Who
could imagine that young people, charmed by notions of small-scale
farming, homesteading, and alternative energy, would find themselves
attracted to the philosophy of an old man who did some of his most
remarkable work as Chief Economic Advisor to
Britain’s National Coal Board?
Who
would think that such a man, someone who wore three-piece suits and
stalked the halls of power, would eventually become famous for
promulgating a credo called “Buddhist Economics”? That he would be adored
and remembered for developing technologies to scale work down to human
size? That a foundation in his name would champion communal land-use and
community-based organic farming?
When I first arrived at
Emerson
College,
in Sussex, England, to study bio-dynamic farming and gardening, I was
invited to a ceremony. The group was small. The day was grey and chilly. I
knew no one there apart from my husband, though the assembled few would be
my classmates for the coming semester. We stood encircling a tree. It was
a new little tree with fencing around it to keep deer away. It was
being dedicated to E. F. Schumacher, who had encouraged the Emerson
gardening program, and especially its newest component, of which I was to
be a part – the Rural Development Program, aimed at small scale
sustainable agriculture for villages in the Third World. So though the ceremony was modest, the attendees few, and the skies
cloudy, it was an august and significant moment.
I was told by our course
director that we were commemorating Schumacher’s life by doing what he
suggested: everyone, he said, can plant at least one tree. If I took away
anything else from Emerson – blisters, a knitted wool cap, a pair of muddy wellies – that was a small plus. But what I gained in my life from the
teaching of E. F. Schumacher is enduring: a set of truths about how we can
better live.
Once introduced to the writings of Schumacher in general, I devoured them
in detail. His best-known book is Small Is Beautiful – Economics as
Though People Mattered. It’s an alluring title and the ideas in it are
revolutionary, in a sane, healing way. It has been translated into 27
languages and in 1995 the
London
Times
Literary Supplement cited it as one of the hundred most influential books
written after World War II.
Another of his essay collections is A Guide for the Perplexed.
We are perplexed, aren’t we? We find it hard to make right choices,
always wanting to act in a way that is moral, simple and practical yet
seeing so many divergent opinions about what that means, and experiencing
so much confusion about the possible outcomes of our actions.
The third widely
published collection is Good Work, something we are all concerned
with, especially now when many people may be thinking, “It’s just good to have work!” – but is it?
I
drew so much sustenance from Schumacher’s views, especially on the thorny
issue of “good work” – that I am sometimes surprised that so few people
have heard of him. But his way was always quiet, even serene – so much so
that when he died of heart failure on a train the policeman who was called
to the scene said the old man looked so orderly and composed it was as if
he was prepared for the moment. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to go?
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, known as Fritz, passed away in 1977 (the
Emerson tree was planted in 1980). He was born in
Germany and lived through two world wars in
Europe. He was educated at
Oxford and Columbia, and emigrated to England rather than live under the
Nazi regime. He spent some time in an English internment camp where he
wrote papers on economic theory in his “spare time” and rather enjoyed the
back-breaking work on the farm. His writings soon drew attention and he
was widely quoted, even as he still lived in a barracks far away from
academia. Finally he was drafted to assist in the English war effort and
quickly rose to prominence.
In his work for the National Coal Board
(1950-1970) he predicted the ascendancy of oil-rich nations and the
impracticality of relying on oil as a long-term energy source. This is
one example of Schumacher’s visionary genius.
