PHOTO: "Gurneee, IL 2005 (9.99)" – Brian Ulrich

It’s no secret to most of us that the corporate flagpoles encroaching our streetscapes and city outskirts represent conquest, not community. But at first, the sprawling, single-file wave of neon logos and beaming signs trumpeting fast food, discount stores, super-centers, and drive-thru convenience seemed part of an inescapable gentrification – evidence of an elaborate, thriving local economy. Over time though, it’s become clear that all of the ensuing bells and whistles have been drowning out a profound lie: that these ubiquitous retail outposts are the mark of prosperity.

The stark reality of corporate expansion and consolidation is more and more familiar: once-bustling downtowns rendered derelict; once-busy commercial warehouses abandoned; once-plentiful resources pillaged; once-promised jobs gradually axed. Perhaps more fatefully, something as socially innate as shopping for food staples has been remade as a pre-rehearsed chore, part of an anemic cycle rather than a nourishing, age-old ritual. But consumers are starting to take back their territory and traditions. To quote activist and author Michael Shuman’s The Small-Mart Revolution – a veritable blueprint for returning the power of the free market to the masses, published last year: “We are now witnessing an epochal struggle between two dramatically different visions of capitalism, the outcome of which will define many interesting and important years of history to come.” Shuman describes the incumbent vision as one propelled by the “there is no alternative” logic of modern economic developers, the callous creators of a status quo that pours a good portion of most local communities’ wealth into the coffers of absentee owners and shareholders. Left short-changed and disengaged in an age when sustainability issues are rushing to the fore, many progressive communities are building an alternative economic template on the basic premise of “local ownership and import substitution.” In the US, this new vision of capitalism – choosing Mom & Pop over the Big Box, essentially – is rapidly taking shape through the collective efforts of an organization that Shuman helped co-found in 2001, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, or BALLE (livingeconomies.org). Hatched by overlapping members of other community activism groups, BALLE aims to mobilize and engage small-business owners and civic leaders to create a more humane and sustainable local economy by sharing resources, communication tools and strategies. BALLE organizes itself in individual towns, cities and communities by aligning retailers and services of all shapes and sizes – provided they’re autonomously run by locals in a given area – to ensure and guide one another’s insulated success and sustainable development. As Shuman points out when interviewed, much of the national group’s progress has come through concentrating on being “advocates for local business and local economies, and not wast[ing] our time attacking global business.” In five years, more than 40 independent organizations from 18 states and two Canadian provinces have joined BALLE and begun crafting – in many cases, fortifying – a local living economy. Concurrently, research from a handful of US cities has shown that locally owned and operated businesses are consistently better at re-circulating money into the local economy than chain stores. (The famous Andersonville Study found that local businesses in a Chicago neighborhood made 70 percent more local economic impact per square foot than chains.)

“Historically, at least in the US, small businesses have been very conservative,” Shuman explains. “They are the mainstay of the Republican Party. They are considered to be the trusted keepers of tradition within communities. And they have been represented in the political sphere by a bunch of organizations that, at the end of the day, did not do a very good job of segregating their interests from those of larger global corporations.”

The fight for control of those interests will ultimately catalyze the greater battle between entrenched and emerging capitalist models. But the collective rejection of the political process that Shuman refers to, the legitimate loss of faith in the ability and inclination of entitled leaders to protect community values, is crucial in weighing the gravity of the conflict.

“The deep issue is democracy,” explains David Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World, who also serves with Shuman on BALLE’s board. “Do we really believe that power should be rooted in people and community – decentralized – or should it be centralized either in government or in large corporations? This is where I have a lot of problems with certain lines of libertarians that think any power in government is bad, but no concentration of power in any corporation is too much.”

This sanctioned power imbalance could create huge obstacles and potential disasters. The spike in food contamination and bacterial outbreaks in 2006 is particularly ominous given the massive mechanization and centralization of the American food system since the ’60s – leaving a country of 300 million’s beef supply, for example, mostly processed by a meager 13 slaughterhouses. Communities suffering the unprecedented effects of climate change have little control over the major industrial sectors (fossil fuel extraction, electricity, mass manufacturing, etc.) that desperately need to be overhauled in the wake of a global ecological crisis.

