Fritz Schumacher, the radical economist whose ideas inspired sustainable, community-based development all over the world and whose work is today carried on by the charity Practical Action, would have been 100 today.

I'm a great admirer of Practical Action's work and much of Schumacher's philosophy; the charity very much works on the basis of ( Read more... )

I've just been helping a student find this: the text of Tony's Blair's Romanes lecture on education at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, in December 1999.

Was rather, erm, struck by the following description:

"Economic management was poor, with two deep recessions in two decades. There was chronic instability - boom and bust - in the economic cycle. ( Read more... )