Good to see the late Fritz Schumacher make an unscheduled appearance at Davos (Marx v Friedman, the ultimate Davos debate, 28 January). However, his contribution would likely have been far more radical than the words Larry Elliott puts into his mouth. While he would indeed have seen a Green New Deal as a necessary short-term measure to build a resilient, low-carbon infrastructure, his focus would likely have been to provide a strong moral and practical case for a managed contraction in the economies of the industrialised north. Noting that human wellbeing is to be found in the dignity of meaningful work and in reducing rather than ever expanding our “needs”, he would have targeted the consumer society as lying at the heart of our woes. The economic challenge of our times is the design of a system that enables us to gracefully contract while reducing inequality. Schumacher’s writing provides a strikingly contemporary moral and theoretical compass to guide us in this work.
Jonathan Dawson
Head of economics, Schumacher College