Conscious Choice: A Return to Community

April 1999

A Return to Community

by Tom Meier

"Great changes never come from above; they invariably come from below; just as trees never grow from the sky downward, but upward from the earth." — Carl Jung

By simply choosing to shop at a locally owned store instead of going to a chain, you could be starting a revolution.

In the coming years, says Paul Hawken, our society will undergo a "resource productivity revolution" in which business will use fewer resources and more people, instead of the current situation in which people are being downsized as more and more resources are used up. He suggests that government will help this happen, by taxing labor less and resource depletion more.

Let’s hope he’s right, but let’s not wait for the changes to come from the top. Are we really willing to put all of our trust in the entrenched powers to voluntarily change things for the better? And what about the lack of meaning that so many Americans feel in their jobs and in their lives? Do Hawken’s solutions speak to this?

Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, MA says, "People feel alienated today by the bigness of everything; they’re yearning for community." The rise in globalism has ironically helped fuel another trend: the return to the local. And, according to Witt, it’s primarily on the local level that lasting, meaningful change can take place.

Since 1980, she and President Bob Swann have run the E.F. Schumacher Society, an organization based in the work of E.F. Schumacher, whose 1973 classic Small Is Beautiful has inspired a widespread movement for revitalizing local economies and renewing community. The Schumacher Society, nestled in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, offers tools and resources for individuals and communities wanting to strengthen their local economies.

Both Schumacher and Hawken would say that modern industrial capitalism, with its push for limitless growth, is eating up its own "natural capital" — the renewable and non-renewable resources necessary for survival. The earth, after all, is a limited system.

Schumacher’s solution is to build our economies "from local sources for local needs" as much as possible — to create more regionally based micro-economies intimately tied in with the communities they serve instead of being affected by far away global market forces. This would save natural resources (natural capital) and bring back the sense of community that many feel is lacking in their lives today.

And this is something that we, as individuals and communities, can effect, by the choices we make — without having to wait for government and big business to change things.

How They Got Started

Bob Swann sponsored E.F. Schumacher’s lecture tour in 1974 to promote Small Is Beautiful, because sales initially were slow. Then the book took off, and Schumacher asked Bob to start an organization that would work with communities.

"I told Schumacher that Susan came with the package," Bob chuckles. Susan adds: "Bob is the visionary and I’m the implementer."

Both Bob and Susan are well-known and respected pioneers in the movement to revitalize community economics. Bob is known as the father of the Community Land Trust movement. Susan founded the SHARE program, a community based micro-lending program for small businesses.

Now at work on his autobiography, Bob’s 81 years have been extraordinary: he was jailed as a conscientious objector in World War II; worked as a builder for Frank Lloyd Wright; was a civil rights activist; and became friend of Schumacher. Susan and Bob originally met in the‘60s, then met again in the seventies after Susan heard Bob talking about community land trusts on a radio program.

Bob constructed the uniquely airy, yet cozy building that now headquarters the Schumacher Society; it’s also home to Schumacher’s 3000-volume personal library and an archival collection of unpublished works and letters. It sits at the base of Jug End Mountain at the top of a steep gravel driveway on Jug End Drive, just down the street from Indian Line Farm, the first CSA in America. You can take a hiking path from the front door of the building and reach the Appalachian Trail in just a few hundred yards.

Practical Activity is the Goal

When Susan and Bob started the organization, a Schumacher Society already existed in England. The existing society mainly was a learning center for scholars. Susan says that from the start, the American cousin has tried to do rather than talk. "We’re not content to be theorists. We had a mandate, especially we Americans, actually to try out Schumacher’s ideas. Our American nature says it’s only valuable if you do it."

Susan explains, "We work with local communities to implement programs that encourage consumers to take more of an active role in shaping the local economy. So instead of the responsibility always riding on the producers, we’ve created vehicles that put the responsibility on the consumers. And we don’t turn to government. We don’t even think about government."

