LOCALIZATION:essential steps to an economics of

HAPPINESSHelena Norberg-Hodge

2016

LOCALIZATION:essential steps to an economics of

HAPPINESSHelena Norberg-Hodge

w w w. l o c a l f u t u r e s . o r g

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

...

vi

9

10

12

15

16

18

20

20

21

22

22

23

23

23

24

24

25

25

26

26

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

...

27

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

49

51

58

59

50

t sometimes feels like there'snothing but bad news: climatechaos, species extinction, job

insecurity, poverty, violent conflict.

easy to feel overwhelmed,depressed and helpless. But if youlook deeper, you will find reasonfor hope. Most of the problems weface share a systemic root cause;and that means that, rather thanhaving to tackle them separately,we can begin to solve all of ourmultiple crises .

It is

simultaneously

than the other way around.They are testimony to people'sstrength, perseverance and goodwill, and have the potential tomultiply rapidly, transformingour political and economiclandscape over the coming years.For nearly 40 years now, myorganization and I have been raisingawareness about the need to shiftdirection, away from globalizationtowards localization – the moststrategic, effective and common-senseway to reverse the damage causedby the global economy. Strengtheninglocal economies leads to personal, or“inner” as well as political, or “outer,”changes. At the political levellocalization is the economics of bothjustice and sustainability, because itdramatically shrinks the gap betweenrich and poor, while reducing energyuse and pollution. At the personallevel localization is the economicsof happiness, because it reconnectsus with community and nature.My eyes were opened to all of thisin Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, whichI encountered in 1975, just as theregion was thrown open to theglobal economy. As a linguist,I quickly became fluent in the Ladakhilanguage, enabling me to experiencethis ancient, nature-based culturealmost, as it were, from the inside.Over the next decade I witnessedfirsthand the devastating impact ofeconomic development. I came to seehow our economic system centralizespower and creates intense competitionfor artificially scarce educationalopportunities and jobs, while atthe same time reaching deep into thepsyches of young children, perverting

I

My observations and studies indifferent parts of the world – fromthe least to the most industrializedcountries – have convinced me thatthe central underlying problem is ourlack of awareness of the workings ofour economic system. By allowingdistorted economic priorities tooverwhelm all other considerations,we have unwittingly supported aglobal economy that has grown solarge and powerful that it threatensnot only our own survival, but all lifeon Earth. It’s a techno-economicsystem that commercializes everyaspect of the world around us – evenlife itself. It thrives on separation,on cutting us off from one anotherand from nature.It doesn't have to be this way, andchange is already in the air. Far fromthe old institutions of power, agrassroots movement is emerging.On every continent, people arecoming together to protect localecosystems and communities bybuilding more localized, place-basedeconomic structures. These initiativesare of a scale that allows culture andecology to shape the economy, rather

vi

a universal need for love and acceptanceinto a need to consume. In Ladakh, thisproved a deadly combination, leadingwithin a decade to depression andsuicide, violent conflict, and theravaging of nature.I became extremely motivated to sharethese observations. Speaking sevenlanguages, I was invited to address bothpolicy makers and grassrootsorganizations in numerous countries.My motivation increased when I realizedhow many well-intentioned people wereinadvertently supporting an economicsystem that was not onlyenvironmentally destructive, butultimately threatened their own well-being. I saw how ideas about progress,education, individualism and democracywere transformed into blind support foreconomic growth and development; howidealism and good will ended up in theservice of mindless waste, consumerism,unemployment and insecurity.My thinking was reinforced bycolleagues in Scandinavia who opposedjoining the European Union. Theyrecognized that the union was primarilyan economic one: it was pushed by bigbusinesses, which regarded Europe'sdifferent currencies, cultures andlanguages – in other words, diversity – asobstacles to corporate efficiency and profit.My friends' fears about the impacts of atrade-obsessed “borderless” Europe onculture, democracy, and the environmentechoed my own concerns about openingup Ladakh to the global economy.With this perspective furtherstrengthened by E.F. Schumacher'sseminal book Small is Beautiful, I triedto raise awareness about the urgentneed for a shift – away from ever faster-paced, larger-scale and more centralized

economic structures, towards moredecentralized or localized, human-scale economies. At first there wasinterest even from mainstreamorganizations and media. I wasinvited to speak at Harvard andOxford, was interviewed by largepublications, appeared on television,and met with members of parliamentand even some Prime Ministers.In the early 1990s, however, free tradetreaties like NAFTA and GATT allowedeconomic globalization to take off, andideas about decentralization andlocalization became increasinglymarginalized. The giant corporationsand media conglomerates that pushedfor globalization gained so muchwealth and power that they were ableto shape not only government policy,but public opinion and intellectualdiscourse. Their influence on theenvironmental movement led to a shiftaway from fundamental politicalchange, towards a focus on marketsolutions like green consumerismethical investment, and carbon trading.In recent years faith in the market hasweakened, as awareness of the socialand ecological impact of the globaleconomy has increased. The financialcrisis of 2008 in particular has led toa greater understanding of theimplications of blind, irresponsiblespeculation. Meanwhile, people at thegrassroots have been working to rebuildtheir communities and local economies.Unrecognized by the mainstream mediaand unsupported by government, theseefforts have nonetheless sprung up allover the world. They aim to shortenthe distance between production andconsumption and to build more self-reliant local, regional and national

vii

economies; they bring markets andbusinesses down to a scale that allowsfor accountability and transparency;they respect and work with thenatural world around us – anddemonstrate that, even on a crowdedplanet, human needs don't have to beat odds with the needs of nature.

What is emerging, in other words, isnot only a deep and broad critique ofcorporate capitalism and its consumermonoculture, but a planet-widelocalization movement that offersreal alternatives and lasting solutions.

Localization does not meanisolationism: in fact, the policy stepsneeded to shift from globalizing tolocalizing economic activity requireinternational collaboration. We needbinding treaties to protect theenvironment, rather than free tradetreaties that protect the profits ofglobal banks and corporations. Evenat the grassroots we urgently needto share information and collaboratewith others at every level – withincommunities, within nation states,and internationally. Nor is localizationa rigid prescription. On the contrary,it is a process of adapting economicactivity to diverse places and people.I call it “bringing the economy home”.

The benefits of localization go farbeyond what we would ordinarilyconsider economic. In both the global

Ultimately, localization renews ourconnections – to one another, to ourcommunities, to the living worldaround us. It satisfies our deeplonging for purpose and belonging,and for a secure future for ourselvesand our children.

North and South, local economies notonly help ensure greater job security,prosperity and income equality, theyalso provide the framework neededto support strong communities,which in turn support the health ofthe individual – both psychologicallyand physically.

viii

9

lobalization has resulted in amassive increase in the scale ofthe economy, leading in turn to

a cascade of serious problems. Becauseever-expanding economies require evermore resources, wilderness is beingdestroyed and biodiversity eroded.Meanwhile an expanding stream ofwaste is being produced – includinggreenhouse gases that are destabilizingthe climate and nuclear waste that willstill be toxic to our great-grandchildren.

The scaling-up of the economy is alsoaffecting our personal well-being.People are losing not only financialsecurity but also the psychologicalsecurity that springs from meaningfulwork and lasting connections to peopleand place. In both richer and poorernations, we are seeing epidemics ofdepression and suicide.

As corporate-controlled media andWestern-style schooling combine tospread a consumer monoculture aroundthe world, unique individuals are beingtransformed into mass consumers, anddiverse cultural traditions are being

homogenized. With the gap betweenrich and poor widening worldwide,conflict and violence are on the rise.While these and many other problemsare structurally connected to economicglobalization, the huge scale of theeconomy makes it hard to see thoselinks. Even government leaders andcorporate CEOs can be unaware of theimpact their decisions have on the otherside of the world. The same has becometrue of most of us: the distances betweenproducers and consumers have grownso wide that it has become impossible tomake ethical choices. A fish served in aCalifornia restaurant may have beencaught illegally on a Thai fishing vesselmanned by slaves. A T-shirt bought inGermany may have been sewn in aBangladeshi sweatshop, where workerslabored in unsafe conditions forstarvation wages. The risingconsumption levels of India's middleclass may be contributing to climatechaos many thousands of miles away.It is as if our arms have grown so longwe cannot see what our hands are doing.

However, if we carefully examine themechanisms of globalization and itsstructural impacts, we can begin to seehow the economic system has becomeso destructive. And, even moreimportantly, we can see how to fix it.

What isglobalization?economic globalization. noun. 1. the deregulation of trade and finance in orderto enable businesses and banks to operate globally; 2. the emergence of a singleworld market dominated by transnational companies; (often confused withinternational collaboration, interdependence, global community.)

We frequently hear the term “globalization”, but what does it mean? For some, it

connotes a borderless world, with new technologies facilitating the free flow of ideas

and innovation. To others, it's an interconnected planet in which webs of trade

relationships make every nation dependent on every other nation, for the good of all.

For still others it means a “global village” – a peaceful, cooperative planet shrunk to

human scale. But at its core, globalization is an economic process: it's about

deregulating trade and investment – freeing up big businesses and banks to enter

G

10

< <

Economic globalization is a process bywhich global trade and investment arederegulated, primarily through “free”trade treaties and agreements (see “Whatis Globalization?”, page 10). One of theearliest modern trade agreements, theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT), was established in the aftermathof World War II with the explicit purposeof reducing tariffs and so-called “barriersto trade”. Starting in the 1990s the numberof trade agreements began to increasesharply. The year 1994 was a watershed:the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA) came into force, andthe World Trade Organization (WTO), thesupranational institution that regulatesglobal trade, was created. Since thenliterally thousands of regional andbilateral trade and investment

“Globalization is really a code name for corporatization. It's an attemptby the largest corporations in the world, and the largest banks in the world,to re-engineer the world in such a way that they won't have to pay decentwages to their employees, and they won't have to pay taxes to fix potholesand to maintain parks, and to pay pensions to the old and handicapped.” 1

Although large corporations and banks are working to “re-engineer the world”, in

Hellyer's words, globalization is often portrayed as the product of natural and

evolutionary forces beyond anyone's control. The World Bank's website, for example,

claims that “Globalization is an inevitable phenomenon in human history.” Further

down the page, however, the Bank acknowledges that globalization is actually not

inevitable at all: “[It] occurs when countries lower barriers such as import tariffs and

open their economies up to investment and trade with the rest of the world.” In other

words, globalization would not be happening unless governments changed the rules

in order to promote it.At a fundamental level, today's “globalization” is simply a new form of the

exploitative process of conquest and colonialism that began 500 years ago. In its

present phase the system is penetrating the furthest reaches of the planet, absorbing

every ecosystem and every local, regional and national economy into a single centrally

managed world economy based on perpetual growth, rampant consumerism and

corporate control.

2

and dominate local markets worldwide. Paul Hellyer, former Deputy Prime

Minister of Canada, defines globalization this way:

agreements have been ratified. At thetime of writing there are still moreagreements under negotiation, but byfar the most far-reaching in terms ofsize and scope are the TransatlanticTrade and Investment Partnership(TTIP), and the Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP). TTIP is beingnegotiated between the United Statesand the European Union, while the TPPincludes the US, Canada, Australia,New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and sixother countries. Combined, the TTIPand TPP could create “free” trade zonesencompassing the vast majority ofinternational trade. 3

What all of these treaties have incommon is that they give corporationsand foreign investors the freedom tomove in and out of national economiesin search of “favorable businessenvironments” – where labor andresources are cheap, taxes are low,

11

< <

12

and environmental and social protectionmeasures are lax or non-existent. Theeconomist Jeffrey Sachs, an authority oneconomic development and poverty,explains how this process works:

“When capital becomesinternationally mobile, countriesbegin to compete for it. They dothis by offering improvedprofitability compared withother countries, for example,by cutting corporate tax rates,easing regulations, toleratingpollution, or ignoring laborstandards. In the ensuingcompetition amonggovernments, capital benefitsfrom a 'race to the bottom,' inwhich governments engage ina downward spiral of taxationand regulation in order to tryto keep one step ahead of othercountries. All countries lose inthe end, since all end up losingtax revenue and regulationsneeded to manage the economy.The biggest loser ends up beinginternationally immobile labor…” 4

One way free trade treaties create this“downward spiral of taxation andregulation” is by allowing any nationalpolicies – including domestic laborlaws that mandate humane workingconditions or rules that limit pollutionof air and water – to be struck down ifthey are perceived to be barriers totrade or foreign investment. Forinstance, many treaties include“investor-state dispute” instruments,which grant private corporations theright to sue governments if they believethat regulations will reduce theirexpected profits. Tobacco giant PhilipMorris has filed such a suit against theAustralian government, which hadrequired changes to cigarettepackaging in the name of public health.(see below: “Free Trade's Assault onDemocracy”). Because of internationaltrade treaties signed and ratified overthe last several decades, most nationsare now bound up in agreements thatforce them to acquiesce to the demandsof big corporations and banks, or toengage in costly legal battles that takeplace in secretive, corporate-friendlyarbitration tribunals outside of theirown domestic courts.

The number of investor-state dispute cases has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s

when the first modern “free” trade treaties were signed into law. Through the end of 2014

the number of disputes totaled 608, with 42 new cases introduced in 2014 alone. Of the

cases that have been concluded, 25 percent were decided in favor of investors, 37 percent

in favor of States, and the remainder settled or discontinued.1

Philip Morris v. URUGUAY & AUSTRALIAUS tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia over their anti-smoking laws. The company argues that warning labels on cigarette packs andplain packaging prevent it from effectively displaying its trademark, causing asubstantial loss of market share.

2

< <

13

”Free” trade agreements have helpedfuel an explosive growth in internationaltrade, which is now almost thirty-twotimes greater than it was in 1950.Imports and exports make up a muchlarger proportion of economic activitythan ever before: in 1960 trade accountedfor less than 25 percent of world output;by 2012, that figure had increased to 60percent. This tremendous growth has,in turn, stoked the expansion of the

5

6

corporations that dominatethe global economy.

Trade is an activity that people andnations have engaged in for millennia.But in the past, long-distance trade wasa secondary concern for most societies:the primary economic goal was meetingpeople's needs using the resourcesavailable within relatively shortdistances. Only once essential needs hadbeen met locally did questions of

Vattenfall v. GERMANYIn 2012, Swedish energy giant Vattenfall launched an investor-state lawsuitagainst Germany, seeking €3.7 billion in compensation for lost profits related totwo of its nuclear power plants. The case followed the German government'sdecision to phase out nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Utilities v. ARGENTINAWhen Argentina froze utility rates and devalued its currency in response to its2001-2002 financial crisis, it was hit by over 40 lawsuits from companies like CMSEnergy (US) and the water companies Suez and Vivendi (France). By the end of2008, awards against the country totaled more than US$1 billion.

Lone Pine v. CANADAOn the basis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), US companyLone Pine Resources Inc. is demanding US$250 million in compensation fromCanada. The “crime”? The province of Quebec placed a moratorium on fracking,based on concerns about the technology's environmental risks.

Achmea v. SLOVAKIAAt the end of 2012, Dutch insurer Achmea (formerly Eureko) was awarded €22 million incompensation from Slovakia, because the Slovak government had reversed theprivatization policies of the previous administration and required health insurers tooperate on a not-for-profit basis.

1 European Commission, ‘Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS): Some facts and figures’, March 12,

2015. http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/january/tradoc_153046.pdf (accessed 25 April 2016).

