 Irish Economist Richard Douthwaite, who I have written about twice before,
has done (nine years ago) something I had planned to do: Write a book
about how to create a bottom-up community-based economy. What's more,
he's now put it on the web for free, with updates to 2004.
In his previous book, The Growth Illusion, Douthwaite laid out four qualities of a sustainable economic system:
- the need to end or reverse human population increase
- acceptance of a responsibility to leave as healthy an
environment with as many resources for future generations, as we
inherited from past generations
- valuation of other people's interest equally with our own
- acceptance that some things are priceless' and hence
off-limits to economic development -- they must not be sold, bartered,
destroyed or used up regardless of the economic 'value' this might bring
He then went on to describe such a sustainable system at a high level. Here's his summary:
The
new economy must be built bottom-up. It starts with sustainable local
economies that would produce the essentials of life from the resources
in their areas and thus be largely self-sufficient and independent of
each other. This is not to say that they would not trade. They would,
but never out of necessity. A local economy that needs to trade is an
indication that it is, or will become in time, unsustainable...A
greater diversity of diet, clothing, building materials and lifestyles
[would result] just as in the natural world where species have their
own ecological niches and avoid competing directly. Regional economies
would develop by finding good ways to use the resources of their
immediate areas to meet the needs of local people rather than the
demands of uniform markets far away. New cuisines and vernacular
architectures would develop and new cultures would be born, and remain
sustainable...provided its population did not exceed its carrying
capacity.
In Short Circuit,
he's laid out a blueprint for this new economy. One of the breakthrough
ideas (to me anyway) comes right in the Preface, where he says:
Admittedly,
most groups' efforts to develop their local economies are still on the
conventional 'what can we supply to outside markets?' lines but a
certain 'which of our needs can we start satisfying from our own district's resources?' radicalism is creeping in.
As
obvious as this is, it had never occurred to me that, beyond creating
community self-sufficiency in energy, food (as much as climate
permits), and health/biotech, the way to create a viable community is
to focus on meeting that community's own needs, not the needs of the
world at large. That means community-based education, utilities,
clothing and furniture, manufacture, entertainment and recreation,
service of transportation and computer technology, home renovation and
repair, social and financial services, and a few other things
The
first two chapters of the book reiterate the failures of our
unsustainable, 'globalized' economy. He tells the story of an Irish
island that was once self-sufficient, but which now produces almost
nothing and depends substantially on welfare from Dublin. Douthwaite's
summary of these chapters:
The
world economy has changed its nature. Since the early 1970s it has
become highly unstable and has favoured the rich over the poor.
Unfortunately, even if politicians accepted this, there would be very
little they could do. In the world economy, only a very limited range
of activities is commercially feasible in most communities because of
the intensity of competition from outside. We must therefore build
independent, parallel economies if we are to fill more of our needs for
ourselves.
The next chapters describe how such independent, parallel economies could be built, focusing on:
- The need for a local, independent, time-based currency for each
community (he shows that this stimulates and more fairly values local
enterprise, and reduces dependency on and vulnerability to economic
activities outside the community, but says existing LETS systems need
serious reform through experimentation);
- The need for a local credit union that invests money from those in the community, in
the community, and that insures community members, unintermediated by
expensive financial agents, and provides a social dividend to the
community (there is a fascinating discussion in the book that concludes
the charging of interest on loans is counterproductive, inflationary
and unsustainable, and proposes instead that the community itself
decide who to loan to, interest free);
- The need for local, renewable energy co-ops
that preclude the need for communities to rely on outside power
generation and foreign and non-renewable energy sources, coupled with
aggressive community-based conservation programs;
- The need for community-based, organic farms
and locally-owned shops to replace industrial agriculture and massive
transportation, centralized buying and warehousing of foods (Douthwaite
refers to a 1990 book Shattering: Food, Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity
by Cary Fowler & Pat Mooney, which explains how the reduction in
the number of varietals of all foodstuffs has made our food supply much
more vulnerable to plant and animal epidemics, and bioterrorism -- has
anyone read this book?)
The opportunity for peer-to-peer
lending is certainly enabled by the Internet, and has recently been the
subject of a bold experiment (thanks to Lavonne at Born Famous for this link) called Kiva,
that builds on commercial Grameen-style microlending experiments by
allowing people to lend money to those in struggling nations and track
the value produced by that investment through online newsletters. These
loans bear no interest but have a very high repayment record. For those
demanding a better return than this, and wanting to keep their
investment in their own community, an increasing number of businesses
are seeking funds online and offering attractive interest rates. For
example, this socially and
environmentally friendly Toronto-based business is looking for
expansion funds. The risks are relatively high, but if I'm going to
take a financial risk I'd rather take it with a business that's trying
to make the world better, is located in or near my own community, and
which I can personally visit and be welcomed at beyond the annual
general meeting.
I have argued in Natural Enterprise that with organic financing, lending may not even be necessary, except for large community-wide infrastructure (like wind turbines), which financing can be considered a 'prepayment' by community-members rather than a loan.
I'd
like to see Douthwaite expand the book to deal with other core economic
activities and how they would work in a community-based economy:
specifically education, health care, clothing manufacture and
construction & renovation. I don't see any of them as especially
problematic.
Douthwaite's conclusion is that a competition-based
'market economy' simply would not work as a community-based system. For
a start, a completely different set of measurements,
less quantitative and more oriented to well-being and equality than to
profit and growth, would be required. The idea that the 'profits' of
community enterprises belong to the whole community and should be reinvested in accordance with the whole community's consensus will take some getting used to. So will the development and acceptance of community operating principles based on the collective interest, rather than self-interest. The networking of small enterprises
to replace single, large, hierarchical enterprises, on the other hand,
will likely be easier to accept, as the wisdom of this type of
operation is already gathering broad acceptance. So will the idea of democratically choosing who to form community with and make a living with, instead of having to accept one's neighbours and employers as an economic necessity -- though it will take us a lot of practice to learn to choose our community-mates well.
The
conclusion of Short Circuit profiles the town of Maleny, Australia,
which for 25 years has been trying out much of the community-based
economy model that Douthwaite's book espouses, mostly successfully,
though the learning experience, and experiment, continues.
If
Douthwaite and other economists are correct, and the massively
dysfunctional so-called 'market' economy is doomed, we need a lot more
such experiments, a renaissance of the commons, an understanding of collective processes, and a great variety of models, from which we can learn how to replace it when it collapses.
(The drawing above, entitled
'Working Together', by Sioux artist Ioyan Mani, is one of a stunning
collection of drawings available for viewing and purchase here) |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
