ABSTRACT
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, who was normally referred to as Fritz Schumacher, was the progenitor of "intermediate technology" and is generally regarded as the grandfather of the Appropriate Technology movement as a whole. Schumacher was a high level professional economist and the idea of Intermediate Technology was essentially an economic concept. Schumacher became one of the major intellectual influences on national and international economic planning during and after the War. Intermediate Technology was the product of Schumacher's genius. The centrality of Buddhism in Burmese life had a profound influence on Schumacher and led him to attempt an outline of a framework for an economic system which accorded with the basic principles of Buddhism. Unemployment is viewed by Schumacher as a key problem in the South not only because of its pervasiveness, but also because it leads to the growth of extreme poverty and has damaging effects on the psyche of the unemployed and on their cultural environment.