2 This text is adapted from the report: ‘A Transatlantic Corporate Bill of Rights: Investor privileges in EU-US

trade deal threaten public interest and democracy’, October 2013 by The Seattle to Brussels Network,

Corporate Europe Observatory and The Transnational Institute

http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/06/transatlantic-corporate-bill-rights. Used here in accordance with

the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

< <

Even worse is ”redundant trade”: in atypical year, Britain exports millions ofliters of milk and thousands of tons ofwheat and lamb, while importing nearlyidentical amounts. This pattern ofimporting and exporting similarproducts has been documented in manyother countries as well. In some cases,it is literally the same product that isboth exported and imported: the

reports that “Cod caughtoff Norway is shipped to China to beturned into filets, then shipped back toNorway for sale.” That's a 10,000-mileround-trip journey.

7

8

NewYork Times

trading surplus production withoutsiders arise.

Today, however, international tradehas come to be pursued as an end initself. This modern emphasis can betraced to an 1817 theory of politicaleconomist David Ricardo, whichholds that nations are better off ifthey specialize their production inareas where they excel – those in whichthey hold a “comparative advantage”- and then trade their surpluses forgoods they need but no longer produce.Although the supposed goal is increased“efficiency”, the result has been a system

that is highly and wasteful.inefficientBut since most of the social andenvironmental costs are “externalized”- shifted to taxpayers or the environment- the theory's shortcomings are notimmediately apparent. Comparativeadvantage still guides government

planning and decision-making today,and is at the heart of the dogma offree trade.

In the mistaken belief that trade isalways good and that more trade isalways better, governments makemassive investments in trade-basedinfrastructures, sign on to tradetreaties that open their economies tooutside investment, and scrap lawsand regulations designed to protectnational and local businesses’ jobsand resources.

Whole economies are becomingdependent on trade and virtuallyevery sphere of life is being affected.The impact on food - one of the onlyproducts that people everywhereneed on a daily basis - is particularlyrevealing. Today, one can find applesshipped from New Zealand in apple-growing regions of Europe and NorthAmerica; shoppers on the CitrusCoast of Spain will find lemons fromArgentina on supermarket shelves,while local lemons are left to rot.In Mongolia – a country with 10 timesas many milk-producing animals aspeople – shops carry more Europeandairy products than local ones.

In an era of runaway climate changeand dwindling fossil fuels, this kind ofwasteful trade – which greatlyovershadows the efforts of well-meaning individuals to reduce theirpersonal carbon footprints – is littleshort of madness. What are the benefitsof transporting food or any other basiccommodity such distances, when theycan be (and indeed for centuries havebeen) produced locally? How can thesearrangements be described aseconomically “efficient”? As we willsee, this excessive trade actuallybenefits no one but massivecorporations. And it is not efficiency,but a wide range of subsidies andignored costs that make it all possible.

Mongolia has 10 times

more dairy animals

than people, yet

supermarket shelves

carry more European

than local dairy products.

Cod caught off Norway takes a 10,000-mile round trip to be

fileted and returned for sale on the local market.

14

Energy infrastructures – large,centralized electric power plants(including nuclear power stations andhuge hydroelectric dams), petroleumfacilities, gas and tar oil pipelines, etc.;

High-speed communications andinformation networks – satellites,mobile telephone networks, television,radio and the internet;

Research and developmentinstitutions – facilities that developlabor-displacing technologies forindustry and agriculture, andtechnologies to expand and modernizethe physical infrastructures supportingthe global economy.

Though much of this infrastructureis also used by small businesses andthe general public, transnationalcorporations and their global supplychains benefit disproportionately fromit. It's therefore not surprising that, in2014, leaders from the twenty largesteconomies in the world launched theG20 Global Infrastructure Initiative,pledging trillions of dollars to help fundthis massive expansion of infrastructure– an announcement that alarmedmany ecologists but delighted thecorporations involved in global trade. 10

An additional kind of hidden subsidyinvolves the negative impacts associatedwith economic activity – the healtheffects of pollution, for example, orthe damage caused by climate change.These costs are almost never subtractedfrom corporate bottom lines; instead,these “externalized” costs are paidby society and the natural world,amounting to hidden subsidies thatartificially inflate corporate profits.Commenting on a report showingthat industry is consuming the planet's“natural capital” (forests, soils, fisheries,mangroves, ecosystems services, etc.)at a rate of nearly $7.3 trillion per year,journalist Jeff Spross noted that “Muchof the global economy, in other words,is a giant Ponzi scheme that is(temporarily) viable only because

Proponents of globalization point tothe lower cost of many globally-tradedgoods as proof that economic efficiencyis at work. However, a close look at theway the global economy is subsidizeddeflates this argument. Not only dogovernments promote trade throughinternational treaties, they do so byhanding out hundreds of billions ofdollars in direct subsidies to the tradingsector of their economies through taxbreaks, market access programs,production subsidies, loan guaranteesand more (see “A Subsidy Primer”, p.16)

It isn't just national governments thatsubsidize international trade: state andlocal governments also roll out the redcarpet for big business. For example,a investigative reportfound that state and local governmentsin the US provide over $80 billiondollars per year in tax incentives, freepublic land, infrastructure assistance,low-cost financing and other subsidiesto attract and retain large, non-localbusinesses. These subsidy programsare administered “almost exclusivelyto the benefit of big corporations(aided by highly paid lobbyists) atthe expense of small businesses.”

New York Times

9

Governments also provide indirector hidden subsidies to big businesses.By reducing the cost of long-distancetransport, for example, fossil fuelsubsidies indirectly subsidize the globaleconomy, helping to prop up the energy-intensive system of mass production formass consumption that globalizationhas spread around the world.

Indirect subsidies also includegovernment investments in theinfrastructures that a trade-basedeconomy requires. These taxpayer-supported infrastructures include:

Long-distance transport networks– multi-lane highways and motorwaynetworks, shipping terminals, airports,high-speed rail, container facilities,export processing zones, etc.;

15

markets fail to account for the value anduse of the natural ecology – on whichcivilization depends for its crops, water,air, its very livelihood.” 11

Because of this system of direct andindirect subsidies, the price of goodstransported halfway around the worldcan seem artificially cheap in

In the US, the Market Access Program provides about $200 millionannually to companies and trade associations to expand internationalmarkets for products ranging from Welch's grape juice and BlueDiamond almonds to beer, liquor, candy bars and pet foods.3

The Export-Import Bank, a US government agency, provides loansand loan guarantees to international buyers of US goods andservices. Of the $6.9 billion in direct loans made by the agency in2013, 81 percent was for purchases from just five firms, includingBechtel and General Electric; 65 percent of the bank's $12.2 billion inloan guarantees supported exports from just one company, Boeing.4

Governments often provide direct production-related subsidiesfor goods destined for export markets. According to theEnvironmental Working Group, the US government doledout an estimated $256 billion from 1995 to 2012 to support anarrow range of commodity crops (corn, cotton, rice, wheatand soybeans) that were grown on large monocultural farmsand exported to distant national or international markets.While most of these subsidies, 75 percent, went to the largest10 percent of industrial agribusinesses, the majority of small-scale diversified farms – which primarily focus on meetinglocal needs – received no subsidies at all. The EU's agriculturalsubsidy program, part of the Common Agricultural Policy,has also favoured large industrial farms and export-orientedagribusinesses over small local producers.

5

A subsidy primer

The watchdog group Good Jobs First found 240 economic development“megadeal” subsidies, in which local and state governments in the USprovided $75 million or more per company to locate in their area. Thelist of recipients included many familiar transnational corporations,including Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs,Walt Disney, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Amazon, Apple, Inteland Samsung. Wal-Mart has received over a billion dollars in stateeconomic development subsidies in the US alone.

6

7

comparison to goods produced nextdoor. This is why garlic transportedto Spain all the way from China canbe half the price of locally-growngarlic: neither the pollution involvedin its transport nor the cost of therequired transport infrastructureare reflected in its price.

During tough times governments often bend over backwards to support bigbusinesses. Following the financial crisis of 2008, giant corporations (especially largefinancial institutions) received substantial government support in the form of cheap

< <

16

The energy required by large-scale producers and international trade isheavily subsidized, making the whole system seem “efficient”. Accordingto an IMF study, global fossil fuel subsidies amounted to a staggering$5.3 trillion per year – the equivalent of $10 million every minute.9

According to one analysis, worldwide infrastructure investmentamounted to roughly $36 trillion from 1995 to 2013, much of whichwas publicly funded. The same report concluded that an estimated $57trillion in infrastructure investment will be required between 2013 and2030 to sustain global economic growth, including investments forroads, rail, ports, airports, water, power and telecommunications.10

A 2010 study conducted for the UN estimated the combinedenvironmental externalities of the world's 3,000 biggest companiesat a staggering US$2.2 trillion in 2008, “a figure bigger than thenational economies of all but seven countries in the world that year.”11

A 2014 study estimated that the total ignored ecological cost of humanactivity ranges from $4.3 to $20.2 trillion per year! For comparison, thetotal annual value of the US economy is around $16-17 trillion, whilethe world economy is roughly $70 trillion per year. According to thesame study, the benefits that humanity derives from the world'snatural ecosystems – grasslands, marshes, coral reefs, forests, andthe like – amount to an estimated $143 trillion each year.12

loan “bail-outs” – even while community banks and small businesseswere left to flounder. All told, the US Federal Reserve provided anestimated bail-out of $4.7 to $29 trillion dollars to banks across thecountry, including the largest ones – JP Morgan Chase, Citigroupand Goldman Sachs – even though these companies played a directrole in destabilizing the financial system in the first place.8

A2013 study on climate change – perhaps the largest externality of all– found that “just 90 entities are responsible for extracting most of thefossil fuels that have been burned over the past 150 years. These'carbon majors' include 50 investor-owned companies, such asTexaco and Exxon-Mobil, 31 state-owned companies, such as SaudiAramco and Pemex, and nine government-run industries in theformer Soviet Union, China and other countries. Emissions fromburning these fuels total nearly two-thirds of all the carbon that hasbeen emitted into the atmosphere during the industrial era.”13

In a sense, today's globalized economy has been subsidized by thecountries of the South for the past 500 years, at great expense to theirown cultures, their land and their economies. The centuries-longdominance of the Western industrial countries could never have arisenwithout prolonged access to the South's raw materials, markets andlabor – including slave labor. Although the true cost of the slave tradeis incalculable, calls for reparations have ranged from tens tohundreds of trillions of dollars.14

17

<<

Along with the deregulation of trade,a major driver of globalization has beenfinancial deregulation – the eliminationof obstacles to foreign investment andspeculation. Financial deregulation hadalready begun by the 1970s in manycountries, but accelerated dramaticallyin 1999, when 70 WTO membercountries, representing more than 95percent of the world's financialservices activity, agreed to “eliminateor relax current restrictions on foreigninvolvement in the financial sector,including banking, securities andinsurance.” Provisions forderegulating financial services have

12

been incorporated into the hundreds ofbilateral and regional trade agreementsthat have been signed since then.

As capital became increasingly freeto move around the world in search ofhigher profit, financial hubs like NewYork City, London, Frankfurt andSingapore relaxed their regulatoryoversight still further, engaging in a“race to the bottom” to attract finance

3 Coburn, T. (2012) ‘Treasure Map: The Market Access Program’s Bounty of Waste, Loot and Spoils Plundered from Taxpayers’,

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=5c2568d4-ae96-40bc-b3d8- 19e7a259f749,

(accessed 18 June 2014).

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

MacEwan, A. (2014) ‘The Ex-Im Bank: “Crony Capitalism”?’, September 10, Dollars and Sense,

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0914macewan.html (accessed 18 October 2014).

Environmental Working Group farm subsidy database, http://farm.ewg.org/ (accessed 22 September 2015).

“Giant Job Subsidy Packages Grow More Common and Costly”, Good Jobs First, June 19, 2013,

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/news/releases/giant-job-subsidy-packages-grow-more-common-and-costly

(accessed 22 September 2015).

Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch, http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/; Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker & Corporate Subsidy Watch,

www.goodjobsfirst.org/ (accessed October 18 2014).

Felkerson, James, “$29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient”, Levy Economics

Institute of Bard College, December 2011.

“Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF”, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-

companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf (accessed 14 June 2015).

Dobbs, Richard et al, McKinsey Global Institute, “Infrastructure productivity: How to save $1 trillion a year”, January 2013,

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi (accessed 22 September 2015).

Jowit, J. (2010) ‘World”s top firms cause US$ 2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates’, The Guardian. February 18,

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage (accessed 18 October 2014).

Costanza, R. et al (2014) ‘Changes in the global value of ecosystem services’, Global Environmental Change, Volume 26: 152–158.

Carbon Majors (2013) ‘New Study Traces Two-Thirds of Industrial Emissions to Just 90 Institutions’, November 21,

http://carbonmajors.org/carbon-majors-press-release/ (accessed October 18, 2014).

Stamp, G (2007) ‘Counting the cost of the slave trade’, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6422721.stm (accessed

February 25, 2015); Henry, B (2014) ‘£7.5 trillion for slavery: Reparations commission says Ja would be due £2.3 trillion of total for

caribbean’, Jamaica Observer, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/-7-5-trillion-for-slavery (accessed February 25, 2015)

capital. New markets and complicatedfinancial instruments were created (see“Financial weapons of massdestruction”, page 20), contributing toan explosive growth of financial activity:cross-border flows of capital rose from$500 billion in 1980 to $11.8 trillion in2007. The financial system has becomehighly complex, globally interconnected,and ultimately very unstable.

13

Not surprisingly, financialderegulation has led to an increase inthe frequency and severity of financialcrises. With massive flows of capital ableto move quickly in and out of countriesin search of profit at the click of abutton, entire economies can be quicklydestabilized, creating surges ofunemployment and economic hardship.Volatile capital flows contributed toeconomic crises in Mexico (1994), Turkey(1994 and 2001), Southeast Asia (1997),and Argentina (2001). More recently,financial deregulation was among theprimary causes of the Global FinancialCrisis of 2008. What's worse, aseconomies have become increasinglyinterconnected, financial crises havebecome more contagious, spreading

18

quickly from one country to another.In spite of this heightened risk, strongerfinancial regulations proposed in thewake of the 2008 crisis have beenstalled or watered down. Meanwhile,new measures intended to extend andexpand financial deregulation are partof the TPP and TTIP treaties. A furtherreason for the volatility of the globalfinancial system is that so much of themoney circulating within it is“phantom wealth” – defined by authorDavid Korten as “financial assets thatappear or disappear as if by magic as aresult of accounting entries and theinflation of asset bubbles unrelatedto the creation of anything of realvalue or utility.” 14

Much of this phantom wealth hasbeen created by deregulated banksthrough debt pyramids, in which assetbubbles create phantom collateral thatcan be used to support furtherborrowing. Banks are required to holdonly a small fraction of deposits in theirreserves, using the rest for loans andspeculative ventures. During the lastfew decades of financial deregulation,banking reserve requirements havebeen lowered to such an extent thatabout 97 percent of the moneycirculating in the economy today– the digital pulses that correspondto billions and trillions of dollars – isbacked by nothing but debt. Everytime a bank issues a loan, money hasbeen “created” – money that must bepaid back to the bank with interest.Private banks have, in effect, beengiven a license to print money.

