Good work

When E. F. Schumacher died in September 1977, his friend Barbara Ward described him as belonging to that intensely creative minority who have changed the direc tion of human thought. And his two books Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed would alone ensure that his ideas will remain very much alive.

Fritz Schumacher's ideas were the product of a highly original and creative mind; they are generally radical, demanding drastic alterations in conventional ways of thinking and doing; and they have a universal quality about them, which appeals to countless people of differ ent ages, classes, races, and shades of political and religious belief. But I think that there is an even more uncommon quality about his ideas, which is that they lend themselves to, indeed invite, action.

The most obvious example is his concept of inter mediate technology. The critical role of technology in economic development was first brought into perspec tive by Schumacher in a report prepared in 1962 for the government of India. Three years later, a few of us helped him to start the Intermediate Technology De velopment Group in London to implement the idea, to develop and make known technologies appropriate to the needs and resources of poor people in poor com munities: tools and equipment deliberately designed to be relatively small, simple, capital-saving, and environ mentally nonviolent. Today, there are more than twenty similar groups operating in as many countries, and the concept has been taken up by UN agencies, govern ments, and voluntary organizations throughout the world. It is now recognzed as being every bit as relevant to the rich countries as to the poor.