Category Archives for "Reviews"

0 Location is Everything

One of the insights that have kept me going as a community development worker is “it’s where your feet are!” Many claim it is our heart or mind that forms our role in the world. There is a degree of truth in this because it is certainly true that our values are important.  But what forms our values? Perhaps our geographical location, where our feet are? Certainly the relationship between place and values is complex.  It cannot be ignored, location is everything.

There is interplay between our online and offline practice in a parallel complex fashion. David R Bell in his book “Location is (Still) Everything: the Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One“ makes a valiant start at unpicking this relationship.

His interest is primarily in lessons for online marketers and so his emphasis is on the behaviour of customers in aggregate and not so much the behaviour of communities and economies. His perspective is that of a business owner who is seeking a market on a nationwide scale and then on the impact these decisions might have on a community, where many such decisions affect the lives of residents, without their knowledge or consent.

The book is full of helpful insights and we should be grateful for that. The question, as always is how we use the insights gleaned from such research. This work opens up a lot of questions and finding answers to some of them is one of the purposes of this blog.

Marketing GRAVITY

Bell uses an acrostic, GRAVITY, to organise his message across seven chapters.

• Geography is the foundational idea, that where we live to some degree determines our relationship with the online world. Your online interests may be determined by the goods and services available locally. Obviously if something is not available it is possible to find it online. But perhaps less obvious is the way we can explore local possibilities online and then travel to make a purchase.
• Resistance is where our economic activities encounter barriers, of which there appear to be two main ones. Distance is one. However attractive an offer may be, there is a limit to the distance customers will travel to take advantage of it. The second is ease of searching for a solution to a problem.
• Adjacency is about how sales tend to cluster in geographical areas because of the spread of the news of a product or service by word of mouth or example.
• Vicinity is where people with similar lifestyles and values live in very different places and how information passed between them.
• Isolation looks at behaviours in areas with varying degrees of provision of a particular commodity. Where demand is high, local shops will tend to stock more options than in places where demand is low.  So, are people who live in low demand areas, more likely to purchase online?
• Topography explores some of the complexities of relationships between what is available online and locally. It doesn’t follow that online information leads inevitably to online sales. It is possible to find out what is available locally online. This is all further complicated by the growth of mobile devices.
• You explores some of the implications of GRAVITY for developing businesses.

All of these are worth further consideration about their implications for local markets.

One final word of high praise for David R Bell. It is always invigorating to find a writer who knows how to use the word “nice” nicely.

0 A Three Pillar Democracy

Last time I wrote about how “Motivation and Meaning” is behind all economic and political systems. In this third part of my review of “Change Everything” by Christian Felber, I shall consider his chapter about “Advancing Democracy”, wherein Felber suggests a three pillar democracy.

Sovereignty

The chapter describes an approach to democracy where the people are sovereign. Felber lives in Austria and many of the examples are from Central Europe. Quite how this idea goes down in the UK, with a monarch as  sovereign, is not yet known.  (Political parties opposed to membership of the EU, claim they believe in national sovereignty for the UK by which they presumably mean sovereignty of the monarch.  In the real world, Parliament has handed over sovereignty to the large corporations and I don’t suppose leaving the EU will make much difference to that.  This doesn’t make me optimistic that we’ll see a sensible or informed debate about sovereignty in this country.)

The September 2014 Scottish referendum is an example of how direct democracy can empower populations. Felber claims the sovereign people are usually more cautious than their politicians. The results of the referendum, show a significant majority voted to stay as part of the UK. However, the referendum radicalised the people and so in the General Election, May 2015, most seats went to the Scottish National Party (SNP).

The problem was with the referendum itself. The politicians designed the question to meet their own interests. The ambiguities meant many who voted no in the referendum actually wanted change as we saw in the General Election results. If the results of the first ballot was a no to the SNP, the results of the second was a no to the Westminster élite. Is anyone planning to find out what the people actually want?

A Constitutional Convention

Felber would suggest establishing a convention, independent of the Scottish or UK parliaments. The people would elect members of the convention whose task would be to come up with a political solution acceptable to the people of Scotland. A referendum confirms their recommendations.

