View Full Version : Again, Can Simple Living Create A Good Economy
If everyone lived simply, the unemployment rate would sky high. No one would buy anything so there would be no jobs. People would not take on debt so there would be no advancement.
DISPROVE THIS PLEASE!
What are the challanges and how do we solve them?
What is the simple living answer to not only the bad economic climate but also any healthy future economy system we wish to create.
I suspect most of your premises are wrong.
ApatheticNoMore
8-21-12, 5:05am
There must be academics who have looked into these questions. So it's not just some vast stumbling around in utter darkness. Nor do I accept the belief that it is just on the face of it unsolvable (though it may require a very different economy). But no I dont' think collective environmental suicide is mandatory.
But stumbling around in darkness: Many people are fans of work sharing, shorter weeks for all, but doing the same amount of work collectively (because it's shared with the unemployed). I personally would love to live in that world. Many are fans of green jobs, pouring money into green technology and green work, why not pay people to restore the environment instead of destroy it? I don't know if this creates permanent jobs but it could certainly create some for the time being. Some believe in encouraging people to pool resources so not everyone has to work so much, this works in narrow circumstances (a marriage, for some things etc.), but things like American healthcare (other than in a marriage) tend to get sticky real fast. So overall I think that idea tends to but heads pretty hard with the existing economy.
I don't have the answers, nor hardly opinions, to give a stab at Heydude's inquiry....
I do think our Simple Living foundations help each of us survive the fiscal storms that are out there right now though.
I know that they helped my family weather getting knocked down in '08.
I can live without cable TV and a smart phone and could find a copy of the 'Foxfire' series at the library if the poop really hits the fan and we all had to go DIY! :)
Movements require considerable financial backing or an overwhelming moral obviousness (or both) to breakthrough and make real impact, so I don't anticipate Simple Living to morph into a world movement although it may have great impact on individual lives.
Although I might occasionally see the moral obviousness of aligning ones' actions with their belief system (which I rarely execute flawlessly BTW), I'm too pessimistic to think it would get traction with most of the population unless under the most dire of circumstances (which sometimes you just wonder if we are getting to that cut off point)
I listened to bits of an interesting interview yesterday, an authors' premise that we have left 'capitalism' for 'creditism' since leaving the Gold Standard.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/aug/20/economic-breakdown/?utm_source=local&utm_media=treatment&utm_campaign=daMost&utm_content=damostcommented
It's an interview with Richard Duncan the author of The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1118157796/wnycorg-20/)
I wish I were better versed to have a coherent conversation about it, but would love to hear if anyone else is familiar with this guy's work and what you think......
somehow I feel like it ties into HeyDude's post....
And to try to give a stab at a Simple Living Universe... I think Village Life is a working example of it.
Everyone has a place, everyone has a purpose.
You pay the dr. with a chicken.
I don't really know how that translates to modern life though.
I think our current system is dependent on ever increasing growth and simple living is not consistent with that.
However, in a bad economy more people will live simply - it's just not a matter of choice.
If you look back a generation, people lived in a relatively more simple way. Small houses were standard, many one car and one television houses, more home cooking, fewer luxuries and clothing. The economy did ok.
Define "simple living" and then there's a better chance that the question can be answered. As it is everyone has a little different version of what that means. There are a few points that seem to fit into most people's definition...
Reduce debt. That can be applied to individuals and to the country as a whole. There are plenty of examples of economies that are perfectly functional running on little or no debt. Because they can't legally print money households obviously function better if they spend less than they make. Debt is only a function of our government's budgeting because the citizenry demands more from the government than income allows it to provide. If we demand less the government can spend less. The trick is coming to an agreement on where to make those cuts.
Consume less. Often that seems to be centered around the budget as much as it is around actual consumption. If everyone suddenly lowered their consumption by buying less of everything there would be a period of contraction. Unemployment probably would rise during that period, but while traditional consumer goods providers scaled back other industries would begin to expand. In the US there are 315 million people that would still need to eat, they would still need heat in the winter and lights at night, still throw parties and play music, still build houses and buy cars, still send kids to college, still travel, wear clothes, use zip lock bags, have babies, drink coffee, do laundry... Whether you live simply or lavishly many of the basic threads of life are the same and, barring a total doomsday scenario, that wouldn't change. What would probably change is the type of work a lot of people do and how they do it.
