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.