Under such a system, referendums would stop being the plaything of governments and become a genuine element of participative democracy.  I am not optimistic referendums can offer the public a free choice whilst politicians set the question.

Three-Pillar Democracy

Felber suggests a three pillar approach to democracy that mirrors my three function model for community development.

Representative Democracy

So, representative democracy at national level mirrors the representational role of community organisations. (This link is to the first of three.)  However, practical considerations limit the direct democratic involvement of people.  This is why we elect parliaments, councils, etc – we entrust politicians to act on our behalf.  That our politicians are not accountable between elections is one the major democratic challenges we face.  They write the manifestos and then can change them once they’re in power.  We get to vote for parties and can’t pick and mix policies between parties.  If we disagree with a decision made during a term of office, we have no way of communicating which policy we disagree with through voting.

Our politicians cannot be trusted to truly represent people’s views. They decide the agenda and have exclusive powers to draft legislation, treaties, etc. Their most powerful lobbies are the corporations. The politicians have given away too much power to these lobbies and ordinary citizens have nothing like equal power over the politicians they elect.

Direct Democracy

This is where the second pillar comes in, direct democracy. This mirrors the planning stage of my three function model. Locally, planning is an opportunity for community organisations to meet with other local interest groups such as the council, police, NHS and local businesses.

A convention would be equivalent to representatives of community organisation directly involved in negotiations.   The elected convention’s task is to draft treaties and other agreements, which act as frameworks for politicians, on behalf of the people. They would not normally draft legislation, their role is constitutional.  So, determination of the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, would include the roles of the Scottish and Westminster parliaments.  Parliaments make decisions about legislation within the constitutional agreement.  The convention would act in an open way, consulting with all interests and producing legislation for agreement at a referendum.

This would be for deciding constitutional issues, eg Scotland’s governance, the treaty with Europe (an international convention, perhaps?) and so on. Anything requiring a referendum would start with a convention.  The referendum would be to accept or reject the findings of the convention.

Participatory Democracy

Finally, participatory democracy is equivalent to the delivery function in my local model.  It is where people can be directly involved in their place of work, for example.

As these three pillars develop, they reinforce one another. As people find out about the enhanced power of participatory democracy, they are likely to increase their own involvement. With such political structures in place, we are likely to find they reinforce democratic involvement in our neighbourhoods and work places as well as at council and parliamentary levels. We will rediscover the political process in the marketplace.

The three local functions may seem weaker than the national democratic functions.  This is a product of contemporary national politics; national politics is more powerful and the weakness of local politics is part of the same system.  Introducing these three distinct pillars of democracy would strengthen local democracy people became more familiar with democratic participation.

1 Motivation and Meaning

From Economics to Politics

Christian Felber’s Change Everything is about economics but it soon becomes clear democracy is central to its proposals. If we are seeking a fair economic system, then we must improve our democratic or political systems.  This post focuses on his chapter: Motivation and Meaning.

History tells us humanity is very good at inventing unjust economic systems. Indeed the purpose of many political systems appear to be to legitimise injustice. Where there is justice it tends to draw little attention and can seem unstable. However, given most political systems prove unstable in the end, this does not mean justice is impractical.

It’s easy to forget the equitable purposes of institutions over time. For example, insurance used to be a means to share risk. If someone claimed, everyone’s premium would increase by a very small amount. These days if you make a claim, your premium increases by a large amount. We’ve forgotten the equitable principles underlying the original scheme.

There are many other examples; the carpetbaggers of the 1980s, who joined building societies with the intention to vote for their demutualisation. Demutualisation changed assets owned collectively into shares owned by each shareholder.

So, there is something more fundamental than either politics or economics. It is fundamentally to do with our spirituality, the values that we bring to the marketplace.

From Politics to Spirituality

Felber’s chapter Motivation and Meaning is a good place to start.

Survival of the Fittest

I have written in earlier posts about the mis-use of Darwinism by apologists for the current economic system. Felber writes on page 106, “the capitalistic, that is, social Darwinist image of humankind according to which human beings are primarily motivated by egoism and competition“.

