LOCALIZATION:
essential steps to an economics of

HAPPINESS
Helena Norberg-Hodge

LOCALIZATION:
essential steps to an economics of

HAPPINESS
Helena Norberg-Hodgew w w. l o c a l f u t u r e s . o r g
2016

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I

t sometimes feels like there's
nothing but bad news: climate
chaos, species extinction, job
insecurity, poverty, violent conflict.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed,
depressed and helpless. But if you
look deeper, you will find reason
for 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 simultaneously.
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 of
our economic system. By allowing
distorted economic priorities tooverwhelm all other considerations,
we have unwittingly supported a
global economy that has grown solarge and powerful that it threatens
not only our own survival, but all lifeon Earth. It’s a techno-economic
system that commercializes every
aspect 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 local
ecosystems and communities bybuilding more localized, place-based
economic structures. These initiatives
are of a scale that allows culture andecology to shape the economy, rathervithan the other way around.
They are testimony to people's
strength, perseverance and good
will, and have the potential tomultiply rapidly, transforming
our political and economic
landscape over the coming years.
For nearly 40 years now, myorganization and I have been raisingawareness about the need to shift
direction, away from globalization
towards localization – the moststrategic, effective and common-sense
way to reverse the damage causedby the global economy. Strengthening
local economies leads to personal, or“inner” as well as political, or “outer,”changes. At the political level
localization is the economics of bothjustice and sustainability, because it
dramatically shrinks the gap between
rich and poor, while reducing energy
use and pollution. At the personallevel localization is the economicsof happiness, because it reconnects
us with community and nature.
My eyes were opened to all of thisin Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, which
I encountered in 1975, just as theregion was thrown open to theglobal economy. As a linguist,
I quickly became fluent in the Ladakhi
language, enabling me to experience
this ancient, nature-based culture
almost, as it were, from the inside.
Over the next decade I witnessed
firsthand the devastating impact of
economic development. I came to see
how our economic system centralizes
power and creates intense competition
for artificially scarce educational
opportunities and jobs, while atthe same time reaching deep into thepsyches of young children, perverting

a universal need for love and acceptanceinto a need to consume. In Ladakh, thisproved a deadly combination, leading
within 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 both
policy makers and grassroots
organizations in numerous countries.
My motivation increased when I realized
how many well-intentioned people were
inadvertently supporting an economic
system that was not only
environmentally destructive, butultimately threatened their own wellbeing. I saw how ideas about progress,
education, individualism and democracy
were 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 opposed
joining the European Union. They
recognized that the union was primarily
an economic one: it was pushed by big
businesses, which regarded Europe's
different currencies, cultures andlanguages – in other words, diversity – asobstacles to corporate efficiency and profit.
My friends' fears about the impacts of a
trade-obsessed “borderless” Europe on
culture, democracy, and the environment
echoed my own concerns about opening
up Ladakh to the global economy.
With this perspective further
strengthened by E.F. Schumacher's
seminal book Small is Beautiful, I tried
to raise awareness about the urgent
need for a shift – away from ever fasterpaced, larger-scale and more centralized

economic structures, towards more
decentralized or localized, humanscale economies. At first there wasinterest even from mainstream
organizations and media. I was
invited to speak at Harvard andOxford, was interviewed by large
publications, appeared on television,and met with members of parliamentand even some Prime Ministers.
In the early 1990s, however, free tradetreaties like NAFTA and GATT allowed
economic globalization to take off, andideas about decentralization andlocalization became increasingly
marginalized. The giant corporations
and media conglomerates that pushed
for globalization gained so much
wealth and power that they were able
to shape not only government policy,
but public opinion and intellectual
discourse. Their influence on theenvironmental movement led to a shift
away from fundamental politicalchange, towards a focus on market
solutions like green consumerism
ethical investment, and carbon trading.
In recent years faith in the market has
weakened, as awareness of the socialand ecological impact of the global
economy has increased. The financial
crisis of 2008 in particular has led toa greater understanding of theimplications of blind, irresponsible
speculation. Meanwhile, people at thegrassroots have been working to rebuild
their communities and local economies.
Unrecognized by the mainstream media
and unsupported by government, these
efforts have nonetheless sprung up allover the world. They aim to shorten
the distance between production andconsumption and to build more selfreliant local, regional and nationalvii

economies; they bring markets andbusinesses down to a scale that allows
for accountability and transparency;
they respect and work with thenatural world around us – anddemonstrate that, even on a crowded
planet, human needs don't have to beat odds with the needs of nature.
What is emerging, in other words, is
not only a deep and broad critique ofcorporate capitalism and its consumer
monoculture, but a planet-wide
localization movement that offers
real alternatives and lasting solutions.
Localization does not meanisolationism: in fact, the policy steps
needed 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 collaborate
with others at every level – withincommunities, within nation states,
and internationally. Nor is localization
a rigid prescription. On the contrary,
it is a process of adapting economic
activity to diverse places and people.
I call it “bringing the economy home”.
The benefits of localization go far
beyond what we would ordinarily
consider economic. In both the global
North and South, local economies not
only help ensure greater job security,prosperity and income equality, theyalso provide the framework needed
to support strong communities,
which in turn support the health of
the individual – both psychologicallyand physically.

viii

Ultimately, localization renews ourconnections – to one another, to ourcommunities, to the living world
around us. It satisfies our deep
longing for purpose and belonging,and for a secure future for ourselves
and our children.

9G

lobalization has resulted in a
massive increase in the scale ofthe economy, leading in turn toa cascade of serious problems. Because
ever-expanding economies require evermore resources, wilderness is being
destroyed and biodiversity eroded.
Meanwhile an expanding stream ofwaste is being produced – including
greenhouse gases that are destabilizing
the climate and nuclear waste that will
still be toxic to our great-grandchildren.
The scaling-up of the economy is also
affecting our personal well-being.
People are losing not only financial
security but also the psychologicalsecurity that springs from meaningful
work and lasting connections to people
and place. In both richer and poorer
nations, 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 between
rich and poor widening worldwide,
conflict and violence are on the rise.
While these and many other problems
are structurally connected to economic
globalization, the huge scale of theeconomy makes it hard to see those
links. Even government leaders andcorporate CEOs can be unaware of the
impact their decisions have on the otherside of the world. The same has becometrue of most of us: the distances between
producers and consumers have grown
so wide that it has become impossible to
make ethical choices. A fish served in a
California restaurant may have beencaught illegally on a Thai fishing vessel
manned by slaves. A T-shirt bought inGermany may have been sewn in a
Bangladeshi sweatshop, where workers
labored in unsafe conditions for
starvation wages. The risingconsumption levels of India's middle
class may be contributing to climate
chaos many thousands of miles away.
It is as if our arms have grown so long
we cannot see what our hands are doing.
However, if we carefully examine themechanisms of globalization and its
structural impacts, we can begin to see
how the economic system has become
so destructive. And, even more
importantly, we can see how to fix it.

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

10

<

<

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 traderelationships 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 tohuman 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<<and dominate local markets worldwide. Paul Hellyer, former Deputy Prime
Minister of Canada, defines globalization this way:

“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 decent
wages to their employees, and they won't have to pay taxes to fix potholes
1
and to maintain parks, and to pay pensions to the old and handicapped.”
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 andevolutionary 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 notinevitable at all: “[It] occurs when countries lower barriers such as import tariffs and2open their economies up to investment and trade with the rest of the world.” In otherwords, 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 andcorporate control.

Economic globalization is a process bywhich global trade and investment are
deregulated, 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 “barriers
to trade”. Starting in the 1990s the numberof trade agreements began to increase
sharply. The year 1994 was a watershed:
the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) came into force, and
the World Trade Organization (WTO), thesupranational institution that regulates
global trade, was created. Since thenliterally thousands of regional andbilateral trade and investment

agreements have been ratified. At thetime of writing there are still moreagreements under negotiation, but by
far the most far-reaching in terms ofsize and scope are the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP), and the Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP). TTIP is being
negotiated between the United States
and the European Union, while the TPP
includes the US, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and six
other countries. Combined, the TTIP
and TPP could create “free” trade zones
encompassing the vast majority ofinternational trade. 3
What all of these treaties have incommon is that they give corporations
and foreign investors the freedom tomove in and out of national economies
in search of “favorable businessenvironments” – where labor andresources are cheap, taxes are low,11

and environmental and social protection
measures are lax or non-existent. The
economist Jeffrey Sachs, an authority on
economic development and poverty,
explains how this process works:“When capital becomesinternationally mobile, countries
begin to compete for it. They dothis by offering improved
profitability compared withother countries, for example,
by cutting corporate tax rates,
easing regulations, tolerating
pollution, or ignoring labor
standards. In the ensuingcompetition among
governments, capital benefits
from a 'race to the bottom,' inwhich governments engage ina downward spiral of taxation
and regulation in order to try
to keep one step ahead of othercountries. All countries lose in
the end, since all end up losing
tax revenue and regulations
needed to manage the economy.
The biggest loser ends up being
4
internationally immobile labor…”

One way free trade treaties create this“downward spiral of taxation andregulation” is by allowing any national
policies – including domestic laborlaws that mandate humane working
conditions or rules that limit pollutionof air and water – to be struck down ifthey are perceived to be barriers totrade or foreign investment. For
instance, many treaties include“investor-state dispute” instruments,
which grant private corporations theright to sue governments if they believethat regulations will reduce their
expected profits. Tobacco giant Philip
Morris has filed such a suit against theAustralian government, which had
required changes to cigarette
packaging in the name of public health.
(see below: “Free Trade's Assault on
Democracy”). Because of international
trade treaties signed and ratified overthe last several decades, most nations
are now bound up in agreements thatforce them to acquiesce to the demandsof big corporations and banks, or to
engage in costly legal battles that takeplace in secretive, corporate-friendly
arbitration 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 thecases that have been concluded, 25 percent were decided in favor of investors, 37 percent
1
in favor of States, and the remainder settled or discontinued.
2

Philip Morris v. URUGUAY & AUSTRALIA

12

<

<

US tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia over their antismoking 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.

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

Utilities v. ARGENTINA
When Argentina froze utility rates and devalued its currency in response to its
2001-2002 financial crisis, it was hit by over 40 lawsuits from companies like CMS
Energy (US) and the water companies Suez and Vivendi (France). By the end of
2008, 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 company
Lone Pine Resources Inc. is demanding US$250 million in compensation from
Canada. 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 Institutehttp://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/”Free” trade agreements have helped
fuel an explosive growth in international
trade, which is now almost thirty-twotimes greater than it was in 1950. 5
Imports and exports make up a muchlarger proportion of economic activity
than ever before: in 1960 trade accounted
for less than 25 percent of world output;
by 2012, that figure had increased to 60
percent. 6 This tremendous growth has,in turn, stoked the expansion of thecorporations that dominate
the 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 resources
available within relatively shortdistances. Only once essential needs had
been met locally did questions of13

trading surplus production withoutsiders arise.
Today, however, international trade
has come to be pursued as an end in
itself. This modern emphasis can betraced to an 1817 theory of political
economist David Ricardo, whichholds that nations are better off ifthey specialize their production inareas where they excel – those in which
they 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 systemthat is highly inefficient and wasteful.
But 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 of
free trade.
In the mistaken belief that trade isalways good and that more trade isalways better, governments makemassive investments in trade-based
infrastructures, sign on to tradetreaties that open their economies tooutside investment, and scrap laws
and regulations designed to protect
national and local businesses’ jobs
and resources.
Whole economies are becoming
dependent on trade and virtually
every sphere of life is being affected.
The impact on food - one of the only
products that people everywhereneed on a daily basis - is particularly
revealing. Today, one can find apples
shipped from New Zealand in applegrowing regions of Europe and North
America; shoppers on the Citrus
Coast of Spain will find lemons from
Argentina on supermarket shelves,
while local lemons are left to rot.
In Mongolia – a country with 10 times
as many milk-producing animals as
people – shops carry more European
dairy products than local ones.

