Last Monday I wrote about altruism as a value in the local economy and explained how on a day-to-day basis self-interest is more effective. Sustainability is another value essential to a national localised economy.
We live in times when financial institutions, based on greed and false values such as competition, are highly unstable. Nothing was learned from the 2008 crash and it seems we’re heading for another crash which will be worse because our governments spent reserves fire-fighting the last crash.
Monetarism and neo-liberalism are seductive ideologies; our politicians no longer question them. In the UK all three main parties subscribe to them and so does UKIP, the UK Independence Party, the great pretender to their throne. UKIP claims to be pro-sovereignty. But what is sovereignty for if legislatures are unable to regulate the economy?
The UK government has lost sovereignty but not to Europe. It has been lost it to privatisation. People lose faith in MPs because they have sold their powers to the private sector. Leaving Europe will cut the UK off from others who believe regulation is the heartbeat of democracy.
Sustainability
Sustainability is a value at the heart of the local economy but not where corporations extract finance from the economy; not where these large financial institutions suffer from boom and bust.
Small businesses fail. Of course they do and so they should. Successful businesses identify a gap in a market and may do very well out of filling that gap. But opportunities move on. An experienced entrepreneur will know when to move onto the next thing.
The UK retail co-operative movement was enormous and yet it was mostly local initiatives. They created larger organisations, such as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, to supply their shops with goods to sell. Their perspective was “Think Global, Act Local” and that is still a good perspective. The idea that an economy can be run from the top down has always proved to be highly dubious.
It might be better to think of a national economy as a localised economy; an economy where money circulates and does not accumulate in offshore accounts. The big supermarkets copied the co-ops but missed the local point. They might open corner shops in neighbourhoods, but as part of a corporate plan, driven by competition and not having genuine roots in a neighbourhood.
So, in what ways are local economies sustainable?
