Local Economies for a Global Future

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from YES! Magazine:



Local Economies for a Global Future
Yes, we need to relocalize—but that doesn't mean we're headed for provincialism. Anticipating our near-heavy, far-light future.

by Jason F. McLennan
posted Jan 19, 2012


This article is about a simple, singular idea, yet the significance of the idea to modern society is profound and far-reaching. Here it is: In the near future anything heavy will become intensely local while at the same time the limits to things that are ‘light’, ideas, philosophies, information will travel even further than today—literally and figuratively. This is a new paradigm for humanity and it has huge implications for the complete reordering of society.

Environmentalists, economists, and sociologists agree: we are in an incredible state of flux, and this is simply the beginning. The planet is undergoing massive change and critical resources are diminishing, conditions to which the human race must respond. Population growth, resource scarcity and climate change will propel us, whether we like it or not, toward a new energy, food and resource paradigm. The world’s economies, based on cheap plentiful energy and the exploitation of people and the environment are starting to crumble. We are beginning an era in which the cozy assumptions of the last half-century are turned upside down, a time when the institutions and technologies that run our civilization are re-engineered. To understand how radical this new paradigm will be, let’s explore similar re-orderings in the past.

Thousands of Years of Human History – A Heavy-Near, Light-Near Paradigm

For most of human history, everything in a person’s life was intensely local. People all over the earth had a deep understanding of their place and the world that they could literally see, touch and feel. Moving things that were physically heavy was difficult and limited first to what people could carry, then the limits of domesticated animals. Culture too was intensely local—with peoples only a short distance away who they couldn’t understand due to differences in language and customs. These cultural differences emerged in relation to climate, the range of species and other place-based distinctions. Oral cultures, by necessity, stayed close to home, keeping beliefs and ideology very local – sometimes as local as a family group or small village. The world had hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects and even more foundational stories, creation myths and ways of looking at the world. Most of human existence has operated under this paradigm of ‘Heavy Near and Light near’.

There were intermittent exceptions of course—moments when bursts of innovation launched our species on great journey’s (almost like punctuated equilibrium) the great Polynesian migrations and Viking explorers come to mind, but even they after finding new islands for habitation typically settled back into intensely local realities. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/local-economies-for-a-global-future

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