14

Mongolia has 10 times
more dairy animals
than people, yet
supermarket shelves
carry more European
than local dairy products.

Even worse is ”redundant trade”: in a
typical year, Britain exports millions ofliters of milk and thousands of tons ofwheat and lamb, while importing nearly
7
identical amounts. This pattern ofimporting and exporting similar
products has been documented in manyother countries as well. In some cases,
it is literally the same product that isboth exported and imported: the New
York Times reports that “Cod caught
off Norway is shipped to China to beturned into filets, then shipped back to
Norway for sale.” That's a 10,000-mile
8round-trip journey.

Cod caught off Norway takes a 10,000-mile round trip to be
fileted and returned for sale on the local market.

In an era of runaway climate change
and dwindling fossil fuels, this kind ofwasteful trade – which greatly
overshadows the efforts of wellmeaning individuals to reduce theirpersonal carbon footprints – is little
short of madness. What are the benefitsof transporting food or any other basic
commodity such distances, when they
can be (and indeed for centuries havebeen) produced locally? How can thesearrangements be described as
economically “efficient”? As we willsee, this excessive trade actually
benefits no one but massive
corporations. And it is not efficiency,
but a wide range of subsidies andignored costs that make it all possible.

Proponents of globalization point to
the lower cost of many globally-traded
goods as proof that economic efficiency
is at work. However, a close look at theway the global economy is subsidized
deflates this argument. Not only dogovernments promote trade throughinternational treaties, they do so byhanding out hundreds of billions ofdollars in direct subsidies to the trading
sector of their economies through tax
breaks, market access programs,
production subsidies, loan guarantees
and more (see “A Subsidy Primer”, p.16)
It isn't just national governments thatsubsidize international trade: state andlocal governments also roll out the red
carpet for big business. For example,
a New York Times investigative reportfound that state and local governmentsin the US provide over $80 billion
dollars per year in tax incentives, freepublic land, infrastructure assistance,
low-cost financing and other subsidies
to attract and retain large, non-local
businesses. These subsidy programs
are administered “almost exclusively
to the benefit of big corporations(aided by highly paid lobbyists) at
the expense of small businesses.” 9
Governments also provide indirector hidden subsidies to big businesses.
By reducing the cost of long-distancetransport, for example, fossil fuelsubsidies indirectly subsidize the global
economy, helping to prop up the energyintensive system of mass production formass consumption that globalization
has spread around the world.
Indirect subsidies also include
government investments in theinfrastructures that a trade-based
economy requires. These taxpayersupported infrastructures include:

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

Energy infrastructures – large,
centralized electric power plants(including nuclear power stations andhuge hydroelectric dams), petroleum
facilities, gas and tar oil pipelines, etc.;
High-speed communications andinformation networks – satellites,
mobile telephone networks, television,
radio and the internet;
Research and development
institutions – facilities that develop
labor-displacing technologies forindustry and agriculture, andtechnologies to expand and modernize
the physical infrastructures supporting
the global economy.
Though much of this infrastructureis also used by small businesses andthe general public, transnational
corporations and their global supply
chains benefit disproportionately fromit. It's therefore not surprising that, in
2014, leaders from the twenty largest
economies in the world launched theG20 Global Infrastructure Initiative,
pledging trillions of dollars to help fund
this massive expansion of infrastructure– an announcement that alarmed
many ecologists but delighted thecorporations involved in global trade. 10
An additional kind of hidden subsidy
involves the negative impacts associatedwith economic activity – the healtheffects of pollution, for example, orthe damage caused by climate change.
These costs are almost never subtracted
from corporate bottom lines; instead,these “externalized” costs are paidby society and the natural world,amounting to hidden subsidies that
artificially 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

15markets fail to account for the value anduse of the natural ecology – on which
civilization depends for its crops, water,
11
air, its very livelihood.”
Because of this system of direct andindirect subsidies, the price of goods
transported halfway around the world
can seem artificially cheap incomparison to goods produced next
door. This is why garlic transported
to Spain all the way from China canbe half the price of locally-growngarlic: neither the pollution involved
in its transport nor the cost of therequired transport infrastructure
are reflected in its price.

A subsidy primer
In the US, the Market Access Program provides about $200 million
annually to companies and trade associations to expand international
markets for products ranging from Welch's grape juice and Blue
3
Diamond almonds to beer, liquor, candy bars and pet foods.
The Export-Import Bank, a US government agency, provides loans
and 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, including
Bechtel and General Electric; 65 percent of the bank's $12.2 billion in
4loan guarantees supported exports from just one company, Boeing.
Governments often provide direct production-related subsidies
for goods destined for export markets. According to theEnvironmental Working Group, the US government doled
out an estimated $256 billion from 1995 to 2012 to support anarrow range of commodity crops (corn, cotton, rice, wheat
and soybeans) that were grown on large monocultural farms
and exported to distant national or international markets.
While most of these subsidies, 75 percent, went to the largest
10 percent of industrial agribusinesses, the majority of smallscale diversified farms – which primarily focus on meeting5
local needs – received no subsidies at all. The EU's agricultural
subsidy program, part of the Common Agricultural Policy,
has also favoured large industrial farms and export-oriented
agribusinesses over small local producers.

16

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

The watchdog group Good Jobs First found 240 economic development“megadeal” subsidies, in which local and state governments in the US
provided $75 million or more per company to locate in their area. The
list of recipients included many familiar transnational corporations,
including Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs,
Walt Disney, General Electric, Dow Chemical, Amazon, Apple, Intel
6and Samsung. Wal-Mart has received over a billion dollars in state
7
economic development subsidies in the US alone.

<<loan “bail-outs” – even while community banks and small businesses
were left to flounder. All told, the US Federal Reserve provided an
estimated bail-out of $4.7 to $29 trillion dollars to banks across thecountry, including the largest ones – JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup
and Goldman Sachs – even though these companies played a direct8role in destabilizing the financial system in the first place.

The energy required by large-scale producers and international trade isheavily subsidized, making the whole system seem “efficient”. According
to 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 investment
amounted to roughly $36 trillion from 1995 to 2013, much of which
was publicly funded. The same report concluded that an estimated $57
trillion 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 combined
environmental externalities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies
at 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, while
the world economy is roughly $70 trillion per year. According to thesame study, the benefits that humanity derives from the world's
natural ecosystems – grasslands, marshes, coral reefs, forests, andthe like – amount to an estimated $143 trillion each year.12
A 2013 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 as
Texaco and Exxon-Mobil, 31 state-owned companies, such as Saudi
Aramco 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 has
been 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 arisen
without prolonged access to the South's raw materials, markets andlabor – including slave labor. Although the true cost of the slave trade
is incalculable, calls for reparations have ranged from tens tohundreds of trillions of dollars.14

17

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 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).
5 Environmental Working Group farm subsidy database, http://farm.ewg.org/ (accessed 22 September 2015).
6 “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).
7 Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch, http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/; Good Jobs First Subsidy Tracker & Corporate Subsidy Watch,www.goodjobsfirst.org/ (accessed October 18 2014).
8 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.
9 “Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF”, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuelcompanies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf (accessed 14 June 2015).
10 Dobbs, Richard et al, McKinsey Global Institute, “Infrastructure productivity: How to save $1 trillion a year”, January 2013,
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi (accessed 22 September 2015).
11 Jowit, J. (2010) ‘World”s top firms cause US$ 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).
12 Costanza, R. et al (2014) ‘Changes in the global value of ecosystem services’, Global Environmental Change, Volume 26: 152–158.
13 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).
14 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)

Along with the deregulation of trade,a major driver of globalization has been
financial deregulation – the eliminationof obstacles to foreign investment andspeculation. Financial deregulation had
already begun by the 1970s in many
countries, but accelerated dramaticallyin 1999, when 70 WTO member
countries, representing more than 95
percent of the world's financial
services activity, agreed to “eliminate
or relax current restrictions on foreign
involvement in the financial sector,
including banking, securities and12
insurance.” Provisions forderegulating financial services havebeen incorporated into the hundreds ofbilateral and regional trade agreementsthat have been signed since then.
As capital became increasingly free
to move around the world in search of
higher profit, financial hubs like New
York City, London, Frankfurt andSingapore relaxed their regulatory
oversight still further, engaging in a“race to the bottom” to attract finance18

capital. New markets and complicatedfinancial instruments were created (see“Financial weapons of mass
destruction”, page 20), contributing to
an explosive growth of financial activity:
cross-border flows of capital rose from$500 billion in 1980 to $11.8 trillion in2007. 13 The financial system has become
highly complex, globally interconnected,
and ultimately very unstable.
Not surprisingly, financial
deregulation has led to an increase in
the frequency and severity of financial
crises. With massive flows of capital able
to move quickly in and out of countries
in search of profit at the click of abutton, entire economies can be quickly
destabilized, creating surges of
unemployment 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 the
primary causes of the Global Financial
Crisis of 2008. What's worse, as
economies have become increasinglyinterconnected, financial crises havebecome more contagious, spreadingquickly from one country to another.
In spite of this heightened risk, stronger
financial 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 further
reason for the volatility of the global
financial system is that so much of themoney circulating within it is“phantom wealth” – defined by author
David Korten as “financial assets thatappear or disappear as if by magic as aresult of accounting entries and theinflation of asset bubbles unrelated
to the creation of anything of real
14
value or utility.”
Much of this phantom wealth has
been created by deregulated banks
through debt pyramids, in which asset
bubbles create phantom collateral thatcan be used to support further
borrowing. Banks are required to hold
only 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 money
circulating in the economy today– the digital pulses that correspondto billions and trillions of dollars – is15
backed by nothing but debt. Everytime a bank issues a loan, money has
been “created” – money that must be
paid back to the bank with interest.
Private banks have, in effect, been
given a license to print money.
Rather than being used to meet thereal needs of communities, most of
this 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 speculative
purposes – to make still more money.
The leveraging of debt into huge
speculative trades on financial andstock markets was among the causesof the 2008 global financial meltdown.
Despite the lessons of that crisis, highly
leveraged debt remains a central featureof the global economy. According toa 2015 report by the McKinsey Global
Institute, “Seven years after the burstingof a global credit bubble resulted in theworst financial crisis since the Great
Depression, debt continues to grow. In
fact, rather than reducing indebtedness,or deleveraging, all major economies
today have higher levels of borrowing
relative to GDP than they did in 2007.
Global debt in these years has grownby $57 trillion.” 16
Financial deregulation has also
contributed to the dramatic increase
in inequality around the world.
Massive speculative bets on exchange
rates can cause national currency
values to crash overnight – enrichinga handful of investors but causing
real hardship for the majority. In
commodities markets as well, a highproportion of trades are speculative,
with no actual physical goods being
traded. But the impacts of speculation
are all too real: bets on agriculturalcommodities can cause their prices
to collapse (driving farmers into
bankruptcy), or to spike (causing
millions of people to go hungry– as happened in 2008, when foodriots broke out in many developing
countries 17 ).
Despite a brief hiatus following thefinancial crisis of 2008, stock markets,
financial sector profits and WallStreet bonuses have soared, while
wages for ordinary workers haveremained stagnant at 1970s levels.
As two scholars recently
concluded about the US, “therise of finance is one of the driving
forces behind growing income
inequality and the concentrationof income at the very top.” 18
Meanwhile, the system of everexpanding interest-bearing debt
creates a structural imperative forfurther economic growth to avoid
further economic crises – eventhough the ecological destruction
wrought by endless growth now
imperils the biosphere itself.
This is clearly a system run amok.