15

Rather than being used to meet thereal needs of communities, most ofthis steadily-expanding supply ofmoney is being created for no otherpurpose than to obtain the highest andquickest returns possible. Much of themoney is used for purely speculativepurposes – to make still more money.

The leveraging of debt into hugespeculative trades on financial andstock markets was among the causesof the 2008 global financial meltdown.Despite the lessons of that crisis, highlyleveraged debt remains a central feature

of the global economy. According toa 2015 report by the McKinsey GlobalInstitute, “Seven years after the burstingof a global credit bubble resulted in theworst financial crisis since the GreatDepression, debt continues to grow. Infact, rather than reducing indebtedness,or deleveraging, all major economiestoday have higher levels of borrowingrelative to GDP than they did in 2007.Global debt in these years has grownby $57 trillion.” 16

Financial deregulation has alsocontributed to the dramatic increasein inequality around the world.Massive speculative bets on exchangerates can cause national currencyvalues to crash overnight – enrichinga handful of investors but causingreal hardship for the majority. Incommodities markets as well, a highproportion of trades are speculative,with no actual physical goods beingtraded. But the impacts of speculationare all too real: bets on agriculturalcommodities can cause their pricesto collapse (driving farmers intobankruptcy), or to spike (causingmillions of people to go hungry– as happened in 2008, when foodriots broke out in many developingcountries ).17

As two scholars recentlyconcluded about the US, “therise of finance is one of the drivingforces behind growing incomeinequality and the concentrationof income at the very top.” 18

Meanwhile, the system of ever-expanding interest-bearing debtcreates a structural imperative forfurther economic growth to avoidfurther economic crises – eventhough the ecological destructionwrought by endless growth nowimperils the biosphere itself.This is clearly a system run amok.

Despite a brief hiatus following thefinancial crisis of 2008, stock markets,financial sector profits and WallStreet bonuses have soared, whilewages for ordinary workers haveremained stagnant at 1970s levels.

19

The process of developmentrequires energy, transport, and otherinfrastructures geared towards export-oriented industry and agriculture.Developing countries must borrowtremendous amounts of capital tobuild up this infrastructure, and ifprices for their exports decline, theymay be unable to repay their loans.They are then pressured to undertake“structural adjustment” programs tofurther enhance international“competitiveness” as the price forfurther loans. This means cutting backon social spending, limiting restrictionson outside investment, and providingstill more funding for trade-basedinfrastructure.

World Bank/IMF lending to Southerncountries is typically made conditional

Financial weapons of mass destruction

on such programs, and indeed the vastmajority of these countries have beensubjected to them. The continual loanrepayments, for which the interestalone can be equal to a large percentageof the country's annual budget, requiresurpluses that can only be generated bytrading away natural resources or asignificant portion of national output.

Even the “rich” countries of theNorth are enmeshed in debt anddependence, thanks to globalization.Transnational corporations areincreasingly able to bargain withgovernments for lower tax rates andhigher subsidies by threatening to“offshore” their operations. At the sametime, governments must pay from theirdepleted treasuries to provide supportfor the growing ranks of theunemployed, to retrain displacedworkers, to mend the unraveling socialfabric, and to clean up the despoiledenvironments left behind byderegulated, mobile corporations.

15

16

‘Why Derivatives May Be the Biggest Risk for the Global Economy’, Time Magazine online, March 27, 2013,

http://business.time.com/2013/03/27/why-derivatives-may-be-the-biggest-risk-for-the-global-economy/ (accessed 22 September 2015).

‘Warren Buffett on Derivatives’ (excerpts from the Berkshire Hathaway annual report for 2002),

www.fintools.com/docs/Warren%20Buffet%20on%20Derivatives.pdf (accessed 22 September 2015).

A proliferation of new financial instruments has emerged in the context of deepeningfinancial integration and deregulation. One of the most common financialinstruments is the derivative, whose value is based on still other financialinstruments, such as real estate loans, commodities futures, stock market indices orcurrency valuations. Derivatives gained popular attention because of their role in the2008 financial crisis (those implicated in the crisis include mortgage-backedsecurities, collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps). The global valueof derivatives has expanded rapidly since the 1990s. According to a 2013 TimeMagazine report, “While there's no way of knowing for sure, estimates of the facevalue of all derivatives outstanding tops a quadrillion (1,000 trillion) dollars, or morethan 14 times the entire world's annual GDP.” The enormously complex andshadowy derivatives market remains largely unregulated and continues to make theentire system highly unstable, which is why Warren Buffett has referred to theseinstruments as “financial weapons of mass destruction”.

15

16

20

Subsidies and regulations gearedtoward ever-increasing trade,combined with the deregulation oftrade and finance, have helped toexpand the size of markets to globalproportions. In the process, largetransnational corporations and bankshave been able to grow still larger byinvading and absorbing the marketsof smaller, more locally-orientedbusinesses. Although they areunaccountable to any electorate,many of these corporations are nowso big that they wield more economicand political power than nationalgovernments: of the 175 largesteconomies in the world in 2011, 111were corporations. The revenue of21

Forced to go hat-in-hand to internationallenders, countries can easily findthemselves on a downward spiral, withinterest payments consuming an increasingproportion of the national budget. It's nowonder that so many governments todayare struggling to stay afloat, while globalcorporations and banks are flush with cash.

This is the recent experience of Spain,Portugal, Greece, and several othercountries. Not even the United Statesis immune: during the debt ceiling crisisof 2011, the country lost its top-tier creditrating as politicians wrangled over furtherexpansions of government borrowing.Only a last-minute deal to raise the debtceiling prevented the US from defaultingon its loans. The situation was nearlyrepeated again two years later. By mid-2015, US national debt had reachedmore than $18 trillion. 19

For smaller countries, even a smallfraction of that debt can be crippling.To mollify creditors, austerity measuresare required that usually lead to higherunemployment, spending cuts to criticalsocial programs, and massive protests.

The situation is unlikely to improve asgovernments sign up for the only solutionoffered: more debt and less autonomy. 20

a single company, Shell, was larger thanthe GDP of 110 individual countries andmore than that of Ireland, New Zealandand Bangladesh combined.

(Nonetheless, the United Statesgovernment alone provides between$10 billion and $52 billion a year insubsidies and tax cuts to large oilcompanies – Shell included.) 22

The globalization of the economyhas given big businesses unprecedentedinfluence over policymaking.Governments naively support whatthey think of as “their” transnationals,even though corporations todaydemonstrate no loyalty to place.Some of this benevolence towardslarge corporations may stem from the“revolving door” between governmentand big business. For example, theformer chair of the US FederalCommunications Commission (FCC)is now the CEO of the cable industry’sprimary lobbying group, the NationalCable and TelecommunicationsAssociation – a position the FCCchair once held. Such blatant conflictsof interest are now commonplace:a 2011 study revealed that 400 formerUS legislators and 5,400 formercongressional staffers had becomelobbyists over the previous decade.

current23

24

While governments claim they arerepresenting the interests of theircitizens when they negotiate tradetreaties – whether the over-archingtrade rules overseen by the WTO,regional treaties like NAFTA, theTTIP and the TPP, or the manybilateral trade agreements involvingjust two countries – the reality isthat the representatives aroundthe negotiating table are essentially

$

$

The largest global economies in 2011

21

22

working on behalf of transnationalcorporations. For example, negotiationsfor the TPP have been held in secretbehind closed doors, with the public leftto depend on leaked documents forinformation about what’s beingproposed; meanwhile, over 600 corporate“trade advisors” have had seats at thenegotiating tables from the beginning. 25

In the long term, the increasingly

globalized economy has no winners.

Among the first losers have been

small farmers, the poor, and the

disenfranchised. But as the economic,

social and environmental costs of

globalization mount, not even the

wealthy few can escape its impact:

they too must survive on an

Here are just some of thecosts of globalization:

As corporations roam the world seekingthe cheapest labor and most laxregulatory environment, livelihoodsecurity has become a thing of the past.The impact of NAFTA is a case in point,with livelihoods lost on both sides ofthe Mexico-US border. For instance, theEconomic Policy Institute has estimatedthat NAFTA resulted in a net loss of682,900 jobs in the US. At the same time,Mexican family farmers were also hit hardby the trade agreement, with heavily-subsidized US corn flooding into Mexico,reducing the price received by smallMexican farmers by over 60 percent fromthe 1990s to 2005. Millions of smallfarmers have been adversely affected,with nearly 2 million forced out offarming altogether since NAFTA'sinception. The benefits have been hard todiscern: despite the new factory jobs onthe US-Mexican border (where people toilunder sweatshop conditions, disconnectedfrom community), the unemployment ratein Mexico was higher in 2014 than 1994.

All over the world, jobs are lost whena big business displaces local businesses.For example, the giant online marketerAmazon employs about 14 people forevery $10 million in retail sales. Mainstreet shops employ 47 people for thesame amount of sales.

27

29

30

28

Campaign contributions also playa role. During the US Senate debateover “fast-tracking” the TPP, forexample, members of the US BusinessCoalition for TPP – comprising manyof the largest corporations in thecountry – made donations totallingmore than $1 million to the campaignwar chests of key senators. “It’s a rarething for members of Congress to goagainst the money these days,” saidMansur Gidfar, spokesman for the anti-corruption group Represent.Us. “Theyknow exactly which special intereststhey need to keep happy if they wantto fund their re-election campaigns orsecure a future job as a lobbyist.”

26

All combined, the hypermobility oftransnational corporations, the creationof money by deregulated banks, and thecozy relationship between governmentand big business have created a systemof global corporate rule. The result hasbeen the erosion of democracy and aninternational “race to the bottom”,with social, environmental and healthstandards in almost every countryheading towards the lowestcommon denominator.

Employees per $10

million in retail sales

ecologically degraded planet and suffer

the consequences of a social fabric

ripped apart.

Because globalization encouragescountries to specialize theirproduction, most now rely onimports for even basic domesticneeds. Tied to a complex systemof imports and exports, they aretightly linked to a volatile globaleconomy over which they have nocontrol. Natural disasters, wars,disease, economic slumps – and ofcourse, speculation – in one part ofthe world can have a direct impacton countries many thousands ofmiles away. In fact, a growingbody of evidence now shows thateconomic globalization has creatednew systemic risks and vulnerabilities.

As decision-making becomescentralized into unelected,unaccountable bodies like theWTO, the IMF, and the EuropeanCommission, the influence of theindividual steadily shrinks. This is trueeven in nominally democraticcountries: people may still have theright to vote for national and localleaders, but as political parties fromboth the left and right embrace thewishes of corporate and bankinginterests, voting can become all butmeaningless. And as corporateinterests become ever richer thanksto globalization, they are able toincrease their expenditures onlobbyists, campaign contributions,and political advertising – giving themstill more influence over governmentdecision-making.

Globalization is intensifying thealready serious ecologicalconsequences of industrializationby spreading a resource-intensive,growth-based consumer economyto every corner of the world.

Evidence of global environmentaldecline abounds. Thanks to corporateagriculture, topsoil is being rapidly lostthrough nutrient depletion and erosion.Whole tracts of irreplaceable forest arebeing decimated by the global timber,oil, and mining industries. The planet'sdiversity of plant and animal speciesis being lost at 100 to 1,000 times the

natural rate of extinction, ranking thisas one of the planet's great extinctionwaves. While terrestrial wildlifestruggles to survive, the health ofthe

31

world's oceans is also spiralingdownwards – the product of plasticwaste, pollution, acidification andindustrial fishing. And while climatechange already threatens our verysurvival, economic globalization threatensto make it worse: even the WTO admitsthat “more open trade would be likelyto increase CO emissions.”2

32

The continued deregulation of financeand trade is creating an extractive mega-machine, with trillions of dollarssearching for ever more energy andresources through gas-fracking,mountaintop removal, tar sands mining,deep sea oil wells, nuclear power, geo-engineering, and more. And as peoplein developing countries are encouragedto emulate a Western lifestyle, thesituation is rapidly worsening. Already,India is the third largest emitter of COin the world; its per capita emissionsare projected to triple by 2030. A 2014study assessing the ecological footprintof nations highlights the impossibilityof creating a global consumer economyin which everyone lives the AmericanDream: if everyone had the same percapita ecological footprint as an averageAmerican, we would need 3.9 planets.

2

33

34

Accelerating these trends throughglobalization is simply incompatible

with the needs of the living world: ourfinite planet does not have the capacityto sustain an economic system based onever-expanding consumption. Yet thepremise of globalization is that more ofthe world's people – all of them, in fact– should be encouraged to enlist in thisdestructive system.

23

ONE BILLION

In 2005, 1 billion

people lived in

urban slums. This

figure is expected

to double by 2030.

Globalization erodes rural economies,leading to a massive population shiftfrom rural areas to the cities. This isparticularly true in the South, wherethe global economy is steadily breakingdown more self-reliant systems,leaving people little alternative but tomigrate to cities whose populations arealready exploding. As recently as 2005,a staggering 1 billion people lived in

Consortium of Investigative Journalistsfound that in the preceding decadealone, development projects fundedby the World Bank “physically oreconomically displaced an estimated3.4 million people, forcing them fromtheir homes, taking their land ordamaging their livelihoods.”This kind of displacement hasbeen a primary driver of the growthof mega-slums, which are alreadyhome to nearly one billion peoplein the 'developing' world.

39

40

China offers an especiallysobering case of forced urbanization.The official policy in that country isto move hundreds of millions of ruralChinese into urban areas over the nextfew decades in the name of economicgrowth and development. Accordingto a report, “theultimate goal of the government'smodernization plan is to fully integrate70 percent of the country's population,or roughly 900 million people, into cityliving by 2025.” Some argue that thisrepresents an unqualified improvementin the prospects for the great masses ofChinese peasants who are its targets,but it's unlikely that China'sincreasingly mechanized factories willbe able to absorb such a massive influxof workers (the country has started toexperience so-called “jobless growth”).Moreover, the urban jobs that arecreated are often highly exploitative.As the AFL-CIO has pointed out,China's primary economic advantagehas rested on the government's“unremitting repression ofworkers' rights [and] the ruthlessexploitation of an estimated100 million rural migrants.”

New York Times

41

42

Even in the most industrializedcountries, the urbanizing process

Contrary to the empty slogan,“a rising tide lifts all boats,” globalgrowth is actually leading to awidening gap between rich and poor.The wealth of the 80 richest peoplenow equals that of the poorest halfof the world's population – morethan 3 billion people – and theinequality is worsening. 35

Historically, the widest disparitiesin wealth were between rich and poornations. However, as globalizationhas swept around the world, incomeinequality has become a pressingissue within most countries. In China,for example, measures of inequalitynearly doubled between 1980 and2010. In one recent survey, Chinesepeople ranked inequality as thecountry's top social challenge, aheadof corruption and unemployment.Since the end of the apartheid era,the wealth gap in South Africa hasalso increased, with shanty-townsbutted up against luxury, gatedhousing developments. And in nearlyevery industrialized country,income inequality has risen sincethe 1970s.

36

37

38

urban slums – a numberexpected to double by 2030.

