The Problem With Localism
It’s “dangerously naive” and an “indulgent form of self-interest,” writes an engineering professor in this provocative essay. Oh, and also “seriously mistaken”:
An insular community which does not trade regionally or internationally is at risk from the most basic threats, such as crop failure due to local extremes of weather. The evidence for this is all too apparent in the developing world. In a global community, local crop failure is not a life-or-death issue since food can be temporarily imported in exchange for other goods or services. During times of plenty, excess food can be exported and the long-term surplus and deficit balanced out. The community is buffered against extremes of weather through international trade. While an isolated village has to depend on its own grain store to smooth out times of feast and famine, a trading nation has the entire world as its grain store.
Is he throwing out the baby with the bathwater? I shop in local farmer’s markets and patronize my local merchants (and I prefer my local independent bookstore over Amazon), but I also have no illusions that I could be self-sufficient if I was to be a strict localist. Is that really what the localism movement advocates, swearing off all global means of production?
It is not a problem of “buy local” ideas (only). It is a problem with the idea that trade is harmful and isolation better; this idea manifests itself in manifold fields and ways. For instance “food security” is often portrayed as a state of food self-sufficiency (for a country: few are foolish enough to require food self-sufficiency at district, village or household level); it is also at the core of protectionist beliefs (the nation should be “protected” from dangerous foreign goods, and must satisfy local demand before exporting anything).
As an expert in food security in developing countries for many years I have seen these ideas emerging all the time, in spite of the internationally accepted definition of food security placing emphasis on access to food rather than locally produced food (the definition was agreed upon by most countries at various World Food Summits since 1996: see ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/ESA/policybriefs/pb_02.pdf).
Of course, one household or village may rely on its own production in good years, and import food in bad years, but the resources to pay for imports should come from exports (i.e. sales to the world outside the village), otherwise the village would only rely on charity. But it is fairly difficult that a single village or district is able to produce all its foodstuffs (e.g. fruit in cold latitudes, or rice/maize in dry areas), beyond a basic and limited diet. Division of labour between people, villages, zones and countries provides much more, smooths availability over time (because bad harvests do not usually happen everywhere at once) and provides more quality and more variety besides providing more quantity of food (or anything else).
Paul Samuelson once noted that the advantages of international trade are one of the few things on which all economics schools of thought agree, yet it is one of the most difficult to accept by the general public. Moreover, it is rejected when it is about trade between countries much more strongly than between households or small areas within the same country. I’d like to see the ‘buy local’ fans carrying their ideas to their logical conclusion, i.e. producing all their consumption goods themselves within the confines of their own homestead. If trading exposes oneself to the wild gyrations of the market, one should just stay away from markets tout court. But I do not see any group advocating for that (it may be possible to find some perhaps at some surviving hippie commune somewhere, but then to survive since the 1960s the commune must have had a lot of exchange with the outside world).
Brian Dunning did a Skeptoid episode on Locally Grown Produce.
Nothing wrong with the farmers’ market experience. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Gotta love those vine ripened tomatoes!
Back in the days of ‘nasty, brutish, and short’, when we were all obligate locavores, wintertime meant malnutrition.
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The problem with this essay is that it forwards an either/or-argument. Either you’re 100% dependent, or your 100% self-sufficient and history has shown that 100% self-sufficient is very difficult and doesn’t work, so you are better off being 100% dependent on the system.
<i>We should reject these new forms of localism. We should have as little interest in growing our own food or generating our own energy as we have in producing our own steel. If we leave energy to energy utilities and food to efficient large-scale farming, we can enjoy the products of both while undertaking a myriad of other productive tasks, and so ensure growing prosperity for all.</i>
But things aren’t that black-and-white. What if you provide 50% of your own food and energy? What if a whole community does? What if a whole region does? Wouldn’t that be much more efficient? Not to mention the effects on health. Besides, with all the knowledge we have today modern gardening doesn’t look anything like the subsistent farming of the past (check out the work of people like Bill Mollison and many, many others).
But of course this is not the main problem of this essay. The main problem is the underlying assumption that growth is infinite, and that there are no problems whatsoever, or ever could their be.
Take this snippet for instance:
<i> Food production is now organised at such large scales, using hydrocarbon-fuelled machines, that the input of carbohydrate-fuelled human labour is relatively small.</i>
Problems with modern agriculture are HUGE and getting progressively worse. Under a BAU-scenario we are facing collapse of world food production with all its implications for all the obedient buggers who listened to the engineering professor and stayed 100% dependent on the system.
<i>But let’s be clear: prosperity need not be about crass consumerism.</i>
Yes, it does, if your dominant economic theory is that growth is always good and therefore can and must be infinite.
I’ll end here. I’m in a bad mood today and it’s better not to respond to an overdose of white, middle-aged, lucky to be born where you were male stupidity.
And sorry for the <i>. I keep forgetting that you have that WYSIWYG editor.
Neven, we use about a millionth of the solar energy hitting the earth to sustain human life. A tiny increase in our efficiency of that use will allow growth that will make our fossil fueled growth pale in comparison. That’s not ‘infinite’ growth, but it’s a heck of a lot more than you can imagine.
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A tiny increase in our efficiency of that use will allow growth that will make our fossil fueled growth pale in comparison.
Kim, why then are we still using fossil fuels? And why the rabid resistance to the idea that humankind is causing the atmosphere and oceans to warm?
1. The market.
2. These two ideas have no relationship with each other.
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