19

Financial weapons of mass destruction
A proliferation of new financial instruments has emerged in the context of deepening
financial integration and deregulation. One of the most common financial
instruments is the derivative, whose value is based on still other financial
instruments, 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-backed
securities, collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps). The global valueof derivatives has expanded rapidly since the 1990s. According to a 2013 Time
Magazine 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 more
15
than 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 these16
instruments as “financial weapons of mass destruction”.

15 ‘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).
16 ‘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).

The process of development
requires energy, transport, and otherinfrastructures geared towards exportoriented industry and agriculture.
Developing countries must borrow
tremendous amounts of capital tobuild up this infrastructure, and if
prices for their exports decline, they
may 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 restrictions
on outside investment, and providing
still more funding for trade-based
infrastructure.
World Bank/IMF lending to Southerncountries is typically made conditional20

on such programs, and indeed the vast
majority of these countries have been
subjected to them. The continual loan
repayments, for which the interest
alone can be equal to a large percentageof the country's annual budget, require
surpluses 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 are
increasingly 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 support
for the growing ranks of theunemployed, to retrain displaced
workers, to mend the unraveling social
fabric, and to clean up the despoiled
environments left behind by
deregulated, mobile corporations.

Forced to go hat-in-hand to international
lenders, countries can easily findthemselves on a downward spiral, withinterest payments consuming an increasing
proportion of the national budget. It's nowonder that so many governments today
are struggling to stay afloat, while global
corporations and banks are flush with cash.
This is the recent experience of Spain,
Portugal, Greece, and several othercountries. Not even the United States
is immune: during the debt ceiling crisisof 2011, the country lost its top-tier credit
rating as politicians wrangled over further
expansions of government borrowing.
Only a last-minute deal to raise the debt
ceiling prevented the US from defaulting
on its loans. The situation was nearly
repeated again two years later. By mid2015, US national debt had reachedmore than $18 trillion. 19
For smaller countries, even a small
fraction of that debt can be crippling.
To mollify creditors, austerity measures
are required that usually lead to higher
unemployment, spending cuts to criticalsocial programs, and massive protests.
The situation is unlikely to improve as
governments sign up for the only solution
20
offered: more debt and less autonomy.

Subsidies and regulations geared
toward ever-increasing trade,combined with the deregulation of
trade and finance, have helped to
expand the size of markets to global
proportions. In the process, largetransnational corporations and banks
have been able to grow still larger byinvading and absorbing the markets
of smaller, more locally-oriented
businesses. Although they areunaccountable to any electorate,
many of these corporations are now
so big that they wield more economic
and political power than national
governments: of the 175 largest
economies in the world in 2011, 111
were corporations. 21 The revenue ofa single company, Shell, was larger thanthe GDP of 110 individual countries andmore than that of Ireland, New Zealandand Bangladesh combined.
$$

The largest global economies in 2011

(Nonetheless, the United States
government alone provides between$10 billion and $52 billion a year in
subsidies and tax cuts to large oilcompanies – Shell included.) 22
The globalization of the economy
has given big businesses unprecedented
influence over policymaking.
Governments naively support what
they think of as “their” transnationals,
even though corporations today
demonstrate no loyalty to place.
Some of this benevolence towards
large corporations may stem from the“revolving door” between governmentand big business. For example, theformer chair of the US Federal
Communications Commission (FCC)
is now the CEO of the cable industry’s
primary lobbying group, the National
Cable and Telecommunications
Association – a position the current FCC
chair once held. 23 Such blatant conflictsof interest are now commonplace:a 2011 study revealed that 400 former
US legislators and 5,400 former
congressional staffers had become
lobbyists over the previous decade. 24
While governments claim they are
representing 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 involving
just two countries – the reality isthat the representatives aroundthe negotiating table are essentially21

working on behalf of transnational
corporations. For example, negotiations
for the TPP have been held in secretbehind closed doors, with the public left
to depend on leaked documents for
information about what’s being
proposed; meanwhile, over 600 corporate“trade advisors” have had seats at thenegotiating tables from the beginning. 25
Campaign contributions also playa role. During the US Senate debate
over “fast-tracking” the TPP, forexample, members of the US BusinessCoalition for TPP – comprising manyof the largest corporations in the
country – made donations totalling
more than $1 million to the campaign
war chests of key senators. “It’s a rarething for members of Congress to go
against the money these days,” said
Mansur Gidfar, spokesman for the anticorruption group Represent.Us. “Theyknow exactly which special interests
they need to keep happy if they wantto fund their re-election campaigns or
26
secure a future job as a lobbyist.”
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 has
been the erosion of democracy and aninternational “race to the bottom”,
with social, environmental and healthstandards in almost every country
heading towards the lowest
common denominator.

In the long term, the increasingly
globalized economy has no winners.
Among the first losers have beensmall farmers, the poor, and thedisenfranchised. But as the economic,
social and environmental costs ofglobalization mount, not even thewealthy few can escape its impact:
they too must survive on an
22

ecologically degraded planet and suffer
the consequences of a social fabricripped apart.

Here are just some of thecosts of globalization:

As corporations roam the world seeking
the cheapest labor and most lax
regulatory environment, livelihood
security 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 of
27
682,900 jobs in the US. At the same time,
Mexican family farmers were also hit hardby the trade agreement, with heavilysubsidized US corn flooding into Mexico,
reducing the price received by small
Mexican farmers by over 60 percent from28
the 1990s to 2005. Millions of small
farmers have been adversely affected,
with nearly 2 million forced out of
farming altogether since NAFTA's
inception. The benefits have been hard todiscern: despite the new factory jobs on
the US-Mexican border (where people toil
under sweatshop conditions, disconnectedfrom community), the unemployment rate
29
in 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 marketer
Amazon employs about 14 people forevery $10 million in retail sales. Mainstreet shops employ 47 people for the
30same amount of sales.

Employees per $10
million in retail sales

Globalization is intensifying thealready serious ecologicalconsequences of industrializationby spreading a resource-intensive,
growth-based consumer economy
to every corner of the world.
Evidence of global environmental
decline abounds. Thanks to corporate
agriculture, topsoil is being rapidly lost
through nutrient depletion and erosion.
Whole tracts of irreplaceable forest are
being decimated by the global timber,oil, and mining industries. The planet's
diversity of plant and animal species
is being lost at 100 to 1,000 times thenatural rate of extinction, ranking thisas one of the planet's great extinction
waves. 31 While terrestrial wildlife
struggles to survive, the health of
the world's oceans is also spiraling
downwards – the product of plastic
waste, pollution, acidification andindustrial fishing. And while climatechange already threatens our very
survival, economic globalization threatens
to make it worse: even the WTO admits
that “more open trade would be likely
32
to increase CO2 emissions.”
The continued deregulation of financeand trade is creating an extractive megamachine, with trillions of dollars
searching for ever more energy andresources through gas-fracking,mountaintop removal, tar sands mining,
deep sea oil wells, nuclear power, geoengineering, and more. And as people
in developing countries are encouraged
to emulate a Western lifestyle, thesituation is rapidly worsening. Already,India is the third largest emitter of CO2
in the world; its per capita emissions
33
are projected to triple by 2030. A 2014
study assessing the ecological footprintof nations highlights the impossibilityof creating a global consumer economy
in which everyone lives the American
Dream: if everyone had the same percapita ecological footprint as an average
34
American, we would need 3.9 planets.
Accelerating these trends throughglobalization is simply incompatible

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

Because globalization encourages
countries to specialize theirproduction, most now rely on
imports for even basic domestic
needs. Tied to a complex systemof imports and exports, they aretightly linked to a volatile global
economy over which they have nocontrol. Natural disasters, wars,
disease, economic slumps – and ofcourse, speculation – in one part of
the world can have a direct impact
on countries many thousands ofmiles away. In fact, a growing
body of evidence now shows that
economic globalization has created
new systemic risks and vulnerabilities.

As decision-making becomes
centralized into unelected,
unaccountable bodies like theWTO, the IMF, and the European
Commission, the influence of theindividual steadily shrinks. This is true
even in nominally democratic
countries: people may still have theright to vote for national and local
leaders, but as political parties fromboth the left and right embrace thewishes of corporate and banking
interests, voting can become all but
meaningless. And as corporate
interests become ever richer thanks
to globalization, they are able toincrease their expenditures onlobbyists, campaign contributions,and political advertising – giving themstill more influence over government
decision-making.

23

Contrary to the empty slogan,“a rising tide lifts all boats,” global
growth is actually leading to awidening gap between rich and poor.
The wealth of the 80 richest people
now equals that of the poorest halfof the world's population – morethan 3 billion people – and the35
inequality is worsening.
Historically, the widest disparities
in wealth were between rich and poor
nations. However, as globalization
has swept around the world, income
inequality has become a pressing
issue within most countries. In China,
for example, measures of inequality
nearly doubled between 1980 and2010. In one recent survey, Chinese
people ranked inequality as thecountry's top social challenge, ahead
36
of corruption and unemployment.
Since the end of the apartheid era,
the wealth gap in South Africa has
also increased, with shanty-towns
butted up against luxury, gated37
housing developments. And in nearly
every industrialized country,
income inequality has risen since38
the 1970s.

ONE BILLION

In 2005, 1 billion
people lived inurban slums. This
figure is expected
to double by 2030.

Globalization erodes rural economies,
leading to a massive population shift
from rural areas to the cities. This isparticularly true in the South, where
the global economy is steadily breaking
down more self-reliant systems,
leaving people little alternative but to
migrate to cities whose populations are
already exploding. As recently as 2005,
a staggering 1 billion people lived in

24

urban slums – a number
expected to double by 2030.
During the era of globalization, tensof millions of people have been evictedfrom their lands to make way fordevelopment projects undertaken in
the name of “progress” and “growth”.
A 2015 report by the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists
found that in the preceding decadealone, development projects fundedby the World Bank “physically or
economically displaced an estimated
3.4 million people, forcing them fromtheir homes, taking their land or
39
damaging their livelihoods.”
This kind of displacement has
been a primary driver of the growthof mega-slums, which are alreadyhome to nearly one billion people
in the 'developing' world. 40
China offers an especiallysobering case of forced urbanization.
The official policy in that country is
to move hundreds of millions of rural
Chinese into urban areas over the next
few decades in the name of economic
growth and development. According
to a New York Times report, “theultimate goal of the government's
modernization plan is to fully integrate
70 percent of the country's population,or roughly 900 million people, into city
living by 2025.” 41 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's
increasingly mechanized factories will
be able to absorb such a massive influxof workers (the country has started toexperience so-called “jobless growth”).
Moreover, the urban jobs that are
created are often highly exploitative.
As the AFL-CIO has pointed out,
China's primary economic advantage
has rested on the government's“unremitting repression ofworkers' rights [and] the ruthless
exploitation of an estimated
100 million rural migrants.” 42
Even in the most industrializedcountries, the urbanizing processcontinues: jobs in the global
economy are concentrated in sprawling
metropolitan areas and their suburbs,
while rural regions are systematically
sapped of economic vitality.
In addition to a host of social
problems, urbanization contributes
to a substantial increase in resource use
and pollution: virtually every material
need of urbanized populations must be
shipped in from elsewhere, while theresulting waste – much of which would
be of use in a rural setting – becomes ahighly concentrated source of pollution.