“The thing that’s really going to drive this process over the long-term,” says Korten of the movement towards local living economies, “is a growing awareness of the consequences of a combination of peak oil, global climate change and a collapsing US dollar resulting from our unsustainable trade deficit. Each one of these individually will force a reordering of the economic incentives away from global supply chains to local supply chains, and particularly in areas of food and energy.” Shuman expands on this sentiment in The Small Mart Revolution, arguing that the inefficiencies in global production and distribution, the rising cost of energy, the looming decline of the US dollar, the larger trend towards delivery of services instead of goods, and a general shift in business ethics are all developments that favour local economies. And on the ground in some BALLE chapters, the momentum they’re describing is already taking hold.

Backed by the Santa Fe Alliance in New Mexico, a loyalty and debit card program (locals-care.com) was launched last fall, wherein cardholders get points for keeping money in the local economy (redeemable later at the same businesses where they’re earned), and a percentage of all spending is donated to the non-profit organization of the shopper’s choice. Within its first three months almost 100 businesses had enlisted, and $15,000 had been raised by over 400 shoppers seizing on the concept. In Bellingham, Washington, the city utility companies had tried for five years to convince businesses and households to switch to sun, wind and converted methane power. Within two months of Sustainable Connections (the local BALLE group) joining the effort in September, business participation in the program tripled – and their goal is now to become the nation’s number one community for green power usage.

“We didn’t invent organic farming, or green building, or any of these things,” says Michelle Long, executive director of Sustainable Connections. “We have members who have been doing these things for decades behind the scenes, because they thought it was the right thing to do. But now there does seem to be this kind of tipping point, this mainstream awareness that’s increasing . . . there seems to be growing consensus, and recognition of the urgency, and real places for entrepreneurs to step in and attempt to solve problems, because we need to reexamine how we consume energy and build homes and shop and grow our food.”

_Eric Rumble

 

• The 2007 BALLE conference will take place in Berkeley, CA on May 31–June 2. See <livingeconomies.org>.
• The 2007 Green Festival will take place in Chicago, IL (April 21-22), Washington, DC (October 6-7), and San Francisco, CA (November 9-11). See <greenfestivals.org> for details. 
  

 

 

COMMENTS:

Very exiting, and very curious but not surprising to hear that David Korten is into it. I'm studyinn International development in London and I admire Korten writings on 'the end of development'. Just one question about this movement. Although I agree with the main philosophy and I personally believe in people empowerment as oppossed to corporate and business-led state development, I cannot entirely figure out how a local economy based on local craft enterprices and services will deal with products that are offered by corporations (as for example is the case of telecom systems or computers) that we all use. They are made and run by a multitude of different materials and people gathered and employed everywhere in the world. How ethically can you talk about local economies when to run them you are using tools that are created by the same industrial capitalist system of exploitation and accumulation of capitals that are in the world of Korten 'creating the Global Threefold Crisis'? This is not intended to be negative critique about your initiative that I support, but is a question that I can only partially answer myself. If you can guide me, please do.
Alfredo Broccolo

I have disdain for WalMart, I have known many people who have worked for them for a meager wage. What happened to WalMart's pledge to buy U.S. products? Buying goods at the 'Mart helps China enslave it's people in wage-slavery, strengthen their trade advantage, and ensure the hastening of rot that is destroying our land. How long will China allow itself to be a Third world power? The Chinese have the sting of colonialism along with Japan's brutalities in WWII to remind them of what happens to a weak nation. Also, I don't think they will share nicely once they become the superpower. Just a reminder that every dollar spent at SprawlMart hurts us all.
Kevin E

We go it one further by simply not buying things we don't need. Sounds absurd, but if your household looks at what it has spent in the past year and how much of that is wasted or just never used, you will probably find you can shrink business by stopping your purchases of cartloads of useless crap.
Tom

Huh? I don't understand. So you hate freedom? You want everyone to bow at YOUR feet for answers? Should we all curl up in a little ball and die?
Trent

