Category Archives for "Local Economy"

2 The Establishment

Everyone seems to be reading “The Establishment And how they get away with it” by Owen Jones! It is a popular book about political economy! I’ve seen people reading it in coffee shops and on public transport many times.

Perhaps it’s an easy read because its insights are shocking. Sensationalism always sells.  But it lifts the veil from what is really going on and everyone should take an interest.  Like the proverbial frog in water slowly increasing in temperature, we have been hardly aware of the steady erosion of the post-war economic consensus.  I can remember my father telling me in the sixties that there was no need to worry about money because the state would always take care of us.  I’m afraid he was wrong.  The benefits his generation fought for can no longer be taken for granted, according to Jones.

The Local Economy

I’m interested in the implications for local economies. First, this is not about being pro or anti-business. I’ve read a lot about the Labour Party’s performance during the last General Election. The consensus seems to be that Labour is pro small businesses that are just starting out at their own risk but against successful businesses, they labelled as predators.

This article about Mary Creagh  is typical of the criticisms Labour has received, primarily from its own members. The Guardian quotes her, saying when she withdrew from the Leadership contest, “Labour cannot be the party of working people and then disapprove when some working people do very well for themselves and create new businesses, jobs and wealth.”

I don’t know whether this is fair criticism of Labour but it displays a common misapprehension about business. The issue has nothing to do with the size or success of businesses. The issue is whether businesses are local; which means they make a net contribution to the local economy.

I deliberately leave the term “local business” open. It could mean your neighbourhood, city or region. It could even apply to a business with national reach. The key issue is what it does with its profits. Negatively, this means it does not avoid tax and salt its takings in off-shore bank accounts. Positively, it pays its workers a living wage, pays its taxes and invests in the economy.

How Local Business is Undermined by the Establishment

This is the underlying argument in “The Establishment”. The interests of local businesses and large corporations are opposed. Attempts to regulate the predators benefit local businesses, or should do. Jones writes on page 225:

“Tax avoidance also hammers local, smaller businesses. The owners of, say, a modest independent coffee shop cannot hire an army of accountants to exploit loopholes in the law, or import costs from foreign subsidiaries to offset against tax, or dump profits in tax havens. They simply have to pay the tax that is expected of them. And by doing so, they are at a competitive disadvantage to multinational companies who exploit the law.”

Jones emphasises small businesses here but I imagine some fairly substantial businesses suffer the same competitive disadvantages. The reality is most local businesses are not that bothered by high taxes for high earners because they would welcome an opportunity to pay such taxes!

Jones asks why it is government and just about everyone else invests heavily in businesses that do little to benefit the country and fail to support small business people.  It was ever thus.  I can remember my father who ran his own business from the 1950s, complaining in the 1980s that it doesn’t matter which party is in power, they all ignore the needs of small businesses.  The establishment seems mesmerised by huge corporations that exist solely to exploit the countries in which they happen to be based.

What would it be like to live in a society where the establishment truly valued local businesses?

0 Inequality and the 1%

Friday is review day and this time the book is by Danny Dorling, “Inequality and the 1%”.  My aim in my reviews is to commend the resource and then to apply it in some specific way.

This rather dull cover belies the compelling content of this book.  Imagine a book about economics you can’t put down; this is it.  After each of its 5 chapters, I thought it cannot possibly get any worse: it did!  This book clearly demonstrates the wealthiest people in this country are not an asset.  Indeed they are a liability. Their wealth is a disadvantage to the poorest and all the 99%. They are disadvantaged by their own wealth, although most don’t get it.

I am not anti-wealth and I’m sure the same is true of most people on the left.  That the left opposes aspiration is a myth by politicians on the right with vested interest in inequality.

I oppose inequality because it disadvantages everyone.  The society that is so careless as to take away the welfare safety net and consign new generations to poverty is perverse.  This book demonstrates what happens when a very few people buy up the state, make it less democratic and take away the modest livelihoods of the majority.

Wealth Equals Money Circulation

One of the comments I received about my ebook (see below if you would like to read it), “Community Development is Dead!” reads as follows:

I agree with most of what you have written but profoundly disagree with this sentence. (p24) “Any increase in the flow of money in the economy will in time impact the lives of the poorest.” Money can flow at any rate, but if you have an underclass that is totally marginalised from the economy they will never benefit from it. I’m very surprised you appear to be supporting the trickle down theory of poverty alleviation!