There are other aspects that come up alot. Self sufficiency, sustainability and conservation are all very complex topics and can all cause countless new industries to flourish. Decluttering, volunteering, spirituality, personal health, thrifting & frugality, environmentalism, work sharing and telecommuting, etc. All kinds of businesses and groups would start popping up to help support large numbers of people making a change.
Nothing is going to happen all at once. Large movements evolve. I personally hope this one will continue to catch on because it just makes sense (to me). That evolution slows the pace a little, but makes it possible for people to plan for the changes rather than being swept up by them. Once the changes are in place the idea is to have built a more sustainable future, economically and otherwise, so, if we do this right, we only have to do it once.
You might like reading E.F. Schumacher's book, "Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful)". Written in the early 70's so some ideas are probably dated, but the general themes haven't changed.
Part of the problem is that we first-world dwellers have a consumption-driven economy. It is no longer enough for a company merely to remain solvent; it must continue to grow, at a pace that suits its stockholders -- who do not seem to look further than three months at a time. It is no longer enough for a company to hold a decent market share; it must be striving to increase it, globally and/or in different markets, or to vanquish the competition. Americans, in particular, have become so inured to buying stuff cheap that the notion of spending significantly more for something of quality which is cheaper in the long run is foreign to most. Business also tries really hard to get people to define their social status by their belongings -- McMansions, blingy trucks, the latest model of cell phone -- nevermind the financial havoc those purchases are wreaking privately.
As Gregg rightly points out, there are goods and services which always will be needed. We could build an economy around those rather than whizzy shiny objects. But we haven't. There's more money in doing it this way, regardless of what it does to people's lives and the environment. Change won't be easy.
try2bfrugal
8-21-12, 11:10am
I don't know why growth is such an important metric to measure the success of a society. Maybe we should focus on savings rates, infant mortality, hunger levels or poverty levels instead to measure the health of a society.
Maybe we need a happiness index like this -
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prime-minister-unveils-happiness-index-2143950.html
flowerseverywhere
8-21-12, 11:28am
I suspect the opposite is true.
Our society fills huge homes with junk that breaks and ends up in a landfill, factory farmed food that may not be optimum to health and driving huge cars with tons of options that guzze gas. Is that scenario sustainable as cheap oil becomes a thing of the past? How many landfills can we have and will their contents leach into the drinking water?
Returning to a simple lifestyle will require a shift in the economy and attitude, but some of the biggest concerns of the day could be helped. Like health. I don't think anyone would argue that our health costs would decrease if more people exercised and ate less processed food. Less exposure to chemicals could help our health. If we had high quality goods in our smaller homes, we would have less need to shop, but in my opinion our economic growth from cheap imported good sold by minimum wage employees benefits the few at the top much more than the average joe.
Has there ever been a time in our history when it was universally agreed-upon that we were living in a "good" economy?
Things shift according to demand, and there is always someone who is unhappy and barking about how things should be different, better, by their own yardstick.
I also like the book $20 Per Gallon, for its speculation about how our economy would undergo shifts at $5, $10, $15, etc. per gallon. For some people those scenarios would be a catastrophe. The end to the continuous stream of cheap plastic sh*t from Asia? The end to the obscene waste of resources by so many citizens of this country? The refocusing of our energies and dollars here, instead of on expensive foreign wars? Oh no! Better to shoot myself!
So - a "good" economy? Depends on your yardstick, and who you ask. There has never been a time when some segment of our population hasn't been whining about the need for change.
Simple living works for me, keeps my values aligned, makes me happy, makes me feel safer, and so I carry on that way. I still consume; I just consume different things.
smellincoffee
9-19-12, 9:47pm
What is meant by 'good economy'? One in which growth is a constant? That's am impossible delusion. Nothing lasts forever. In nature, busts always follow booms. We find new resources, or create a new way of doing things, and boom! We get economic growth, and everyone is buying TVs and voting for the incumbents and everything is hunky-dory. But then you find out uh-oh, all resources are finite. They're exhaustible, and the faster you've grown, the faster you're going to consume those resources. I believe that if everyone lived simply, we wouldn't need a growing economy. We'd have a sensible one, one that produces only what we need and produces only so much as can be renewed or replenished. Any other system is doomed.
catherine
9-19-12, 10:16pm
A couple of good books to read on this topic:
Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins
And I agree with Gregg: Small is Beautiful is a great book.