There is a structural link between
globalization and monoculture: global
corporations are successful only if they
can market on a massive scale for a huge
number of homogenized consumers.
In agriculture, this has meant a dramatic
decrease in diversity, with thousands of
local varieties abandoned for the relative
few suited to monocultural production
and favored by short-term profit
motives. Overall, approximately
75 percent of the world's agricultural
diversity was lost in the last century,a narrowing of the genetic base thatputs food security at risk everywhere. 43
A handful of corporations now
controls a growing proportion of theworld's food supply. Contrary tocommon belief, this means an inefficient,wasteful use of natural resources: largescale monocultures are actually lessproductive per acre than smaller
diversified farms. Corporate control also
threatens access to food for many
people, like the residents of so-called“food deserts,” who are surroundedby packaged junk food but not
nutritious, healthy, fresh food. Today,
in fact, when the food supply is more
tightly controlled by corporations thanever before, some 870 million people
are undernourished 44 – even thoughmore than enough food is produced toadequately feed everyone on the planet.

Globalization is contributing to
a decline in our physical well-being.
Societies in the West are experiencing
unprecedented rates of obesity,
diabetes, heart disease and cancer,
with the elite in developing
countries fast catching up. Global
food – genetically modified, ladenwith pesticide residues, preservatives,
artificial flavorings and processed
fats, and nutritionally depleted fromlong-term storage and long-distancetransport – contributes significantly
to 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-controlled
mega-technologies that have arisen
in tandem with globalization. Many
industrial agricultural inputs havebeen shown to be carcinogenic,
while others contain endocrine
disruptors that are extremely
toxic even in minute amounts.
Microwave radiation from the useof cell phones and wireless devices has
increased exponentially in recent years,
with potential health impacts that have
yet to be adequately studied. The sameis true of nano-technologies, whichhave been incorporated into everyday
products and rushed to market withlittle attention paid to the long-term
health consequences. The global
economy also relies on massive andever-increasing amounts of energy,
with a wide range of associatedhealth impacts. The effects of fossil fueldependence range from elevated rates
of pollution-related respiratory diseases
to “cancer alleys” near refineries. The
health impacts of nuclear power will
be felt near Japan's Fukushima plantfor generations to come, while themillions of tons of spent fuel and lowlevel radioactive material piling up
at other nuclear plants are healthhazards now, and will remain sofor thousands of years to come.

25

Every day, people in the less-developed
parts of the world are bombarded withmedia images that present the modern,Western consumer lifestyle as the ideal,
while implicitly denigrating local
traditions 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 to
local products; that “imported is good,
local is crap,” in the words of an45
advertising executive in China. Global
advertising expenditures exceeded $500
billion in 2014, with the highest rate ofspending growth occurring in the less46
industrialized countries of the South.
People are not only being lured toabandon local foods for McDonald's
hamburgers and local dress fordesigner jeans, they are induced
to remake their own identities toemulate the glamorous blonde-haired,
blue-eyed stars of Hollywood films
and American-style advertising. For
the vast majority around the world,
the attempt to live up to this artificial
ideal will prove impossible. Whatfollows is often a profound sense of
failure, inferiority and self-rejection.
People are feeling the effects even in
the West – the supposed epicenter ofglamour. No matter who you are or
where you live, the global consumer
monoculture imposes an ideal that is
impossible to attain, fueling feelings ofinsecurity that make it easier for
corporate 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-18
age 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 of47
disability worldwide.” Perhaps mostalarming of all, in 2010 the WHO
found that global rates of suicide had

26

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

The rise of violence and civil disorderaround the world is a predictableeffect of an economic system that
imposes monocultural stereotypes
while simultaneously heightening
economic insecurity. The loss of
self-esteem, along with intensecompetition for increasingly
scarce jobs, is leading to deep social
divisions. As people become trappedin a demoralizing system of cutthroat competition, there is an allbut-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 abusing
women and children in their own
communities. And worldwide, allforms of religious fundamentalism
are on the rise – Islamic, Christian,Jewish, Hindu and even Buddhist.

27

I

f globalization is the root of somany problems, it seems obviousthat localization – a shift awayfrom the global and towards the local –offers a systemic answer. Such a shift will
require efforts on two very different levels.
At the “bottom up” grassroots level,
millions of local and regional enterprises
are already demonstrating that they
can do a better job than the handfulof monopolies that currently dominate
the provision of basic needs. These
community-based economic structures
reweave the social and economic fabricin ways that meet the needs of nature– both wild and human. But in orderfor these initiatives to spread more
widely, localization also requires“top down” policy change. Taxes andsubsidies need to be shifted, and tradeand finance need to be re-regulated
so that businesses (banks included)
become place-based and adhere to
the rules and regulations
determined by society.

What is localization?
localization. noun. 1. the removal of fiscal and other supports that currently favor giant
transnational 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 mean
encouraging every community to be entirely self-reliant; it simply means shortening
the 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 or
avocados, 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 reduce
unnecessary 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.

Calling for a fundamental shift
in direction can elicit a chorusof objections. Here are some of
the most common:

28

There is a widespread belief thatpeople in the countries of the Southneed Northern markets to lift
themselves out of poverty, and thata greater degree of self-reliance in the
North would therefore undermineThird World economies. But a gradualshift towards smaller scale and more
localized production would actually
benefit both North and South, andfacilitate meaningful work and fuller
employment everywhere. As things
stand, the globalized economy requires
the South to send a large portion of its
natural resources to the North as raw
materials; its best agricultural land must
be devoted to growing food, fiber, andeven flowers for the North; and a gooddeal of the South's labor is employed in
the cheap manufacture of goods forNorthern markets. Rather than further
impoverishing the South, producing
more in the North would allow theSouth to keep more of its own
resources, labor and production foritself. For example, a recent study
showed that 550 million people in Asia,
Africa, and Oceania could be fed fromland that has been taken over by foreign
governments and corporations – mostly
49
for exported food and biofuel crops.

While shifting towards the local
would require some intentionalchanges in policy, it is in fact today's“jobless growth” society that entails
social and environmental engineering
on an unprecedented scale: vast
stretches of the planet and entire
economies 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. And
in countries like India and China,
policymakers explicitly call for moving
hundreds of millions of people fromvillages to urban centers.
Rather than a centralized prescription
from above, localization creates
opportunities for diverse communities
to define and pursue their own future.

There is no doubt that we needinternational collaboration to solve
our global problems. Governments
and grassroots groups alike need to
exchange information across borders,
and to push for binding agreements to
reduce pollution, poverty and conflict.
Unfortunately, many people believethat the globalization of the economy
is necessary in order to bring about
this type of collaboration. But as wehave shown, globalization is leading
to more conflict and competition, andexacerbating the very social andenvironmental problems we mosturgently need to address. Forging
international alliances that focus
on scaling down the power ofmultinational corporations — enabling
societies to set the rules for business,rather than the other way around— is the most strategic way forward.

What is too easily forgotten is thatnearly half of the world's people today– mostly in the Third World – are still
rural. Ignoring them – speaking as if
people are urbanized as part of thehuman condition – is a very dangerous
misconception, one that is helping tofuel the whole process of urbanization.
It is thus considered utopian to suggest
a ruralization of America's or Europe's
population, while China's plans to move
250 million people off the land and into
cities by 2025 hardly elicits surprise.
Even in the North, rural communities
are being steadily dismantled, their
populations pushed into spreading
suburbanized megalopolises wherethe vast majority of available jobs arelocated. In the United States, where only
15 percent of the population still lives inrural areas, there are now fewer fulltime farmers than there are full-time
prisoners. 50 It is impossible to offer that29

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”?

Even though people physicallyoccupy a smaller land area in cities,
urban centers around the world are
extremely resource-intensive. The
large-scale, centralized systems theyrequire are, almost without exception,
more stressful to the environment
than small-scale, diversified, locallyadapted systems. Food, water,building materials and energy for
cities all come from great distances
via vast energy-consuming
infrastructures; their concentrated
wastes must be hauled away in trucks
and barges, or incinerated at greatcost to the environment. In their glassand steel towers with windows thatnever open, even air to breathe must
be provided by fans, pumps and nonrenewable energy. From the mostaffluent sections of Paris to the slumsof Kolkata, urban populations depend
on increasing amounts of packaging
and transport for their food, so thatevery pound of food consumed isaccompanied by still more petroleum
consumption, as well as significant
amounts of pollution and waste.
The problem is not the city per se:
smaller towns and cities that maintaina balance with their rural surroundings
are able to maintain both ecologicaland cultural vitality. But urbanization
today continues to break down those
healthier urban-rural relationships.
It is a continuous process ofcentralization – of aggregating
populations in sprawling metropolises
separated from their most basic needs.
This process may create “efficiencies”
for the corporations that profit byproviding those needs, but from anecological and resource perspective
it is neither sustainable nor efficient.

30

It's often said that people
everywhere are more attracted tocity life, and that therefore the urban
tide cannot be turned. However weneed to keep in mind that there has
been tremendous pressure – both
psychological and structural – topull people into cities. At the dawnof the globalizing economy thesepressures included force and genocide.
Later on, the pressures involved acontinuous romanticizing of moderncity life: the message was that urban
modernity offered an escape from the
supposed brutishness, ignorance andhopelessness of rural life.
Today, similar psychological pressurescome from films, television programs
and advertising, from schoolbooks andclassrooms, even from the internet.
Almost all our avenues for gaining
knowledge have been profoundly
affected 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 support
urbanization; in the process, smaller
cities, 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. Urban
life continues to be depicted as thelocus of cutting-edge culture, whilejobs and economic opportunities areconcentrated in high-tech urban areas
and their surrounding suburbs.
None of this is inevitable. If steps
were taken to provide resources andemployment opportunities in smaller
towns and rural areas, there is little
doubt that these places would thrive
both economically and culturally, andwould begin attracting residents.
A study in Finland some years ago
asked people in Helsinki: “if you couldhave the same job in a smaller town,
would you prefer to go there rather
than stay in the capital?” The majority
responded that they would opt tomove out of the big city. Throughout
the industrialized world, increasing
numbers of young people are actively
trying to move back to the land, as
seen in the new farmers movement,
the permaculture movement, and theeco-village movement.

Supporters of industrialized
agriculture 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 our
pesticides, fertilizers, genetic
modification and high-tech processing
systems, a tragically large proportionof the global population still goes to bed
hungry every night. This is because thegoal of the globalized system is not toprovide adequate, nutritious food forpeople, but to provide profits for large
agribusinesses, 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 Committee
on Trade and Development, “relying
on international markets to meet
staple food demand, while
specializing in the production andexport of 'lucrative' cash crops, hasrecently failed to deliver its desired
results.” 51 The 60 international
experts who contributed to the report
recommended a “mosaic” approach
to food production, supporting small
farmers, agricultural diversity andself-reliance. Not only would thissystem help alleviate poverty andhunger, it would also produce more
food overall. Studies carried out allover the world show that small-scale,diversified farms have a higher total

output per unit of land than largescale monocultures. In Kenya, forexample, researchers found that
if all domestic farms had the same
productivity as the smallest ones,
the country's agricultural output
would double. 52 Unfortunately,
Kenyan farms are still being
taken over by foreign corporations,amalgamated and turned into vast
monocultures for export.