To Alfredo Broccolo: good point. How can we make local economies independent of globalization and survive the impending resource crunch? We cannot. Humanity will adapt to turning back the clock on the industrial revolution with all the finesse of a drowning man trying to learn how to swim. We are done for. Which is not something to be miserable about, unless you allow the inevitability of your own death to prevent you from enjoying your life. If anyone out there has a solution I am not aware of, please share it. I will be happy to recant my skeptical forecast.
Mr. Sardonicus

I may be only a teenager, but I do comprehend the majority of what you are saying. A super walmart just moved into my town and I was worried, but the adults I asked about it said it will provide many job opportunities and people will come here to use it. Well, it seems all I have left is to say "yes! It's great it's here because of the positive things you said about it!" No, a handfull of local businesses have gone out of business, superstores may provide more jobs but there are a number of people I know who have worked at the walmart and have already quit. How long before they run out of workers? You cannot renew people. The only quality I do trust is my local quality.
Andrea

That is a bit of a quandry Broccolo brings up with the telecom and computer industries. But I would say it doesn't have to be an either/or with power being returned to local community areas, maybe it's a necessary evil to use these corporations' products for now while implenting changes within the local structures. And then maybe the opportunities will arise to be released from the tentacles of corporations whose main purpose is for explotation and expansion with little or no thought to the consequences involved to people or the environment. And Trent, the "you hate freedom" verse is a tired political, non-thinking, Republican, "patriotic" (another word you probably adore when used by President Bush or the GOP) sound bite that has no substance. Please add something that does to your next post.
Gideon

To Alfred Broccolo and Mr. Sardonicus: This is not about total purity, black and white. We cannot localize every product; some things, such as computer production and telecom distribution, do not scale down well. We at BALLE, where I am on the staff, are talking about shifting percentages of production and consumption to local and away from global. The percentages will never and can never be 100%, but even seemingly small percentages can have a huge effect on the viability and strength of a local economy. Watch for news of a study of San Francisco retail (on par with the Andersonville study in its importance) being released soon for more details on the percentage of shift needed to make a difference.
Ann Bartz

Corporations are built on an open-ended model of unlimited growth, and one other thing I can think of as an example of unlimited growth is cancer. Using the products of corporations as tools for undermining corporate power is short-term at best and of limited effectiveness, since it's the corporate model itself that is one of our civilization's central flaws. Where are we going to get the spare parts? The trick will be to accomplish the same economies of scale of production required to service the needs of vast populations without employing the cancerous and myopic corporate model. Let me stress that I refer to needs, NOT the disposable trinkets of distraction. We cannot have decentralized, locally based economies or political structures while continuing to enjoy the latest flatscreen TV or the wonders of the iPhone. Or Tshirts and shoes, for that matter. Seems there are a lot of things to think about these days. Gideon: I think Trent was speaking ironically. Please stop emboldening the terrorists!
Harlan

Consumerism only works with consumers. Don't worry all, none of this is sustainable. Yes, we're heading towards great destruction, as we always have, and through this wonderful technology I use now to communicate this, it will be the best thing to happen to the Human Race. Sometimes when the house gets remodeled, you just scrap the entire thing and go back to the Foundation: Survival. It's the mother of all necessity. My advice to everyone is start thinking less about how to change the world to become sustainable and independent and more about how change YOURSELF to become sustainable and independent. The world will follow.
ET

Yes, I'm a Gen Y child of consumerism, and unplugging from this consuming perspective is a process, but the important thing is to begin this process and share ideas w/ other folks. When i want something, i ask myself: do i need this, and if i decide i need it, i reserve buying it as the last option, and buying something new as the last last option after trying to buy something used. So i make and or barter for many things i need. I dumpster dive plenty of food, other useful things. Of course i'm still consuming some stuff, and eating throwaways may still fuel demand. But getting unplugged is a process we ought to work through together and it spreads fast. None of the things i'm doing originated with me. And it's empowering on a individual level, where Gen Y is trapped.
Nate

Its time that we fight back at the Corporations they are the Killers and Vampires of this World, and we have to speak it out loud, for our children.
Paolo Brunner

Imminent catastrophe is nigh.
Wiggydee

despite all the fear there is hope for the future – imagine that!
Jamal

never be negative
yaya

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