I'm not an economist I do think simple living can definitely be consistent to a viable economic system:
You can create an economy that is NOT based on growth.
You can create and provide employment opportunities that are based on "consumption lite"
You can spread the work around by creating an economy where people can earn a living wage by working fewer hours, giving all a more leisure time
You can create a more community-based economy, where a natural balance within the community evolves based on the local needs and values
In other words, if everyone lived more simply and consumed less, it doesn't mean a whole country full of unemployed widget makers, it means that those widget makers become teachers or farmers or musicians or renewable energy technicians or engineers.
Prior to the industrial revolution, people lived collectively as a village and had cottage industries. The Native Americans all worked as one unit and everyone had a "job". The goal of that type of system was to ensure that everyone got a piece of the action rather than a few. What is wrong with that?
This current way of thinking that "it's all for me and the hell with the rest of you" is so foreign to me....we try to share as much as we can with people in our lives....time, resources, help fixing things, food, and money. I firmly believe that what you put out into the world, you receive three fold in your life.
ApatheticNoMore
9-20-12, 12:16pm
I'm not an economist I do think simple living can definitely be consistent to a viable economic system
I think a viable economy and simple living can co-exist, just probably not *this* economy (call it capitalism or not, call it what you will, this economy that actually exists). And thus any change will encounter vast resistence from those who do well in this economy. Basically not an economy based on most people getting thier subsistence by wage labor for anonymous entities, in which those entities are constantly trying to cut that labor cost, in which more and more growth and consumption is necessary just so everyone can get "jobs" and have a piece of the pie that way. The distribution of income (ie of subsistance) in such a system is dependent on growth. That economy has already failed to some degree here anyway, and fewer and fewer people get pieces of the pie by labor (though it's still the majority) and more people are backstopped by government money and living together with others who have some source of income (kids moving back in with their parents) etc..
A couple of good books to read on this topic:
Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein
Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins
I've read all but the first (I've read other Bill McKibben just not that). Natural Capitalism is the most consistent with the status quo, really it's pro-capitalist, it's about changing incentives for efficieny, full use of the capabilities of modern technology to increase efficiency etc.. If we had a sensible conservatism in this country it would have no problem with these ideas! All of which are great in theory. Some of which will probably run right into Jeavons paradox if implemented and we're back to square one. Sacred Economics is pure utopianism, a psychic shift toward a total gift economy, it's utopianism to the 10th power. I like things in that direction but whoa it's whole hog. Good economic discussion of the flaws in things like community currencies and so on though.
You can create an economy that is NOT based on growth.
You can create and provide employment opportunities that are based on "consumption lite"
You can spread the work around by creating an economy where people can earn a living wage by working fewer hours, giving all a more leisure time
Yes that is probably the most viable answer toward making it work with *this* economy, making it work with wage labor basically, job sharing (so as many people as possible share a piece of the jobs from which we get our wages). And even that doesn't happen.
You can create a more community-based economy, where a natural balance within the community evolves based on the local needs and values
That's in interesting answer, limited in many cases I think by many costs that are outside of the communities control.
I think a big part of the problem is "can simple living create an economy where people can get rich? And get richer faster over time?" Unless the answer is yes, some people will "tweak" the system until it does. Even if it kills it in the process.
In some ways I think our currency is too universal. Because you can trade it for literally almost anything the desire to have more money makes sense. To reduce the consumption cycle we could work toward a more barter based society where people obviously trade what they have for what they need. Won't happen unless the economy totally crashes because its almost impossible to tax barter, but its kind of fun to think about and do when the opportunity presents itself.
ApatheticNoMore
9-20-12, 2:51pm
In some ways I think our currency is too universal. Because you can trade it for literally almost anything the desire to have more money makes sense. To reduce the consumption cycle we could work toward a more barter based society where people obviously trade what they have for what they need.
Sounds like one direction, near impossible to detach everything from the mainstream economy though.
Won't happen unless the economy totally crashes because its almost impossible to tax barter, but its kind of fun to think about and do when the opportunity presents itself.
