June 24, 2026
We are pleased to share a newly published lecture by economist James K. Boyce, introduced by entrepreneur, author, and environmentalist Peter Barnes. The lecture was delivered on the occasion of Boyce receiving the inaugural Common Wealth Prize, established by Barnes to recognize thinkers who are developing practical ways to protect our shared inheritance. Barnes begins with a … Continued
June 18, 2026
We are pleased to share a newly published lecture on our website: “Schumacher Revisited: Challenge, Courage, and Change.” In her Annual Robert Swann Lecture, Barbara Wood, E. F. Schumacher’s daughter, revisits her father’s life and work through the lens of his final book, A Guide for the Perplexed. While Small is Beautiful remains Schumacher’s best-known work, Wood’s lecture … Continued
June 4, 2026
We are pleased to share that the 45th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture, “The Promise of Bioregional Economies,” is now available to read, for free, on our website. Delivered by Samantha Power and Tyler Wakefield of the BioFi Project, the lecture offers both a sobering reality check and a hopeful, generative vision for the future. Beginning from the complexity and confusion of … Continued
May 27, 2026
What if the path toward a more equitable and resilient United States did not begin in Washington, but in the places where people actually live? In “The Promise of a Million Utopias,” Michael Shuman argues for a more decentralized economic and political system: one in which communities have greater freedom to experiment with new models of economic life, social … Continued
May 21, 2026
Our series highlighting entries from our Decentralism File collection continues with Wendell Berry. Wendell Berry is a farmer, essayist, novelist, poet, activist, and teacher who has farmed a Kentucky hillside for over half a century in his native Henry County, where his family has lived for eight generations. In the excerpt below from his well-known The Unsettling of America: Culture and … Continued
May 12, 2026
Since our founding in 1980, the Schumacher Center has been unwavering in our advocacy of a more localized, human-scale economic paradigm. Our commitment to community land trusts (CLTs), local currencies, import replacement, community banks, and worker-owned cooperatives stems from a fundamental understanding that community-based economic models are, by design, more equitable, ecological, and life-affirming than the current globalized system. … Continued
May 4, 2026
The decentralism of author Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) rests on her belief in the regenerative power of cities themselves and their regional economies. Jacobs, one of the 20th Century’s most important regional thinkers, writes not about “economics,” but about “economic life.” She observes economies in motion, not in stasis, and argues that city regions are the heart of … Continued
April 6, 2026
There is a growing sense that the frameworks we rely on—political, linguistic, cultural—are no longer able to hold the complexity of the present moment. On March 7th in Great Barrington, Báyò Akómoláfé and Nora Bateson joined Alex Forrester for Unnamed: A Conversation at the Edge of Sense, inviting participants into a different kind of encounter: one that resists immediate resolution, and instead … Continued
March 26, 2026
Below is a review of Edmund Noble’s Purposive Evolution: The Link Between Science and Religion written by Greg Watson, Curator of the World Game Workshop and World Grid Project at the Schumacher Center. Please enjoy.
February 25, 2026
“Báyò Akómoláfé is a philosopher who is pushing us to think outside of every narrative we take for granted. In this text, he guides us to reconsider how we relate to the world—and to internalize the fact that earth and all of nature are alive, relating to us. Selah is an ancient Indigenous orientation, poured … Continued
February 17, 2026
“In public talks and private discussions, E. F. Schumacher often pondered ‘the land question.’ An economic system that treats land as a commodity to be bought and sold on the market fails to foster the respect for land necessary to encourage its proper use. When an individual is allowed private ownership of a limited natural … Continued
February 16, 2026
Nora Bateson will reconvene with Báyò Akómoláfé and Alex Forrester for “Unnamed: a Conversation at the Edge of Sense” on March 7th in Great Barrington, MA.