Any international trade needs to be
fair. Today's fair trade standards canoffer guidance, but the primaryemphasis should be on producing
for local needs rather than for export.
Even under fair trade conditions,a dependence on foreign marketsmeans a precarious existence for
producers. Countries in both Northand South would be far better off
if 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 often
looked down upon, something to be left
behind as we surge towards a gleaming,
high-tech future. The localization
movement doesn't idealize the past, but
draws important lessons from both thehistory of land-based cultures and thehistory of their demise. These teach us
the importance of local knowledge andof embedding culture in local
ecosystems. They teach us how
community is strengthened by local
economic interactions, and how
community forms the basis for strong
individual identity and self-esteem.
And they teach us the cost of severing
these connections to people and place.
(see “Rethinking the Past: Ancient
Futures”, page 32).

31

Ladakh

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 colonial
era in the South. Though suchinformation is not widely publicized,
there are nonetheless numerous
accounts that show what life inlargely self-reliant communities was
like. As I mentioned earlier, theisolated region of Ladakh, or “Little
Tibet”, is one place that can provide
some clues. I was fortunate to be able
to experience this traditional culture
while it was still largely unaffectedby the global economy.

Protected by high mountainpasses, Ladakh had been spared
the impacts of colonialism and,
until recently, development.
When I arrived in 1975, Ladakh's
community-based culture andeconomy still provided people
with a sense of self-esteem andcontrol over their own lives.
Despite a harsh and barren highaltitude environment andextreme winter temperatures, theLadakhis were prospering bothmaterially and, even more
importantly, emotionally. Overtime, I came to realize that they32

were among the freest, mostpeaceful and joyous people I
had ever met. I also discoveredthat their happiness translated
into a remarkable tolerance,
an acceptance of difference
and of adversity.
But since then, in less than ageneration, this culture has been
dramatically changed by the global
economy. Development has
effectively dismantled the local
economy; it has shifted decisionmaking power away from womenin the household and village to maledominated bureaucracies in distanturban centers; it has changed theeducation of children away from afocus on local resources and needs
towards preparation for an urban
economy; it has implicitly informed
the 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 smallminded gossip, and unprecedented
levels of divisiveness and friction.
The intense competition for jobs
and political power in the modern
economy even led to violent conflict
between Buddhists and Muslims,
groups that had lived peacefullyside by side in Ladakh for 500 years.

If we look closer we can see thatthe same process has unfolded incultures and communities around theworld. For instance, in my native
Sweden – and in almost every otherindustrialized nation – the process
of modernization dismantled smallerscale, diversified food production infavor of large-scale agriculture, andweakened community life in favor of
rapid urbanization. As people foundthemselves alone in high-riseapartments – dependent on hightechnology and distant bureaucracies
rather 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 Stockholm
were inhabited by one person living
alone; at the same time, rates ofdepression, alcoholism and suicide
were on the increase.
Even in a country like Spain,
where the globalized development
process has been underway for
decades, change has been evident
from one year to the next: farmers'
markets replaced by supermarkets
stocked with imported foods;
walkable, rural towns abandoned
for the big city; plastic packaging
choking the countryside; people too
stressed 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 progress
to bring about “one world”, where
everyone looks familiar, speaks
English, and shares our worldview
and cultural habits. But because thediversity of languages and cultures
is inextricably linked to the diversityof the natural world, erasing either

form of diversity is equally disastrous.
The vitally important need to adapt
to diversity is a truth that has beenburied and hidden during 500 yearsof conquest, colonialism and economic
development. Around the world,monocultural ideas and practices havebeen imposed at every level. Even in
the search for sustainability there has
been a tendency to assume that “onesize fits all” – that people everywhereshould live in “smart cities”, drive
hybrid cars and embrace vegetarianism.
But there is, of course, no one single
formula for life: the need for diversity
extends down to every blade of grass,to every earthworm and songbird, andto the identities of unique individuals
within a myriad of different cultures.
Erasing diversity is simply
incompatible with life. For that reason,
globalization – which systematicallyreplaces diversity with monoculture– is also incompatible with life.
The repercussions are already being
felt from Europe to the Americas,
from Africa to Asia, in North andSouth alike. As the globalizing
monoculture drives people from theland into ever larger cities, it creates
unnecessary competition and stress,and disconnects us from each otherand nature. This disconnection
manifests itself in social unrest,
environmental breakdown and adecrease in psychological well-being.
Localization isn't about returning
to the past. But it does meanacknowledging what older cultures
did well: they relied on local
resources and local knowledge tomeet people's material needs, andas a result did so with a minimumof environmental impact; and they
put a high value on community ties,
which enabled them to meet people's
psychological need for connection
and security. These are lessons weneed to keep in mind as we searchfor solutions to our current crises.

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

G

It may seem impossible to shift public
policy away from globalization andtowards the local, since policy makers
the world over continually acquiesce
to 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 parts
economic growth, trade-promotion, hightechnology and corporate sponsorship),this movement seeks fundamental
structural change.
Absolutely central to the system ofcorporate rule are the trade treaties.
And since the historic protests against
the WTO in Seattle, Washington in
1999, there have been demonstrations
at nearly every major international
trade meeting, from the G8 to theWorld Economic Forum. Protesters
have sometimes numbered in thehundreds of thousands, bringing
worldwide attention to a processthat had previously been hidden frompublic view. Just six years before theSeattle demonstrations, NAFTA waspushed through with relatively little
resistance. Today, as corporate
negotiators try to exert the same
control over government policy with
the TPP and the TTIP, they are meetingwith heavy resistance – not just fromconcerned citizens, but even from manyelected representatives. Because of the
public awareness generated throughyears of citizen campaigns, theselawmakers are feeling the pressure
from below and are demanding toknow the details – kept secret during
the negotiations – before any vote istaken. The atmosphere of resistancehas ensured that future trade decisions– which so fundamentally affect thewell-being of the planet and its
citizens – will be subject togreater public scrutiny.
Another well-known expressionof resistance has been the Occupy
movement. Beginning withdemonstrations on Wall Street in
September 2011, the movement
spread quickly across the world.
Thousands of demonstrations took
place, hundreds of camps were set up,
and a spirit of community arose froma shared struggle that bridged social
divides in unprecedented ways. The
99% captured the world's attention
and put the concerns of ordinary
people on the political agenda.
Although the camps have beencleared, the essential spirit of the
movement still lives on.
People's movements are coming
together to transcend dichotomies ofleft and right and to go beyond politics
as usual. This thinking is flourishing in
the “new economy coalitions” that are
forming in the US and Europe. At stateand local levels, these groups havesucceeded in passing ordinances that
support local food, community rights
and other essential components oflocalization. Likewise, the Five Star
Movement (M5S), a populist, anticorruption party in Italy, is working
to bridge traditional party divides.
With a platform of public water,
sustainable transport, degrowthand environmentalism, M5S captured
a substantial proportion of votes in the35

2013 general election.
These examples show that evena relatively small group of wellorganized and informed people
can have a huge impact. Getting
governments to shift course is
not impossible, or even unlikely,
once enough people understandthat – in addition to its dramatic
environmental impacts –globalized growth is threatening
their livelihoods and pension
funds, and even impoverishing
their governments. (see “Big
Picture Activism”, below)

Despite the countless grassroots
projects already under way, theglobal economic juggernaut canseem too powerful to stop. But
because more and more of us are
becoming aware of how disastrous
the global economy is for people andthe planet, I believe that the chances
for meaningful change are greater
today than ever before.
The environmental costs of thecurrent system have been obvious
for quite some time; now the social
consequences, too, are becoming
more apparent. The gap between
rich and poor is escalating to obscene
proportions; most people are seeing
their real incomes decline, and must
work longer hours just to cover basic
needs. Governments – many of them
too poor to meet their obligations – now
respond to the wishes of international
lenders rather than their own citizens.
People are beginning to understand thatsomething is fundamentally wrong, andthat minor tinkering with the current
system is not the answer. A critical massis ready for fundamental change: what's
needed is a clear explanation of the root
cause of the crises we face, andsolutions that are meaningful.
Helping to create that critical massis the goal of what I call “big picture

36

activism”. Raising awarenessinvolves more than just theoreticalanalysis: every day we can point
to inspiring new examples of
localization 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.
Big picture activism also involves awidespread and holistic re-thinking ofbasic assumptions. Today's consumer
culture is based on myths andmisinformation that paralyze andconfuse people with contradictoryideas: on the one hand the evening
news regularly asks whether consumer
spending is adequate to keep the world
going; on the other hand we're told that
consumer greed is destroying theworld. We need to point out that it is
not individual greed that created thiseconomic system. None of us voted
to put in place an economy that uses
subsidies, regulations and our taxes
to work against both personal andplanetary well-being.
Until recently, the broad
perspective needed to deconstruct
the global economic system has
been marginalized, with the fieldleft to narrowly focused market
fundamentalists. As a result, it
appeared that the only viableoption was to head towards everlarger and more inhumaneconomic scale, with wealth andpower concentrated in ever fewer
hands. Big picture activism informs
us that another way is possible.
For big picture activism to
succeed, a number of mental
blocks need to be overcome. Many
people want to move straight toaction when they recognize a
problem; they say: “we alreadyknow that the economy’s the
problem and that corporations
have too much power – we don’t
need to keep discussing that.” But
while most of us have a sense that
economic forces are behindenvironmental and social justiceproblems, few understand how theeconomy undermines individualand cultural self-esteem; how it
exacerbates ethnic, racial andreligious conflict; and how it
damages our physical andpsychological health. Nor is the
majority aware that trade treaties
have given corporations and banks
so much power that they havebecome a de facto global government– ruling behind the scenes regardlessof whether a “left” or “right” party
has been elected. A broad, global-tolocal perspective can make eventhose who already oppose corporate
rule more effective.
I also hear people saying, “thesystem is going to collapse of its own
accord, there's no need to waste timetrying to change it.” But despite its
deep flaws and contradictions, theeconomic system may outlive muchof the natural and social world.
Many years ago, the Swiss economist
H.C. Binswanger convinced me thatderegulated capital – money delinked from any standard or limit –could keep multiplying endlessly,
even as ecosystems and societies
crash. In other words, the economy
could keep growing until the lasttree falls. A depressing scenario,
and one that we must do everything
we can to prevent.
Unfortunately, many have completely
given up on the idea of fundamentallychanging the system. Even committed
activists sometimes say: “there's nopoint in trying – governments won't
listen 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 gas
fracking and nuclear energy, and yet
governments continue to promote thosetechnologies. However, the potential
for people to really be heard will growexponentially when they move beyond
a fragmented perspective to focus on
the common thread that runs throughall their concerns. Since the current

system is so destructive of both people
and the planet, a “new economy”
movement – one that is clear about
what we are for, not just what we areagainst – has far greater potential tosucceed than almost any
single-issue campaign.
There is another stumbling block,one which is particularly common
among 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. This
deeper consciousness creates a yearning
to turn away from the competition andconsumerism of the global economy
and build more loving relationships
with others and the Earth. Until recently,
however, there was a tendency in the
New Age to focus almost exclusively
on the “inner” dimension, on “thinking
positively”and personal change. Andamong those who focused on this innerworld, many tended to look down on
activists 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. Even
though their work is usually born of
altruism, ignoring the innerdimension has often hampered theirefforts. Neglecting peace of mind andinner reflection and focusing on thenegative can lead to self-righteousness
and helpless anger. Burnout, conflict,and alienation have often been theconsequences. Big picture activism
makes clear that our problems haveboth an inner and an outer dimension,and that solving them requires
working on both levels.
Big picture activism does not pointa finger at individual politicians,
corporations or bankers. As I argued
at the outset, our destructive economic
system continues to expand primarily
because of ignorance. The economic
pundits that promote this growthmodel have been trained to look atflows of money and numerical37