Services are legally non-taxable, it's how all service barter systems work and legally. Barter of goods well haha, I would never report anyone to the IRS, but yea legally theres tax issues, though there's a "gift" exemption for income taxes (used to be 10k). So yea seems legally taxable but not very enforcable.
Services are legally non-taxable, it's how all service barter systems work and legally.
Really? The IRS seems to think otherwise:
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html
We're trying to set up a local time bank here, but it requires some tip-toeing...
http://timebanks.org/
I have always been baffled by why the economy has to "grow." Why? Why can't we find a comfortable, sustainable situation and stay with it? Greed? The "need" for the finest of everything, at least within our individual budget? I'm not sure and this has bothered me for years.
I have always been baffled by why the economy has to "grow." Why? Why can't we find a comfortable, sustainable situation and stay with it? Greed? The "need" for the finest of everything, at least within our individual budget? I'm not sure and this has bothered me for years.
I watched a documentary the other night called "happy"....the country of Bhutan decided to measure its country GNH...Gross National Happiness. A very interesting concept! I'd recommend watching ''happy''....I think many of us minimalists could relate to it. So Aspen, Bhutan decided that the peoples' happiness was just as important, or more so than measuring GNP.
I have always been baffled by why the economy has to "grow." Why? Why can't we find a comfortable, sustainable situation and stay with it? Greed? The "need" for the finest of everything, at least within our individual budget? I'm not sure and this has bothered me for years.
Where is the place of the investor if you don't have growth? Outside investment seems pretty pointless without growth.
Services are legally non-taxable, it's how all service barter systems work and legally. Barter of goods well haha, I would never report anyone to the IRS, but yea legally theres tax issues, though there's a "gift" exemption for income taxes (used to be 10k). So yea seems legally taxable but not very enforcable.
Bartering, services and goods, is taxable. The gift tax exception has nothing to do with an exchange. The reason why most private transactions aren't taxable is the stuff is usually worth less than you paid for it. But if you trade with something you don't have basis in or for your serivces it's a different story.
I've never understood the attraction to bartering other than the benefits of tax fraud. All it does is make exchanges more difficult.
I've never understood the attraction to bartering other than the benefits of tax fraud. All it does is make exchanges more difficult.
If you have money - otherwise you have to go out and make money or sell stuff to pay for the things you could have bartered for.
If you have money - otherwise you have to go out and make money or sell stuff to pay for the things you could have bartered for.
Still don't follow you. Can you give me an example? I mean as a system of commence, not just the little stuff. How does one buy a house by bartering eggs or haircuts?
ApatheticNoMore
9-20-12, 7:23pm
Still don't follow you. Can you give me an example? I mean as a system of commence, not just the little stuff. How does one buy a house by bartering eggs or haircuts?
I've seen bartering done for rent, not that it's typical or anything. Of course it's rather unusual. But that is taking care of the basic shelter need.
Another approach to consider, a step beyond the high-friction of barters, is local/community currencies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
I've always been interested in how one of the nearby Canadian Gulf Islands pulls this off:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Spring_dollar
Still don't follow you. Can you give me an example? I mean as a system of commence, not just the little stuff. How does one buy a house by bartering eggs or haircuts?
Bartering tends to work better for like value items - and it scales terribly. But converting labor or goods into money to purchase labor and goods has issues as well. It would be nice to have the choice based on what worked best.
I like the idea of local currency.
ApatheticNoMore
9-20-12, 8:16pm
Bartering tends to work better for like value items - and it scales terribly.
The point perhaps is not to scale. Supposing we had a bartering Ebay (now there's a concept), would it be any better than a regular Ebay? Doubtful. But if the point is for bartering to be local, then it functions much like a community currency. It's intended to encourage a local economy. And the point of local? Accountability. It's a double edge sword, accountabilty might be prejudice, but accountability isn't: a virgin forest somewhere was cut down to make this product with workers kept in near slave labor conditions and the waste was dumped into a Chinese river that caught fire, and 90% of the consumers aren't even aware of this.
But converting labor or goods into money to purchase labor and goods has issues as well. It would be nice to have the choice based on what worked best.
multiple types of currency probably works best
I like the idea of local currency.