All around the country, Schumacher-style experiments are cropping up. Citizens are actively trying to foster this local revitalization. Here are three Schumacher-inspired tools people are using to take back their communities:

Strengthening Regional Economies with Local Currencies

In more than 70 communities in the U.S., residents are experimenting with local currencies. The idea here is simple: to create a vehicle that keeps money flowing within the region, thereby strengthening the local economy, and making the area more self-sufficient.

In many towns today, chain stores take over and the money that is spent in that region does not recirculate. Instead, it’s siphoned off to distant, centralized corporations that often have no longterm commitment to the community. When a Wal-Mart comes to town, jobs are created—but they’re mostly low paying jobs, and the money spent at the store leaves the community.

Local currencies may sound oddly foreign, but the practice is actually centuries old, even in the United States. Local banks early in U.S. history commonly issued local currencies. In fact, Thomas Jefferson envisioned a nation of small, independent, and self-sufficient regions, each with its own currency. Even more fascinating is that our current centralized monetary system did not become formalized until 1913. In the 1930s, locally issued currency became popular again for awhile and helped to strengthen poverty stricken regions.

In the 1970s Bob Swann and economist Robert Borsodi conducted a year-long experiment with a local currency in Exeter, New Hampshire. They wanted to study the process to create workable models for other communities wishing to do the same.

Since then, the Schumacher Society has inspired hundreds of communities around the country to establish local currencies. Perhaps the most famous of these is Ithaca Hours, established in 1991 by Paul Glover after he spent a week visiting the Schumacher library and talking to Bob.

Ithaca, New York, is a town of contrasts: a working class town of 50,000 that’s also a university town. The success of Ithaca Hours proves that local currencies can appeal to a wide spectrum of lifestyles. Paul Glover says politics are irrelevant as long as a community is united in wanting to strengthen and preserve itself. As Paul says, "We printed our money because we watched federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars."

Today $65,000 of Ithaca Hours are in circulation, emblematic of an estimated two million dollars of transactions. So far, more than 370 businesses accept full or partial payment in Ithaca Hours. Additionally, individuals offer professional services, from typing to chimney cleaning, in exchange for Hours. This helps unleash local creativity that may not have had a value in the normal monetary system. It also builds community, as people get to know others of like mind.

Closer to home, Madison Hours is a local currency that works much the same way. Established in 1995, Madison Hours has 60 commercial participants and nearly $37,000 in circulation. Most of this money so far has changed hands between individuals, rather than businesses. Madison Hours publishes a monthly newspaper available at coffee shops and co-ops in Madison with an extensive list of individuals offering services in exchange for Hours. The program is still new and relatively unknown beyond the east-side Willy Street neighborhood, but its strength — despite slow support from local businesses — lies in so many enthusiastic individuals participating.

Local currencies can be a powerful tool for change. As Susan says, "Local scrip is much more than a device for revitalizing the local economy. It provides a direct way to respond to the alienation we experience in an expanding global economy, and helps restore the possibility of regional economies based on social and ecological principles."

She explains, "By intentionally narrowing our choices of consumer goods to those locally made, local currencies allow us to know more fully the stories of items purchased — stories that include the human beings who made them and the minerals, rivers, plants, and animals that were used to form them. Such stories, shaped by real life experience, work in the imagination to foster responsible consumer choices and re-establish a commitment to the community. In this sense, local currencies become a tool not only for economic development but for cultural renewal."

Not just confined to progressive enclaves like Berkeley and Madison, local currencies also are thriving in Akron, Kansas City, and Indianapolis. In each place, the currency is adapted to the unique needs and personalities of the place. This is partly reflected in some of the names: Mo’ Money in New Orleans, BREAD in Berkeley, Barter Bucks in Indianapolis. Not all currencies are for towns; some are confined to city neighborhoods or even individual stores and restaurants. As Susan says, "The movement has all the energy, idealism, and mobility of young adulthood — still experimenting to find the right form, not afraid to take risks, able to alter direction as needed, and determined to change the economic system to reflect deeply held social and environmental values."