During the era of globalization, tensof millions of people have been evictedfrom their lands to make way fordevelopment projects undertaken inthe name of “progress” and “growth”.A 2015 report by the International

24

There is a structural link betweenglobalization and monoculture: globalcorporations are successful only if theycan market on a massive scale for a hugenumber of homogenized consumers.In agriculture, this has meant a dramaticdecrease in diversity, with thousands oflocal varieties abandoned for the relativefew suited to monocultural productionand favored by short-term profitmotives. Overall, approximately75 percent of the world's agriculturaldiversity was lost in the last century,a narrowing of the genetic base thatputs food security at risk everywhere. 43

A handful of corporations nowcontrols a growing proportion of theworld's food supply. Contrary tocommon belief, this means an inefficient,wasteful use of natural resources: large-scale monocultures are actually lessproductive per acre than smallerdiversified farms. Corporate control alsothreatens access to food for manypeople, like the residents of so-called“food deserts,” who are surroundedby packaged junk food but notnutritious, healthy, fresh food. Today,in fact, when the food supply is moretightly controlled by corporations thanever before, some 870 million peopleare undernourished – even thoughmore than enough food is produced toadequately feed everyone on the planet.

44

Globalization is contributing toa decline in our physical well-being.Societies in the West are experiencingunprecedented rates of obesity,diabetes, heart disease and cancer,with the elite in developingcountries fast catching up. Globalfood – genetically modified, ladenwith pesticide residues, preservatives,artificial flavorings and processedfats, and nutritionally depleted fromlong-term storage and long-distancetransport – contributes significantlyto these problems. So do pollution,sedentary jobs and being cut off froma sense of support and community.

There are also health costs frommany of the corporate-controlledmega-technologies that have arisenin tandem with globalization. Manyindustrial agricultural inputs havebeen shown to be carcinogenic,while others contain endocrinedisruptors that are extremelytoxic even in minute amounts.

Microwave radiation from the useof cell phones and wireless devices hasincreased exponentially in recent years,with potential health impacts that haveyet to be adequately studied. The sameis true of nano-technologies, whichhave been incorporated into everydayproducts and rushed to market withlittle attention paid to the long-termhealth consequences. The globaleconomy also relies on massive andever-increasing amounts of energy,with a wide range of associatedhealth impacts. The effects of fossil fueldependence range from elevated ratesof pollution-related respiratory diseasesto “cancer alleys” near refineries. Thehealth impacts of nuclear power willbe felt near Japan's Fukushima plantfor generations to come, while themillions of tons of spent fuel and low-level radioactive material piling upat other nuclear plants are healthhazards now, and will remain sofor thousands of years to come.

continues: jobs in the globaleconomy are concentrated in sprawlingmetropolitan areas and their suburbs,while rural regions are systematicallysapped of economic vitality.

In addition to a host of socialproblems, urbanization contributesto a substantial increase in resource useand pollution: virtually every materialneed of urbanized populations must beshipped in from elsewhere, while theresulting waste – much of which wouldbe of use in a rural setting – becomes ahighly concentrated source of pollution.

25

The rise of violence and civil disorderaround the world is a predictableeffect of an economic system thatimposes monocultural stereotypeswhile simultaneously heighteningeconomic insecurity. The loss ofself-esteem, along with intensecompetition for increasinglyscarce jobs, is leading to deep socialdivisions. As people become trappedin a demoralizing system of cut-throat competition, there is an all-but-inevitable escalation in prejudice,racism, hostility towards immigrants,and tensions between ethnic groups.In their desperation, men who havebeen robbed of self-respect and theability to provide for themselves andtheir families can end up abusingwomen and children in their owncommunities. And worldwide, allforms of religious fundamentalismare on the rise – Islamic, Christian,Jewish, Hindu and even Buddhist.

Every day, people in the less-developedparts of the world are bombarded withmedia images that present the modern,Western consumer lifestyle as the ideal,while implicitly denigrating localtraditions and land-based ways of life.

The message is that the urban issophisticated and the rural is backward;that imports of processed food andmanufactured goods are superior tolocal products; that “imported is good,local is crap,” in the words of anadvertising executive in China. Globaladvertising expenditures exceeded $500billion in 2014, with the highest rate ofspending growth occurring in the less-industrialized countries of the South.

45

46

People are not only being lured toabandon local foods for McDonald'shamburgers and local dress fordesigner jeans, they are inducedto remake their own identities toemulate the glamorous blonde-haired,blue-eyed stars of Hollywood filmsand American-style advertising. Forthe vast majority around the world,the attempt to live up to this artificialideal will prove impossible. Whatfollows is often a profound sense offailure, inferiority and self-rejection.

People are feeling the effects even inthe West – the supposed epicenter ofglamour. No matter who you are orwhere you live, the global consumermonoculture imposes an ideal that isimpossible to attain, fueling feelings ofinsecurity that make it easier forcorporate marketers to sell products tomake you more attractive, popular, and“cool”. Children bear the brunt of thisprocess, with drug abuse, violence andsuicide steadily rising in the under-18age group in many industrializedcountries. Meanwhile, the World HealthOrganization (WHO) has reported that“Globally, more than 350 million peopleof all ages suffer from depression,”which is now “the leading cause ofdisability worldwide.” Perhaps mostalarming of all, in 2010 the WHOfound that global rates of suicide had

47

increased by 60 percent sinceWorld War II. 48

“Globally, more than 350

million people of all ages

suffer from depression,”

which is now “theleading cause of

disability worldwide.”

World Health Organization

26

27

f globalization is the root of somany problems, it seems obviousthat localization – a shift away

from the global and towards the local –offers a systemic answer. Such a shift willrequire efforts on two very different levels.At the “bottom up” grassroots level,millions of local and regional enterprisesare already demonstrating that theycan do a better job than the handful

localization. noun. 1. the removal of fiscal and other supports that currently favor gianttransnational corporations and banks; 2. reducing dependence on export markets in favorof production for local needs; �(often confused with isolationism, protectionism, theelimination of trade.)

Localization is a process of economic decentralization that enables communities,regions and nations to take more control over their own affairs. It does not meanencouraging every community to be entirely self-reliant; it simply means shorteningthe distance between producers and consumers wherever possible, and striking ahealthier balance between local markets and a monopoly-dominated global market.Localization does not mean that people in cold climates are denied oranges oravocados, but that their wheat, rice or milk – in short, their basic food needs – do nottravel thousands of miles when they can be produced within a fifty-mile radius.Rather than ending all long-distance trade, steps towards localization reduceunnecessary transport while strengthening and diversifying economies at thecommunity as well as national level. Ultimately, the degree of diversification, thegoods produced and the amount of trade will naturally vary from region to region.

What is localization?

Calling for a fundamental shiftin direction can elicit a chorusof objections. Here are some ofthe most common:

I

of monopolies that currently dominatethe provision of basic needs. Thesecommunity-based economic structuresreweave the social and economic fabricin ways that meet the needs of nature– both wild and human. But in orderfor these initiatives to spread morewidely, localization also requires“top down” policy change. Taxes andsubsidies need to be shifted, and tradeand finance need to be re-regulatedso that businesses (banks included)become place-based and adhere tothe rules and regulationsdetermined by society.

There is a widespread belief thatpeople in the countries of the Southneed Northern markets to liftthemselves out of poverty, and thata greater degree of self-reliance in theNorth would therefore undermine

28

29

Even in the North, rural communitiesare being steadily dismantled, theirpopulations pushed into spreadingsuburbanized megalopolises wherethe vast majority of available jobs arelocated. In the United States, where only15 percent of the population still lives inrural areas, there are now fewer full-time farmers than there are full-timeprisoners. It is impossible to offer that50

There is no doubt that we needinternational collaboration to solveour global problems. Governmentsand grassroots groups alike need toexchange information across borders,and to push for binding agreements toreduce pollution, poverty and conflict.Unfortunately, many people believethat the globalization of the economyis necessary in order to bring aboutthis type of collaboration. But as wehave shown, globalization is leadingto more conflict and competition, andexacerbating the very social andenvironmental problems we mosturgently need to address. Forginginternational alliances that focuson scaling down the power ofmultinational corporations — enablingsocieties to set the rules for business,rather than the other way around— is the most strategic way forward.

While shifting towards the localwould require some intentional

changes in policy, it is in fact today's

“jobless growth” society that entails

social and environmental engineering

on an unprecedented scale: vaststretches of the planet and entireeconomies are being remade toconform to the needs of global growth,while people around the world arebeing encouraged to abandon theirlanguages, their foods and their dressfor a standardized monoculture. Andin countries like India and China,policymakers explicitly call for movinghundreds of millions of people fromvillages to urban centers.

Rather than a centralized prescriptionfrom above, localization createsopportunities for diverse communitiesto define and pursue their own future.

What is too easily forgotten is thatnearly half of the world's people today– mostly in the Third World – are stillrural. Ignoring them – speaking as ifpeople are urbanized as part of thehuman condition – is a very dangerousmisconception, one that is helping tofuel the whole process of urbanization.It is thus considered utopian to suggesta ruralization of America's or Europe'spopulation, while China's plans to move250 million people off the land and intocities by 2025 hardly elicits surprise.

Third World economies. But a gradualshift towards smaller scale and morelocalized production would actuallybenefit both North and South, and

As thingsstand, the globalized economy requiresthe South to send a large portion of itsnatural resources to the North as rawmaterials; its best agricultural land mustbe devoted to growing food, fiber, andeven flowers for the North; and a gooddeal of the South's labor is employed inthe cheap manufacture of goods forNorthern markets. Rather than furtherimpoverishing the South, producingmore in the North would allow theSouth to keep more of its ownresources, labor and production foritself. For example, a recent studyshowed that 550 million people in Asia,Africa, and Oceania could be fed fromland that has been taken over by foreigngovernments and corporations – mostlyfor exported food and biofuel crops.

facilitate meaningful work and fulleremployment everywhere.

49

of the globalizing economy thesepressures included force and genocide.Later on, the pressures involved acontinuous romanticizing of moderncity life: the message was that urbanmodernity offered an escape from thesupposed brutishness, ignorance andhopelessness of rural life.

Today, similar psychological pressurescome from films, television programsand advertising, from schoolbooks andclassrooms, even from the internet.Almost all our avenues for gainingknowledge have been profoundlyaffected by the assumption thaturbanization, economic growth andtechnological progress are the onlymeans of improving people's lives.

At the same time, our taxes havebeen systematically used to supporturbanization; in the process, smallercities, towns and rural areas havebeen steadily marginalized.

In this latest stage of globalization,industrial economies have beentransformed into information orservice economies, but the urbanizingpressures continue unabated. Urbanlife continues to be depicted as thelocus of cutting-edge culture, whilejobs and economic opportunities areconcentrated in high-tech urban areasand their surrounding suburbs.

None of this is inevitable. If stepswere taken to provide resources andemployment opportunities in smallertowns and rural areas, there is littledoubt that these places would thriveboth economically and culturally, andwould begin attracting residents.A study in Finland some years agoasked people in Helsinki: “if you could

It's often said that peopleeverywhere are more attracted tocity life, and that therefore the urbantide cannot be turned. However weneed to keep in mind that there hasbeen tremendous pressure – bothpsychological and structural – topull people into cities. At the dawn

The problem is not the city per se:smaller towns and cities that maintaina balance with their rural surroundingsare able to maintain both ecologicaland cultural vitality. But urbanizationtoday continues to break down thosehealthier urban-rural relationships.It is a continuous process ofcentralization – of aggregatingpopulations in sprawling metropolisesseparated from their most basic needs.This process may create “efficiencies”for the corporations that profit byproviding those needs, but from anecological and resource perspectiveit is neither sustainable nor efficient.

Even though people physicallyoccupy a smaller land area in cities,urban centers around the world areextremely resource-intensive. Thelarge-scale, centralized systems theyrequire are, almost without exception,more stressful to the environmentthan small-scale, diversified, locally-adapted systems. Food, water,building materials and energy forcities all come from great distancesvia vast energy-consuminginfrastructures; their concentratedwastes must be hauled away in trucksand barges, or incinerated at greatcost to the environment. In their glassand steel towers with windows thatnever open, even air to breathe mustbe provided by fans, pumps and non-renewable energy. From the mostaffluent sections of Paris to the slumsof Kolkata, urban populations dependon increasing amounts of packagingand transport for their food, so thatevery pound of food consumed isaccompanied by still more petroleumconsumption, as well as significantamounts of pollution and waste.

model to the rest of the world, wherelarge proportions of the population stillearn their living as farmers. But whereare people saying: “we are too many tocreate sprawling megalopolises”?

30

have the same job in a smaller town,would you prefer to go there ratherthan stay in the capital?” The majorityresponded that they would opt tomove out of the big city. Throughoutthe industrialized world, increasingnumbers of young people are activelytrying to move back to the land, asseen in the new farmers movement,the permaculture movement, and theeco-village movement.

Supporters of industrializedagriculture would have us believe thatfarming today is more productive thanever – that to feed the world, we haveto further intensify and globalize ourfood system. Yet, despite all ourpesticides, fertilizers, genetic

modification and high-tech processingsystems, a tragically large proportionof the global population still goes to bedhungry every night. This is because thegoal of the globalized system is not toprovide adequate, nutritious food forpeople, but to provide profits for largeagribusinesses, supermarket chains andother transnational food corporations.

If we really want to feed the world,we need to begin localizing our foodsystems. As noted in a 2013 reportfrom the United Nations Committeeon Trade and Development, “relyingon international markets to meetstaple food demand, whilespecializing in the production andexport of 'lucrative' cash crops, hasrecently failed to deliver its desiredresults.” The 60 internationalexperts who contributed to the reportrecommended a “mosaic” approachto food production, supporting smallfarmers, agricultural diversity andself-reliance. Not only would thissystem help alleviate poverty andhunger, it would also produce morefood overall. Studies carried out allover the world show that small-scale,diversified farms have a higher total

51

Any international trade needs to befair. Today's fair trade standards canoffer guidance, but the primaryemphasis should be on producingfor local needs rather than for export.Even under fair trade conditions,a dependence on foreign marketsmeans a precarious existence forproducers. Countries in both Northand South would be far better offif they were allowed to protect andconserve their natural resources, andprioritize support for national and local

businesses that provide for local needs.

In modern discourse the past is oftenlooked down upon, something to be leftbehind as we surge towards a gleaming,high-tech future. The localizationmovement doesn't idealize the past, butdraws important lessons from both thehistory of land-based cultures and thehistory of their demise. These teach usthe importance of local knowledge andof embedding culture in localecosystems. They teach us howcommunity is strengthened by localeconomic interactions, and howcommunity forms the basis for strongindividual identity and self-esteem.And they teach us the cost of severingthese connections to people and place.(see “Rethinking the Past: AncientFutures”, page 32).

output per unit of land than large-scale monocultures. In Kenya, forexample, researchers found thatif all domestic farms had the sameproductivity as the smallest ones,the country's agricultural outputwould double. Unfortunately,Kenyan farms are still beingtaken over by foreign corporations,amalgamated and turned into vastmonocultures for export.

52

31

32

In order to see clearly what life waslike in cultures that were moreconnected to nature and community,we would have to look back in time,in some cases hundreds of years– before the enclosures in England,for example, or before the colonialera in the South. Though suchinformation is not widely publicized,there are nonetheless numerousaccounts that show what life inlargely self-reliant communities waslike. As I mentioned earlier, theisolated region of Ladakh, or “LittleTibet”, is one place that can providesome clues. I was fortunate to be ableto experience this traditional culturewhile it was still largely unaffectedby the global economy.