representations of the world, and areshielded from many of the real-lifesocial and ecological consequences of
their abstract models. The CEOs of large
corporations and banks are driven by
speculative markets to meet short-term
profit and growth targets, and so haveeven less ability to contemplate theoverall impact of their actions. Even
concerned consumers, taxpayers andcitizens can find it difficult to see themany hidden ways that their choices
support an energy-intensive, job- andsoul-destroying economy.
The system has been running on
blindness for a long time, enabling
tremendous destruction to beperpetrated with the best of intentions.
The way forward lies not in anger andconfrontation, but in actively seeking
to encourage peaceful, broad-based,
systemic change.
Awareness can spread like fire,
and it's empowering to realizethat we don't necessarily need toconvince our political and economic
leaders – who tend to be too locked
into their misguided assumptions –or that sector of the population thatis deeply immersed in consumerism.
Despite enormous financial and timepressures, there is a large number ofengaged and concerned people who
are working to make the world abetter place. They may be focusedon improving their children's school,
working to protect wildlife,
reducing CO2 emissions, feeding
the hungry, or promoting spiritualand ethical values. No matter what
problem they're addressing, theeconomy is a common threadthat links them all.
In recent years, many individuals
and organizations involved in theseseparate campaigns have begun toembrace a holistic approach that moves
beyond single issues. As a result, a bigpicture, broad analysis is beginning tobuild a broad, united movement.
People are harnessing their love, theirhope and their creativity to give birth
to a new world – to cultures andeconomies of happiness.

38

Trade treaties
Instead of continuing to deregulate
global trade, nations could work
together on agreements that prioritize
healthy local and national economies.
The purpose of trade would no longer
be to increase corporate profits andGDP, but to provide markets forsurplus production and to obtain goods
that cannot be produced domestically.
There are already international
networks of organizations andindividuals opposing the further
deregulation of trade. In Europe, morethan 80 of these groups came together
to draft an Alternative Trade Mandate,with 193 candidates for parliament
pledging to support the Mandate's
aims. These include proposals to “allow
countries, regions and communities toregulate the production, distribution
and consumption of goods andservices; ... to prioritize local andregional food systems over global
agricultural trade; ... [and] to holdcorporations accountable for thesocial and environmental impacts
53of their operations.”

Financial policies
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 investment
sector needs to be freed of outdated
laws that make it almost impossible forpeople to invest in their communities
through retirement funds andsecurities exchanges.
Shifts in lending practices are alsoneeded. Currently, small businesses
are discriminated against, withcorporate banks charging themsignificantly higher interest rates

for loans than they charge big firms.
They also often require that small
business owners personally
guarantee their loans – a guarantee
not sought from the directors of large
businesses. If more support were
given to community banks and credit
unions, a greater number and varietyof local businesses would thrive. In
the United States, for example, small,
localized financial institutions hold
only about 11 percent of the banking
assets, but they account for morethan one-third of small business54
lending nationwide.

Indicators of
economic health
Decision-makers often point to risinglevels of GDP as proof that their policies
are working. What they fail toacknowledge is that GDP is woefully
misleading as a measure of a country's
wealth. GDP is simply a gross measureof market activity, of money changing
hands. It does not distinguish between
the desirable and the undesirable,
between costs and gain. Increased
expenditures on cancer, crime, caraccidents 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 countries
the standard of living of the vast
majority – including the middle class– is steadily declining. Today, in fact,even governments are getting poorer
as their national GDP rises.
What's more, GDP considers only
those activities that involve monetarytransactions, thereby leaving out thefunctions of family, community, andthe environment. Thus, paying tosend one's children to a day-care
center adds to GDP, while care athome by members of the family
does not. A forest cut down andturned into pulp adds to GDP, but
a standing forest – crucial to thehealth of the biosphere – does not.
In the South, policies that focus onelevating GDP systematically lead tothe breakdown of self-reliant economies
that provide people's needs with little
use of cash. Through the process of“development”, healthy self-relianceis thus replaced by real poverty within
the global economy.
A variety of alternatives to GDP arebeing developed and applied. Perhaps
the best known of these is the Genuine
Progress Indicator (GPI). It extends
what is measured to combine “critical
economic, environmental and social
factors into a single framework in orderto give a more accurate picture of the
progress – and the setbacks – we havemade.” 55 The GPI has already been
calculated 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 recently
mandated that the state's GPI be
calculated each year.
Many people have also been inspiredby the example of Bhutan, whose thenKing articulated the concept of Gross
National Happiness (GNH) as analternative to GDP in 1972. In 2004,
Bhutan helped launch an international
movement to explore and promote theGross National Happiness model.
(Unfortunately, Bhutan’s current
government has begun distancing
itself from the GNH concept.)

Taxation
In almost every country, tax
regulations systematicallydiscriminate against small- andmedium-scale businesses. Smallerscale, sustainable production isusually more labor intensive, andheavy taxes are levied on laborthrough income taxes, social welfare
taxes, payroll taxes, etc. Meanwhile,
tax breaks (accelerated depreciation,
investment allowances and tax credits,39

etc.) are afforded the capital- andenergy-intensive technologies used bylarge corporate producers. Reversing
this bias in the tax system would not
only help local economies, but would
create more jobs by favoring people
instead of machines.
Similarly, taxes on the energy
used in production would encouragebusinesses that are less dependent
on high levels of technological input –which again means smaller, morelabor-intensive enterprises. And if
fossil 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 regional
production for local consumption,
and a healthy diversification of
the economy.

Decentralized
renewable energy
Currently, renewable energy
technologies receive less than a fifthof the amount of subsidies given
fossil fuels. 56 Reversing this imbalance
would result in less pollution, morejobs, and long-term cost savings. For
example, one study found that if New
York State switched to renewables, itwould result in a decline of around
4,000 pollution-related deaths
annually. The state would save about$33 billion while creating permanent
jobs in manufacturing, installationand maintenance. 57
For all forms of energy, including
renewables, it's preferable thatpower plants be decentralized.
By putting energy sources close to
their end use, there is less need fortransmission networks that reduce
efficiency, use more resources, andgobble up more land. Decentralized
power sources also help to keep
money from “leaking” out of local
economies and thereby ensure
greater decentralization of40

political power as well.
In the South, where a large
proportion of the population is still
rural, large-scale energy plants – fromcoal and nuclear to huge hydro-electric
dams – are geared towards the needs ofurban areas and export-oriented
production, thus promoting bothurbanization and globalization.
Supporting decentralized renewableenergy infrastructures instead would
strengthen villages, smaller towns andrural economies in general, thereby
helping to halt unhealthy urbanization.
While no policy is perfect, local andnational governments around the world
are adopting new laws that are helping
to spur the expansion of decentralized
renewable energy, including tax
incentives, subsidies, financing
supports such as feed-in tariffs,
and Renewable Portfolio Standards.
Germany's Renewable Energy Act andfeed-in tariff program is perhaps themost successful policy supporting
decentralized renewable energy.
Ontario, Canada's original Green
Energy Act of 2009 contained a feed-in
tariff with a bold “buy local” provisionthat provided incentives to renewableenergy projects that used local laborand manufacturing inputs.
(Unfortunately, Ontario's local
content requirement was abandonedin 2013 after a ruling that it violated
WTO regulations). In the US, statelevel Renewable Portfolio Standards(RPS) – policies that mandate
specific renewable energy targets –have sparked a rapid expansion ofsolar and wind power. Thisapproach could be improved byrequiring jurisdiction to source acertain percentage of their electricity
from decentralized and locallycontrolled renewable energy
sources. In fact, several states in the
US have already adopted policies
that promote neighborhood-scalecommunity-owned solar energy
projects, such as Colorado's Solar
Gardens Act, and Minnesota's Solar
Energy Jobs Act.

Food and agriculture
Since food is something that every
person on the planet needs every day,even small shifts in the way it isproduced, transported and marketed
can have dramatic effects. As noted in“Subsidizing inefficiency” in Part 1,
farm subsidies in most countries
heavily favor large-scale industrial
agribusinesses. Among the WTO
member countries, a full two-thirdsof subsidies go to the largest, wealthiest
farms. Funding for agricultural researchis also heavily skewed in favor of
biotechnology 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 highly
specific to, and in compliance with,organic standards.” Shifting these
expenditures towards those thatencourage smaller-scale, diversified
agriculture would help revitalize rural
economies in both North and South,
while promoting biodiversity, healthiersoils, food security, balanced anddiverse 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 for
local consumption would not only
improve economic stability, it would
also 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 bias
towards global food, local food is
now meeting with some regulatory
support. In 2013, the government of
Ontario, Canada passed a Local Food
Act aimed at increasing access to local
food, improving local food literacy,
and providing tax credits for farmers

who donate a portion of their
58
produce to nearby food banks.

Health andsafety regulations
An unfair burden often falls on
small-scale enterprises throughregulations aimed at problems
caused by large-scale production.
Battery-style chicken farms, forexample, clearly need significant
environmental and healthregulations: their millions ofgenetically identical, closely confined
animals are highly prone to disease,
their tons of concentrated effluent
need to be safely disposed of, and thelong-distance transport of processed
poultry entails the risk of spoilage.
Yet a small producer – such as a
farmer with a dozen free-range
chickens – is subject to essentially thesame regulations, often raising costs
to levels that make it impossible toremain in business. Large-scale
producers can spread the cost ofcompliance over a far greater
volume, making it appear that they
enjoy “economies of scale”oversmaller producers. Suchdiscriminatory regulations arewidespread: they are decimating
farm-based cheese producers in
Europe, local apple cider producers
in the US, and small-scale foodbusinesses in many other countries.
In what has been called a “cottage
food” bill, the state of Illinois isconsidering relaxing the restrictions
on small-scale producers of jams,
pickles and other preserved foods.
Seventeen similar bills have been
introduced across the US. 59 Several
towns in the state of Maine havegone even further: seeking to bypass
the restrictive regulations that makeit difficult to market and access local
foods, they have declared “foodsovereignty” by passing ordinances thatgive their citizens the right “to produce,
process, sell, purchase, and consume
local foods of their choosing.” 60

41

Land use regulations
Local and regional land use rules
could be amended to protect wildareas, open space and farmland fromdevelopment. Political and financial
support could be given to the various
forms of land trusts that have been
designed for this purpose. In somecases, local governments have usedpublic money to buy the development
rights to farmland, thereby
simultaneously protecting the land
from suburban sprawl while reducing
the financial pressure on farmers.
In urban areas, zoning regulations
usually segregate residential, businessand manufacturing areas – a restriction
necessitated by the needs and hazardsof large-scale production and marketing.
These could be changed to enable an
integration of homes, small shops andsmall-scale production. A rethinking ofrestrictions on community-based waysof living would also be beneficial: zoning
and other regulations aimed at limiting
high-density developments often end
up prohibiting environmentally soundliving arrangements like co-housing
and eco-villages.

