Localization

hippy kid, I hear ya! You've got that right. Sometimes common sense escapes folks when it's right in their face. The original REASON that people live in certain places on the earth is because there IS or WAS a way to survive there when they arrived! After all, how did anyone end up in places like GREENLAND or the desert AT ALL if there was no way to survive there? The practice of importing food all over the world has led to people being made DEPENDENT on others for their food. Setting up local agriculture and hunting/gathering would make people more INDEPENDENT like they used to be when they began migrating to those places in the first place.
There are also documented occurrences of areas that were barren and pretty much lifeless being brought into production by the use of intensive organic methods. (Check out Findhorn gardens as an example if you have not heard of that).

 

And why would anybody want to do that? You've overly glorified subsistence living; if it was so awesome movement from urban to rural wouldn't be outnumbered 10 to 1 by rural to urban.

 

Capitalism rules, homie. People think money is awesome now a days. Whatchoo thinkin'?

 

I think I've got it.

Excess production leads to urbanization leads to technology and easier lifestyles. The 100 million chinese that urbanized in the last 10 years seem to agree that it is better.

Now, I'm a big fan of farmer's markets. I like my produce fresh. I tend to buy organic. But I also enjoy such things as eating out of season fruit, technology, and all the other great things having specialized farmers lets me have.

 

Right on.

It's hard to be creative in today's cut throat, short term thinking corporate culture, especially when, just as you get comfortable with what you're doing, there's a change of the guard. Now you expend your energy appeasing your new bosses, rather than focusing on the task at hand, which is to produce. And who wants to be a boss anyway? Not me, I'm my own boss. In a local economy, there is no changing of the guard, you work with these people till you retire, so you best get along. I happen to be lucky in the sense that I've been in the cut throat corporate world, with a professional college degree. I didn't like it. I learned to get around it by selling myself cheap to the work environment that gives me the most freedom, and I feel prosperous. I don't need more than what I've got.

We're obviously not all that different in what we like. I need limes for my tequilla after all. Globalization is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, it just has its place, that's all, and I'm pretty sure that if we as a society try to get ourselves back on track to where we cultivate a friendly, personal business relationship with our neighbors, we'll be better off.

 

AMEN!

Now, here's a little something that occurs to me regarding THAT.

Off topic? maybe, but maybe not.

You know how whenever you try to deal with "customer service" and can't get any satisfaction, or the lady behind the cash register who is somewhere between "just doing her job" and "having a really bad day"? You try to order something thru the mail and your order ends up being wrong, the guy behind the desk acts like a robot, the professional roofers you hired to fix the roof do a crappy job?

I think one of the reasons these things happen to everyone on a daily basis these days is:
1. Everything is TOO BIG, TOO CONFUSING, TOO MUCH RED TAPE AND BEUROCRACY.
2. DRUG TESTING eliminating an awful lot of GOOD workers from the "greater" workforce.

More localization would lead to less frustration, less strict rules, less "tight-ass", more one on one. People knowing each other. More folks would get hired based on important things like ABILITY, and PERSONALITY, and drive. Not just because they went to the right school and can pass a drug test.

It's a lot easier to be aloof and uncaring when dealing with a huge number of strangers every day, but if you are dealing with a smaller number of folks you are acquainted with and who you live around, you tend to be more personable and do a better job.

Localization has a LOT of benefits if you really start thinking about it.

 

It really sucks, because Western society is going in the opposite direction. Greed and materialism and superficiality and other isms blind everyone, and it's spreading all over the world. I wish there was hope... I want to think there is, but it's hard.

 

it is hard, i sometimes find myself feeling cynical and pesimistic, feeling guilty for the whole human race, feeling insignificant in the face of institutionalized, destructive corporate power, not giving a shit if mankind survives it's pollution, just hoping the Earth suvives us...
What do we contribute? we have put ourselves at the top of the foodchain, instead of contributing to the global ecosystems, we choke out other species bybowning and refacing the land, but dumping huge quantities of toxins into the land, air, and sea... and so many of us don't even care to make the littlest of sacrifices to create a more sustainable future and to take care to see to it that our planet contiues to be habitable, even though we are the self-proclaimed kings of this world... some are too fearful that something to simple as localiztion who be too great of a threat to their cell-phones and video games.

 

of course humans are weak and lazy much of the time and greedy most of the time. subsistance living is not so undignified, but that's really not what this thread is about. but you fail to acknowledge that this current economy of excess relies on things like oil and coal which are ancient and limited resources. It cannot be sustained for very long as it is. at least reducing over-cosumption where we can will help prolong the begining of the next dark age and perhaps provide a time needed to institute sustainabe practice to prevent it.

 

I agree it's overwhelming, and I've experienced my fare share of guilt. The very fact that I can read this implies that I am part of the problem. I read somewhere that Japan's biggest export is deforestation. America's biggest export these days is murder. It's not easy to reconcile. All you can do is realign your personal priorities in such a way as to minimimize your negative impact on your environment. That starts with being content with less, and eliminating the globalized corporations from your part of the food chain whenever possible. Obviously this requires self discipline, because locally produced goods are often more expensive, but the price you pay in the short term is far less than what you'll pay in the long run. That's the dirty little secret the economists who pimp globalization won't tell you, because all they look at is the quarterly gains they see on some spread sheet, they don't give a shit about what happens down the road.