Protected by high mountainpasses, Ladakh had been sparedthe impacts of colonialism and,until recently, development.When I arrived in 1975, Ladakh'scommunity-based culture andeconomy still provided peoplewith a sense of self-esteem andcontrol over their own lives.Despite a harsh and barren high-altitude environment andextreme winter temperatures, theLadakhis were prospering bothmaterially and, even moreimportantly, emotionally. Overtime, I came to realize that they

were among the freest, mostpeaceful and joyous people Ihad ever met. I also discoveredthat their happiness translatedinto a remarkable tolerance,an acceptance of differenceand of adversity.

But since then, in less than ageneration, this culture has beendramatically changed by the globaleconomy. Development haseffectively dismantled the localeconomy; it has shifted decision-making power away from womenin the household and village to male-dominated bureaucracies in distanturban centers; it has changed theeducation of children away from afocus on local resources and needstowards preparation for an urbaneconomy; it has implicitly informedthe Ladakhis that urban life isglamorous, exciting and easy, andthat the life of a farmer is backwardand dull. Because of these changes,there has been a loss of self-esteem,an increase in pettiness and small-minded gossip, and unprecedentedlevels of divisiveness and friction.The intense competition for jobsand political power in the moderneconomy even led to violent conflictbetween Buddhists and Muslims,groups that had lived peacefullyside by side in Ladakh for 500 years.

Ladakh

The repercussions are already beingfelt from Europe to the Americas,from Africa to Asia, in North andSouth alike. As the globalizingmonoculture drives people from theland into ever larger cities, it createsunnecessary competition and stress,and disconnects us from each otherand nature. This disconnectionmanifests itself in social unrest,environmental breakdown and adecrease in psychological well-being.

Localization isn't about returningto the past. But it does meanacknowledging what older culturesdid well: they relied on localresources and local knowledge tomeet people's material needs, andas a result did so with a minimumof environmental impact; and theyput a high value on community ties,which enabled them to meet people'spsychological need for connectionand security. These are lessons weneed to keep in mind as we searchfor solutions to our current crises.

Even in a country like Spain,where the globalized developmentprocess has been underway fordecades, change has been evidentfrom one year to the next: farmers'markets replaced by supermarketsstocked with imported foods;walkable, rural towns abandonedfor the big city; plastic packagingchoking the countryside; people toostressed out and busy working tostop for the traditional siesta or fora drink with friends.

It can be difficult for those wholive at the far end of these trends –who have grown up in a modern,urbanized, English-speaking society– to comprehend what is being lost.It can seem only natural for progressto bring about “one world”, whereeveryone looks familiar, speaksEnglish, and shares our worldviewand cultural habits. But because thediversity of languages and culturesis inextricably linked to the diversityof the natural world, erasing either

The vitally important need to adaptto diversity is a truth that has been

of conquest, colonialism and economicdevelopment. Around the world,monocultural ideas and practices havebeen imposed at every level. Even inthe search for sustainability there hasbeen a tendency to assume that “onesize fits all” – that people everywhereshould live in “smart cities”, drivehybrid cars and embrace vegetarianism.But there is, of course, no one singleformula for life: the need for diversityextends down to every blade of grass,to every earthworm and songbird, andto the identities of unique individualswithin a myriad of different cultures.Erasing diversity is simplyincompatible with life. For that reason,globalization – which systematicallyreplaces diversity with monoculture– is also incompatible with life.

buried and hidden during 500 years

If we look closer we can see thatthe same process has unfolded incultures and communities around theworld. For instance, in my nativeSweden – and in almost every otherindustrialized nation – the processof modernization dismantled smaller-scale, diversified food production infavor of large-scale agriculture, andweakened community life in favor ofrapid urbanization. As people foundthemselves alone in high-riseapartments – dependent on hightechnology and distant bureaucraciesrather than on each other – there wasa weakening of feminine values andthe ties between family, community,and the land. By the 1980s more thanhalf of the dwellings in Stockholmwere inhabited by one person livingalone; at the same time, rates ofdepression, alcoholism and suicidewere on the increase.

form of diversity is equally disastrous.

33

34

oing local on a global scale would require a number of key steps. Changes at thepolicy level are needed to ensure that society determines the rules for business,rather than the other way around. A first priority is to insist that our

governments get back to the same tables where they signed our rights away to globalcorporations. New treaties are needed that will take back that power – in part by requiringbusinesses to be place-based or localized, thereby making them more accountable to thosethey affect. Rather than continuing to promote the large and global, government policieswould strive to support local and regional business instead.

It may seem impossible to shift publicpolicy away from globalization andtowards the local, since policy makersthe world over continually acquiesceto the demands of big corporations andbanks. But a movement for economicchange is growing. Rather than pinningits hopes on telegenic representativesof the left or right that offer exactly thesame recipe for “progress” (equal partseconomic growth, trade-promotion, hightechnology and corporate sponsorship),this movement seeks fundamentalstructural change.

Absolutely central to the system ofcorporate rule are the trade treaties.And since the historic protests againstthe WTO in Seattle, Washington in1999, there have been demonstrationsat nearly every major internationaltrade meeting, from the G8 to theWorld Economic Forum. Protestershave sometimes numbered in thehundreds of thousands, bringingworldwide attention to a processthat had previously been hidden frompublic view. Just six years before theSeattle demonstrations, NAFTA waspushed through with relatively littleresistance. Today, as corporatenegotiators try to exert the samecontrol over government policy withthe TPP and the TTIP, they are meetingwith heavy resistance – not just fromconcerned citizens, but even from manyelected representatives. Because of thepublic awareness generated throughyears of citizen campaigns, theselawmakers are feeling the pressurefrom below and are demanding to

know the details – kept secret duringthe negotiations – before any vote istaken. The atmosphere of resistancehas ensured that future trade decisions– which so fundamentally affect thewell-being of the planet and itscitizens – will be subject togreater public scrutiny.

Another well-known expressionof resistance has been the Occupymovement. Beginning withdemonstrations on Wall Street inSeptember 2011, the movementspread quickly across the world.Thousands of demonstrations tookplace, hundreds of camps were set up,and a spirit of community arose froma shared struggle that bridged socialdivides in unprecedented ways. The99% captured the world's attentionand put the concerns of ordinarypeople on the political agenda.Although the camps have beencleared, the essential spirit of themovement still lives on.

People's movements are comingtogether to transcend dichotomies ofleft and right and to go beyond politicsas usual. This thinking is flourishing inthe “new economy coalitions” that areforming in the US and Europe. At stateand local levels, these groups havesucceeded in passing ordinances thatsupport local food, community rightsand other essential components oflocalization. Likewise, the Five StarMovement (M5S), a populist, anti-corruption party in Italy, is workingto bridge traditional party divides.With a platform of public water,sustainable transport, degrowthand environmentalism, M5S captureda substantial proportion of votes in the

G

35

Despite the countless grassrootsprojects already under way, theglobal economic juggernaut canseem too powerful to stop. Butbecause more and more of us arebecoming aware of how disastrousthe global economy is for people andthe planet, I believe that the chancesfor meaningful change are greatertoday than ever before.

The environmental costs of thecurrent system have been obviousfor quite some time; now the socialconsequences, too, are becomingmore apparent. The gap betweenrich and poor is escalating to obsceneproportions; most people are seeingtheir real incomes decline, and mustwork longer hours just to cover basicneeds. Governments – many of themtoo poor to meet their obligations – nowrespond to the wishes of internationallenders rather than their own citizens.People are beginning to understand thatsomething is fundamentally wrong, andthat minor tinkering with the currentsystem is not the answer. A critical massis ready for fundamental change: what'sneeded is a clear explanation of the rootcause of the crises we face, andsolutions that are meaningful.

Big picture activism also involves awidespread and holistic re-thinking ofbasic assumptions. Today's consumerculture is based on myths andmisinformation that paralyze andconfuse people with contradictoryideas: on the one hand the eveningnews regularly asks whether consumerspending is adequate to keep the worldgoing; on the other hand we're told thatconsumer greed is destroying theworld. We need to point out that it isnot individual greed that created thiseconomic system. None of us votedto put in place an economy that usessubsidies, regulations and our taxesto work against both personal andplanetary well-being.

Until recently, the broadperspective needed to deconstructthe global economic system hasbeen marginalized, with the fieldleft to narrowly focused marketfundamentalists. As a result, itappeared that the only viableoption was to head towards everlarger and more inhumaneconomic scale, with wealth andpower concentrated in ever fewerhands. Big picture activism informsus that another way is possible.

Helping to create that critical massis the goal of what I call “big picture

activism”. Raising awarenessinvolves more than just theoreticalanalysis: every day we can pointto inspiring new examples oflocalization projects. We canshow that in North and South, inthe city and the country, people arerebuilding connections to others andto nature, with immediate spiritual,psychological and practical benefits.

2013 general election.These examples show that even

a relatively small group of well-organized and informed peoplecan have a huge impact. Gettinggovernments to shift course isnot impossible, or even unlikely,once enough people understandthat – in addition to its dramaticenvironmental impacts –globalized growth is threateningtheir livelihoods and pensionfunds, and even impoverishingtheir governments. (see “BigPicture Activism”, below)

For big picture activism tosucceed, a number of mentalblocks need to be overcome. Manypeople want to move straight toaction when they recognize aproblem; they say: “we alreadyknow that the economy’s theproblem and that corporationshave too much power – we don’tneed to keep discussing that.” Butwhile most of us have a sense thateconomic forces are behindenvironmental and social justice

36

and one that we must do everythingwe can to prevent.

Unfortunately, many have completelygiven up on the idea of fundamentallychanging the system. Even committedactivists sometimes say: “there's nopoint in trying – governments won'tlisten no matter how many of us marchin the streets.” It is true that millions ofpeople marched against the Iraq war,and yet policymakers took us into thatsenseless and destructive conflict. It istrue that millions are opposed to gasfracking and nuclear energy, and yetgovernments continue to promote thosetechnologies. However, the potentialfor people to really be heard will growexponentially when they move beyonda fragmented perspective to focus onthe common thread that runs throughall their concerns. Since the current

altruism, ignoring the innerdimension has often hampered theirefforts. Neglecting peace of mind andinner reflection and focusing on thenegative can lead to self-righteousnessand helpless anger. Burnout, conflict,and alienation have often been theconsequences. Big picture activismmakes clear that our problems haveboth an inner and an outer dimension,and that solving them requiresworking on both levels.

Big picture activism does not pointa finger at individual politicians,corporations or bankers. As I arguedat the outset, our destructive economicsystem continues to expand primarilybecause of ignorance. The economicpundits that promote this growthmodel have been trained to look atflows of money and numerical

problems, few understand how theeconomy undermines individualand cultural self-esteem; how itexacerbates ethnic, racial andreligious conflict; and how itdamages our physical andpsychological health. Nor is themajority aware that trade treatieshave given corporations and banksso much power that they havebecome a de facto global government– ruling behind the scenes regardlessof whether a “left” or “right” partyhas been elected. A broad, global-to-local perspective can make eventhose who already oppose corporaterule more effective.

I also hear people saying, “thesystem is going to collapse of its ownaccord, there's no need to waste timetrying to change it.” But despite itsdeep flaws and contradictions, theeconomic system may outlive muchof the natural and social world.Many years ago, the Swiss economistH.C. Binswanger convinced me thatderegulated capital – money de-linked from any standard or limit –could keep multiplying endlessly,even as ecosystems and societiescrash. In other words, the economycould keep growing until the lasttree falls. A depressing scenario,

There is another stumbling block,one which is particularly commonamong people whose emphasis isinner transformation. This “New Age”movement has done tremendous goodin encouraging millions of people tolisten to their hearts and to the wisdomof ancient indigenous cultures. Thisdeeper consciousness creates a yearningto turn away from the competition andconsumerism of the global economyand build more loving relationshipswith others and the Earth. Until recently,however, there was a tendency in theNew Age to focus almost exclusivelyon the “inner” dimension, on “thinkingpositively”and personal change. Andamong those who focused on this innerworld, many tended to look down onactivists who seemed fixated on the“outer” world.

In the activist community, meanwhile,many have ignored their personal, innerneeds, while emphasizing “outer”,practical and political change. Eventhough their work is usually born of

system is so destructive of both peopleand the planet, a “new economy”movement – one that is clear aboutwhat we are for, not just what we areagainst – has far greater potential tosucceed than almost anysingle-issue campaign.

37

The banking and financial systemneeds to be re-regulated to limit thecreation of phantom wealth and tocurtail the unregulated flow of capital.

At the same time, the local investmentsector needs to be freed of outdatedlaws that make it almost impossible forpeople to invest in their communitiesthrough retirement funds andsecurities exchanges.

Shifts in lending practices are alsoneeded. Currently, small businessesare discriminated against, withcorporate banks charging themsignificantly higher interest rates

agricultural trade; ... [and] to holdcorporations accountable for thesocial and environmental impactsof their operations.”

53

Financial policies

In recent years, many individualsand organizations involved in theseseparate campaigns have begun toembrace a holistic approach that movesbeyond single issues. As a result, a big-picture, broad analysis is beginning tobuild a broad, united movement.People are harnessing their love, theirhope and their creativity to give birthto a new world – to cultures andeconomies of happiness.

Instead of continuing to deregulateglobal trade, nations could worktogether on agreements that prioritizehealthy local and national economies.The purpose of trade would no longerbe to increase corporate profits andGDP, but to provide markets forsurplus production and to obtain goodsthat cannot be produced domestically.

There are already internationalnetworks of organizations andindividuals opposing the furtherderegulation of trade. In Europe, morethan 80 of these groups came togetherto draft an Alternative Trade Mandate,with 193 candidates for parliamentpledging to support the Mandate'saims. These include proposals to “allowcountries, regions and communities toregulate the production, distributionand consumption of goods andservices; ... to prioritize local andregional food systems over global

Trade treaties

Awareness can spread like fire,and it's empowering to realizethat we don't necessarily need toconvince our political and economicleaders – who tend to be too lockedinto their misguided assumptions –or that sector of the population thatis deeply immersed inDespite enormous financial and timepressures, there is a large number ofengaged and concerned people whoare working to make the world abetter place. They may be focusedon improving their children's school,working to protect wildlife,reducing CO emissions, feedingthe hungry, or promoting spiritualand ethical values. No matter whatproblem they're addressing, theeconomy is a common threadthat links them all.

consumerism.

2

The system has been running onblindness for a long time, enablingtremendous destruction to beperpetrated with the best of intentions.The way forward lies not in anger andconfrontation, but in actively seekingto encourage peaceful, broad-based,systemic change.

representations of the world, and areshielded from many of the real-lifesocial and ecological consequences oftheir abstract models. The CEOs of largecorporations and banks are driven byspeculative markets to meet short-termprofit and growth targets, and so haveeven less ability to contemplate theoverall impact of their actions. Evenconcerned consumers, taxpayers andcitizens can find it difficult to see themany hidden ways that their choicessupport an energy-intensive, job- andsoul-destroying economy.

38

In the South, policies that focus onelevating GDP systematically lead tothe breakdown of self-reliant economiesthat provide people's needs with littleuse of cash. Through the process of“development”, healthy self-relianceis thus replaced by real poverty withinthe global economy.

A variety of alternatives to GDP arebeing developed and applied. Perhapsthe best known of these is the GenuineProgress Indicator (GPI). It extendswhat is measured to combine “criticaleconomic, environmental and socialfactors into a single framework in orderto give a more accurate picture of theprogress – and the setbacks – we havemade.” The GPI has already beencalculated for Austria, Canada, Chile,France, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands,Scotland, and the UK. In the US, manygroups are now advocating its use atstate-wide levels. This has met withsuccess in Vermont, which recentlymandated that the state's GPI becalculated each year.

