E.F.Schumacher: A Man of Solutions to All Era’s
The world is in a
transformative mood due to unfolding immense challenges. Options and
alternatives are suggested by various experts to overcome the present and
future critical situations. To the developing countries like Sri Lanka, it is
inevitable to catch up in those clouds. The people in the island nation of Sri
Lanka already tired with war and they are not daring to face a negative
economic effect, which can shake even their daily life.
On one hand the country
is currently facing internal crisis, especially with regard to economic affairs
and energy issue. On the other hand, the mounting international pressures
related to past human rights abuses might create an imbalance in Sri Lanka’s
economy. In general, there are possibilities that Sri Lanka will face
instability in different levels.
Therefore, it is crucial
to discuss about some concrete and constructive mechanism to deal with it,
before it’s too late. “Are there not indeed enough ‘signs of the times’ to indicate
a new start is needed?”[1] Sri
Lanka is not just a small country, but with unlimited resources and unthinkable
capacity, whether we discover it or not, it is the reality. Thus, it is vital
how to prevent and overcome the challenges.
Small is not just beautiful, but meaningful and useful to developing
countries. Thus, this leads to consider the importance of Fritz Schumacher or
well known as EF Schumacher.
Fritz Schumacher was
born in Bonn, Germany and worked as an economist in Britain. His fascinating
ideas are well known in relevant to energy, economics, education, development,
decentralization, technology and organization & ownership. While he worked
for British National Coal Board as Economic Adviser he recognised
the crucial role of energy in all economic activity. As early as 1955 he began
to warn against a world dependence on oil. His visits to Burma in
1955 and India in the early 1960s convinced Schumacher that Western technology
was not the answer to world poverty. In 1965 he founded the Intermediate
Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) to identify and provide
appropriate levels of technology for developing countries.[2]
Also, he was the founder of the development
charity Practical Action. His
philosophies became popular during 1970s, particularly, during 1973 energy
crisis. At the same period, he had become a leading voice in the emerging
environmental movement, warning not only about a future energy crisis but also
about the consequences of agricultural and industrial pollution.
Throughout, his renowned book entitled, Small Is
Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered was released as an answer to the
1973 energy crisis.
This
book became one of the 100 most influential books published in last seven
decades.
There are philosophers who live in the history
for long time and economic history is living with uniqueness due to
Schumacher’s concepts. It’s nearly a
four decades ago his philosophy became famous, but remarkable still very
effective and efficient to solve the ongoing economic crisis. It is because,
his ideas are have sustainable perspective and applicable to implement easily
in most contexts, whether it’s in developed countries or in developing
countries.
The modern pursuit of the consumerist growth model has
hampered the adoption of many of EF Schumacher's key ideas. The consumerist
growth model that has dominated western and most developing country economics
for the past 100 years has led to the fastest improvements in living standards
in history, not just for the rich, but also for the poor. [3]
More importantly, his ideas widely shaped the environment movements, despite of
criticisms that those movements could not make a significant impact in
political decision making process.
Nevertheless, values of his thinking have been realized
during the negative trends of global economy and it’s leads to the adoptable
avenues of sustainability and environmental action. New projects are emerging,
which has Schumacher’s thinking and his concepts in the
heart of the mandate as his thinking leads to manage and allocate the earth
resources fairly.
It again proves that Schumacher’s
concepts are solution to whether it is the problem of or for human beings or
nature. Schumacher’s ideas are not only answer for our current broken global
economic system, but to robust health, prosperity and peace of mind of people
in any society in any part of the world, especially, considering the current
situation of Sri Lanka.
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