at least put up the\u00a0sail, so that when the wind comes I can catch it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

___________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Diana Schumacher is a Patron of The Gandhi Foundation and active in the environmental field. She\u00a0was a founder of the Schumacher Society and founded its Annual Schumacher Award. She also\u00a0co-founded the Environmental Law Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 gandhifoundation.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although from a distinguished intellectual background, and having himself experienced a short but meteoric academic career in Germany, England and America, Schumacher always believed that \u201can ounce of practice is worth a tonne of theory\u201d. Like Gandhi in both his outer and inner life he was a searcher of truth and dedicated to peace. Unlike so many of his contemporary academics, however, he needed to see these ideals translated into practical actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonviolence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}