Why do we attribute this view to Darwin? Presumably it alludes to the “survival of the fittest”, a term missing from the first edition of the Origin of the Species. Alfred Russell Wallace who proposed a similar theory of evolution to Darwin’s at around the same time, makes no reference to it.

Somehow survival of the fittest has become integral to the Theory of Evolution. Why is this? It seems likely competition was an important element of the worldview of the powerful at the time of Darwin and Wallace. They seized upon survival of the fittest as a way of demonstrating their approach as natural.

It is hard to think of a more blatant example of science being formed by society. The powerful wanted a theory of evolution that supported their way of doing things and that’s what we have. They say, “Our economic system is just like natural evolution where the powerful survive and the weak go to the wall.” This is perhaps one of the most damaging myths of our time.

Questioning Competition

Is it true competition solely motivates people? 80% of new business start-ups fail. Obviously there are many reasons they fail and some ideas deserve to fail. But how many fail because they believe in competition? They believe not only that they have to protect their business against competition but that they have to work alone, never in partnership. I suspect it is those businesses that understand businesses survive when they collaborate that do in fact survive (assuming they are viable). Viable businesses fail when they are badly managed and a mindset that is competitive to other businesses and bullying to its staff is likely to be poor at management.

On page 113 Felber writes,

“Thus the root of the problem lies in inwardly impoverished people who are incapable of investing their own lives with meaning; they lack the self-confidence needed to recognise themselves as being ultimately responsible for their own lives and their own decisions.“

Competition pushes the reason for my failure onto someone else. It motivates me and maybe in the short-term winning the competition means business success. But in the end it seems “those who live by the sword perish by the sword”. The original Greek does not use ‘die’ but ‘perish’. The difference is intentional, to live in this way causes the person to perish, to lack meaning or purpose other than to triumph in competition. We confuse perish and die because to perish is to die from the inside out. Most of the world’s religions recognise this.

Competition and Meaning

If we are planning to change everything, to change economic systems towards something more collaborative, equitable and sustainable, it is necessary to change our political systems and to change our political systems we need to change ourselves. It’s a tall order and one that has been known for centuries. If we’ve been trying for centuries and failed, why should we be successful this time?  If only competition motivates us, what does this say about the meaning of our activities?  Is it true the “business of business is business”?

Who says we’ve failed? Perhaps the times and places where there is justice appear rare. Often they are communities within a larger economic system they oppose, perhaps by having a profound impact. The retail co-operative movement, which because it was successful inspired many other experiments into mutuality and education, had an impact in the fine-grain of our lives in many ways we don’t notice unless we know some history. We don’t see it because our attention is rarely drawn to it. This is what happens when you have a single prevailing economic worldview.

2 Creating an Economy for the Common Good

The retail co-operative movement and its associated mutual experiments, was for a time a parallel economy for the common good to the dominant liberal economy of the Victorian era.

It challenged not only the mainstream economy but also the stream of socialism based on trade unions and centralised state ownership. It offered collective ownership as an alternative to private and state ownership.

This model not only flourished but initiated many institutions that are today foundational to the mainstream economy. Sadly, the government privatised many of these institutions; privatisation has absorbed not only nationalised industry but many mutuals. Its grip on the economy and our imagination is far greater than the so-called threat of communism achieved.

From the perspective of the twenty-first century, communism was never an alternative to capitalism.  The Soviet Union practised state capitalism and trade union based socialism in Britain was an accommodation to the capitalist economy and not a genuine alternative to it.  The difference between twenty-first century businesses and the days of trade union power is the decline of large industry.  It is hard to see how unions could regain the power they once had without these large employers.  Large companies these days are not employers but accumulate capital.  Perhaps these differences are a matter of degree but trade union decline cannot be fully reversed by a more favourable legal environment.

Change Everything

It is hard to envision an alternative to the prevailing neo-liberal model and that is why I welcome Christian Felber’s new book, “Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good”. Here at last is a credible alternative!

The Economy for the Common Good is an international movement, originating in Austria. Felber’s book is the first time his thinking has been available in English. In it he describes a framework for a new understanding of the economy; moving from “the business of business is business” to “the purpose of business is the common good”.

