E. F. Schumacher

Ernst Friedrich " Fritz" Schumacher ( born August 16, 1911 in Bonn, † September 4, 1977 in the train between Geneva and Lausanne ) was a British economist of German origin.

Life

E. F. Schumacher was born in 1911 in Germany. After graduation, he studied economics, first in Bonn, Berlin and then at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Before the Second World War, he fled back to England to escape the Nazi regime. Although he was interned as an enemy alien during the war, his extraordinary abilities were recognized, and he was able to help the British government in the economic and financial mobilization.

Little known is that it was obvious Schumacher, who had worked out the alternative proposal of John Maynard Keynes used to ultimately Bretton Woods system of Americans in the early 1940s. Thus one finds in a resume of Schumacher following passage:

"During this period [ 1940-1945 ] Schumacher socialist ideas with which he has dealt his life approached. From the unassuming agricultural activity then tore him his famous study in which he sketched the plan of a new clearing system for payments in foreign currency. Lord Keynes took over this plan immediately as an official government proposal of the United Kingdom; [ ... ] "

You could even Schumacher so called one of the fathers of the European currency unit or the euro.

After the war, Schumacher worked as an economic adviser to the British tax Commission, which was entrusted with the rebuilding of the German economy. From 1950 to 1970 he was Chief Economic Advisor ( Chief Economist ) of the British Coal Board, which had 800,000 employees. With his far-sighted planning ( he said the rise of OPEC and the problems of nuclear energy ahead ), he helped the UK during his economic recovery.

1955 Schumacher traveled to Burma as an economic consultant. There he developed the basic rules of what he called " Buddhist Economics", based on the belief that good work for proper human development is essential and that " production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic activity. "

In 1971 he converted to the Catholic faith. Once about his relationship with the Catholic Church, he said: It was a longstanding illicit relationship.

1973 Schumacher completed his book Small is beautiful in the house of his friend Leopold Kohr in Aberystwyth; the book was a bestseller. 1977 Schumacher of U.S. President Jimmy Carter was invited to the White House to present his book.

He died on September 4, 1977 of a heart attack during a lecture tour in a train.