I replied:

I may need to rewrite this paragraph to clarify what I’m saying.  It is not in support of trickle down and that’s why it might be ambiguous as the thought was far from what I had in mind.  Trickle down implies a global 1% élite who by accumulating unbelievable wealth are supposed to somehow trickle it down to the rest of us.  Indeed it doesn’t only disadvantage the most disadvantaged, it disadvantages everyone else – certainly the 99%.  That doesn’t mean all the 99% understand the implications of inequality.

In that sentence, I mean the opposite of trickle down, where the 1% contribute by reintroducing their fortunes into the economy.  This is not going to happen overnight, so when will it happen?  It will never happen if we do not have the economic structures to accommodate it.  This includes social enterprises and mutuals as well as local businesses.  What we have failed to do is to build the infrastructure that supports local businesses.  I was talking to a trader in Sheffield recently who understands this and looks out of his shop window at shops converted into houses.  He’s actively supporting traders on the street where he is based.

What Happens When Talent is Scarce?

I’m self-employed and not a social enterprise or a mutual.  Why?  Because I’m developing something at my risk.  If my business proves to be viable, that’s when I’ll look at making it a social enterprise.  My long-term aim is to support those seeking ways to build an economy that serves the interests of all.

In my review of Della Rucker’s book, I said her undercurrent about talent is worth reading.  She flags up a dilemma. Talent disadvantages many people because they don’t have the talent they need to take part in the local economy.  My plans will not directly benefit the disadvantaged.  So, provision must be made and integrated into plans to rebuild the economy.  The state has no problem funding wealthy corporations who somehow wriggle out of paying taxes.  At the same time it labels those who need benefits as scroungers and skivers.

Citizens’ Income

The approach I would use is the Green Party’s Citizens’ Income because it guarantees everyone has a basic income, introduces more money circulating in the economy and does not penalise small businesses as a living wage would.  It is funded by a tax on everyone earning above the basic Citizens’ Income. The rate increases, so high earners make a higher contribution.

I do not accept the label of left, if by that people mean Stalinist.  We should never forget that despite the rhetoric, Soviet Russia, was unequal.  The élite lived in luxury whilst millions starved in the Gulags.

There is no neat solution to poverty but we can choose to support economic policies that are more or less fair.  Dorling provides a valuable insight into why our economy is progressively becoming less fair and it our task to find alternative approaches that work better.  It won’t happen overnight and that is not complacency, it is a realistic appraisal of the economic system we live in and massive changes we will need to turn it around.  We gain nothing by not naming those who are responsible for keeping it as it is.

1 Wise Economy

Last Friday I started to review Della Rucker’s book, The Local Economy Revolution.  Today I shall return to the book, picking up on the rather negative implications of her three undercurrents and show how Rucker introduces a more positive note.

If you would like to read the book and you are UK-based, click on the image to the left to go to the UK Amazon site. If you’re in the US, you can get access to it through The Local Economy Revolution website. If you’re anywhere else you’ll need to work it out for yourself!  The website is mainly a blog and it provides case studies supporting the book, allowing the ebook to be kept up-to-date without constant updates. The blog is up-to-date and new posts appear a few times a month.

Here is a passage I found towards the end of the book:

“The work of setting up art shows or fighting for better transportation systems, or cleaning up neighborhoods, or opening businesses, matters.  It matters furiously.  It matters a hell of a lot.  It matters because it shows us why these places are loved.  And it shows us that somebody loves them, deeply loves them.  Despite everything.”

This is perhaps one of the most convincing reasons for community activism.  In this blog I occasionally touch on spiritual issues.  Sometimes it’s not appreciated spirituality relates to the material world.  It is grounded in the streets we walk along, the particularities of the place where we live.  Being fully alive connects us to the places we inhabit.  To be a spiritual person is to commit to a place, to live there and become a part of it.  Then our activism becomes an act of love for our place and it is only when we love it that we can effect its transformation.

This is why big schemes don’t work.  When the council spends a fortune to draw a big employer to a city, what happens?  First, the model of the big anchor employer, providing jobs for the community died in the 1980s.  Second, it is usually short-term profit that draws employers  to a new place  and not commitment to the place.  Third, such investment endangers communities because when they withdraw, it knocks  them back.

