Global Business

Conserving Communities The world is essentially a two-party system. One is the party of the global economy, and the

other is the party of local community.

By Wendell Berry

There are other unanswered questions about the global economy, two which are paramount:

How can any nation or region justify the destruction a local productive capacity for the sake of

foreign trade? And how can people who have demonstrated their inability to run national

economies without inflation, usury, unemployment, and ecological devastation now claim that

they can do a better job in running a global economy? American agriculture has demonstrated by

its own ruination that you cannot solve economic problems just by increasing scale, and more

over that increasing scale is almost certain to cause other problems--ecological, social, and

cultural.

It is time for us to face the likelihood that human intelligence is not competent to work on the

scale to which we have been tempted by our techno logical abilities. Some such recognition is

undoubtedly implicit in American conservatives’ long-standing objection to a big central

government. And so it has been odd to see many of these same conservatives pushing for the

establishment of a supranational economy that would inevitably function as a government far

bigger and more centralized than any dreamed of before. Long experience has made it clear--as

we might say to the liberals--that to be free we must’ limit the size of government and we must

have some sort of home rule. But it is just as clear--as we might say to the conservatives--that it

is foolish to complain about big government if we do not do everything we can to support strong

local communities and strong community economies.

But in helping us to confront, understand, and oppose the principles of the global economy, the

old political alignments have become virtually use less. Communists and capitalists are alike in

their contempt for country people, country life, and country places. They have exploited the

countryside with equal greed and disregard. They are alike even in their plea that it is right to

damage the present in order to make “a better future”.

The dialogue of Democrats and Republicans or of liberals and conservatives is likewise useless

to us. Neither party is interested in farmers or in farming or in the good care of the land or in the

quality of food. Nor are they interested in taking the best care of our forests. The leaders of these

parties are equally subservient to the supranational corporations. NAFTA and the new GATT’

revisions are the proofs. Moreover, the old opposition of country and city, which was never

useful, is now more useless than ever. It is, in fact, damaging to everybody involved, as is the

opposition of producers and consumers. These are not differences but divisions - - divisions that

ought not to exist because they are to a considerable extent artificial, trumped up for the sake of

illegitimate advantages. The so-called urban economy has been just as hard on urban

communities as it has been on rural ones.

These conventional affiliations are now meaningless, useful only to those in a position to profit

from public bewilderment. A new political scheme of opposed parties, however, is beginning to

take form. This is essentially a two-party system, and it divides over the fundamental issue of

community. One of these parties holds that community has no value; the other holds that it does.

One is the party of the global economy; the other I would call simply the party of local

community. The global party is large, though not populous, immensely powerful and wealthy,

self- aware, purposeful, and tightly organized. The community party is only now be- coming

aware of itself; it is widely scattered, highly diverse, small though potentially numerous, weak

though latently powerful, and poor though by no means without resources.

We know pretty well the make-up of the party of the global economy, but who are the members

of the party of local community? They are people who take a generous and neighbourly view of

self- preservation; they do not believe that they can survive and flourish by the rule of dog-eat-

dog; they do not believe that they can succeed by defeating or destroying or selling or using up

everything but themselves. They want to preserve the precious things of nature and of human

culture, and pass them on to their children. They want the world’s fields and forests to be

productive; they do not want them to be destroyed for the sake of production. They know you

cannot be a democrat (small d) or a conservationist and at the same time a proponent of the

supranational corporate economy. They believe--they know from their experience--that the

neighbourhood, the local community, is the proper place and reference of responsible work.

They see that no commonwealth or community of interest can be defined by greed. They know

that things connect--that farming, for example, is connected to nature, and food to farming, and

health to food—and for example, is connected to nature, and food to farming, and health to food-

-and they want to preserve the connections. They know that a healthy local community cannot be

replaced by a market or an entertainment industry or an information highway. They know that,

contrary to all the unmeaning and unmeant political talk about “job creation”, work ought not to

be merely a bone thrown to the otherwise unemployed. They know that work ought to be

necessary; it ought to be good; it ought to be satisfying and dignifying to the people who do it,

and genuinely useful and pleasing to the people for whom it is done.

The party of local community, then, is a real party with a real platform and agenda of real and

do-able work. And it has, we might add, a respectable history in the hundreds of efforts, over

several decades, to preserve local nature or local health or to sell local products to local

consumers. Now such efforts appear to be coming into their own, attracting interest and energy

in a way they have not done before. People are seeing more clearly all the time the connections

between conservation and economics. They are seeing that a community’s health is largely

determined by the way it makes its living.

The natural membership of the community party consists of small farmers, ranchers and market

gardeners, worried consumers, owners and employees of small shops, stores and other small

businesses, community banks, self-employed people, religious people, and conservationists. The

aims of this party really are only two: the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity, and

the renewal, on sound cultural and eco logical principles, of local economies and local

communities.

And now we must ask how a sustainable local community (which is to say, a sustainable local

economy) might function. I am going to suggest a set of rules that I think such a community

would have to follow. And I hasten to say that I do not understand these rules as predictions; lam

not interested in foretelling the future. If these rules have any validity, that is because they apply

now.

Supposing that the members of a local community wanted their community to cohere, to flourish,

and to last, they would:

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How

will this affect our common wealth?

2. Always include local nature-- the land, the water, the air, the native creatures--within the

membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help

of neighbours.

4. Always supply local needs first. (And only then think of exporting their products, first to

nearby cities, and then to others.)