55

Many people have also been inspiredby the example of Bhutan, whose then-King articulated the concept of GrossNational Happiness (GNH) as an

health of the biosphere – does not.

Decision-makers often point to risinglevels of GDP as proof that their policiesare working. What they fail toacknowledge is that GDP is woefullymisleading as a measure of a country'swealth. GDP is simply a gross measureof market activity, of money changinghands. It does not distinguish betweenthe desirable and the undesirable,between costs and gain. Increasedexpenditures on cancer, crime, car

Indicators of

economic health

for loans than they charge big firms.They also often require that smallbusiness owners personallyguarantee their loans – a guaranteenot sought from the directors of largebusinesses. If more support weregiven to community banks and creditunions, a greater number and varietyof local businesses would thrive. Inthe United States, for example, small,localized financial institutions holdonly about 11 percent of the bankingassets, but they account for morethan one-third of small businesslending nationwide. 54

accidents or oil spills all leadto rising GDP, but any reasonableassessment would count theseas symptoms of societal ill-health,rather than well-being.

Rising GDP may create a handfulof billionaires, but in most countriesthe standard of living of the vastmajority – including the middle class– is steadily declining. Today, in fact,even governments are getting pooreras their national GDP rises.

What's more, GDP considers onlythose activities that involve monetarytransactions, thereby leaving out thefunctions of family, community, andthe environment. Thus, paying tosend one's children to a day-carecenter adds to GDP, while care athome by members of the familydoes not. A forest cut down andturned into pulp adds to GDP, buta standing forest – crucial to the

In almost every country, taxregulations systematicallydiscriminate against small- andmedium-scale businesses. Smaller-scale, sustainable production isusually more labor intensive, andheavy taxes are levied on laborthrough income taxes, social welfaretaxes, payroll taxes, etc. Meanwhile,tax breaks (accelerated depreciation,investment allowances and tax credits,

alternative to GDP in 1972. In 2004,Bhutan helped launch an internationalmovement to explore and promote theGross National Happiness model.(Unfortunately, Bhutan’s currentgovernment has begun distancingitself from the GNH concept.)

Taxation

39

While no policy is perfect, local andnational governments around the worldare adopting new laws that are helpingto spur the expansion of decentralizedrenewable energy, including taxincentives, subsidies, financingsupports such as feed-in tariffs,and Renewable Portfolio Standards.Germany's Renewable Energy Act andfeed-in tariff program is perhaps themost successful policy supportingdecentralized renewable energy.Ontario, Canada's original GreenEnergy Act of 2009 contained a feed-intariff with a bold “buy local” provisionthat provided incentives to renewableenergy projects that used local labor

For all forms of energy, includingrenewables, it's preferable thatpower plants be decentralized.By putting energy sources close totheir end use, there is less need fortransmission networks that reduceefficiency, use more resources, andgobble up more land. Decentralizedpower sources also help to keepmoney from “leaking” out of localeconomies and thereby ensuregreater decentralization of

political power as well.In the South, where a large

proportion of the population is stillrural, large-scale energy plants – fromcoal and nuclear to huge hydro-electricdams – are geared towards the needs ofurban areas and export-orientedproduction, thus promoting bothurbanization and globalization.Supporting decentralized renewableenergy infrastructures instead wouldstrengthen villages, smaller towns andrural economies in general, therebyhelping to halt unhealthy urbanization.

and manufacturing inputs.(Unfortunately, Ontario's localcontent requirement was abandonedin 2013 after a ruling that it violatedWTO regulations). In the US, state-level Renewable Portfolio Standards(RPS) – policies that mandatespecific renewable energy targets –have sparked a rapid expansion ofsolar and wind power. Thisapproach could be improved byrequiring jurisdiction to source acertain percentage of their electricityfrom decentralized and locally-controlled renewable energysources. In fact, several states in theUS have already adopted policiesthat promote neighborhood-scalecommunity-owned solar energyprojects, such as Colorado's SolarGardens Act, and Minnesota's SolarEnergy Jobs Act.

Similarly, taxes on the energyused in production would encouragebusinesses that are less dependenton high levels of technological input –which again means smaller, morelabor-intensive enterprises. And iffossil fuels were taxed so that theirprice reflected their real costs– including some measure of theenvironmental damage caused byboth production and consumption– there would be a reduction intransport, an increase in regionalproduction for local consumption,and a healthy diversification ofthe economy.

Currently, renewable energytechnologies receive less than a fifthof the amount of subsidies givenfossil fuels. Reversing this imbalancewould

one study found that if NewYork State switched to renewables, itwould result in a decline of around4,000 pollution-related deathsannually. The state would save about$33 billion while creating permanentjobs in manufacturing, installationand maintenance.

56

57

result in less pollution, morejobs, and long-term cost savings. Forexample,

Decentralized

renewable energy

etc.) are afforded the capital- andenergy-intensive technologies used bylarge corporate producers. Reversingthis bias in the tax system would notonly help local economies, but wouldcreate more jobs by favoring peopleinstead of machines.

40

In what has been called a “cottagefood” bill, the state of Illinois isconsidering relaxing the restrictionson small-scale producers of jams,pickles and other preserved foods.Seventeen similar bills have beenintroduced across the US. Severaltowns in the state of Maine havegone even further: seeking to bypassthe restrictive regulations that makeit difficult to market and access localfoods, they have declared “foodsovereignty” by passing ordinances thatgive their citizens the right “to produce,process, sell, purchase, and consumelocal foods of their choosing.”

59

60

Since food is something that everyperson on the planet needs every day,even small shifts in the way it isproduced, transported and marketedcan have dramatic effects. As noted in“Subsidizing inefficiency” in Part 1,farm subsidies in most countriesheavily favor large-scale industrialagribusinesses. Among the WTOmember countries, a full two-thirdsof subsidies go to the largest, wealthiestfarms. Funding for agricultural researchis also heavily skewed in favor ofbiotechnology and chemical- andenergy-intensive monoculture.According to one estimate, $49 billionis spent on food and farming researcharound the world each year, with lessthan 1 percent devoted to “knowledge,techniques and tools that are highlyspecific to, and in compliance with,organic standards.” Shifting theseexpenditures towards those thatencourage smaller-scale, diversifiedagriculture would help revitalize ruraleconomies in both North and South,while promoting biodiversity, healthiersoils, food security, balanced and

Food and agriculture

diverse diets, and fresher food.In the countries of the South,

colonialism, development andglobalization have meant that the bestland is devoted to crops for Northernmarkets. Shifting the emphasis todiversified, low-input production forlocal consumption would not onlyimprove economic stability, it wouldalso reduce the gap between rich andpoor, while eliminating much of thehunger that is now so endemic in the“developing” parts of the world.

After decades of policy biastowards global food, local food isnow meeting with some regulatorysupport. In 2013, the government ofOntario, Canada passed a Local FoodAct aimed at increasing access to localfood, improving local food literacy,and providing tax credits for farmers

Health and

safety regulations

An unfair burden often falls onsmall-scale enterprises throughregulations aimed at problemscaused by large-scale production.Battery-style chicken farms, forexample, clearly need significantenvironmental and healthregulations: their millions ofgenetically identical, closely confinedanimals are highly prone to disease,their tons of concentrated effluentneed to be safely disposed of, and thelong-distance transport of processedpoultry entails the risk of spoilage.Yet a small producer – such as afarmer with a dozen free-rangechickens – is subject to essentially thesame regulations, often raising coststo levels that make it impossible toremain in business. Large-scaleproducers can spread the cost ofcompliance over a far greatervolume, making it appear that theyenjoy “economies of scale”oversmaller producers. Suchdiscriminatory regulations arewidespread: they are decimating

many other countries.

farm-based cheese producers inEurope, local apple cider producersin the US, and small-scale foodbusinesses in

who donate a portion of theirproduce to nearby food banks. 58

41

Television, the internet and othermass media have been the recipientsof massive subsidies in the formof research and development,infrastructure build-out, educationaltraining, and other direct and indirectsupport. In recent years, many nationalbroadcasting companies have beentaken over by global media empires.In the US, for instance, theTelecommunications Act of 1996removed anti-monopoly provisionsand deregulated the media sector,allowing large companies to acquiremultiple media outlets, includingtelevision, radio and internet sites.Such laws need to be rewritten toencourage a diversity of expressionand ownership. Furthermore,communities and nations should havethe right to restrict the bombardment oftheir children by monocultural, violentor commercial messages and images.

Supporting facilities for regionalentertainment – from communityradio stations to live music andtheater – would offer a healthyalternative to globalized media.

Schooling is beIng increasinglygeared towards the needs ofcorporations, which are presumedto be the future employers of today's

The more people can engage inco-creating entertainment, such asdancing, singing and festivals, themore community bonds arestrengthened. Children growingup with participatory entertainment,rather than being passively glued toa television screen or wireless device,also have a greater sense of belongingto both place and their local culture.

Creating and improving spaces forpublic meetings – from town halls tovillage squares – would encourage face-to-face exchanges between decision

High-speed motorways built withgovernment funds indirectly subsidizecorporate super-stores, hyper-markets,and shopping malls. Spending some ofthat money instead to build or improvespaces for public markets – such asthose that were once found in virtuallyevery European town and village– would enable local merchants andartisans with limited capital to selltheir wares. This would enliven towncenters while reducing car use, fossilfuel burning and pollution.

Markets and public spaces

Global media

Education

In urban areas, zoning regulationsusually segregate residential, businessand manufacturing areas – a restrictionnecessitated by the needs and hazardsof large-scale production and marketing.These could be changed to enable anintegration of homes, small shops andsmall-scale production. A rethinking ofrestrictions on community-based waysof living would also be beneficial: zoningand other regulations aimed at limitinghigh-density developments often endup prohibiting environmentally soundliving arrangements like co-housingand eco-villages.

Local and regional land use rulescould be amended to protect wildareas, open space and farmland fromdevelopment. Political and financialsupport could be given to the variousforms of land trusts that have beendesigned for this purpose. In somecases, local governments have usedpublic money to buy the developmentrights to farmland, therebysimultaneously protecting the landfrom suburban sprawl while reducingthe financial pressure on farmers.

Land use regulations

makers and the public, serving both toenliven communities and to strengthenparticipatory democracy.

42

At present, investments in healthcarefavor huge, centralized hospitals servingurban populations. The pressure to cutcosts means that doctors and nurseshave to serve more and more patients,inevitably eroding the quality of caregiven to each patient. Spending thesame money instead on a greaternumber of smaller local clinics – relyingless on high technology and more onhealth practitioners, health educationand preventive medicine – would bring

Healthcare

children. In North and South,curricula are ever more standardizedand technology-focused. In muchof the developing world, formaleducation continues to be based onthe Colonial model: rote-learning inthe language of the colonial power;cultural and historical informationcoming from abroad; and trainingin skills relevant to the exporteconomy rather than the localor regional economy. In mostcountries, this form of educationfilters out information aboutwidespread social and economicproblems in the North, leaving

Societies in both North and Southwould benefit enormously from a shiftaway from corporate-tailored curriculatowards diverse forms of place-basedlearning. Rather than encouragingspecialization for a competitive,“jobless growth” economy,education would be tailored to diverseenvironments, cultures and localizedeconomies. Providing training inregional agriculture, architecture andappropriate technology would furthera real decentralization of productionfor basic needs. This does not implythat the flow of information fromother cultures would be curtailed;in fact, cultural exchange would bean important part of the curriculum.

idealized myths about“development” and theconsumer culture intact.

urbanized

In addition to these changes intop-down policies, a global-to-local shift requires diverse, local,bottom-up initiatives of the kindthat are already emerging.Unlike actions to halt the globaleconomic juggernaut, thesesmall-scale steps requirea slow pace and an intimateunderstanding of local contexts,and are best designed andimplemented by local peoplethemselves. If supported by thepolicy changes discussed above,such initiatives will, over time,inevitably foster a return tocultural and biological diversityand long-term sustainability.

The range of possibilities forlocal grassroots efforts is asdiverse as the locales in whichthey take place. The followingsurvey is by no meansexhaustive, but illustrates thesorts of steps being taken today.

In the South, local economies andcommunities would greatly benefitif support for healthcare were shiftedtowards localized and indigenousalternatives that are affordable tothe majority of the population.Modern medicine may be animportant and, indeed, life-savingaddition to healthcare in developingcountries. However, the healingtraditions that currently providemost of the preventative care needsupport in order to survive.

healthcare to more peoplewhile boosting local economies.Integrating less-invasive,natural healing methods intothe healthcare system wouldalso be beneficial.

43

expansion of Wal-Mart, the world’slargest retailer, has spawned a wholenetwork of citizens groups workingto protect jobs and the fabric of theircommunities from these predatory“big box” stores. In India, where Wal-Mart owns and operates a chain ofBest Price Modern Wholesale Stores,

Another way of guaranteeing thatmoney stays within the localeconomy is through the creation of

that are onlyrecognized by community membersand local participating businesses.Similarly, Timebanks and Local

local currencies

Local investing is another trendthat is poised to take off. In the US,Slow Money chapters have alreadymoved $21 million into small farmsand food businesses. Otherinitiatives are being explored, likelocal stock exchanges, micro- andcooperative investment funds, andlocally invested pension funds.

62

McDonald's corporation – whichaspires to open a new restaurantnearly every day in China to addto their existing empire of 35,000in 100 countries – has met withgrassroots resistance in at least twodozen countries. In the UnitedStates, Canada and the UK, the rapid

63

Community banks credit unionsandallow people to invest in theirneighbors and their community,rather than in distant corporations.They also enable small businessesto obtain inexpensive start-up loansof the kind that banks typically offeronly to large corporations. With theOccupy movement bringingrenewed attention to the unfair– even illegal – practices of bigbanks, a campaign was launched inthe US encouraging people to movetheir money to smaller, communityinstitutions. Less than two yearslater more than 4 million accountshad been switched away from thenation's Wall Street banks.

Hopeful trends are appearingin other parts of the world, aswell. In Fortaleza, Brazil, forexample, residents of theimpoverished Palmeiraneighborhood founded theirown community bank – one thatis governed and managed by localresidents for local needs. The bankhas been a resounding success inpromoting the local economy:before the bank was launched, only20 percent of residents' needs werepurchased in the Palmeira district;15 years later, 93 percent came fromwithin the community. 61

Local finance

“Buy local” campaigns help localbusinesses survive, even when pittedagainst heavily subsidized corporatecompetitors. These campaigns notonly help keep money from leakingout of the local economy, they alsohelp educate people about the hiddencosts – to the environment and to thecommunity – of artificially cheaper,distantly produced goods. Grassrootsorganizations have also emergedto oppose huge corporate marketingchains, especially in rural and small-town economies. For example, the

Local business

Exchange Trading Systems (LETS)are, in effect, large-scale

People list theservices or goods they have tooffer and the amount they expectin return. Their account iscredited for goods or servicesthey provide to other members,and they can use those credits topurchase goods or services fromanyone else in the local system.Thus, even people with little orno “real” money can participatein, and benefit from, thecirculation of credit within thelocal economy. (These initiativesare best added onto local foodprojects – on their own they aredifficult to maintain.)

