Do you want them to drink Coca-Cola?

By Helena Norberg-Hoge, Resurgence, November-December 1996

Here are some practical steps to move from global dependence to local interdependence

AROUND THE WORLD—from North to South, from far left to far right, recognition of the destructive effects of economic globalization is growing. However, the conviction that the solutions lie with localizing economic activity is far less widespread. Many people seem to find it difficult even to imagine a shift toward a more local economy. “Time has moved on” one hears. “We live in a globalized world.”

On the surface, this is a perfectly reasonable point of view. How, after all, can we expect to tackle today's global eco-social crises except on a global level? But it's not that simple. We need to distinguish between efforts merely to counter further globalization and efforts that can bring real solutions. The best way to halt the runaway global economy would undoubtedly be through multilateral treaties that would enable governments to protect people and the environment from the excesses of free trade. But such international steps would not in themselves restore health to economies and communities. Long-term solutions to today's social and environmental problems require a range of small, local initiatives that are as diverse as the cultures and environments in which they take place. When seen as going hand-in-hand with policy shifts away from globalization, these small-scale efforts take on a different significance. Most importantly, rather than thinking in terms of isolated, scattered efforts, it is helpfu

Moving toward the local can still seem impractical or utopian. One reason is the belief that an emphasis on the local economy means total self-reliance on a village level, without any trade at all. The most urgent issue today, however, isn’t whether people have oranges in cold climates but whether their wheat, eggs or milk should travel thousands of miles when they could be produced within a fifty-mile radius. In Mongolia, a country that has survived on local milk products for thousands of years and that today has twenty-five million milk-producing animals, one finds mainly German butter in the shops. In Kenya, butter from Holland is half the price of local butter; in England, butter from New Zealand costs far less than the local product; and in Spain, dairy products are mainly Danish. In this absurd situation, individuals are becoming dependent for their everyday needs on products that have been transported thousands of miles, often unnecessarily.

The goal of localization would not be to eliminate all trade but to reduce unnecessary transport while encouraging changes that would strengthen and diversify economies at both the community and national levels. The degree of diversification, the goods produced and the amount of trade would naturally vary from region to region.

Another stumbling-block is the belief that a greater degree of self-reliance in the North would undermine the economies of the Third World, where people supposedly need Northern markets to lift themselves out of poverty. The truth of the matter, however, is that a shift toward smaller scale and more localized production would benefit both North and South—and allow for more meaningful work and fuller employment all around. Today, a large portion of the South's natural resources is delivered to the North, on increasingly unfavourable terms, in the form of raw materials; the South's best agricultural land is devoted to growing food, fibres, even flowers, for the North; and a good deal of the South's labour is used to manufacture goods for Northern markets. Rather than further impoverishing the South, producing more ourselves would allow the South to keep more of its resources and labour for itself.

MANY INDIVIDUALS AND organizations are already working from the grass roots to strengthen their communities and local economies. Yet, for these efforts to succeed, they need to be accompanied by policy changes at the national and international levels. How, for example, can grassroots participatory democracy be strengthened unless limits are placed on the political power of huge corporations? How can local support alone enable small producers and locally owned shops to flourish if corporate welfare and free trade policies heavily promote the interests of large-scale producers and marketers? How can we return to a local context in education if monocultural media images continue to bombard children in every corner of the planet? How can local efforts to promote the use of locally available renewable energy sources compete against massive subsidies for huge dams and nuclear power plants?

Rethinking our direction means looking at the entire range of public expenditures:

The money currently spent on long-distance road transport alone offers an idea of how heavily subsidized the global economy is. In the United States, where there are already about 2.5 million miles of paved roads, another $80 billion has been earmarked for highways in the next few years, and plans are even being considered for a road link between Alaska and Siberia. The European Community, meanwhile, is planning to spend $120 billion to add an additional 7,500 miles of superhighways across Western Europe by 2002 and is considering a tunnel to connect Europe with Africa. Throughout the South, scarce resources are similarly being spent. In New Guinea, for example, $48 million was spent on twenty-three miles of roads that allow timber interests to harvest and bring logs to the export market.
Shifting this support toward a range of transport options that favour smaller, more local, enterprises would have enormous benefits, from the creation of jobs to a healthier environment to a more equitable distribution of resources. Depending on the local situation, transport money could be spent on building bike paths, foot paths, paths for animal transport, boat and shipping facilities, or rail service. Even in the highly industrialized world, where dependence on centralizing infrastructures is deeply entrenched, a move in this direction can be made. In Amsterdam, for example, steps are being taken to ban cars from the heart of the city, thus allowing sidewalks to be widened and more bicycle lanes to be built.
Large-scale energy installations are today heavily subsidized. Phasing out these multibillion-dollar investments while offering real support for locally available renewable energy supplies would result in lower pollution levels, reduced pressure on wilderness areas and oceans, and less dependence on dwindling petroleum supplies. It would also help to keep money from leaking out of local economies.
Agricultural subsidies now favour large-scale industrial agribusinesses. Subsidies include not only direct payments to farmers but funding for research and education in biotechnology and chemical- and energy-intensive monoculture. Shifting those expenditures toward those that encourage smaller-scale, diversified agriculture would help small family farmers and rural economies while promoting biodiversity, healthier soils and fresher food.
Government expenditures for highway building promote the growth of corporate “superstores” and sprawling malls. Spending money instead to build public markets such as those that were once found in virtually every European town and village—would enable local merchants and artisans with limited capital to sell their wares. This would enliven town centres and cut down on fossil-fuel use and pollution. Similarly, support for farmers' markets would help to revitalize both the cities and the agricultural economy of the surrounding region while reducing money spent to process, package, transport and advertise food.
Television and other mass telecommunications have been the recipients of massive subsidies in the form of R&D, infrastructure development, educational training and other direct and indirect support. They are now rapidly homogenizing diverse traditions around the world. Shifting support toward building facilities for local entertainment—from music and drama to puppet shows and festivals—would offer a healthy alternative.
At present, investments in health care favour huge, centralized hospitals meant to serve urban populations. Spending the same money instead on a greater number of smaller clinics that relied less on high technology and more on health practitioners would bring health care to more people and boost local economies.
Creating and improving spaces for public meetings, from town halls to village squares, would encourage face-to-face exchanges between decision-makers and the public, serving both to enliven communities and to strengthen participatory democracy. In Vermont, for example—where participatory democracy is still alive and well—people attend town meetings for lively debates and votes on local issues.

IN ADDITION TO THE direct and indirect subsidies given them, large-scale corporate businesses also benefit from a range of government regulations—and in many cases, a lack of regulations—at the expense of smaller, more localized, enterprises. Although big business complains about red tape and inefficient bureaucracy, the fact is that much of it could be dispensed with if production were smaller in scale and based more locally. In today's climate of unfettered “free” trade, some government regulation is clearly necessary, and citizens need to insist that governments be allowed to protect their interests. This could best come about through international treaties in which governments agree to change the “rules of the game to encourage real diversification and decentralization in the business world. There are many areas that need to be looked at in this regard:

The free flow of capital has been a necessary ingredient in the growth of transnational corporations. Their ability to shift profits, operating costs and investment capital to and from all their far-flung operations enables them to operate anywhere in the world and to hold sovereign nations hostage by threatening to pack up, leave, and take their jobs with them. Governments are thus forced into competition with one another for the favours of these corporate vagabonds and try to lure them with low labour costs, lax environmental regulations and substantial subsidies. Small local businesses, given no such subsidies, cannot hope to survive this unfair competition.
Today, governments of every stripe are embracing free trade policies in the belief that opening themselves up to economic globalization will cure their ailing economies. Instead, a careful policy of using tariffs to regulate the import of goods that could be produced locally would be in the best interests of the majority. Such “protectionism” is not aimed at fellow citizens in other countries; rather it is a way of safeguarding the local culture, jobs and resources against the excessive power of the transnationals.
In almost every country, tax regulations discriminate against small businesses. Small-scale production is usually more labour-intensive, and heavy taxes are levied on labour through income taxes, social welfare taxes, value-added taxes, and so on. Meanwhile, tax breaks (such as accelerated depreciation and investment tax credits) are handed out on the capital- and energy-intensive technologies used by large corporate producers. Reversing this bias in the tax system would not only help local economies but would create more jobs by favouring people instead of machines.
Small businesses are discriminated against through the lending policies of banks, which charge them significantly higher interest rates for loans than they charge big firms. They also often require that small business owners personally guarantee their loans—a guarantee
An unfair burden often falls on small-scale enterprises through regulations aimed at problems caused by large-scale production. For example, a local entrepreneur wanting to bake biscuits at home to sell at a local market would in most cases need to install an industrial kitchen to meet health regulations. Such a regulation makes it economically impossible to succeed.
Local and regional land-use regulations can be amended to protect wild areas, open space and farmland from development. Political and financial support could be given to the various forms of land trusts that have been designed with this in mind. In the United States, there are now over 900 such trusts protecting more than 2.7 million acres of land.
In urban areas, zoning regulations usually segregate residential, business and manufacturing areas—a restriction necessitated by the needs and hazards of large-scale production and marketing. These could be changed to enable an integration of homes, small shops and artisan or other small-scale production sites, as was traditional in the world's great cities.