5. The community must under stand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of

“labour saving” if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or

contamination.

6. If it is not to be merely a colony of the national or the global economy, the community must

develop appropriately scaled value-adding industries for local products.

7. It must also develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or

forest economy.

8. It must strive to produce as much of its own energy as possible.

9. It must strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community, and decrease

expenditures out side the community.

10. Money paid into the local economy should circulate within the community for as long as

possible before it is paid out.

11. If it is to last, a community must be able to afford to invest in itself; it must maintain its

properties, keep itself clean (without dirtying some other place), care for its old people, teach its

children.

12. The old and the young must take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not

necessarily and not always in school. There must be no institutionalized “child care” and “homes

for the aged”. The community knows and remembers it self by the association of old and young.

13. Costs now conventionally hidden or “externalized” must be accounted for. Whenever

possible they must be debited against monetary in come.

14. Community members must look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded

loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.

15. They should always be aware of the economic value of neighbourliness

--as help, insurance, and so on. They must realize that in our time the costs of living are greatly

increased by the loss of neighbourhood, leaving people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted with, and complexly connected with,

community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will be dependent on urban consumers loyal to local products.

Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more co-operative than

competitive.

These rules are derived from Westen political and religious traditions, from the promptings of

ecologists and certain agriculturists and from common sense. They may seem radical, but only

because the modern national and global economies have been formed in almost perfect disregard

of community and ecological interests. A community economy is not an economy in which well-

placed persons can make a “killing”. It is not a

killer economy. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well distributed and safeguarded

abundance. If it seems unusual for modern people to hope and work for such an economy, then

we must remind ourselves that a willingness to put the good of the community ahead of profit is

hardly unprecedented among community business people and local banks.

How might we begin to build a decentralized system of durable local economies? Gradually, I

hope. We have had enough of violent or sudden changes imposed by predatory interests outside

our communities. In many places, the obvious way to begin the work I am talking about is with

the development of a local food economy. Such a start is attractive because it does not have to be

big or costly, it requires nobody’s permission, and it can ultimately involve everybody. It does

not require us to beg for mercy from our exploiters, or to look up for help where we have

consistently failed to find it. By “local food economy” I mean simply an economy in which local

consumers buy as much of their food as possible from local producers, and in which local

producers produce as much as they can for local market.

Several conditions now favour the growth of local food economies. On the one hand, the costs

associated with our present highly centralized food system are going to increase. Growers in the

Central Valley of California, for example, can no longer depend on an unlimited supply of cheap

water for irrigation. Transportation costs can only go up.

Biotechnology, variety patenting, and other agribusiness innovations are intended, not to help

farmers or consumers, but to extend and prolong corporate control of the food economy; they

will increase the cost of food, both economically and ecologically.

On the other hand, consumers are increasingly worried about the quality and purity of their food,

and so would like to buy from responsible growers close to home. They would like to know

where their food comes from and how it is produced. They are increasingly aware also that the

larger and more centralized the food economy becomes, the more vulnerable it will be to natural

or economic catastrophe, to political or military disruption, and to bad agricultural practice.

For all these reasons, and others, we need urgently to develop local food economies wherever

they are possible. Local food economies would improve the quality of food. They would increase

consumer influence over production (consumers, that is, would become participatory members in

their own food economy). They would help to assure a sustainable, dependable supply of food.

By reducing some of the costs associated with long supply lines and large corporate suppliers

(transportation, refrigeration, advertising, etc.), they would reduce the cost of food at the same

time that they would increase income to growers. They would tend to improve farming practices,

and increase employment in agriculture.

Of course, no food economy can be, or ought to be, only local. But the orientation of agriculture

to local needs, local possibilities, and local limits is simply indispensable to the health of both

land and people, and undoubtedly to the health of democratic liberties as well.

For many of the same reasons, we need also to develop local forest economies, of which the aim

would be the survival and the enduring good health of both our forests and their dependent local

communities. We need to preserve our forests, in use, in their native diversity. As in agriculture,

we need local, small-scale, non-polluting industries to - add value to local forest products, as

well as local supporting industries for the local forest economy.

As support for sustainable agriculture should come most logically from consumers who

consciously wish to keep eating, so support for sustainable forestry might logically come from

loggers, mill workers, and other employees of the forest economy who consciously wish to keep

working. But many people have a direct interest in the good use of our forests: farmers and

ranchers with wood- lots, all who depend on the good health of forested watersheds, the makers

of wood products, conservationists, and so on.

What we have before us, if we want our communities to survive, is the building of an adversary

economy, a system of local or community economies within, and to protect against, the would-be

global economy. To do this, we must somehow learn to reverse the flow of the siphon that has

for so long been drawing resources, money, talent, and people out of our countryside with very

little if any return, and often with a return only of pollution, impoverishment, and ruin. We must

figure out new ways to fund, at affordable rates, the development of healthy local economies. We

must find ways to suggest economically-- for finally no other suggestion will be effective-- that

the work, the talents and the interest of our young people are needed at home.

Our whole society has much to gain from the development of local land- based economies. They

would carry us far toward the ecological and cultural ideal of local adaptation. They would

encourage the formation of adequate lo cal cultures (and this would be authentic multi-

culturalism). They would introduce into agriculture and forestry a sort of spontaneous and

natural quality control, for neither consumers nor workers would want to see the local economy

destroy itself by abusing or exhausting its sources. And they would complete at last the task of

freedom from colonial economics begun by our ancestors more than 200 years ago.