E. F. Schumacher

Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was an internationally influential economic thinker with a professional background as a statistician and economist in Britain. He served as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades.^[1] His ideas became well-known in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s. He is best known for his critique of Western economies and his proposals for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies. According to The Times Literary Supplement, his 1973 book Small Is Beautiful is among the 100 most influential books published since World War II.^[2] It was soon translated into many languages and brought international fame to Schumacher, after which Schumacher was invited to many international conferences, university guest speaker lectures and consultations. Schumacher's basic development theories have been summed up in the catch-phrases Intermediate Size and Intermediate Technology. Schumacher's other notable work is the 1977 A Guide For The Perplexed, which is a critique of materialist scientism and an exploration of the nature and organization of knowledge. Together with long-time friends and associates like Professor Mansur Hoda, Schumacher founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) in 1966.

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A Guide For The Perplexed

A Guide for the Perplexed is a short book by E.F. Schumacher, published in 1977. Schumacher himself considered A Guide for the Perplexed to be his most important achievement, although he was better known for his 1974 environmental economics bestseller Small Is Beautiful, which made him a leading figure within the ecology movement. His daughter wrote that her father handed her the book on his deathbed, five days before he died and he told her "this is what my life has been leading to".^[1] As the Chicago Tribune wrote, "A Guide for the Perplexed is really a statement of the philosophical underpinnings that inform Small is Beautiful".

Adam Smith

Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Adam Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics.^[1][2]

Appropriate technology

Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, religious, ethical, racial, cultural, social, political, economical and gender-related aspects of the community it is intended for.^{[Neutrality is disputed]} With these goals in mind, AT typically requires fewer resources, is market-friendly, is easier to maintain, more economically efficient and less of an attack on the environment compared to wasteful and environmentally polluting industrialized practices.^{[1][Neutrality is disputed]}

Berlin

Berlin (English pronunciation: /bɝːˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐˈliːn]  ( listen)) is the capital city and one of 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union.^[2] Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Area, comprising 5 million people from over 190 nations.^[3] Geographically embedded in the European Plains Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city´s territory is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.^[4]

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 20 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999. Starting in 1998, many national government institutions were moved from Bonn to Berlin. Both houses of the German national parliament, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, were moved along with the Chancellery and the residence of German head of state, the Bundespräsident.

Bretton Woods system

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states.

Buddhist economics

Buddhist economics is a set of economic principles partly inspired by Buddhist beliefs that individuals ought to do good work in order to ensure proper human development.

Burma

Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia or Indochina. The country is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest with the Andaman Sea defining its southern periphery. One-third of Burma's total perimeter, 1,930 kilometres (1,199 mi), forms an uninterrupted coastline.

Canton (country subdivision)

A canton is a type of administrative division of a country. In general, cantons are relatively small in terms of area and population when compared to other administrative divisions such as counties, departments or provinces. Internationally the best-known cantons, and the most politically important, are those of Switzerland. As the constituents of the Swiss Confederation, theoretically (and historically) the Swiss cantons are sovereign states.

Capitalism and Freedom

Capitalism and Freedom is a book by Milton Friedman originally published in 1962 which discusses the role of economic capitalism in liberal society. It has sold over 400,000 copies in 18 years^[1] and more than half a million since 1962. It has been translated into 18 languages. In accessible, jargon-free language, Friedman makes the case for economic freedom as a precondition for political freedom. He defines liberal in European Enlightenment terms, contrasting with an American usage that he believes has been corrupted since the Great Depression. Many North Americans usually categorized as conservative or libertarian have adopted some of his views. The book finds several realistic places in which a free market can be promoted for both philosophical and practical reasons, with several surprising conclusions. Among other concepts, Friedman advocates ending the mandatory licensing of doctors and introducing a system of vouchers for school education.

Coal

Coal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure. It is composed primarily of carbon along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York (commonly known as Columbia University, or simply Columbia) is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. It was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, and is one of only two United States universities to have been founded under such authority. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, and is the 6th oldest in the United States—making it one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges. After the American Revolutionary War, it was briefly chartered as a state entity from 1784–1787. The university now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees.

Community

In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.