Markets and public spaces
High-speed motorways built withgovernment funds indirectly subsidize
corporate super-stores, hyper-markets,and shopping malls. Spending some ofthat money instead to build or improve
spaces for public markets – such as
those that were once found in virtually
every European town and village– would enable local merchants andartisans with limited capital to sell
their wares. This would enliven town
centers while reducing car use, fossil
fuel burning and pollution.
Creating and improving spaces for
public meetings – from town halls tovillage squares – would encourage faceto-face exchanges between decision

42

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

Global media
Television, the internet and othermass media have been the recipientsof massive subsidies in the formof research and development,
infrastructure build-out, educational
training, and other direct and indirect
support. In recent years, many national
broadcasting companies have beentaken over by global media empires.
In the US, for instance, theTelecommunications Act of 1996
removed anti-monopoly provisions
and deregulated the media sector,
allowing large companies to acquire
multiple media outlets, including
television, radio and internet sites.
Such laws need to be rewritten toencourage a diversity of expression
and ownership. Furthermore,communities and nations should havethe right to restrict the bombardment of
their children by monocultural, violent
or commercial messages and images.
Supporting facilities for regional
entertainment – from community
radio stations to live music andtheater – would offer a healthy
alternative to globalized media.
The more people can engage inco-creating entertainment, such as
dancing, singing and festivals, themore community bonds arestrengthened. Children growing
up with participatory entertainment,
rather than being passively glued toa television screen or wireless device,also have a greater sense of belonging
to both place and their local culture.

Education
Schooling is beIng increasingly
geared towards the needs ofcorporations, which are presumed
to be the future employers of today'schildren. In North and South,
curricula are ever more standardized
and technology-focused. In muchof the developing world, formal
education continues to be based on
the Colonial model: rote-learning in
the language of the colonial power;
cultural and historical information
coming from abroad; and training
in skills relevant to the export
economy rather than the local
or regional economy. In mostcountries, this form of education
filters out information about
widespread social and economic
problems in the North, leaving
idealized myths about“development” and the urbanized
consumer culture intact.
Societies in both North and South
would benefit enormously from a shift
away from corporate-tailored curricula
towards diverse forms of place-basedlearning. Rather than encouraging
specialization for a competitive,“jobless growth” economy,
education would be tailored to diverse
environments, cultures and localized
economies. Providing training inregional agriculture, architecture andappropriate technology would furthera real decentralization of production
for basic needs. This does not imply
that the flow of information fromother cultures would be curtailed;in fact, cultural exchange would be
an important part of the curriculum.

Healthcare
At present, investments in healthcarefavor huge, centralized hospitals serving
urban populations. The pressure to cut
costs means that doctors and nurses
have 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 – relying
less on high technology and more on
health practitioners, health educationand preventive medicine – would bringhealthcare to more people
while boosting local economies.
Integrating less-invasive,natural healing methods into
the healthcare system would
also be beneficial.
In the South, local economies andcommunities would greatly benefit
if support for healthcare were shifted
towards localized and indigenous
alternatives that are affordable tothe majority of the population.
Modern medicine may be an
important and, indeed, life-saving
addition to healthcare in developing
countries. However, the healing
traditions that currently provide
most of the preventative care needsupport in order to survive.

In addition to these changes in
top-down policies, a global-tolocal shift requires diverse, local,bottom-up initiatives of the kindthat are already emerging.
Unlike actions to halt the global
economic juggernaut, thesesmall-scale steps requirea slow pace and an intimate
understanding of local contexts,
and are best designed andimplemented by local people
themselves. If supported by thepolicy changes discussed above,
such initiatives will, over time,
inevitably foster a return tocultural and biological diversity
and long-term sustainability.
The range of possibilities for
local grassroots efforts is as
diverse as the locales in which
they take place. The following
survey is by no means
exhaustive, but illustrates thesorts of steps being taken today.

43

Local financeCommunity banks and credit unions
allow people to invest in theirneighbors and their community,
rather than in distant corporations.
They also enable small businesses
to obtain inexpensive start-up loansof the kind that banks typically offer
only to large corporations. With the
Occupy movement bringing
renewed attention to the unfair– even illegal – practices of big
banks, a campaign was launched in
the US encouraging people to movetheir money to smaller, community
institutions. Less than two years
later more than 4 million accounts
had been switched away from thenation's Wall Street banks.
Hopeful trends are appearing
in other parts of the world, as
well. In Fortaleza, Brazil, forexample, residents of theimpoverished Palmeiraneighborhood founded theirown community bank – one thatis governed and managed by local
residents for local needs. The bankhas been a resounding success inpromoting the local economy:
before the bank was launched, only
20 percent of residents' needs werepurchased in the Palmeira district;
15 years later, 93 percent came from61
within the community.
Local investing is another trendthat is poised to take off. In the US,
Slow Money chapters have already
moved $21 million into small farms
and food businesses. 62 Other
initiatives are being explored, like
local stock exchanges, micro- andcooperative investment funds, andlocally invested pension funds.
Another way of guaranteeing thatmoney stays within the local
economy is through the creation of
local currencies that are only
recognized by community members
and local participating businesses.
Similarly, Timebanks and Local

44

Exchange Trading Systems (LETS)
are, in effect, large-scale local
barter systems. People list theservices or goods they have tooffer and the amount they expect
in return. Their account iscredited for goods or services
they 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 participate
in, and benefit from, thecirculation of credit within thelocal economy. (These initiatives
are best added onto local foodprojects – on their own they are
difficult to maintain.)

Local business“Buy local” campaigns help local
businesses survive, even when pitted
against heavily subsidized corporate
competitors. These campaigns not
only help keep money from leaking
out of the local economy, they also
help educate people about the hidden
costs – to the environment and to thecommunity – of artificially cheaper,
distantly produced goods. Grassroots
organizations have also emerged
to oppose huge corporate marketing
chains, especially in rural and smalltown economies. For example, theMcDonald's corporation – whichaspires to open a new restaurant
nearly every day in China to add
to their existing empire of 35,000
in 100 countries – has met withgrassroots resistance in at least two
63
dozen countries. In the UnitedStates, Canada and the UK, the rapid
expansion of Wal-Mart, the world’s
largest retailer, has spawned a wholenetwork of citizens groups working
to protect jobs and the fabric of theircommunities from these predatory“big box” stores. In India, where WalMart owns and operates a chain ofBest Price Modern Wholesale Stores,

a network of street vendors and small
businesses is hoping to reverse thecentral government’s support for64
these superstores.
Local business alliances enable
small and medium businesses to
network, support each other andbuild vitality in local economies. In
North America, BALLE (Business
Alliance for Local Living Economies)
encompasses more than 80 networks,
representing around 30,000
independent businesses. They hostconferences, provide guidance forstarting and running a successful
small business, and share inspiration.
Local business loyalty card networks
are also emerging. These are similar
to the loyalty cards frequently offeredby big box stores, but can only be
redeemed for discounts on local
purchases. In Portland, Oregon, theSupport land network includes over 100
local businesses and is expanding theirmodel to other towns and states.

Local energy
Many towns around the world haveinvested in community-owned
decentralized energy installations.
For example, Fort Collins, Colorado isplanning a 600kW “solar garden” andDharnai Village in India is getting
a solar energy “micro-grid” which
will power 350 households. These
small-scale projects have benefits that
go beyond their use of a non-polluting
renewable energy source: because thepower is produced right where it isneeded, there is no need to expand
transmission infrastructures; residents
have greater control over their energy
costs and are not beholden to distantenergy companies; and local investors
can receive financial returns in timesof surplus production.
In many parts of the world,
citizens are working to mobilize
their local governments to reclaim
ownership and control over theirpower systems from non-local investorowned utilities (IOUs), either throughoutright 're-municipalization' or byadopting Community Choice policies
that allow cities and counties tocreate new local electricity providers
alongside IOUs. In 2013, residents ofHamburg, Germany voted to reclaim
their electricity grid from the Swedish
energy giant, Vattenfall, enabling thecity to undertake a more ambitioustransition towards local renewableenergy. Similarly, in 2011 and 2013,
residents of Boulder, Colorado in
the US voted to take back their energy
system from Xcel Energy, replacing
it with a city-run electric utility. Local
power initiatives like these are starting
to reverse the privatization trend thatbegan in the 1980s.

Local food and farming
In the last decade or so, the local foodmovement has emerged as one of themost successful grassroots efforts
worldwide. Community supported
agriculture (CSA) programs, inwhich consumers link up directlywith a nearby farmer, have allowed
small-scale diversified farms to thrivein growing numbers. Consumers
usually have a direct connection
with the farm where their food isgrown, and in many cases their
help on the farm is welcomed. CSAs
provide small farmers with a steadyand reliable market, while offering
consumers produce that is fresher andhealthier than what they can buy at thesupermarket. In the US the number of
CSAs has surged from just two in
1986, to over 6,200 in 2014.
By connecting farmers directlywith consumers, farmers' markets
similarly benefit local economies
and the environment. The numberof farmers' markets in the US hasgrown from 1,755 in 1994 to over65
8,268 in 2014, and in the UK,
from zero in 1996 to an estimated66
750 in 2012.
A related trend is the growing
demand for local organic food, which45

has increased exponentially: the area ofland under organic cultivation in
Europe, for example, has doubled since2001. 67 Despite the fact that some largescale producers and export-oriented
marketers have tapped into thisburgeoning segment of the foodmarket, organic methods are mostconducive to small-scale, diversified
production for local consumption.
Permaculture integrates organic
methods with ecosystem principles forfood production, which forms the coreof a conceptual framework for asustainable society.
Farmland trusts protect arable
land from development, thereby
enabling small farmers to afford
to stay on the land and keeping
farmland affordable for the next
generation. In the US, where morethan 23 million acres of agriculturalland were lost to development
68
between 1982 and 2007, state andnational farmland trusts are working
to protect what remains and toencourage sustainable managementof existing farm and ranch lands.
Over the last fifty years, the trend
in both North and South has been foryoung people to move away fromfarming, accelerating the processof urbanization and the demise ofrural communities. Today, many
young farmers are reversing thattrend. In the US, the recently formed
National Young Farmers Coalition has
attracted over 600 members. La Via
Campesina – a worldwide coalition
that connects 200 million members
in 73 countries – has an active youth
chapter. At their inaugural meeting in
2011, they declared: “As youth all over
the 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 young
peasants and farmers of La Via
Campesina, who are building
ecological alternatives on our farms
and in our countryside, are living
in resistance to this system.” 69

46

Community media
Community media outlets giveordinary citizens a voice andkeep people informed about what
Is happening locally. They can be
powerful tools for bringing people
together to address local problems,
strengthening community bonds
and maintaining local culture.
Community radio stations exist
in 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 support
from the community. They arealso often active locally, sponsoring
events and providing free coverageof local initiatives.
For the most part, television has beentaken over by large corporate interests,
but in a few places independent
channels still exist. In the US, Link TV
is supported by viewer donations andspecializes in broadcasting hard-hitting
documentaries from around the world.
Much independent media has now
shifted over to the internet, including
online magazines, newspapers andtelevision channels. Currently under
threat 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 dependent
on a handful of large absentee-owned
internet service providers, such as
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T or
CenturyLink. However, a communityowned broadband movement has recently
emerged to increase communities' control
over their internet services. As of 2015,
over 500 municipalities across the US
have built their own broadband
networks to increase their access tomore affordable, reliable and fasterinternet services, while keeping dollars
circulating in their local economies.