The Sacred Economics book, as far out as it was, was well enough read on various economic ideas and probably correct on it's criticism of local currencies. Then they tend to be the less desired currency since they don't buy *everything* that the currency (legal tender) does. And thus they usually only catch on with a few dedicated idealists. Although I think in a few cases they have been more sucessful than that and really been used for a lot of services - I think it's the ones that are only good at a few local businesses that would tend to fail. I would be one of the dedicated idealists? But of course :). These experiments are critical, but maybe something more is needed.
I have always been baffled by why the economy has to "grow." Why? Why can't we find a comfortable, sustainable situation and stay with it? Greed? The "need" for the finest of everything, at least within our individual budget? I'm not sure and this has bothered me for years.
Our economy has to "grow" because our current system involves all money being borrowed into existence. All the money that the Federal Reserve creates, and there's a lot of it, is created when it gets borrowed by a bank. That borrowed money has to be paid back with interest. If one follows that out over time it is logical to realize that it can never all be paid back. The only way to avoid default on some percentage of those loans is for the economy to keep growing so that while the debt keeps growing the ability to pay back the debt keeps growing, ideally at a slightly faster pace. Eventually a brick wall is likely to be hit. No economy based on fiat money has ever lasted particularly long before it hit that brick wall.
If you have money - otherwise you have to go out and make money or sell stuff to pay for the things you could have bartered for.
How, for instance, would you build a barter-based retirement plan? Stockpile tradeable commodities or land?
How, for instance, would you build a barter-based retirement plan? Stockpile tradeable commodities or land?
I think they call that "prepping".
multiple types of currency probably works best
The Sacred Economics book, as far out as it was, was well enough read on various economic ideas and probably correct on it's criticism of local currencies. Then they tend to be the less desired currency since they don't buy *everything* that the currency (legal tender) does. And thus they usually only catch on with a few dedicated idealists. Although I think in a few cases they have been more sucessful than that and really been used for a lot of services - I think it's the ones that are only good at a few local businesses that would tend to fail. I would be one of the dedicated idealists? But of course :). These experiments are critical, but maybe something more is needed.
Agreed that multiple types of currency might not be a bad way to go. Of course you have to figure out how to deal with exchange rates in that scenario. A local currency should be an effective way to promote local trade and reduce the import/export pressure if not consumption overall. It would certainly work better in some locales than others. Bae's island, for example, seems like a logical place because a reasonable percentage of commonly used goods and services could be produced there. The desert in Nevada OTOH...
I think they call that "prepping".
It doesn't sound very efficient to me. You'd have the costs of spoilage and storage. With no financial products allowing risk pooling, you'd need a pile of stuff large enough to cover the worst case. You'd probably also need to "invest" in a large enough number of children to manage and maintain it all for you in the later years, and in enforcing a social system that required them to do it for you.
Which is exactly why effective prepping should be a community based affair rather than a lone wolf activity. I'm not prepped for the end of the world as I know it and that's not the kind of prepping I think we need to be doing. The local currency idea has some appeal just because it would, or should, drive commerce more to a local level. Not to say it all needs to be that way (I still like bananas afterall), but there are distinct advantages for a community and for the planet if we encourage more of that local trade.
Which is exactly why effective prepping should be a community based affair rather than a lone wolf activity. I'm not prepped for the end of the world as I know it and that's not the kind of prepping I think we need to be doing. The local currency idea has some appeal just because it would, or should, drive commerce more to a local level. Not to say it all needs to be that way (I still like bananas afterall), but there are distinct advantages for a community and for the planet if we encourage more of that local trade.
But wouldn't that approach, apart from forgoing economies of scale and comparative advantage, foster an insular, village mentality? I can see how making us all poorer (materially, at least) might be less a drain on planetary resources, but surely there are better ways of going about it.
ApatheticNoMore
9-21-12, 11:00am
How, for instance, would you build a barter-based retirement plan? Stockpile tradeable commodities or land?
I think they call that "prepping".
It doesn't sound very efficient to me. You'd have the costs of spoilage and storage. With no financial products allowing risk pooling, you'd need a pile of stuff large enough to cover the worst case. You'd probably also need to "invest" in a large enough number of children to manage and maintain it all for you in the later years, and in enforcing a social system that required them to do it for you.