.local

barter systems

44

Many towns around the world haveinvested in

installations.For example, Fort Collins, Colorado isplanning a 600kW “solar garden” andDharnai Village in India is gettinga solar energy “micro-grid” whichwill power 350 households. Thesesmall-scale projects have benefits that

community-owneddecentralized energy

Local business alliances enablesmall and medium businesses tonetwork, support each other andbuild vitality in local economies. InNorth America, BALLE (BusinessAlliance for Local Living Economies)encompasses more than 80 networks,representing around 30,000independent businesses. Theyconferences, provide guidance forstarting and running a successfulsmall business, and share inspiration.

host

Local business loyalty card networksare also emerging. These are similarto the loyalty cards frequently offeredby big box stores, but can only beredeemed for discounts on localpurchases. In Portland, Oregon, theSupport land network includes over 100local businesses and is expanding theirmodel to other towns and states.

Local energy

In many parts of the world,citizens are working to mobilizetheir local governments to reclaimownership and control over theirpower systems from non-local investor-owned utilities (IOUs), either through

A related trend is the growingdemand for whichlocal organic food,

go beyond their use of a non-pollutingrenewable energy source: because thepower is produced right where it isneeded, there is no need to expandtransmission infrastructures; residentshave greater control over their energycosts and are not beholden to distantenergy companies; and local investorscan receive financial returns in timesof surplus production.

and reliable market, while offeringconsumers produce that is fresher andhealthier than what they can buy at thesupermarket. In the US the number ofCSAs has surged from just two in1986, to over 6,200 in 2014.

By connecting farmers directlywith consumers,similarly benefit local economiesand the environment. The numberof farmers' markets in the US hasgrown from 1,755 in 1994 to over8,268 in 2014, and in the UK,from zero in 1996 to an estimated750 in 2012.

65

66

farmers' markets

a network of street vendors and smallbusinesses is hoping to reverse thecentral government’s support forthese superstores. 64

In the last decade or so, the local foodmovement has emerged as one of themost successful grassroots effortsworldwide.

(CSA) programs, inwhich consumers link up directlywith a nearby farmer, have allowedsmall-scale diversified farms to thrivein growing numbers. Consumersusually have a direct connectionwith the farm where their food isgrown, and in many cases theirhelp on the farm is welcomed. CSAsprovide small farmers with a steady

Community supportedagriculture

Local food and farming

outright 're-municipalization' or byadopting Community Choice policiesthat allow cities and counties tocreate new local electricity providersalongside IOUs. In 2013, residents ofHamburg, Germany voted to reclaimtheir electricity grid from the Swedishenergy giant, Vattenfall, enabling thecity to undertake a more ambitioustransition towards local renewableenergy. Similarly, in 2011 and 2013,residents of Boulder, Colorado inthe US voted to take back their energysystem from Xcel Energy, replacingit with a city-run electric utility. Localpower initiatives like these are startingto reverse the privatization trend thatbegan in the 1980s.

45

Community radio stations existin many towns both in North andSouth – from Haryana, India andIstanbul, Turkey to Powell River,British Columbia, and fromBerkeley, California to Byron Bay,Australia. These stations do notbroadcast corporate advertisements,but instead rely on financial supportfrom the community. They arealso often active locally, sponsoringevents and providing free coverageof local initiatives.

For the most part, television has beentaken over by large corporate interests,but in a few places

still exist. In the US, Link TVis supported by viewer donations andspecializes in broadcasting hard-hitting

independentchannels

Community media outletsordinary citizens a voice andkeep people informed about whatIs happening locally. They can bepowerful tools for bringing peopletogether to address local problems,strengthening community bondsand maintaining local culture.

give

Community media

internet service providers, such asComcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T orCenturyLink. However, a

movement has recentlyemerged to increase communities' controlover their internet services. As of 2015,over 500 municipalities across the UShave built their own broadbandnetworks to increase their access tomore affordable, reliable and fasterinternet services, while keeping dollarscirculating in their local economies.

community-owned broadband

trend. In the US, the recently formedNational Young Farmers Coalition hasattracted over 600 members. La ViaCampesina – a worldwide coalitionthat connects 200 million membersin 73 countries – has an active youthchapter. At their inaugural meeting in2011, they declared: “As youth all overthe world have been systematicallydisplaced from the countryside, ourfood system has lost its integrity andlegitimacy, polluting the land,poisoning our people and robbing usof our rural cultures. We, the youngpeasants and farmers of La ViaCampesina, who are buildingecological alternatives on our farmsand in our countryside, are livingin resistance to this system.” 69

documentaries from around the world.Much independent media has nowshifted over to the includingonline magazines, newspapers andtelevision channels. Currently underthreat from attacks on “net neutrality”,many groups have banded together tofight to maintain free and equal accessto the web. In the US, as in many othercountries, most people are dependenton a handful of large absentee-owned

internet,

Farmland trusts protect arableland from development, therebyenabling small farmers to affordto stay on the land and keepingfarmland affordable for the nextgeneration. In the US, where morethan 23 million acres of agriculturalland were lost to developmentbetween 1982 and 2007, state andnational

68

farmland trusts are workingto protect what remains and toencourage sustainable managementof existing farm and ranch lands.

Over the last fifty years, the trendin both North and South has been foryoung people to move away fromfarming, accelerating the processof urbanization and the demise ofrural communities. Today, many

are reversing thatyoung farmers

has increased exponentially: the area ofland under organic cultivation inEurope, for example, has doubled since2001. Despite the fact that some large-scale producers and export-orientedmarketers have tapped into thisburgeoning segment of the foodmarket, organic methods are mostconducive to small-scale, diversifiedproduction for local consumption.

integrates organicmethods with ecosystem principles forfood production, which forms the coreof a conceptual framework for asustainable society.

67

Permaculture

46

Education

Many distancethemselves from the regimented methodsand curricula of mainstream schooling.Two of the most widespread are theSteiner Schools (known as WaldorfSchools in the US) and MontessoriSchools. in whichchildren are taught by parents ormembers of the community, is alsogaining in popularity.

alternative schools

Home-schooling,

With a growing awareness of whathas been described as “nature deficitdisorder”, an increasing number ofschools use wild places or agriculturalsettings as the locus of education. In

for example, youngchildren spend the entire dayoutdoors, in the process becomingexperts in local plant and fungiidentification. The forest schoolconcept originated in Wisconsinin 1927, and has since spread toScandinavia and the UK, where ithas become very popular. In Vermont,

Forest Schools,

In recent years, there has been atremendous surge of interest in

Herbal remedies,homeopathy, bodywork and relaxationtechniques are even garnering interestamong conventional medical doctors.

.traditional and complementarymedicine

Healthcare

Popular in North America andEurope, consist ofcommunity groups in small townsand larger urban centers that havecommitted to transitioning away froma globalized, carbon-intensive economy.These groups meet regularly to set upprojects in different sectors of the localeconomy: food, energy, local commerce,the arts, transport, healthcare, and soon. Their network now encompassesthousands of groups.

Transition Towns

the ROOTS School (Reclaiming OurOrigins through Traditional Skills) isone of a growing number of schoolsoffering young people and adultsclasses in wilderness self-reliance.

In the global South, more and morepeople are recognizing the culture-homogenizing impacts of Western-style schooling. In India, Shikshantar– the People's Institute for RethinkingEducation and Development – isworking to transform education sothat it respects local traditions andpromotes self-reliance.

that are so pervasive in modernsocieties. Many of these

rely on renewable energy,natural building techniques, and on-sitefood production, and are seeking todevelop more cooperative localeconomies. Ranging in size from just afew households to many hundreds,

are among the most popular,successful and diverse kinds ofintentional communities. Linked upthrough the Global Ecovillage Network– a virtual and real-world alliance – theynumber in the many hundreds acrossthe Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. 70

intentionalcommunities

ecovillages

This gentler approach, with anemphasis on prevention, is part of areturn to more human-scale systemsof healthcare. It is, of course, importantto continue providing the emergencyand life-saving care that allopathicmedicine excels at. However, theemphasis in a localized system ofhealthcare would be on the wholeperson, while also attending to thebroader living context. As the Directorfor Sustainable Medicine in Vermontputs it: “real medicine must benefit thewhole system – our communities, bothhuman and natural. There is no needto separate the processes of healingourselves, the environment, andour communities.”

Around the industrialized world,people are building communitiesthat seek to avoid the isolation,competitiveness, pollution and crime

Community-building

47

Thehelps communities reclaim localdemocratic decision-making power.One of the founding organizationsof this movement in North Americais the Community EnvironmentalLegal Defense Fund (CELDF).To date, CELDF has helped morethan 150 locales establish “communityrights ordinances”, protecting themfrom such activities as fracking andthe planting of GMO crops. 71

community rights movement

48

49

The fear, isolation, anddiscontent that many people feeltoday are actually a natural reactionto a system gone awry. From thesefeelings spring the search for whatis real, healthy and essential for life– providing the inspiration to dothe work needed to reclaim ourcontentment, security, and joy.Wherever we are, we can start thejourney. We can seek out like-mindedindividuals with the goal ofencouraging deeper connections. Wecan move away from the fear and self-consciousness that keeps us apart, andcreate a culture of sharing and caring.

Throughout human history, ourcultural traditions, our societies, ourpersonalities, even our bodies haveevolved in connection with communityand nature. The globalizing economyhas severed these connections withfalse promises: that economic growthis the key to progress, that more stuffand more money will make us happy,that technology will solve all ofour problems.

The word is getting out, however,that our global economic system issimply not working. In recent years,there has been a great comingtogether. We are re-learning whatancient indigenous cultures knew:that the “inner” and the “outer”,and the human and the non-human,are inextricably intertwined. We arebeginning to see the world within us– to experience more consciously thegreat interdependent web of life,of which we ourselves are part.

oday's fast-paced globaleconomy demands mobility,competitiveness, and

a fearof being vulnerable and dependent,of growing old. Localization, bycontrast, answers our deep longingfor love and connection – cornerstonesof our well-being and contentment.It creates the structural basis forcommunity, which offers the deeppsychological benefits - the joy - ofliving in interdependence with others.

individualism, and induces

By re-instilling a sense of connectionwith the place where we live, goinglocal leads to another fundamentalshift. The globalization of culture andinformation has led to a way of life inwhich the nearby is treated withcontempt. We get news from China,the Middle East or Washington, D.C.,but remain ignorant about what isgoing on in our own backyard. Witha few keystrokes on a computer wehave access to all the wildlife of Africa,and our immediate surroundings canseem dull and uninteresting bycomparison. A sense of place meanshelping ourselves and our childrenexperience the living environmentaround us: reconnecting with thesources of our food, perhaps evengrowing some of our own, andlearning to appreciate the cyclesof seasons and the characteristicsof the flora and fauna.

We can nurture a deep, empatheticconnection to nature. Quieting thechattering mind – with chanting,singing, yoga or meditation – canhelp free us of the pressures imposedby the global economy and can deeplyrejuvenate and inspire us. In theseways, we can begin to make choicesthat are good for us as individuals aswell as for our community and societyas a whole; we can begin transitioningfrom a top-down economics ofcompetition, scarcity and exploitationto an economics of collaboration,abundance and happiness.

T

50

51

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 ‘Global Finance: Dismantle or Reform?’, Interview with Paul Hellyer, May 30, 1999,

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/global-finance-dismantle-or-

reform/3557536#transcript (accessed 28 July 2015).

World Bank, http://go.worldbank.org/V7BJE9FD30 (accessed 18 October 2014).

Wallach, L. and Beachy, B. (2013) ‘Obama’s Covert Trade Deal’, , June 2,New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/ opinion/obamas-covert-trade-deal.html?_r=0

Sachs, J. (2011) , (Random House Canada),The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall

p. 94.

Tamiotti, L. et al. (2009) Trade and Climate Change. World Trade Organization (WTO) and United

Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), p. 48.

World Development Indicators Database, http://data.worldbank. org/ (accessed October 18, 2014).

FAOSTAT, Food and Agriculture Organization, http://faostat3.fao.org/home/index.html. Also see:

Ten Veen, R. (2011) ‘Global Food Swap’, Greening the North; Lucas, C. (2001) ‘Stopping the Great

Food Swap: Re-localizing Europe’s Food Supply’, The Greens/European Free Alliance/ European

Parliament; Norberg- Hodge, H., Merrifield, T., and Gorelick, S. (2002) Bringing the Food Economy

Home (London, Zed Books), p. 18.

8 The SundayUngoed-Thomas, J. and Meyer, M.R. (2007) ‘British Prawns Go To China To Be Shelled’,

Times, May 20, http://www. timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1813836.ece. Also see: Scotsman

Editors (2006) ‘Jobs lost as Scottish scampi sent on round trip to China’, , September 25,The Scotsman

http://www.scotsman.com/news/ scotland/top-stories/jobs-lost-as-scottish-scampi-sent-on-round-

trip-to-china-1-1141935 ; Edwards, R. (2009) ‘Scotland to China and back again ... cod’s 10,000-mile

trip to your table’, ,Herald Scotland August 22, http://www.heraldscotland.com/scotland-to-china-and-

back-again-cod-s-10-000-mile-trip-to-your-table-1.826905; Rosenthal, E. (2008)

‘Environmental cost of shipping groceries around the world’, New York Times, April 26,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/ business/worldbusiness/26food.html; Greenberg, P (2014) ‘Why

Are We Importing Our Own Fish?‘, New York Times, June 20, 2014,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/ why-are-we-importing-our-own-fish.html;

Piotrowski, D. (2014) ‘Caught in New Zealand, crumbed in China and packed here in Australia’,

Daily Mail Australia, October 16, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-2796675/caught-new-

zealand-crumbed-china-packed-right-australia-ridiculous-journey-coles-fish-travelled- 17000km-

kilometres-end-supermarket-shelf.html (all articles accessed 18 October 2014)

9 New York Times Editorial Board (2012) ‘Race to the Bottom’, , December 5,New York Times

www.nytimes. com/2012/12/06/opinion/ race-to-the-bottom.html; Also see: Story, L. (2012) ‘As

Companies Seek Tax Deals, Governments Pay High Price’, , December 1,New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations. html?_r=0;

Mattera, P. (2014) ‘Subsidizing the Corporate One Percent: Subsidy Tracker 2.0 Reveals Big-Business

Dominance of State and Local Development Incentives’,

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/subsidizingthecorporateonepercent (accessed 18 October 2014).

10 Business Insider (2014), ‘Development banks back G20 global infrastructure hub’, November 13,

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-development-banks-back-g20-global-infrastructure-hub-2014-11

(accessed 22 September 2015).

52

11

12

14

15

17

18

19

20

22

23

24

Spross, J. (2013) ‘Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From

Our Children Without Paying For It’, Think Progress, April 23,

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/23/1905421/ global-ponzi-scheme-taking-73-trillion-year-

natural-capital-from-our-children-without-paying/ (accessed 18 October 2014).

World Trade Organization (1999) ‘The WTO’s financial services agreement will enter into force as

scheduled’, WTO NEWS: 1999 press releases, February 15,

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres99_e/pr120_e.htm, (accessed 2 June 2014).

13 Samuelson, R. (2013) ‘The new globalization’, Washington Post, October 16,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-the-new-globalization/ 2013/10/16/

d0286c84-3682-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html (accessed 22 September 2015).

Korten D. (2009) Agenda for a New Economy, (San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler), p. 21.

