[SustainableTompkins] relocalization

[northsheep at juno.com]

Thanks, to all who have responded so far. 

Margaret's Gramsci reference certainly resonates with me. My version goes
back to the existentialist philosophy that I am what I do, and in the
face of an absurd and seemingly impossible world, I still try to change
things for the better, despite slim chances of success, for my actions
define who I am. So it comes down to a matter of self-respect.

Some thoughts on Jon's points:

My ideal version of society is decentralist as well. I tend to compromise
with what he calls a marxian approach (far from the only scenario of the
potential outcome of a mass countermovement) because until there is
enough people-power to change the social structures of money-power, those
structures will continue to generate the unacceptable outcomes as they
have historically, quickly or gradually eroding any significant gains in
local control. Systems thinkers will recognize here the concept of
'policy resistance', where policies adopted without addressing the
structural causes of the problem behavior pattern will meet with
resistance. Example: repeated widening of Rte 13 between Cortland and
Ithaca always ultimately failed to deal with the traffic problem, which
was generated deeper in the transportation and social system. 

 Of course serious relocalization could wait out the current process of
self-destruction inherent in the centralized power-over system, and as
things fall apart sufficiently in the larger political economy and its
unsustainable infrastructure, use the new political vacuum/chaos to
reconfigure things locally. And that may be the only solution. But I am
very uncomfortable with that approach. It may be 1-3 decades for that
vacuum to open up. Meanwhile the current centralized system will chew up
resources and wreak eco-social damage faster than ever trying to cope
with its self-inflicted cancers as they metastasize. As it is currently
doing creating biofuels, martial law, resource wars, etc. It will do that
as it always has, by trying to economically grow its way out of the
problem, which in part is growth itself. 

You say that big changes have come about 
through viral memes (such as
> the ideal of sustainability itself) that spread in a
> self-organizing way until co-opted more or less successfully by
> the same programmers and put to service selling more goods

Maybe I need to hear you expand on that, but at face value it sounds like
'green business', much of which in present circumstances is doing much of
the chewing up of resources that I referred to above, creating products
that do not turn out to be very sustainable. Example: the auto companies
boast of their hybrids when the really sustainable solution is to get
transportation off rubber and back onto rail and even less costly means
of travel, and to reduce the need for travel. The system, not the
businesses (as a farmer I operate a business) is the problem, because it
forces us to maximize short run profit, unless we are willing to
sacrifice profit for the common good. Example: the Ithaca Farmers Mkt I
sell in and helped build is deemed 'successful' mainly because Ithaca
provides a relatively prosperous customer base. I call most of what is
sold there "Yuppy Chow" (including my own products) because of its
relatively high cost (despite which few of its farmers make incomes that
approach those of its largely "professional" clientele). That is part of
the reason that although thronged on Saturday market, the market as a
community institution serves but a tiny fraction of the Ithaca community.


In fact, are there any replicable models of relocalization that have made
more than a dent in the status quo in terms of percent of population
using them? Under the constraints of the present food system, how will
even the very partially sustainably produced food of organic farms -
standing now at about 2% of national food consumption - gain majority
acceptance? Are there any non-Yuppy models of ecovillages in the USA?
Does the Ithaca Health Alliance serve more than a fraction of the
community? Again, I am all for these efforts. Given a more friendly
political economy, they could become much more sustainable models than
they are.  

So I wonder what makes you think the really important viral memes will
spread very fast in such an inhospitable system?
 
With the possible exception of labor unions, I
> can't think of a single fundamental societal change of the last
> century in this country that was due to an organized mass
> movement; 

Agreed. Even the labor unions have become feeble echoes of their
counterparts in Europe. This is because, as a powerful empire sucking in
global wealth, our oligarchy has been able to buy off or otherwise
frustrate such efforts. But if you look outside this country, both
historically and currently, examples abound of mass movements facing down
elites when they are weaker than ours. Look what is happening in Latin
America as the US protectionist racket, an umbrella propping up Latin
native elites for a century, falters as the resources of the empire
beginning its decline are drawn off in oil wars and maintenance of key
client states. 

Those forms lie more in the
> direction of Jefferson than in the direction of Marx.  To put it
> another way: the answer to big repressive right-wing government is
> not big counter-repressive left-wing government, because the
> problem is bigness itself.  

Agreed there is a constant risk in large scale social organization.
However, if we can ditch cold war categories and look at what has really
happened in Cuba, is unfolding in Venezuela, occurred in rural
communities in the early years of the Chinese revolution, even for
hundreds of years in Switzerland, what emerges is a number of encouraging
successes in blending central and local control, as well as failures due
to "one size fits all" policies, bureaucratic inertia or corruption, etc.
Due to our peculiar history, 'American exceptionalism' really does exist
and has not served us well as a program. So unfortunately we need to look
elsewhere for models. Jefferson, Lincoln, and Eisenhower essentially
predicted that the Jeffersonian ideal would succumb to the consolidation
of capitalist power in the USA. But many examples of central and local
power in productive coexistence in other countries give me cause for
hope.

So, as Jon says, in the last analysis it comes down to education -
changing the mental programming. But, I would add, building a power base
of local/regional alliances to create a policy environment likely to
foster major changes on the ground, locally. 

I have not even addressed the issue of aspects of desired quality of life
that cannot be achieved with purely local self-sufficiency, but might be
possible sustainably with regional/national cooperation and
centralization in certain areas. I witnessed virtually total
self-sufficiency in rural villages in West Africa, and quality of life -
with the exception of health care - was good, considering the resources
available. But it is not a lifestyle that I can imagine many Americans
would accept, even with massive reprogramming. Or need to.