It is important to understand Felber is not promoting a single model for the economy but a different standard any number of models can address. This standard attempts to overturn the neo-liberal mindset, which sees competition as central, to a worldview based on co-operation. I’m planning to review this book over several posts. In this first post, I shall make three comments, reflecting my concerns about his approach. They are not so much criticisms as attempts to show where there may be difficulties.

I want to promote the book as I cannot possibly, in a few posts, do justice to the ground it covers.  These comments may assist a critical reading.

Co-operation happens already

One of the lies about the neo-liberal model of the economy is business depends solely on competition. Felber claims competition is less effective than co-operation and I would go even further.

Felber includes a chapter of examples of the economy for the common good from all over the world. These are valuable and important and I plan to write about some of them soon.

What I don’t think he dwells upon fully is how even neo-liberal business depends on co-operation. Competitive ideology undermines business because it is naturally collaborative. Successful businesses collaborate. Many small business owners flounder because they believe the politicians and think they are in a cutthroat competitive environment.

Too much business collaboration is behind closed doors. Many scandals are where politicians are swayed, where relationships become way too cosy.

So, with the neo-liberal worldview collaboration can become counter-productive but for most small businesses it is a natural route to a prosperous business. Good businesses put business in the way of other businesses; they help one another to grow.

Felber’s values would place business collaboration in the service of the common good and not primarily for private profit.  He does not rule out private profit but moves it away from being the main point of economic activity.  Many entrepreneurs might embrace Felber’s approach because it offers a more supportive environment than the neo-liberal model with its aim to centralise economic activity in a few powerful hands.

An economy within an economy?

Felber’s approach is admirable because it could in principle replace the prevalent neo-liberal model. It’s certainly possible, after all in the immediate post-war years, neo-liberalism was the preserve of eccentrics. Owen Jones describes in the first chapter of his book, “The Establishment“, how these peripheral eccentrics developed the dominant ideology of our time.  Now we’re the eccentrics, up against powerful vested interests.

The reality is, for a time at least, the two worldviews will co-exist. This is much as it was for the co-operative movement. For all its successes it never broke through and ultimately lost out to the uneasy alliance between capitalism and a trade union based socialism.  We can see now this version of socialism was not really an alternative to the capitalist system but an adjunct to defend the interests of workers within the system.  This unstable alliance ultimately collapsed when neo-liberalism became dominant during the 1980s.

Never underestimate the power of dominant ideologies to colonise opposing worldviews, just as mutual businesses have become neo-liberal businesses.  Another example is the domination of the Christian faith by the Roman Empire.  Constantine bought into Christianity because he believed it would help him win wars.  That ideological struggle continues to this day at the heart of every church congregation.

A Worldwide Movement for Change?

Is it really credible that a worldwide movement can usher in a new approach to the economy over the entire world? It is a tall order and I hesitate to even concede it is possible.

I think we need to look again not only at the successes of alternative economies but also at their failures. Why did the co-operative movement lose out to the conventional economy, to the extent it largely disappeared in the 1980s UK?

It’s worth asking how far we can go without dismantling the neo-liberal systems? It may be essential to dismantle them but what happens if they persist? What if the vested interests are too powerful? What can be achieved under those circumstances?

Understand I ask these questions to strengthen the movement. People need to see immediate benefits if they are to commit to this approach. Each person who commits weakens the old system and so the advantages of a parallel economy need to be clear.  I shall return to this theme in the future, especially to explore how the Internet can support this parallel economy.

The Challenge to Privacy

Many people fear what happens if Felber’s models are too full on. What if our economic systems imply a society where differences are not tolerated, where everyone knows everyone else’s business?

This appears to be a concern among those living in alternative communities and it is something important to take seriously. Why?

Because the last socialist experiment was a civil liberties disaster. Granted it was state capitalism, capitalism by other means. But it is always true in human systems that freedom and equality can be opposed.

Felber’s approach is attractive because there is no single model. Small businesses can still exist, offering independence to their owners and they can choose the extent to which they adhere to Felber’s framework. This allows perhaps sufficient wriggle room to allow substantial freedom in a world where there is greater equality.

Freedom and equality are not natural givens and they need to be understood and defended.  What do you think?

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.

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?