The return to the human scale

This small big book is an economic and philosophical guide for all those who can slow down and would like to find out about economics from the other side: smaller, slower, less – in other words “less is more” – or simply sustainable.

E. F. Schumacher, the German Englishman, was a wanderer between worlds. Born in Bonn in 1911, he studied economics in Bonn and Berlin, before going to study in Oxford and New York in 1930. England became his second home. He emigrated from Nazi Germany and later worked as a journalist, farmer and advisor in economic matters. And so he travelled for Great Britain to Burma and India, across the African continent to Kenya, and also through South America. He became a well-known and sought-after economist who gave advice both as chief economist to the British government and to his readers in the weekly columns “A Guide for the Perplexed”. His book about a human, comprehensible economy, in which work and workers are at the heart of all decision-making, became a world best-seller in the 1970s. In 1977, he was invited to the White House to see Jimmy Carter, and embarked on a worldwide reading tour, during which he suddenly died. One sentence in the chapter “Technology with a Human Face” can be regarded as Schumacher’s guiding principle: Greater even than the mystery of natural growth is the mystery of the natural cessation of growth. Schumacher was a champion of an economy based on human dignity and reason, in living nature.

About the author

Uwe Heitkamp, 53 anos, jornalista e realizador, vive 25 anos em Monchique, Portugal. Adore caminhadas na montanha e natação nas ribeiras e barragens. Escreve e conte histórias sobre os humanos em relação com a ecologia e a economia. Pense que ambas devem ser entendido em conjunto. O seu actual filme “Herdeiros da Revolução” conta durante 60 minutos a história de uma longa caminhada, que atravessa Portugal. Dez protagonistas desenham um relatório da sua vida na serra e no interior do país. O filme mostra profundas impressões entre a beleza da natureza e a vida humana. Qual será o caminho para o futuro de Portugal? (Assine já o ECO123 e receberá o filme na Mediateca)