A local business on the other hand, built slowly and grounded in its place will if it’s successful be committed to stay there.  We need to learn how to build economies from dozens of these businesses, investing in the infrastructure that supports them.

Thus Rucker introduces four incentives arguing (1) the focus must be on supporting those things that enable local businesses to grow, (2) identifying what makes this neighbourhood, city or region unique, (3) understand what small businesses can or can’t do and then (4) looking at how to use grants properly.  These are my glosses on her long and stimulating arguments, so if you are interested please read the book!

We need it seems three secret weapons to enable us to do all of this: (1) research and understand our communities and how they work, (2) pool our knowledge and understanding with others and (3) be courageous in our initiatives.

All of this contributes to what Rucker calls Wise Economy and her website offers resources for those who share her vision of a difficult but possible future for our most challenged neighbourhoods.

Last time I showed how Rucker’s undercurrents applied to Burngreave New Deal for Communities.  I wonder what would have happened had the £50 million been spent according to her incentives.  I was actually asked this question a couple of weeks ago, “What would you have spent the £50 million on?”  I replied I would have spent it across the city supporting local businesses.

On reflection I think it would still be the best approach.  The big drawback would have been the loss of the support for children and young people in Burngreave, which was New Deal’s greatest contribution.  However, this is a thought experiment and what has been done cannot be undone.

Here are reasons support of my approach:

These are the lessons I have so far taken from Rucker’s book.  Some may be tangential to her intentions and there will be some I have missed.  I will be returning to her book for inspiration in the future.

1 A Case for Public Toilets

Public urinal (Limbourg, Belgium) – similar to Clochemerle

Older readers may remember the 1972 television series, “Clochemerle”, written by Galton and Simpson of “Steptoe and Son” fame.  The story is about a small town in 1925 France, where the socialist mayor (Cyril Cusack) tries to build a urinal in the town square.  Wendy Hiller plays a prim spinster who campaigns against it on the grounds of public decency.  Over several weeks the catastrophic consequences play out.

As far as I’m aware Clochemerle is the only television series ever centred on a public toilet.  It is, of course, a comedy and perhaps this is no surprise because public toilets are usually considered comic!

What Happened to Public  Conveniences?

If you go back a few decades the “public convenience” was a common site on street corners.  Local authorities maintained most of them and so today they are closed, demolished or adapted to other uses.  This is a pity because they have an economic purpose and are essential for public health.

Imagine you are a parent with a small child.  You have 30 – 60 minutes from leaving home before the child needs to go.  In this time you need to get to the shops, buy what you need and return home.  With the best will in the world, you will have no time to shop around and find the best bargains.  To get the best deal, the chances are you buy unhealthy processed foods.  Removal of public toilets means for many there is less time for socialising, you are under constant pressure to get home.

Much the same applies to the elderly as bladders seem to become less capacious with age.  This is no joke!

Of course, the old style public toilets had drawbacks.  The continental Clochemerle variety was sexist, designed for men between pubs or pub and home.  The UK variety usually catered for most sexes but the old style were usually not particularly clean, often neglected and too often attracted unsavoury characters.  I remember as a child in the 50s and 60s, warnings not to use them because of the nasty men who inhabited them.

Toilets Today

The solution these days is to open toilets to the public inside other buildings, frequently department stores and supermarkets.  This way the store can maintain standards of cleanliness and safety.  You may have noticed department stores always house them a few stories up and at the back of the store.  This is deliberate as it increases footfall.  After the shops close pubs provide the last resort for the desperate.

Community or business centres are other options.  Such a centre might place them within a café.  If so, they should be clearly labelled as open to the public with no obligation to buy.  If you aim to create an unstructured meeting space, your toilets are crucial to introducing new people to your centre.  Strategically placed notice boards may be all you need to increase participation.

We need to see toilet facilities as a valued public service, not a music hall joke.  Their provision benefits not only those who use them (that’s everyone) but also local traders.

What are the benefits of clean, safe toilet facilities?  Isn’t it time national and local government took this seriously?

2 The Local Economy Revolution

This is the first in a series of reviews of resources about the local economy.  It reviews the ebook, “The Local Economy Revolution” by Della Rucker.  If you’re interested and in the UK, click on the image to go to the UK Amazon site.  In the US, you can get access to it through The Local Economy Revolution website.  Anywhere else and you’ll need to work it out for yourself!

