Schumacher, E F

Schumacher, E(rnst) F(riedrich)

(born Aug. 16, 1911, Bonn, Ger.—died Sept. 4, 1977, Romont, Switz.) German-born British economist. After studying in England and the U.S., he settled in England in 1937. During World War II he worked on theories for full-employment policies and, under William H. Beveridge, plans for Britain's postwar welfare state. Between 1950 and 1970 he was an adviser to Britain's nationalized coal industry. After a visit to Burma in 1955, he came to believe that poor countries needed an “intermediate technology” adapted to the unique needs of each in order to develop. In the influential Small Is Beautiful (1973) he argued that capitalism brought higher living standards at the cost of deteriorating culture and that bigness—especially large industries and large cities—was unaffordable.