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PDF version17 Rules for a Sustainable Economy
by Rich Heffern on Mar. 02, 2010
Kentucky farmer and poet Wendell Berry formulated these principles for a sustainable economy, one which focuses on community and the common good. A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a "killing." It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance.
Wendell Berry is a strong defender of family, rural communities, and traditional family farms. These underlying principles could be described as "the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity, and the renewal, on sound cultural and ecological principles, of local economies and local communities:
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 neighbors.
4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products – first to nearby cities, then to others).
5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.
9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
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14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.
15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive."
See also Wendell Berry’s book The Idea of a Local Economy
The prescriptions of
The prescriptions of sustainability are nearly identical to the dictates of a centrally planned feudal economy. Rules 2-3 sounds nice and inclusive even incorporating ”native creatures” does this mean we can no longer tolerate our roast Lamb on feast days? Rule 4 -5 discourages exportation of local products ensuring less employment and to further cement the hobbled production capabilities of the locals, any labor saving innovation is to be rejected in true Marxian form as it may lead to displacements- although to be fair an economy that is restricted from exporting and is forced to be dependent on the demand of ones immediate neighbors, labor saving ideas are really a moot point anyway. Dictates 6-12 includes “properly scaled” industries (nothing to big or successful) and rules that force energy limits and strictly prohibit daycare centers and old folks homes. Since most will be either unemployed, or underemployed, in this economic paradise, people should have the time to care for their children and aged parents. Would not putting them to work in the fields make sense ? One could have the oldsters teach the young how to grow their food and what a saving abolishing daycare!
Most interesting are the rest of the tenets in this climate gate manifesto which include the
directive of using local currency, a wise point when the regular currency eventually collapses, and most importantly that rural areas should be connected with “community
minded” people (read political commissars) in nearby towns and cities to ensure enforcement of climate change thought and to be informed of any resistance, or worse circumvention of climate change policy. Economic reality aside, there is of course one little problem with this vision, and the implementation of these rules , namely the human spirit , and the God given drive to be free from enslavement, to be fruitful and multiply, (anathema to Climate change proponents) all are written in mans heart and for that reason Climate change hysteria, no matter how harebrained it may be, will like all tyrannies, eventually be destined for failure.
Rich, I think that David
Rich,
I think that David Korten's book on Sustainable Econony would fit nicely with Wendell Berry's ideas. My take on Korten is that he says, Forget Wall Street, focus on Main Street (or, I would think the courthouse square).
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