Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Vision of E.F. Schumacher


Fascinating article on the theological roots of Schumacher's economics:

It is, in fact, ironic that the modern environmental or “green” movement derives its weltanschauung not from any New Age philosophy or neo-pagan “religion,” but from the expertise and wisdom of a world-renowned economist who found inspiration from the social doctrine of the Church.

In practical terms, Schumacher counteracted the idolatry of giantism with the beauty of smallness. People, he argued, could only feel at home in human-scale environments, of which the family was the archetype. His insistence that the question of scale in economic life should not — and, indeed, morally speaking, could not — be separated from the overriding dignity of the human person shifted the whole focus of economic thought away from impersonal market forces and back to the dignity of human life.





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