I guess you are thinking annuties or something which is an interesting retirement tool that I don't really know much about. I think most retirement tools these days are ultimately built on sand. You can trust the stock market (Fed pumping 40 billion a month now to keep that up, never mind the degree of corruption there), or you trust the bond market and watch interest rates like a hawk, or you trust the currency (I hardly need to point out there are at least inflationary risks in that one!), or you spend much of your limited free time studying investments. As backup you hope for Social Security and since most of the other strategies are so risky heck yea Social Security (and even that depends on an economy able to support it, a political system willing to maintain it - the later which we increasingly do not have! etc. etc. etc.).
A barter economy instead and well if any currency is allowed maybe you stockpile gold (but you can't eat it, it has no inherent worth) and it is at that point A CURRENCY. Survivalism *IS* as long as you are able to meet it's demands a very true form of economic security but then you grow old and frail. Having kids is one way to ensure security into old age, an age old one, but seems to modern sensibility a very poor reason to have kids if it's the only reason you choose to have them (name your kid "Pension") and hardly means you will be remotely fit to be a good parent. Ultimately with all such things there is no real way out of community responsibility. Willingness of the community to provide for old people etc.. I'm not sure there is any way out of this in any world that works long term to tell the truth, I mean I dont' know about annuities, but currently things like the stock market truly do seem built on sand.
It probably would end up being the consumptive equivalent of forced gentrification (which never works as intended). Still, I'm not sure economy of scale and/or central manufacturing is necessary for everything. Cars, yes. Milk, maybe not so much. I could be wrong though. It might work out that even with packaging and transportation milk from a mega-dairy in Wisconsin leaves a smaller footprint that keeping Bossy in the back yard.
There probably is a fine line between community spirit and that insular village mentality. My experience was growing up in s small town in a remote location. The individuals there were, for the most part, fiercely independent. That translated into a strong community. It is difficult to gauge what the reaction to 'outsiders' would have been because frankly none ever showed up. The only real threat to the community was the occasional ice storm or blizzard. Individually there were accidents or health issues. In all cases the community did pretty good job of rallying to get the job done. Could that experience with 500 people be recreated in less remote locations or with much larger groups of people? I have my doubts.
Yossarian
9-21-12, 11:22am
I'm not sure economy of scale and/or central manufacturing is necessary for everything.
Aren't we better off with an integrated single currency economy of scale that let's people elect to form smaller economies than hundreds of balkanized micro economies that make efficient large-scale commerce difficult?
As a side note, I remember having this same debate with KIB, who I miss.:(
It probably would end up being the consumptive equivalent of forced gentrification (which never works as intended). Still, I'm not sure economy of scale and/or central manufacturing is necessary for everything. Cars, yes. Milk, maybe not so much. I could be wrong though. It might work out that even with packaging and transportation milk from a mega-dairy in Wisconsin leaves a smaller footprint that keeping Bossy in the back yard.
There probably is a fine line between community spirit and that insular village mentality. My experience was growing up in s small town in a remote location. The individuals there were, for the most part, fiercely independent. That translated into a strong community. It is difficult to gauge what the reaction to 'outsiders' would have been because frankly none ever showed up. The only real threat to the community was the occasional ice storm or blizzard. Individually there were accidents or health issues. In all cases the community did pretty good job of rallying to get the job done. Could that experience with 500 people be recreated in less remote locations or with much larger groups of people? I have my doubts.
I can see the attraction of keeping social relations to a more manageable scale. But that's not the same thie same thing as economic relations. All your fiercely independant neighbors were as reliant as anyone else on outside sources of machine parts, antibiotics or any number of other things. Short of regressing to the Bronze Age, nobody can really go off the grid.
All very true and I have no desire to regress myself or ask anyone else to do so. I think the trick lies in defining what can be produced locally (every locale being different). Complete what trade is reasonable and efficient on a local level, then move to regional, national, global as needed. The economies of scale seem to often cause us to automatically jump to higher levels when it may not be necessary. Example: I am in Nebraska, where a whole lot of corn is grown, and my grocery store is selling sweet corn from California. They do that because of the large scale production methods employed for a very specific crop in a distant location. At this moment that is the most efficient method in use. My belief is that it would be more efficient to raise that sweet corn a mile from the store. It would not, however, make much sense for the farmer who raises it to plow his fields with a mule because the oil to make diesel fuel is imported.
catherine
9-21-12, 12:22pm
All very true and I have no desire to regress myself or ask anyone else to do so. I think the trick lies in defining what can be produced locally (every locale being different). Complete what trade is reasonable and efficient on a local level, then move to regional, national, global as needed. The economies of scale seem to often cause us to automatically jump to higher levels when it may not be necessary. Example: I am in Nebraska, where a whole lot of corn is grown, and my grocery store is selling sweet corn from California. They do that because of the large scale production methods employed for a very specific crop in a distant location. At this moment that is the most efficient method in use. My belief is that it would be more efficient to raise that sweet corn a mile from the store. It would not, however, make much sense for the farmer who raises it to plow his fields with a mule because the oil to make diesel fuel is imported.
