Toward Buddhist economics, building on E. F. Schumacher

This chapter provides details, arguments, and references that might be of use to us, especially if we feel driven to try to communicate similar ideas to environmental skeptics and mainstream, conventional economists who continue to dominate the global political and economic systems. The topic of Buddhist economics is very large, and deliberately entitled "toward" that goal, as it cannot be comprehensive. Instead, main strategies are to reflect on aspects of Schumacher's life from a Buddhist perspective and to comment on Buddhist economics. In the English-speaking world Schumacher is often thought of as the leading "Buddhist" economist, even though Schumacher died as a Catholic. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered was published, eventually being translated into fifteen languages. Schumacher was born to a distinguished academic and professional family in the German capital, Berlin, where his father was a professor of economics.