Education
Many alternative schools distancethemselves from the regimented methods
and curricula of mainstream schooling.
Two of the most widespread are theSteiner Schools (known as Waldorf
Schools in the US) and Montessori
Schools. Home-schooling, in whichchildren are taught by parents ormembers of the community, is also
gaining in popularity.
With a growing awareness of what
has been described as “nature deficit
disorder”, an increasing number ofschools use wild places or agricultural
settings as the locus of education. In
Forest Schools, for example, young
children spend the entire day
outdoors, in the process becoming
experts in local plant and fungi
identification. The forest school
concept originated in Wisconsinin 1927, and has since spread to
Scandinavia and the UK, where it
has become very popular. In Vermont,
the ROOTS School (Reclaiming Our
Origins through Traditional Skills) is
one of a growing number of schools
offering young people and adults
classes in wilderness self-reliance.
In the global South, more and more
people are recognizing the culturehomogenizing impacts of Westernstyle schooling. In India, Shikshantar– the People's Institute for Rethinking
Education and Development – isworking to transform education sothat it respects local traditions andpromotes self-reliance.

Healthcare
In recent years, there has been atremendous surge of interest in
traditional and complementary
medicine. Herbal remedies,
homeopathy, bodywork and relaxation
techniques are even garnering interest
among conventional medical doctors.

This gentler approach, with anemphasis on prevention, is part of a
return to more human-scale systemsof healthcare. It is, of course, important
to continue providing the emergency
and life-saving care that allopathic
medicine excels at. However, theemphasis in a localized system of
healthcare would be on the whole
person, while also attending to thebroader living context. As the Director
for Sustainable Medicine in Vermont
puts it: “real medicine must benefit thewhole system – our communities, bothhuman and natural. There is no needto separate the processes of healing
ourselves, the environment, andour communities.”

Community-building
Around the industrialized world,
people are building communities
that seek to avoid the isolation,competitiveness, pollution and crimethat are so pervasive in modern
societies. Many of these intentional
communities rely on renewable energy,
natural building techniques, and on-site
food production, and are seeking todevelop more cooperative local
economies. Ranging in size from just a
few households to many hundreds,
ecovillages are among the most popular,
successful and diverse kinds ofintentional communities. Linked up
through the Global Ecovillage Network– a virtual and real-world alliance – theynumber in the many hundreds acrossthe Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. 70
Popular in North America andEurope, Transition Towns consist ofcommunity groups in small towns
and larger urban centers that havecommitted to transitioning away froma globalized, carbon-intensive economy.
These groups meet regularly to set up
projects in different sectors of the local
economy: food, energy, local commerce,
the arts, transport, healthcare, and soon. Their network now encompasses
thousands of groups.

47

The community rights movement
helps communities reclaim local
democratic decision-making power.
One of the founding organizationsof this movement in North America
is the Community Environmental
Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).
To date, CELDF has helped morethan 150 locales establish “community
rights ordinances”, protecting themfrom such activities as fracking and71
the planting of GMO crops.

48

49

oday's fast-paced global
economy demands mobility,competitiveness, andindividualism, and induces a fearof being vulnerable and dependent,of growing old. Localization, bycontrast, answers our deep longing
for love and connection – cornerstonesof our well-being and contentment.
It creates the structural basis forcommunity, which offers the deep
psychological benefits - the joy - ofliving in interdependence with others.

T

By re-instilling a sense of connection
with the place where we live, going
local leads to another fundamental
shift. The globalization of culture andinformation has led to a way of life inwhich the nearby is treated with
contempt. 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 means
helping ourselves and our children
experience the living environment
around us: reconnecting with thesources of our food, perhaps evengrowing some of our own, andlearning to appreciate the cycles
of seasons and the characteristicsof the flora and fauna.
The fear, isolation, anddiscontent that many people feel
today are actually a natural reaction
to a system gone awry. From thesefeelings spring the search for what
is real, healthy and essential for life
– providing the inspiration to do
the work needed to reclaim ourcontentment, security, and joy.
Wherever we are, we can start thejourney. We can seek out like-minded
individuals with the goal of
encouraging deeper connections. We
can move away from the fear and selfconsciousness that keeps us apart, andcreate a culture of sharing and caring.
50

We can nurture a deep, empathetic
connection to nature. Quieting thechattering mind – with chanting,singing, yoga or meditation – canhelp free us of the pressures imposedby the global economy and can deeply
rejuvenate and inspire us. In theseways, we can begin to make choicesthat are good for us as individuals aswell as for our community and society
as a whole; we can begin transitioning
from a top-down economics ofcompetition, scarcity and exploitation
to an economics of collaboration,
abundance and happiness.
Throughout human history, ourcultural traditions, our societies, ourpersonalities, even our bodies have
evolved in connection with communityand nature. The globalizing economy
has severed these connections withfalse promises: that economic growthis the key to progress, that more stuff
and 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 coming
together. We are re-learning what
ancient indigenous cultures knew:that the “inner” and the “outer”,
and the human and the non-human,are inextricably intertwined. We are
beginning to see the world within us– to experience more consciously thegreat interdependent web of life,of which we ourselves are part.

51

1 ‘Global Finance: Dismantle or Reform?’, Interview with Paul Hellyer, May 30, 1999,
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/ opinion/obamas-covert-trade-deal.html?_r=0
4 Sachs, J. (2011) The Price of Civilization: Economics and Ethics After the Fall, (Random House Canada),p. 94.
5 Tamiotti, L. et al. (2009) Trade and Climate Change. World Trade Organization (WTO) and United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), p. 48.
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8 Ungoed-Thomas, J. and Meyer, M.R. (2007) ‘British Prawns Go To China To Be Shelled’, The Sunday
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http://www.scotsman.com/news/ scotland/top-stories/jobs-lost-as-scottish-scampi-sent-on-roundtrip-to-china-1-1141935 ; Edwards, R. (2009) ‘Scotland to China and back again ... cod’s 10,000-miletrip to your table’, Herald Scotland, August 22, http://www.heraldscotland.com/scotland-to-china-andback-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,
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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;
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Daily Mail Australia, October 16, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-2796675/caught-newzealand-crumbed-china-packed-right-australia-ridiculous-journey-coles-fish-travelled- 17000kmkilometres-end-supermarket-shelf.html (all articles accessed 18 October 2014)
9 New York Times Editorial Board (2012) ‘Race to the Bottom’, New York Times, December 5,
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’, New York Times, December 1,
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 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-yearnatural-capital-from-our-children-without-paying/ (accessed 18 October 2014).
12 World Trade Organization (1999) ‘The WTO’s financial services agreement will enter into force asscheduled’, WTO NEWS: 1999 press releases, February 15,
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38 OECD data, accessed 9 May 2014; Also see: UNCTAD (2012) Trade and Development Report 2012,54

United Nations; Fuentes-Nieva, R. and Galasso, N. (2014) Working for the Few, Oxfam; Wilkinson,
R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (NewYork, Bloomsbury Press).
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40 Save the Children, ‘The Urban Disadvantage: State of the World’s Mothers 2015’
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42 Davis, M. (2004) ‘In New Economy, Textile Workers Hang by a Thread’, Los Angeles Times ,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
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44 FAO (2012) ‘Globally Almost 870 Million Chronically Undernourished – New Hunger Report’,
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45 Newsweek Staff (1994) ‘Where the Admen Are’, Newsweek, March 14, p. 34.
46 eMarketer.com (2014) ‘Global Ad Spending to Double This Year’, July 9,
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47 WHO (2012) Fact sheet No. 369, October, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/(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-andwhat-we-can-do-help-237434.html (accessed 23 September 2015).
49 Carrington, D. (2014) ‘Land taken over by foreign investors could feed 550m people, study
finds’, The Guardian, June 27, http:// www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/27/landgrabbing-food-biofuels-crops (accessed 15 June 2015).
50 Worldwatch (2000), ‘Where Have All the Farmers Gone?’ September-October 2000,
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51 UNTAD (2013) ‘Take “mosaic” approach to agriculture, boost support for small farmers,
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52 GRAIN (2014) ‘Hungry for land: small famers feed the world with less than a quarter of all land’,55

http://www.grain. org/article/ entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-lessthan-a-quarter-of-all-farmland (accessed 18 October 2014).
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Photograph of Ladakh © Tommaso Galli57

Helena Norberg-Hodge

Author and filmmaker Helena
Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of thelocal economy movement. Throughwriting and public lectures on threecontinents, she has been promoting
an economics of personal, social andecological well-being for four decades.
She is a widely respected analyst of
the impact of the global economy andinternational development on local
communities, local economies, andpersonal identity, and is a leading
proponent of “localization”, or
decentralization, as a means ofcountering those impacts. For thiswork she was awarded theprestigious Goi Peace prize in 2012.
Her book, Ancient Futures, together
with a film by the same title, hasbeen translated into more than 40
languages, and sold about half amillion copies. She is also the
producer and co-director of theaward-winning film, The Economicsof Happiness. Helena has written
numerous articles, essays, and bookchapters, and is the co-author of two
groundbreaking books on food andfarming: Bringing the Food Economy
Home and From the Ground Up:
Rethinking Industrial Agriculture.
The Earth Journal counted Helena
among the world’s “ten mostinteresting environmentalists”, while
in Carl McDaniel’s book Wisdom for a
Liveable Planet, she was profiled as oneof “eight visionaries changing theworld”. Since 1975, she has worked
with the people of Ladakh, or “Little
Tibet”, to find ways of enabling theirculture to meet the modern world
without sacrificing social andecological values. For these efforts
she was awarded the Right Livelihood
Award, or “Alternative Nobel Prize”.
Educated in Sweden, Germany,
Austria, England and the UnitedStates, Helena specialized inlinguistics, 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 wasRegents’ Lecturer in the Energy
and Resources Group (ERG) at the
University of California, Berkeley.
She has also taught regularly at
Schumacher College and appeared inbroadcast, print and online media
worldwide, including MSNBC, The
London Times, The Sydney Morning
Herald and The Guardian.
Helena is the founder/director of
Local Futures and the International
Alliance for Localization (IAL). She
is also a founding member of theInternational Commission on the
Future of Food and Agriculture, theInternational Forum on Globalizationand the Global Ecovillage Network.

Local Futures / International Society
for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
works to renew ecological, socialand spiritual well-being by promotinga systemic shift away from economic
globalization towards localization.
Our flagship Economics of Happinessprogram provides a range ofeducational and practical tools
for communities, as well as aninternational forum for a broadarray of groundbreaking projects
from both the global North and South.
Local Futures has undertaken arange of grassroots initiatives in both
the global North and South—from
introducing village-based renewableenergy 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 curriculaand comic books that aim to catalyze
efforts to strengthen ecological andsocial well-being. One of the firstNGOs worldwide to promote local
food, Local Futures is still one of the
only groups doing so from aninternational perspective. It has
produced several books andnumerous reports critiquing theindustrial food system and promoting

local alternatives, and its multimedia Local Food Toolkit won
the Derek Cooper Award forCampaigning Journalism.
Local Futures began as
The Ladakh Project in 1978. The
organization initially focused on
supporting Ladakh’s indigenous
culture by bringing information tobalance the idealized images of theconsumer culture flooding into theregion through tourism anddevelopment. Together with local
leaders, Local Futures alsoestablished the first NGOs in
the region, promoted organic
agriculture and developed a rangeof renewable energy technologies.
Today, Local Futures operates
from offices in the US, UK, Mexicoand Australia, with “sister”
organizations in Germany and Japan.

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