The website is mainly a blog and it provides case studies supporting the book, allowing the ebook to be kept up-to-date without constant updates.  The blog is up-to-date and new posts appear a few times a month.

I’ve started with this book and website because Della Rucker is one of the few people I’ve found who is taking on the local economy.  Someone has suggested the term “local economy” is vague and so it is good to find an activist in a different context, using it.  Further, Rucker has masses of experience and so the book substantially grounds the topic.

Three Undercurrents

Rucker begins by identifying three undercurrents (actually there are four but I’m ignoring the fourth for now) by which she means issues commonly ignored by practitioners in urban regeneration.  So, I’m going to apply them to my experience with Burngreave New Deal for Communities in Sheffield, UK.  If you follow that link you’ll find a summary of my posts on the topic.

Economic Systems and Natural Ecosystems

I was really pleased to see Rucker compare economic systems to natural ecosystems.  This is something I’ve thought for a long time but never written about.  We underestimate natural systems’ complexity at our peril; it is ecosystems that evolve, not individual species.  Evolution is not possible for individual species because it needs the challenge of interaction between species.  Remove one seemingly unassuming species and the system might collapse.

Rucker argues economic systems are similar.  We tend to think of local economies as shops and, if we think a little more deeply, other businesses with maybe a few hidden self-employed.  However, I have argued local markets are more than economic transactions.  The local park, for example, may draw people into a neighbourhood.  So, we need to understand how everything in a neighbourhood or city interacts to support or impede the economy.

Burngreave New Deal recognised this to some extent, involving a range of partners although, like most community projects in the UK, it marginalised the private sector.  To arbitrarily select a neighbourhood of a few thousand houses as an economic unit, perhaps failed to take seriously Sheffield’s complexity.  To spend £50 million pounds in that area did not recognise Burngreave’s connections to the rest of the city.

Economic Systems are Unpredictable

Which brings me to Rucker’s second undercurrent.  Economic systems behave in unpredictable ways.  We fool ourselves if we believe any intervention will have predictable results.  Things are perverse.  They do not behave the way experts say they should.

This explains how Burngreave New Deal could at the same time be the third best New Deal in the country and a total failure. I’ll look at its successes under ‘3’ but it feels like a failure today because when you compare Burngreave with other similar Sheffield neighbourhoods, it is the only one with no forum, no trust, no physical assets and no partnership.  New Deal tore out the infrastructure that made Burngreave a community.

This was not an intended result, its byline was “Legacy not History” – so what went wrong?  Perhaps conflict between the forum and New Deal, the recession, a change in council leadership to a party with its power based in affluent parts of the city, poor decisions about community assets all contributed.  Who would predict that it might be an advantage to live in a neighbourhood that has not had £50 million invested over 10 years?

Talent

Burngreave New Deal did indeed invest in people and its educational results for example were impressive.  What we can’t know is the long-term impact of those results because there is to be no long-term evaluation.  The people who benefited may go on to brilliant careers and make a stupendous contribute for the good of humanity.  But how many will live in Burngreave?  In Sheffield?  And what of those who have not made it?  What has happened to them?

Rucker’s third undercurrent is talent and she makes the point that although many recognise why talent is important, for example, when you set up a businesses, there will always be people in a neighbourhood who do not contribute talent.  One of our greatest challenges is to support the disadvantaged whilst at the same time encouraging those who can contribute talent to step forward.

To a significant degree New Deal recognised this challenge, focusing resources on education and support for young people.  We’ll never know whether that investment was worth it or indeed whether its legacy is better services supporting children and young people today.

Implications and Secret Weapons

All three undercurrents are powerful ideas and certainly the New Deal programme recognised the first and third.  Some of us were aware of the second and watched as our worst fears materialised.  Rucker goes on to name four implications and three secret weapons for the local economy activist.  I’ll review these next time as this post is getting to be rather long.

Do you recognise these undercurrents in your own community?  Are there others you would add?

0 My Vision for the Local Economy

Over the autumn I’ve blogged about the local economy, supported by posts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays comparing the private and third sectors and considering organisational structures.  These are links to the first post in each sequence and I will prepare cornerstone pages soon.  So here is my vision for the local economy from August 2014.

My Vision from August 2014

My vision is of bringing the marketplace back to the centre of our lives. I don’t mean the marketplace politicians drone on about. They mean the market in financial assets, mediated by banks and institutions in the City of London and other global centres.

