Conscious Choice: Local Self-Reliance

November 1999 | Citizen at Large

Local Self-Reliance

by Jay Walljasper

It’s doubtful that anyone alive on earth has not heard the good news: We now live in a global economy. And as the worshipful coverage in the financial press makes clear, this means far more than just a boom in international commerce. Indeed, we are entering the Promised Land as foretold by the prophets of the new faith of Market Economics. "Competition," "Economic Growth," "Economies of Scale," "Comparative Advantage," and "Profit" are the principles under which all human enterprises must operate. Any other beliefs — the importance of social justice, the necessity of ecological diversity, the value of community — are dismissed as outdated superstitions.

Market Economics comes complete with its own sacred texts — the Maastricht Treaty, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and GATT, whose wisdom is interpreted for us by administrators at the European Commission in Brussels and the World Trade Organization in Geneva. These elders sit in judgment on all actions to promote economic equality, to protect the environment, or to preserve local communities. Their almighty organizations have the power to bless or condemn laws enacted by democratically-elected governments, solely on the basis of whether the laws enhance opportunities for international trade.

To question the dogma of this new religion, to criticize the righteous crusade for Market Economics, amounts to heresy of the highest order. To do so is to risk being laughed at, ostracized, or burned at the stake — if not literally, then certainly financially. Look at what happens to any developing nation that dares to doubt the free market vision of the World Bank. Look at what happened to one of the world’s most powerful leaders, President François Mitterand of France, when in 1982 he tried to enact some socialist reforms that defied economic orthodoxy as dictated by the international financial community. Mitterand’s Socialist Party soon backed down, fearing France’s excommunication from the world economy.

Yet, even in the face of this far-reaching power, there are brave souls whose voices rise up against the fundamentalist doctrines of Market Economics. Indeed, a new political movement is gathering all around the world to challenge the inexorable rush toward complete globalization of the economy and human culture. And they offer some compelling evidence: the depravity of transnational corporations who impose long hours and starvation wages on the Indonesian workers who manufacture running shoes for the largely sedentary and often overweight consumers of the North; and the absurdity of millions of people on five continents knowing the "Baywatch" cast better than their own neighbors.

The global economy seems less and less wondrous when we’re reminded of its devastating impact on the environment (all the energy wasted and pollution generated in shipping goods halfway across the world), on local communities (all the jobs lost and people scattered as business relocates), on economic opportunity (all the wages lowered in the frantic dash for rock-bottom labor costs), and on our personal well-being (all the psychic energy squandered as we fight to stay afloat in a roiling sea of social and economic changes).

Most people around the world feel, deep down inside, that the global economy is not working in their interest. Yet very few of them are likely to join the ranks of any opposition movement until they hear word of an attractive alternative to the relentlessly preached gospel of globalization.

"Most people believe the global economy is the next inevitable step in economic evolution," notes David Morris, vice-president of the Washington-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Morris is perhaps the leading American thinker articulating an economic vision not based on ever greater volumes of international trade and more power for large corporations. For at least two decades, he has patiently and forcefully made the case for Local Self-Reliance, the simple idea that the smartest solutions to most of our needs — material, economic, cultural, psychological — lie close to home. His notions of local self-reliance seemed to be catching on with the activists, organizers, economists, and students.

Local Self-Reliance is an idea with the power to stand up to the seemingly invincible forces pushing for economic globalization because local communities still exert a strong pull on the hearts and minds of almost everyone — except a minuscule class of jet-setters, many of whom own or call the shots at transnational corporations, and who’ve relinquished their loyalties to any particular place on earth.

Proponents of economic globalization may invoke the abstract logic of economics to justify their actions. Proponents of localism need simply to point out how their policies will affect a person’s neighbors, relatives, and hometown. Economy of scale might strike you as an indisputable concept but it’s not going to motivate most people the same way as the idea of boosting their communities.

The global economy overtook us because there was no movement arguing on behalf of local communities. Left to defend themselves on a one-by-one basis, communities and their advocates were easily dismissed as backward by the proselytizers for progress. But now we are seeing, at events such as the Globalization Teach-Ins as well as environmental summits, the symbolic linking of communities around the world — village activists from India exchanging ideas with European Greens and Indigenous people’s leaders and inner city organizers. Together they are working to create a broader awareness of what’s really at stake as globalized economic forces continue to uproot local ways of life.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, the worldwide localist movement has emerged as the chief opposition to Market Economics and its vision of a totally consolidated and hierarchical world economy. Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Rachel Carson and E.F. Schumacher now fill Marx’s role in providing the inspiration for a new political and economic configuration.

As David Morris points out, the idea of local self-reliance may acquire a big economic boost from a new generation of technological innovations. New information technologies make it more possible to stay in one place without being cut off from ebbs and flows of the rest of the planet. Indeed, the worldwide exchange of knowledge between communities is central to the localist vision, in sharp contrast to the emphasis on information as a commodity that characterizes most transnational corporations. It’s the massive shipment of goods and raw materials, not ideas, that localists want to slow.

New interest and sophistication in the scrap and recycling industries provides a chance for communities to be less dependent on raw materials purchased from faraway suppliers. Steady advances in wind and solar power make local energy sources a more feasible idea. And breakthroughs in the manufacture of materials may mean that eco-friendly products fabricated from locally-grown vegetation may replace imports of gasoline, chemicals, paper, and plastic.

Just as critical to the prospects of a localist revival is the growing public response against the bland, environmentally-suspect, poorly-made offerings of the global marketplace. Instead of the bloated rhetoric of Market Economics, people are actively seeking the simple charms of farmers’ markets where they can bite into a crisp apple grown nearby, rather than one that is genetically programmed and chemically treated to survive the long trip from New Zealand. Shoppers like to talk about a piece of new furniture, not with an indifferent clerk working for minimum wage, but with the artisan who built it.

As the heady sensation of mastering five hundred TV channels fades into the banal reality of another evening of mindless junk, people are reviving community festivals and pageants. They are giving the thumbs down to the shoddy fare of corporate breweries and bakeries and seeking out locally made breads and beers that reintroduce traditional recipes. They are banding together to block new motorways, shopping malls, and big-box all-purpose marts that pose a threat to the life and tranquility of their communities.

These may not seem like the kinds of things that will remake the world, especially since we’ve come to see politics as a big-arena activity with lots of TV cameras on hand, but if you think of people all over the world doing similar things in their own way to protect their homes, then you have the makings of a political movement with enough magnitude to take the planet back from the transnational corporations.

For more information on local self-reliance contact the Midwestern Office of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 612-379-3815, or visit the web site.

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