 

OK, now I've gotta vent.

The bailout is a compelling argument for localization. By propping up corporations that are "too big to fail", we're screwing ourselves by subsidizing inefficiency. The banks are using our bailout money to acquire smaller banks, and as a result we're left with fewer choices, and worse customer service. Furthermore, the fact that they're global, multi-national corporations gives them no incentive to give back to the communities that serve them

The argument that they're too big to fail is all the more reason to let them fail. Then they'll crumble into entities that will compete with one another, and only the smaller businesses that are competitive will survive. It's the essence of capitalism.

 

Localism will certainly become the gritty reality for most of us in the coming years when the economy goes even deeper into the crapper and cheap energy resources which drive our hyper-consumption lifestyle ain't so cheap anymore.

Many of us uber-educated middle-class westerners tout "localism" as something cool and feel-good, but please don't harbor any illusions. Local economies for the masses will mean an end to the high incomes which enable the aforementioned hyper-consumption lifestyle. Say goodbye to personal automobile travel, affordable airline trips, space-age medical procedures, warehouse-sized supermarkets full of foods imported from 4,000 miles away, municipal electricity that stays on all day, mass-produced lattemochachinos, and a whole slew of other goodies most of us take for granted in this day and age.

 

It might be a mighty painful transition. Oh well. The end sometimes DOES justify the means. The human race does seem to need to reach the end of it's rope before it can make any good advancements forward. On a personal level, it seems that people have a hard time learning anything without the balance of harsh reality to keep them in their places. We've all been thru something bad that gave us a good lesson. Some of us spend a lot of time learning things from OTHER people's mistakes, but we STILL make mistakes of our own.
I guess the statement "no pain, no gain" is about the most truthful statement anybody ever made.

I am sad for the hardships that are to come for those who have become too spoiled and dependent. I really am. But I am HAPPY as hell to see things finally begin to fall apart. Perhaps humanity will come out the other end a much happier and more civilized race.

 

I didn't know this thread existed!

My two cents on localization:

I had a convo with friends about this and we basically hit the same wall, because we all were thinking in terms of new goods being made. But then we thought, well duh, if there is a huge shift in the economic forces, would we be buying new? Wouldn't we more likely we repairing the items we already have? So in other words, instead of thinking the first wave of localization would be someone making shoes, wouldn't it be more likely that someone would open a business repairing shoes? Do we need someone to make couches in town, or a business that would repair them? Etc.

When you take away the assumption that we MUST have new things and throw away the things that "broke" or went "out of style" the viability of a local economy increases.

 

As an uber-educated middle-class westerner, I say BRING IT ON! The wealthiest of us are the ones who will be affected the most, y'know, those who got us into this mess to begin with, the ones who are responsible, the ones who deserve to suffer the most as a result of their reckless and immoral behavior. The transition won't be nearly as painful to the rest of us as it will to them, and it's bound to result in a more equitable redistribution of wealth.

When you think about it, localization forces folks to be more honest, because they're more likely to be confronted face to face with those they do business with on a day to day basis. They can't escape to their gated communities thousands of miles from all the people they've screwed.

Localization encourages us to maintain what we have instead of throwing it away and getting more. It amazes me how hard it is to find a good cobbler, or someone to fix your TV these days. And yet we call this progress?

 

Ya, bring it on! It's about time folks got their real priorities straight. Don't they realize that all the money in the world can't buy the feeling of security and peace of mind in knowing that you can survive well WITHOUT a lot of money?... What's the point anyhow? Gotta keep up with the Joneses? Be like everybody else? Why does being a human require so much complicated gadgetry? So many "necessities"? IT DOESN'T! Probably the world could be a much nicer place eventually if folks were knocked down a peg or two and got back to the fine art of being responsible for themselves.

 

The entire "used" market is by nature, local. We have more than enough "stuff" but the cycle has been shifted from buying goods that last forever to goods that by design are going to break and cost more to fix than to buy new. Thank you globalization!

I realize I am part of the problem, and over the last few years just chip away at it, trying to not want all that much, and what I do want, I want it to last forever. But I think I am in the tiny minority.

 

Yeah I totally agree. We have produced such an overwhelming abundance of crap to be able to fall back on so much "used" stuff in the event a severe economic depression prevents more new shit from being made. Though it will come as such a shock to the consumabot masses who have been brainwashed by planned obsolescence conditioning.

 

Damn straight, it seems so simple, doesn't it? Yet so few folks seem to get it. Peace of mind and security have nothing to do with money. In fact, just the opposite is true, because in a culture where everything is for sale and cash is king, there is no such thing as security. No matter how rich you are, some asshole out there is doing his best to take it away from you, and in our culture, losing money is a huge fear, because without money, you're screwed. No health care, no food, forget Maslov's basic needs, 'ain't happenin' without money. 'Seems primitive, doesn't it? Maybe some day we'll get out of the dark ages.

Not so in a local economy, you don't need currency when you do business with your neighbor. Barter works just fine.

 

Of course the entire local versus global economy rests on one key ingredient: cheap and abundant oil.