For those worried about the legality of local currencies, a member of the Treasury Department said to a reporter, "We don’t care if people use pine cones, as long as it is exchangeable for dollars so that transactions can be recorded for tax purposes."

Community Land Trusts: De-Commodifying Land for the Common Good

Community Land Trusts (CLT) are another local tool for developing community. The idea is to de-commodify land, to take it off the market permanently, and put it in the hands of the community who, acting as stewards, can use it "for the common good."

Here’s how it works: a group of community members raise money (through a variety of means), purchase land, and designate it as community property. Any and all members of the community can vote for how they want the land used.

Part of what makes Community Land Trusts so special is that the land can have multiple uses, according to the needs of the community. Common uses have been creating affordable housing, restoring farms, and preserving open space. Normally, zoning restrictions require land to be designated for single-purpose use.

Bob Swann is the father of this movement. It started during his civil rights work when he co-founded first Community Land Trust in 1967 in Albany, Georgia with Slater King, a cousin of Martin Luther King, Jr. A group of concerned citizens bought 5,000 acres and leased it to small-scale African American farmers, who otherwise could not have afforded the land.

Permanently taking land off the market "unties a community’s capital from the land" says Bob, and frees it up for investment in small businesses. "When a region does this, it creates new investment capital, which can activate the imaginative and entrepreneurial skills of the community generating new local businesses that will produce goods and services once imported from other regions."

Community Land Trusts have allowed small farmers to stay afloat. Since the land itself cannot be privately owned, the farmer only has to own the buildings on the land. This brings down mortgage payments to affordable levels.

Low income families can become homeowners by this method because the land is free; they only have to buy a house that sits on the community land.

Today there are over 200 community land trusts in the country, inspired largely by Bob’s models.

Community Lending and Banking with the "Grandmother Principle"

In the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, small businesses are common, but the challenge for many is acquiring the capital for start-up costs. Many who have no credit rating cannot get bank loans. In 1982, Susan started a non-profit group called SHARE (Self-Help Association for a Regional Economy) to offer short-term loans to people starting local businesses. Many "were unable to secure bank loans but they had the kind of small enterprises that produced quality goods for local consumption."

Members of SHARE partnered with a locally owned bank to make this happen. All members opened savings accounts at the bank which would collateralize low interest loans. The bank makes the loan and handles the accounting, but the lending decisions are made democratically by SHARE members.

Sue Sellew borrowed $5,000 to update her milk and cheese making business. This has allowed her to sell cheese to local stores and restaurants.

And Ellie Smith, Susan explains, "had a poor credit record, but she had a knitting machine and a talent for designing clothes." She borrowed a small sum for bulk yarn. She knit sweaters, scarves, and leg-warmers in colorful unique designs. Her business went well and she secured a second loan for a second sewing machine. By the time she needed a third machine for an employee as her business grew, her credit rating had improved so she could get a regular loan from the bank.

Throughout the past 17 years, SHARE has made numerous loans, and the payback rate has been 100 percent. Part of the reason is that SHARE members actively support the businesses they lend to.

Susan explains, "It is the grandmother principle which has made SHARE a success: When people without credit histories decide to go into business, they frequently turn to a family member, such as a grandmother, for help. The SHARE program simply extends the‘circle of grandmothers’, creating a family of place."

"SHARE puts a human scale and a human touch back into local transactions. A newsletter tells SHARE depositors‘what your money is doing tonight’ — it’s working locally to make cheese or sweaters."

Midwives to a Growing Movement

Although practical activity remains their goal, the Schumacher Society is also an important resource for scholars and community activists. Many have visited to do research in Schumacher’s personal library. Thus, it offers printed resources and guidance for communities that want to start any of these take-back-the-power movements.