I mean the centre of community life, where people go to trade, yes indeed. But that is not the main reason they go there – the market is where you visit the library, go for a swim, enjoy a concert (on street or in a concert hall), join in public worship, meet friends and build relationships with acquaintances. Giant corporations, who dominate the shopping streets and malls, have takenthis from us in recent decades.

It has been eroded by the activities of large corporations, and this corporatism is not the same as capitalism. It is the enemy of small businesses, sucking finance from local economies.

Online Implications

The Internet is also dominated by corporations. But if we plan to reclaim our neighbourhoods as marketplaces we must also claim the Internet for the same cause. It can support local economies. It can encourage collaboration between small businesses in their neighbourhoods. We need to learn how to use it to help rebuild local economies wrecked by the plundering corporations. This is what this site is about.

It is about how we can use our online presence to support local economies. It is about creating a positive interface between small businesses and community, voluntary and faith groups.

This will need a great deal of collaboration between many people if it is to become a reality. Politically the aftermath of the Scottish referendum in the UK may be an opportunity to devolve power from the London-based establishment to the regions. I will write about this and other developments that have a bearing on local economies.

But my contribution is to support small businesses and voluntary groups who want to work together online to support their local marketplace.

What do you think?

0 Effective Local Economy

I have discussed a new vision for a national localised economy. It would run alongside the neo-liberal economy. It needs to be rebuilt following the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s.  Today I shall describe three qualities I see in the retail co-operative movement that I believe led to its successes.  These are just as applicable to localised economies today as they were in nineteenth century.

Democracy

The retail co-operative movement, in common with all types of co-operation, thrives when its members share decision making. The UK retail co-operatives have struggled with this concept in recent years because they have become  large remote institutions.

The early co-ops were successful because their members were enthusiastic and could see the impact of their decisions first hand. They learned from their own and others successes and failures.

Many small retail co-operatives created the massive institutions we see today, by working together to create networks for wholesale (for example) to serve their interests.  They were pioneers and most of the large retail empires we see today are copying the old co-operatives.  Contrary to political rhetoric, it is democratic institutions that find creative approaches and not top-down experts.

Education

It wasn’t the dividend that kept them going, it was their vision. The first retail co-op at Toad Lane in Rochdale had a library and meeting room above the shop from day one. Education of the membership was central to what they were doing. They learned not only the practicalities of setting up and running a co-op but also how mutual principles can transform society for the better.

Perhaps these days people are less likely to voluntarily go to regular meetings for education but maybe online education can to some degree replace those meetings.

Quality

The Rochdale Pioneers founded retail co-ops to tackle food adulteration. They were able to guarantee the quality of their products to their members. Where people know one another and work together they are in a better place to establish their quality standards.

The retail co-operative movement was the first movement of active consumers. They were not just consumers but actually members, a part of the movement. For all the talk of the consumer economy, we have lost sight of what it means to be an active participant in the economy.

The local economy is an opportunity for everyone to take responsibility for the environment and the shape of society and not to leave it in the hands of government or the corporations.

0 How Do Localised Economies Work?

It’s almost impossible to answer the question: how do localised economies work? Real-life businesses trading, prove what works.  We discover what works by doing it and what works in one place may fail in another.

However it is worth making a few observations.

Three Dimensions

Localised economies operate in three dimensions: grassroots, online and politically through regulation.

Grassroots

The act of trading has always been a grassroots activity. You make yourself known to your market and provide goods and services to that market. The big advantage of local trading is that it is easier to build trust. However, not all businesses can survive solely by trading locally.

Many small businesses provide specialist products and services to larger businesses and in this sense the economy is one system. There is always both a localised economy and a larger globalised economy. The problem is where the power lies. Clearly the big companies are going to dominate financial arrangements with smaller businesses.