IN THE THIRD WORLD, the majority are still living in small towns and rural communities and are largely dependent on a local economy. In this era of rapid globalization, the most urgent challenge is to stop the tide of urbanization and globalization by strengthening these local economies. A number of policy level changes could help to do so:

Large dams, fossil-fuel plants, and other large-scale energy and transport infrastructures are geared toward the needs of urban areas and export-driven production. Shifting support toward a decentralized, renewable-energy infrastructure would help to stem the urban tide by strengthening villages and small towns.
Colonialism, development, and now free trade and globalization have meant that the best land in the South is used to grow crops for Northern markets. Shifting the emphasis to diversified production for local consumption would not only improve the economies of rural communities but also lessen the gap between rich and poor while eliminating much of the hunger that is now endemic in the so-called developing parts of the world.
Countries in the South are also being hit hard by free-trade agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They would be far better off it, contrary to the aim of such treaties, they were allowed to protect and conserve their natural resources, nurture national and local business enterprises, and limit the impact of foreign media and advertising on their culture.
The South would benefit enormously from an end to the promotion of Western-style monocultural education. Instead, efforts are needed that would give pre-eminence to the local language and values while promoting more location-specific knowledge.
Local economies and communities in the South would also benefit if support for capital- and energy-intensive, centralized, health care based on a Western model were shifted toward more localized and indigenous alternatives.
It is also of critical importance to elevate the status of primary producers (especially farmers) and rural life in general. Economic localization should entail an adaptation to cultural and biological diversity; therefore, no single blueprint would be appropriate everywhere. The range of possibilities for local grassroots efforts is as diverse as the locales in which they would take place. The following survey is by no means exhaustive but illustrates the sorts of step being taken today.
In a number of places, community banks and loan funds have been established to increase the capital available to local residents and businesses and allow people to invest in their neighbours and their community, rather than in distant corporations.
“Buy local” campaigns help local businesses survive even when pitted against heavily subsidized corporate competitors.
An effective way of guaranteeing that money stays within the local economy is through the creation of local currencies. Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) schemes have sprung up in the United Kingdom (where there are over 300 in operation) and in Ireland, Canada, France, Argentina, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Another idea is the creation of local “tool lending libraries”, whereby people can share tools on a community level.
One of the most exciting grassroots efforts is the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement in the USA, in which consumers link up directly with a nearby farmer.
By connecting farmers directly with urban consumers, farmers' markets similarly benefit local economies and the environment. In New York City, there are now over two dozen farmers' markets, which add several million dollars annually to the incomes of farmers in nearby counties.
The movement to create ecovillages is perhaps the most comprehensive antidote to dependence on the global economy. Around the world, people are building communities that attempt to get away from the waste, pollution, competition and violence of contemporary life. The Global Ecovillage Network links several of these communities worldwide.

These economic changes will inevitably require shifts at the personal level. In part, these involve rediscovering the deep psychological benefits of being embedded in community. Children, mothers and old people all know the importance of being able to feel they can depend on others.

Another fundamental shift involves reinstilling a sense of connection with the place where we live. The globalization of culture and information has led to a way of life in which the nearby is treated with contempt. We get news from China but not next door, and at the touch of a television button we have access to all the wildlife of Africa. As a consequence, our immediate surroundings seem dull and uninteresting by comparison. A sense of place means helping ourselves and our children to see the living environment around us: reconnecting with the sources of our food and learning to recognize the cycles of seasons, the characteristics of the flora and fauna.

Ultimately, we are talking about a spiritual awakening that comes from making a connection to others and to nature. This requires us to see the world within us, to experience more consciously the great interdependent web of life, of which we ourselves are among the strands.