‘How Banks Create Money’, Positive Money, http://www.positivemoney.org/how-

money-works/how-banks-create-money/ (accessed 15 June 2014).

16 McKinsey Global Institute, ‘Debt and (not much) deleveraging’, February 2015,

http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/debt_and_not_much_deleveraging (accessed

22 September 2015).

Lawrence, F. (2011) ‘Global food crisis: the speculators playing with our daily bread’, The

Guardian, June 2, http:// www. theguardian.com/business/2011/jun/02/global-food-cricis-

commodities-speculation, (accessed 18 June 2014).

Lin, K-H. and Tomaskovic-Devey, D.(2014) ‘How Financialization Leads to Income

Inequality’, Institute for New Economic Thinking, October 17, http://ineteconomics.org/ideas-

papers/blog/how-financialization-leads-to-income-inequality (accessed 22 September 2015).

US Debt Clock, http://www.usdebtclock.org (accessed 17 July, 2015).

European Commission, ‘Financial Assistance to Greece’,

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/assistance_eu_ms/greek_loan_facility/

(accessed 23 September 2015).

21 D. Steve White blogWhite, D. (2012) ‘The top 175 global economic entities, 2011’, , August 11,

http://dstevenwhite. com/2012/08/11/ the-top-175-global-economic-entities-2011/; also see

Transnational Institute (2014) ‘State of Power 2014’, http://www.tni.org/briefing/ state-power-2014

(accessed 3 June 2014).

Oil Change International, http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/, (accessed 3 June 2014).

Moyers, B., Winship, M. (2014) ‘Don't Let Net Neutrality Become Another Broken Promise’,

Huffington Post Blog, July 5, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/dont-let-net-neutrality-b_b_5266929.html (accessed 22 September 2015).

Farnam, T.W. (2011) ‘Study shows revolving door of employment between Congress, lobbying

firms’, Washington Post online, September 13, http://www.washingtonpost.com/study-shows-

revolving-door-of-employment-between-congress-lobbying-

53

firms/2011/09/12/gIQAxPYROK_story.html (accessed October 18, 2014).

Citizens Trade Campaign, ‘What Corporations Want with the TPP’, www.flushthetpp.org/tpp-

corporate-insiders (accessed 22 September 2015).

Gibson, C.R. and Channing, T. (2015) ‘Here’s how much corporations paid US Senators to fast-

track the TPP bill’, , May 27, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/The Guardian (US edition)

may/27/corporations-paid-us-senators-fast-track-tpp (accessed 4 August 2015).

Strachan, M. (2011) ‘U.S. Economy Lost Nearly 700,000 Jobs because of NAFTA, EPI Says’, Huff

Mitchell, S. (2013) ‘The Truth about Amazon and Job Creation’, Institute for Local Self-Reliance,

WTO and UNEP (2009) ‘Trade and Climate Change: A report by United Nations Environmental

Woellert, L. and Chen, S. (2014) ‘Widening Gap: China’s Income Inequality Surpasses US, Posing

Risk for the Leadership of Xi Jinping’, Taipei Times, May 6,

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2014/05/06/2003589670 (accessed 15 June 2014).

Wild, F. (2014) ‘Slum Next to Golf Estate Shows South Africa’s Wealth Gap’, , May 7,Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-06/slum-next-to-golf-estate-shows-south-africa-s-abiding-

wealth-gap.html (accessed 15 June 2014).

OECD data, accessed 9 May 2014; Also see: UNCTAD (2012) Trade and Development Report 2012,

25

26

27

Post Business, July 12, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/12/nafta-job-loss-trade-deficit-

epi_n_859983.html (accessed 15 June 2015).

28 Wise, Timothy A. (2010) ‘Agricultural Dumping Under NAFTA: Estimating the Cost of US

Agricultural Policy to Mexican Producers’, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

29 Mexico Unemployment Rate, Trading Economics,

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/mexico/unemployment-rate (accessed 22 September 2015).

30

July 29, http://www.ilsr.org/amazonfacts/ (accessed 15 June 2014).

31 Chivian, E. and A. Bernstein, eds. (2008) Sustaining life: How human health depends on

biodiversity. Center for Health and the Global Environment (New York, Oxford University Press).

32

Programme and the World Trade Organization’ (Geneva, WTO Publications), p. 53.

33 The Hindu TheHindu.com(2010) ‘Per Capita CO2 Emissions to Rise Three-fold by 2030’, , February

25, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/per-capita-co2-emissions-to-rise-threefold-by-2030/

article113168.ece (accessed 15 June 2014).

34 Global Footprint Network, ‘Living Planet Report 2014 Facts’,

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/living_planet_report_2014_facts/

(accessed 23 September 2015).

35 Working for the FewFuentes-Nieva, R. and Galasso, N. (2014) , Oxfam,

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-

inequality-200114-summ-en.pdf; Hardoon, D. (2015) ‘Wealth: Having it all and wanting more’,

http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/wealth-having-it-all-and-wanting-more-338125

(accessed March 20, 2015).

36

37

38

54

55

Save the Children, ‘The Urban Disadvantage: State of the World’s Mothers 2015’

Davis, M. (2004) ‘In New Economy, Textile Workers Hang by a Thread’, ,Los Angeles Times

FAO (2012) ‘Globally Almost 870 Million Chronically Undernourished – New Hunger Report’,

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, October 9,

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/161819/icode/ (accessed 15 June 2014).

Newsweek Staff (1994) ‘Where the Admen Are’, , March 14, p. 34.Newsweek

eMarketer.com (2014) ‘Global Ad Spending to Double This Year’, July 9,

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Global-Ad-Spending-Growth-Double-This-Year/1010997

(accessed 23 September 2015).

WHO (2012) , October, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/Fact sheet No. 369

Carrington, D. (2014) ‘Land taken over by foreign investors could feed 550m people, study

finds’, , June 27, http:// www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/27/land-The Guardian

grabbing-food-biofuels-crops (accessed 15 June 2015).

Worldwatch (2000), ‘Where Have All the Farmers Gone?’ September-October 2000,

United Nations; Fuentes-Nieva, R. and Galasso, N. (2014) , Oxfam; Wilkinson,Working for the Few

R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (New

York, Bloomsbury Press).

39 ICIJ (2015) ‘Evicted & Abandoned’, April 15, http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/worldbank-

evicted-abandoned (accessed 23 September 2015).

40

http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-

df91d2eba74a%7D/SOWM_2015.PDF (accessed April 22, 2016).

41 Johnson, I. (2013) ‘China’s Great Uprooting’, , June 15,New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/asia/chinas-great-uprooting-moving-250-million-into-

cities.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 23 September 2015).

42

Sept. 5, http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/05/opinion/op-davis5 (accessed 23 September 2015).

43 From a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) study, based on 150

country reports. Food and Agriculture Organization. State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources.

Rome: FAO, 1996.

44

45

46

47

(accessed 23 September 2015).

48 Dokoupil, T. (2013) ‘Why Suicide Has Become an Epidemic – and What We Can Do to Help’,

Newsweek, May 23, http://www.newsweek.com/2013/05/22/why-suicide-has-become-epidemic-and-

what-we-can-do-help-237434.html (accessed 23 September 2015).

49

50

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/490 (accessed 23 September 2015).

51 UNTAD (2013) ‘Take “mosaic” approach to agriculture, boost support for small farmers,

UNCTAD report urges’, press release September 17,

http://unctad.org/en/pages/PressRelease.aspx?OriginalVersionID=154 (accessed 4 June 2014).

52 GRAIN (2014) ‘Hungry for land: small famers feed the world with less than a quarter of all land’,

56

Mitchell, S. (2011) ‘How State Banks Bring the Money Home’, Yes! Magazine, Fall.

Center for Sustainable Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies, Genuine Progress Indicator,

http:// genuineprogress.net/ genuine-progress-indicator/ (accessed 25 July 2014).

Ochs, A, Anderson, E. and Rogers, R. (2012) ‘Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy Subsidies on the

Rise’, World Watch Vital Signs, August, http://vitalsigns.worldwatch.org/vs-trend/fossil-fuel-

and-renewable-energy-subsidies-rise (accessed 18 October 2014).

Jordan, R. (2013) ‘Stanford researcher maps out alternative energy future for New York’, Stanford

Forrager.com, ‘Cottage Food Laws’, http://forrager.com/laws/ (accessed 18 October 2014).

O’Brian, A. (2013) ’Eye on Augusta: Food Sovereignty Movement Takes Root in Maine’, The Free

Press, August 28, http://freepress60.1upprelaunch.com/Content/Politics/-Government/Article/Eye-on-

Augusta-Food-Sovereignty-Movement-Takes-Root-in-Maine/96/541/28063

(accessed 23 September 2015).

P2P Foundation, ’Banco Palmas’, http://p2pfoundation.net/Banco_Palmas (accessed 23 September

United States Department of Agriculture, ‘National Count of Farmers Market Directory Listing

Graph: 1994-2014’, Agricultural Marketing Service, http://www.ams.usda.gov/

(accessed 19 June 2014).

Bardo, M., Warwicker, M. (2012) ‘Does Farmers Market Food Taste Better?’ BBC Food online, June

http://www.grain. org/article/ entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland (accessed 18 October 2014).

53 Alternative Trade Mandate, ‘Towards an Alternative Trade Mandate for the EU’,

http://www.alternativetrademandate. org/ resources/ (accessed 23 September 2015).

54

55

56

57

News, March 12, http://news. stanford.edu/news/2013/march/new-york-energy-031213.html,

(accessed 10 June 2014).

58 Ontario Ministry ofAgriculture, Food and RuralAffairs (2013) ‘Bill to Promote Local Food Passes

Final Vote’, November 5, http:// news.ontario.ca/omafra/en/2013/11/bill-to-promote-local-food-passes-

final-vote.html (accessed 18 October 2014).

59

60

61

2015).

62 Shuman, M. (2013) ‘24 Ways to Invest Locally’, , October 22,Resilience.org

http://www.resilience.org/resource- detail/1902148- 24-ways-to-invest-locally (accessed October 18,

2014); Shuman, M. (2009) ‘Invest Locally: put your money where your life is’, Yes! Magazine online,

June 5, http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-new-economy/invest- locally-put-your-money-where-

your-life-is (accessed 2 June 2014).

63 Burkitt, L., Jargon, J. (2014) ‘McDonald’s to give China’s restaurants a makeover’, Wall Street Journal

online, April 18, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304626304579508623263131430,

(accessed on 19 June 2014).

64 India FDI Watch, http://indiafdiwatch.org/; Walmart Corporation,

http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/locations/india (accessed 18 October 2014).

65

66

69

70

71

La Via Campesina (2011) ‘Declaration: La Via Campesina International Youth Coordination

Meeting’, May 13, http:// viacampesina. org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/youth-

mainmenu-66/1053-declaration-la-via-campesina- international-youth- coordination-meeting

(accessed 10 June 2014).

Global Eco-Village Network, http://gen.ecovillage.org/ (accessed 10 June 2014).

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, http://www.celdf.org/ (accessed 10 June 2014).

23, http://www.bbc. com/news/ business-18522656, (accessed 16 June 2014).

67 Willer, H. (2013) ‘Organic Farming in Europe 2012’, from FiBL & IFOAM: The World of

Organic Agriculture, available at http://www.organic-

world.net/fileadmin/documents/yearbook/2013/willer-2013-europe-overview.pdf.

68 American Farmland Trust, ‘Farmland by the Numbers’,

http://www.farmland.org/programs/protection/American- Farmland-Trust- Farmland-

Protection-Farmland-by-the-numbers.asp (accessed 5 June 2014).

Photograph of Ladakh © Tommaso Galli

57

Helena Norberg-Hodge

farming:

and

.

Bringing the Food Economy

Home From the Ground Up:

Rethinking Industrial AgricultureThe Earth Journal

Wisdom for a

Liveable Planet

counted Helena

among the world’s “ten most

interesting environmentalists”, while

in Carl McDaniel’s book

, she was profiled as one

of “eight visionaries changing the

world”. Since 1975, she has worked

with the people of Ladakh, or “Little

Tibet”, to find ways of enabling their

culture to meet the modern world

without sacrificing social and

ecological values. For these efforts

she was awarded the Right Livelihood

Award, or “Alternative Nobel Prize”.Educated in Sweden, Germany,

Austria, England and the United

States, Helena specialized in

linguistics, including studies at the

University of London and at MIT.

She has lectured in seven languages

at numerous Universities including

Oxford, Harvard, Melbourne, Tokyo,

Stockholm and Munich, and was

Regents’ Lecturer in the Energy

and Resources Group (ERG) at the

University of California, Berkeley.

She has also taught regularly at

Schumacher College and appeared in

broadcast, print and online media

worldwide, including MSNBC,

,

and

The

London Times The Sydney Morning

Herald The Guardian.Helena is the founder/director of

Local Futures and the International

Alliance for Localization (IAL). She

is also a founding member of the

International Commission on the

Future of Food and Agriculture, the

International Forum on Globalization

and the Global Ecovillage Network.

Author and filmmaker HelenaNorberg-Hodge is a pioneer of thelocal economy movement. Throughwriting and public lectures on threecontinents, she has been promotingan economics of personal, social andecological well-being for four decades.She is a widely respected analyst ofthe impact of the global economy andinternational development on localcommunities, local economies, andpersonal identity, and is a leadingproponent of “localization”, ordecentralization, as a means ofcountering those impacts. For thiswork she was awarded theprestigious Goi Peace prize in 2012.Her book, , togetherwith a film by the same title, hasbeen translated into more than 40languages, and sold about half amillion copies. She is also theproducer and co-director of theaward-winning film,

. Helena has writtennumerous articles, essays, and bookchapters, and is the co-author of two

groundbreaking books on food and

Ancient Futures

The Economicsof Happiness

local alternatives, and its multi-

media Local Food Toolkit won

the Derek Cooper Award for

Campaigning Journalism.Local Futures began as

The Ladakh Project in 1978. The

organization initially focused on

supporting Ladakh’s indigenous

culture by bringing information to

balance the idealized images of the

consumer culture flooding into the

region through tourism and

development. Together with local

leaders, Local Futures also

established the first NGOs in

the region, promoted organic

agriculture and developed a range

of renewable energy technologies.Today, Local Futures operates

from offices in the US, UK, Mexico

and Australia, with “sister”

organizations in Germany and Japan.

Local Futures / International Society

for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)

works to renew ecological, social

and spiritual well-being by promoting

a systemic shift away from economic

globalization towards localization.

Our flagship Economics of Happiness

program provides a range of

educational and practical tools

for communities, as well as an

international forum for a broad

array of groundbreaking projects

from both the global North and South.

Local Futures has undertaken a

range of grassroots initiatives in both

the global North and South—from

introducing village-based renewable

energy technologies in the Himalayan

regions of Ladakh, Bhutan and Nepal,

to establishing farmers’ markets in

Europe, the US and Australia. As

a think-and-do tank, Local Futures

has also produced books, films,

conferences, workshops, public

lectures, study group curricula

and comic books that aim to catalyze

efforts to strengthen ecological and

social well-being. One of the first

NGOs worldwide to promote local

food, Local Futures is still one of the

only groups doing so from an

international perspective. It has

produced several books and

numerous reports critiquing theindustrial food system and promoting

w w w. l o c a l f u t u r e s . o r g

59

2016

60

localfutures.orglocalfutures.org