Regulation

The traditional approach is through regulation. Everyone complains about regulation and most political parties are sceptical about it. I think we need to appreciate what regulation does for the economy. Here are two advantages to regulation:

1. Regulation protects the consumer. The retail co-operative movement started partly in response to food adulteration. Food needs to be properly labelled and contain what it claims to contain. Big companies fight to stop regulation that would oblige them to place health warnings on packaging for example. Restrictions on the retail of tobacco and alcohol are other examples. And how else are countries going to cut their carbon footprint?
2. Regulation protects small businesses from exploitation by big businesses. I suppose this is the concept of the level playing field. Legislation protects a small business entering into a contractual arrangement with a powerful business. This applies to consumers as much as it applies to business arrangements. Also businesses can voluntarily enter into arrangements regulated through legislation. Co-operatives protect their assets when they are regulated through legislation. The demutualisation of building societies during the 1980s demonstrates the inadequacies of the current regulations. The marketplace has its share of sharks and small businesses and consumers need protection.

Collaboration Online

The other way local economies mitigate the aggressive behaviour of large businesses is through collaboration online. Mostly businesses go online to extend their market. This might be by local publicity, so encouraging more people to visit their shop. But it can be by selling online, whether it is products or services. Opening up to a national or global market might help some small businesses finance their local operations. But even where they don’t aim to trade locally, the finance they earn can be spent locally.

There are other ways local businesses can collaborate online:

The retail co-ops were successful because they targeted the disadvantaged new working classes. They were a highly effective self-help and inspired many experiments carried out by those who had little to lose.  Ideas were it seems, communicated from place to place with little mediation.

A Role for Community Development?

The problem for many small businesses is time. They need to devote their working hours to their business and collaboration becomes a luxury they can’t afford unless there are clear financial benefits. An alternative would be for some sort of mediation, that helps businesses to build their local economy. Perhaps this is a role for community development workers, although traditionally few have taken on this challenge.  I suppose this is working with the wealthy whilst community development tends to be targeted at disadvantaged communities. But how effective has this traditional approach been?

Now that the days of large-scale grants are behind us, how can we look again at what local economies can offer?

0 How to Build Sustainable Localised Economies

What would be the difference between a national localised economy and the current neo-liberal model?  We need to build sustainable localised economies.  A localised economy means neighbourhoods need huge investment in rebuilding what the neo-liberal consensus has destroyed.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the first wave of co-operatives found opposed interests between retail and worker co-operatives. Retail co-ops aim to maximise dividends for their members, who are also their customers. Worker co-ops aim to maximise the workers’ wages.

Whilst there is a place for worker co-ops, it is not necessary for all businesses to be co-operatives. Indeed, any structures that divert energy into complicated constitutions, boards of directors, etc are not a good idea.

The key is collaboration. Small businesses work together to build their local economy and links into the national localised economy. If you are a baker you have no need to compete with other businesses in your area or bakers in other areas. It may be possible to collaborate with other bakers in your area. It depends on how many bakers a given neighbourhood can sustain.  Increasing numbers of people ready to buy locally produced bread, might be an example of mutually beneficial collaboration.

The local economy becomes sustainable when money circulates within it. A pound coin spent in the morning might be spent several times that day. Think of it as one coin. A coin spent 10 times is  worth £10 in terms of the goods received in return for it. It continues to be an asset to whoever holds it. When I hand a coin over I tend to think of it as lost to me. But in fact it is only by handing it over that everyone else’s wealth increases. As their wealth increases so does mine. If I have something to sell, they are more likely to buy it from me.

Consider the Local Economic Trading Systems’ (LETS) experience. They use a local currency. The best participants are not those who accumulate the currency, or accumulate debt. The best customers are the ones who most often cross zero. Accumulation means the economy becomes stagnant.

If everyone has £100 and no-one ever spends anything then the economy is not sustainable. It is the transactions that keep it going. This is how economies crash. As more people accumulate debt or wealth, the economy will slow down. The economy works when people spend.

Trust

Many conservative economists talk of an invisible hand that keeps the economy going. They claim it has its own intelligence. This is of course nonsense. The thing that keeps the economy going is visible and it is trust. When people lose confidence because of fraud or maladministration, the market fails.

People are more likely to trust their local market. People get to know the businesses in their area. They make recommendations to friends and so businesses grow. Those businesses can employ more staff, which increases currency in circulation and so long as they keep trading they help to keep the economy going.

The big challenge is how to restart this traditional approach to the economy. The retail co-ops started at a time when people were desperate for change. We cannot ignore adverse economic conditions and the selfish practices of corporations and their political supporters. But we need to show how it is done from the bottom up, just like economies throughout history.

We know how to do it and we know the basic principles. The challenge is to learn the practicalities of building a local economy in the 21^st century.

5 National Localised Economy

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?