Spoken like a true permaculturist :)
All very true and I have no desire to regress myself or ask anyone else to do so. I think the trick lies in defining what can be produced locally (every locale being different). Complete what trade is reasonable and efficient on a local level, then move to regional, national, global as needed. The economies of scale seem to often cause us to automatically jump to higher levels when it may not be necessary. Example: I am in Nebraska, where a whole lot of corn is grown, and my grocery store is selling sweet corn from California. They do that because of the large scale production methods employed for a very specific crop in a distant location. At this moment that is the most efficient method in use. My belief is that it would be more efficient to raise that sweet corn a mile from the store. It would not, however, make much sense for the farmer who raises it to plow his fields with a mule because the oil to make diesel fuel is imported.
Absent the warping of markets by government interference, woulddn't the most efficient method tend to win out? If Nebraska farmers can make more money raising some alternative crop, wouldn't it make more sense to grow the alternative and import corn?
ApatheticNoMore
9-21-12, 2:41pm
Absent the warping of markets by government interference, woulddn't the most efficient method tend to win out? If Nebraska farmers can make more money raising some alternative crop, wouldn't it make more sense to grow the alternative and import corn?
The problem (um besides possible SHTF preparations) lies in accountability, if far away they are growing corn in such a way that is destructive to the local environment lets say to the water supply (as if these hypotheticals were very far fetched!), it will be well veiled by distance, whereas if it's local you can't know. As for government subsidy, fuel itself to transport crops is subsidized in so many ways, and artificially cheap, so there is that.
Absent the warping of markets by government interference, woulddn't the most efficient method tend to win out? If Nebraska farmers can make more money raising some alternative crop, wouldn't it make more sense to grow the alternative and import corn?
In both cases, yes it would. The markets are currently warped by having a small and still declining number of controlling players who rely on that government interference to cover their losses. Removing subsidies would probably not immediately open a flood gate of alternatives coming to market, but I think it would be the beginning of an evolution to a more organic (so to speak) marketplace.
The problem (um besides possible SHTF preparations) lies in accountability, if far away they are growing corn in such a way that is destructive to the local environment lets say to the water supply (as if these hypotheticals were very far fetched!), it will be well veiled by distance, whereas if it's local you can't know. As for government subsidy, fuel itself to transport crops is subsidized in so many ways, and artificially cheap, so there is that.
I don't doubt that there is all manner of government interference at play, both harmfull and benign. I don't know that I have any better information about the peas grown a mile from where I eat them than I would about peas trucked in from Saskatoon.
In both cases, yes it would. The markets are currently warped by having a small and still declining number of controlling players who rely on that government interference to cover their losses. Removing subsidies would probably not immediately open a flood gate of alternatives coming to market, but I think it would be the beginning of an evolution to a more organic (so to speak) marketplace.
I agree with you there. However, I think Nebraska and Florida will always be better of specializing in corn and citrus, respectively, than in trying to produce most everything locally.
Absolutely. Short of a complete collapse of everything there is no reason to not continue to trade at every level, from local to global. There's a bunch of bananas on my counter right now and I would like to keep it that way. It's the combination that makes it all work.
I've been in a discussion about power generation with some friends. Some are advocates of nuclear. Some are solar geeks. The idea that you can have thousands of small generating points is attractive from the standpoint of one crashing not taking out any of the others. Its more secure, but its not effiencent. The big central site is far more efficient, but not as secure. The combination allows you to find a mix with acceptable levels of both. I see local vs. national or global trading in much the same way. Produce and use what you can locally then trade the surplus to ever expanding areas until you have sold out. Its pretty efficient and, to me anyway, that is the goal.
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