Its web site features excellent articles and resources for learning more about these issues. The society also has sponsored lectures by such notables as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Hazel Henderson.

Currently, the society is looking to hire a librarian to organize and make more accessible some of their key documents.

What Can You Do Without Rearranging Your Whole Life?

Not everybody has the time, energy or desire to organize community projects such as a local currency. So what can you do in your own busy life, without completely changing everything?

The obvious first step is to seek out, where possible, goods and services that are locally produced/owned/delivered. Voting with your dollars is a powerful way to begin to make the kinds of choices that can tip economic and social factors in a positive direction.

The next step might be to start organizing small consumer groups. All it takes is five or ten people, Susan explains, to begin. You might go to your local grocer, for instance, and tell him that you will agree to buy free range chicken if he agrees to buy them from a local farmer. "As a consumer your role is to go and ask and help to create and help share the risk. And that’s the difference; instead of being the passive consumer we’re trying to inspire the active consumer."

For urban folks, Susan says the place to look is to your neighborhoods. Support the corner grocer. The flower store. The restaurant. But just ask who owns it.

And whether we live in a rural or urban area, learning the history and seeking out local stores can help root us to our place. The biggest challenge is perhaps the suburbs. There, a sense of place can’t easily be rediscovered, but it can be born.

Globalism may be here to stay, but that doesn’t leave us powerless to make choices that affect the health of our own communities. In fact, globalism makes it necessary that we begin to do whatever we can to ensure that our towns, suburbs, and urban neighborhoods stay vital.

Of course, becoming a member of the Schumacher Society can help you help more communities succeed at these embryonic experiments.

The Richness of Being Rooted

Noted author Wendell Berry said that we cannot care for and love the whole earth because it’s an abstraction — with the possible exception of astronauts and mystics none of us has ever experienced the whole earth in its entirety. What we can love and care for, though, is our own little corner of it, the place we know. This can be challenging because we live in a footloose society and many of us don’t yet feel connected to our place.

Susan says that her work with the Schumacher Society has allowed her to put her roots down and form deep ties in the community. "And that connection is rich beyond dreams," she says.

"I find if you look at the objective reality of the world we live in, there isn’t much hope," says Bob. "I think the thing that gives me hope is that we draw people who are actively working for change and who are producing some very important things."

But Schumacher warned, "Our current crisis will become worse and end in disaster, until or unless we develop a new lifestyle, which is compatible with the real needs of human nature, with the health of living nature around us, and with the resource endowment of the world."

Schumacher told Bob during his 1974 book tour that it’s about balance. He said that if everyone were preaching small, he’d be advocating big. He was not proposing a utopian system that naively ignores the huge forces of globalism. But the balancing control within globalism must be small, local units intimately serving the unique needs of their regions.

As local economy advocate David Morris put it, we live in a dual world, "a global village and a globe of villages." The global village is upon us. But the villages of the globe we will have to build with our own hands.

Tom Meier is a writer on sustainability and organic agriculture living near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. E-mail: tom@genevaonline.com

Resources

E.F. Schumacher Society, 140 Jug End Road, Great Barrington, MA 02130, 413-528-1737, e-mail: efssociety@aol.com

Becoming a member of the Schumacher Society ($50 a year) helps support their work and gives you significant savings on books and reprints of their annual lecture series that’s been continuing since 1981. The society also offers how-to booklets, legal documents, and guidance in fostering local economies. Members get discounts on all products.

Ithaca Money, Paul Glover, P.O. Box 6578 Ithaca, NY 14851, 607-272-4330, e-mail: hours@lightlink.com. Excellent web site with lots of local currency success stories as well as a list of all known local currencies in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe. Hometown Money Starter Kit for $25 and Ithaca Hours video for $15.

Madison Hours local currency, Hour Community Newspaper, Box 3204, Madison, WI 53704, 608-259-9050. Publishes a monthly newsletter with tons of listings.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: