Quotes about the work of the E. F. Schumacher Society
WES JACKSON, founder of The Land Institute and
co-editor of Rooted In the Land writes,
E. F. Schumacher...has increasing influence in
the modern world partly because his ideas are intrinsically
correct or compelling but also because such people as
SusanWitt and Bob Swann of the E. F. Schumacher Society
keep them before the public.
At this precise moment in our history with the
first major failure of the industrial mind, the fall
of the Soviet Union, we are forced to ask: What is in
store for the remaining industrial societies? Clearly,
what we see is that those most vulnerable are those
whose scale is so large that a meta-industrial and small
scale economy is hard to imagine. But even within those
societies comes that influence of the likes of the E.
F. Schumacher Society devoted to keeping the ideas alive
and the promoters of small scale experiments encouraged.
Technology with a human face is a beautiful notion and
it seems to be a matter of ordinary prudence to keep
this currently marginal idea going. Humanity will one
day need all of the good examples of small scale it
can find.
About the Library of the E. F. Schumacher Society:
WENDELL BERRY, Kentucky farmer, poet, and essayist,
writes,
I am making a donation of $2000 to the E. F. Schumacher
Society for the purpose of renovating your library building.
My wish to do this comes from my belief that your work
in developing the means of local economic cooperation
is sound and necessary. As a member of a dying rural
community myself, I have found more hope in your work
(because you have shown me things that can be done)
than anywhere else.
JANE JACOBS, regional planner and author, writes
about a proposal to catalogue and staff the library:
...The project is enormously worthwhile. Serious
demand (in fact sheer need) for local, decentralist
economic initiatives is on the rise, hence also need
for a facility that both collects and disseminated pertinent
information. The E. F. Schumacher Library’s definition
of “pertinent”, including both practice and
theory, and linking local economic initiatives with
environmental, social and regional concerns, is excellent:
vital to constructive, long-term results.
It is neither practical nor necessary for those participating
in local initiatives to keep re-inventing the wheel—in
fact, many wheels...the proposed project will enable
the library to deepen and extend its services in such
matters as appropriate legal instruments, comparisons
of possibilities and experience, recognition of local
resources, assets and opportunities all too often now
ignored, together with solid grounding in principles.
The library and its resources are already making a considerable
contribution in this field. The proposal is intended
to enlarge and extend the contribution, and doubtless
will do just that.
The people involved are enormously capable. I have followed
the work of the E. F. Schumacher Society, as an interested
outsider, and of Bob Swann and Susan Witt and their
colleagues, since 1983, and my observations are that
they are responsible, experienced, tenacious, and it
would not be going too far to say brilliant. They are
capable of bringing visions to reality and then carrying
through...These people are about the least wasteful
and most ingenious with practicalities of anybody I’ve
encountered. I’ve repeatedly marveled at how they
seem able to make one dollar do the work of two. And
they are not wishful thinkers; they are realistic.
To sum up, in my opinion this project merits support.
I have no doubt that every dollar it receives will be
well and amply repaid in services and resources that
make real and contraceptive differences to society.
PAUL GLOVER, community activist and creator of
Ithaca HOURS,
writes,
These several days discussing and researching at
the E. F. Schumacher library have been extremely stimulating.
You’ve expanded my understanding of the possibilities
of scrip and of ecological economic development. The
rare materials from your library are essential contributions
to my forthcoming book about local currency.
The Ithaca HOUR was sparked by your creation of Deli
Dollars and Berkshire Farm Preserve Notes. For this,
the over 800 Ithacans who have benefited, by trading
hundreds of thousands of HOURS so far, can thank your
work. The several other local currencies that the HOUR
has inspired can thank you as well.
LEW SOLOMON, professor of Law at George Washington
University, author of Rethinking our Centralized Monetary
System: The Case for Local Currencies, writes,
I am presently researching a handbook on local
currency. I recently visited the E. F. Schumacher Society
to use its library and draw on the personal knowledge
of Robert Swann and Susan Witt. Despite the library
resources in the Washington DC area as well as the electronic
information retrieval services available to me, the
Schumacher library contains a unique collection of books,
pamphlets, and newspaper clippings dealing with local
currencies. The materials are carefully indexed and
readily accessible for visitors. The library represents
an invaluable resource for researchers in its specialized
areas.
RICHARD DOUTHWAITE, author of The Growth Illusion,
writes in Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies
for Security in an Unstable World,
Run on a shoestring, it is the single most important
US information source for anyone researching community
economics.
About Fritz Schumacher’s Collection:
VRENI SCHUMACHER, widow of Dr. Fritz Schumacher,
upon sending the collection from England to Massachusetts
writes,
...I hope that you are pleased with the books and
that...they give a taste of what Fritz was about. I
hope that the shipment has arrived safely. Thanks again
for offering a good home to the books. Wishing the society
all success...
KIRKPATRICK SALE, bioregionalist and author of
Human Scale, upon helping to unpack the collection at
the Schumacher Center writes,
I hadn't realized all the treasures we would be
getting, and I was delighted in opening box after box
to see that we got not only the books and essential
papers but the essence of the man himself, in all his
dimensions. I was especially pleased to see that we
have all his book reviews and articles (published, and
often with typescript, sometimes with manuscript) and
loads of his speeches (manuscript and mimeographed),...some
of which I think no one even knew about or remembered.
Plus those notebooks—who knows what rich veins
may be there.
This is a real challenge, to get the stuff sorted and
read and catalogued...and I should think any number
of people and institutions would be delighted to rise
to it. Not only will this serve to anchor Fritz's place
in 20th century political thought and to provide a scholarly
trove such as very few men of his stature get, but it
will act as a beacon for other such materials from other
quarters, raising the Center to the primary place I
had hoped we would get to all along.
About the effort to make MANAS Journal available online:
DENNIS MEADOWS, author of Limits
to Growth with Donella Meadows wrote,
I send my profound thanks to you for making all
the MANAS materials available on the web. I subscribed
to MANAS for many years until it
ceased publication. I found it a lucid, thoughtful analysis
of many important issues.
Geiger's millions of words contain many that are still
relevant today. I have stored the web
link where I'll find it whenever I am looking for
a relevant quote or a thoughtful analysis that I can
cite in a speech or paper.