Thanks, 
Karl

Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
     www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
 

On Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:55:52 -0400 Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org> writes:
> Thanks very much to Karl for the TCRP (now TCLocal) plug.  I've
> uploaded a current copy of our standard energy descent
> presentation at the URL quoted in Karl's message
> (http://ibiblio.org/tcrp/pres/tcrp-intro.pdf).
> 
> Quick responses to a few of his points:
> 
> | I encourage them [TCLocal] to organize more educational outreach
> | (in which I would be glad to participate) on discussion lists 
> like
> | this one.
> 
> Like everyone in the local sustainability movement, members of
> TCLocal are way overextended, but we'd certainly be happy to give
> presentations to any group in the area that would like to be
> better informed about the challenges that decreasing energy
> availability will pose for our way of life over the next few
> decades.  So far this year we've managed to talk to the Ithaca
> Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); the
> Wells College Activism Symposium; a Presbyterian Church group in
> Cumberland, MD; the Planning, Development, and Environmental
> Quality Committee of the Tompkins County Legislature; the
> Renewable Energy Group of the Southern Tier; and the Northeast
> Permaculture Convergence, as well as manning tables at Earth Day
> and the Ithaca Sustainability Fair and holding energy descent
> briefings for aides to Senator Clinton and Congressman Arcuri.
> 
> This is a tiny fraction of the people who need to learn about
> energy descent, but none of us has the time to line up speaking
> engagements in addition to the primary work of TCLocal, which is
> researching and planning policies for dealing with the problems
> we'll be facing here in Tompkins County.  It's particularly
> unfortunate (though completely understandable) that so far we've
> been most successful in reaching groups that are already somewhat
> familiar with the message, while mainstream business organizations
> and local government bodies continue their planning largely
> ignorant of future trends that will make many of their projects
> irrelevant.  Anyone representing a group in the area that would
> like to learn more about energy descent should contact me to set
> up a presentation.  (And Karl, let's talk about your kind offer to
> participate when you get back from your trip.)
> 
> | The Crisis, in its multidimensionality, with likely multiplier
> | effects across its elements, and cascading effects over time:
> |
> | 1. Exponentially rising energy costs for coming decades as
> |    currently foreseeable alternative energy technologies fail
> |    to compensate for the end of cheap oil;
> |
> | 2. Increasing water shortage for the irrigated deserts that
> |    currently supply large proportions of the food economy, here
> |    (like the California Central Valley) as elsewhere in the
> |    world;
> |
> | 3. Gradual loss of high-energy inputs that currently prop
> |    agricultural productivity and mask the degraded state of
> |    most farmland. Present low agroecosystemic potential stems
> |    from decades of damage to its natural capital: the
> |    biodiversity and health of mineral, water and carbon cycles
> |    that provide essential ecological services.
> |
> | 4. Accumulation of persistent organic pollutants, degradation
> |    of genetic traits of sustainability in most agricultural
> |    plants and animals, homogenization of gene pools and
> |    extinction losses, are all nearing a tipping point;
> |
> | 5. Increasing weather volatility, a near term impact of climate
> |    change;
> |
> | 6. Increasing agroecosystem instability, a long term impact of
> |    climate change;
> |
> | 7. Increasing economic crisis in the United States as federal
> |    debt, corporate debt, consumer debt, and trade deficit
> |    approach a tipping point;
> |
> | 8. A declining domestic economy as the empire tries to salvage
> |    with military control what it is gradually losing in global
> |    economic hegemony.
> |
> | 9. A massive national disinformation bubble of which most
> |    people living in it are blithely unaware.
> 
> An excellent summary of the problem.
> 
> | As for the forces arrayed against relocalization, I suggest for
> | starters a paper I available on my website:
> | http://www.geocities.com/northsheep/foodchange.html In it I argue
> | that the structure and nature of the political economy is such
> | that most people's current change strategies - lobbying govt,
> | changing consumer preferences, etc. will fail.
> 
> Which is why (aside from educational efforts within the county)
> we're not spending much of our time on these approaches.
> 
> | A proper understanding of the present local and national 
> structure
> | of power (5% of the population holds 95% of the wealth) indicates
> | that the construction of mass movements are necessary for
> | significant change to occur, and then only as they are powerful
> | enough to leverage policy changes deep in the system. I argue 
> that
> | due to the power entrenched in an elite minority, all serious
> | attempts of local communities to take charge of their own
> | destinies will confront a glass ceiling. It is glass (that is,
> | invisible to most) because of the false understanding of the
> | nature of our society that has been cumulatively manufactured in
> | the collective consciousness. In sum, I argue that successful
> | strategies for change will require a new understanding of the
> | nature of our society.
> 
> Here I think we part ways.  I agree with what I think is implicit
> in Karl's paper, that change is only possible at this point at the
> local level; and I agree that the successes of local efforts will
> meet resistance at higher levels for just the reasons Karl points
> to.  (In fact, I expect such successes to bring out all kinds of
> reactionary antibodies.)  But I'm not convinced that the answer to
> resistance at the state or national level is a mass
> countermovement; maybe it is, but this sounds to me too much like
> the political equivalent of meeting conventional warfare with
> conventional warfare, and I would point out that similar
> large-scale attempts to prevent or limit our involvement in the
> current war (which is being fought for reasons linked directly to
> the prospect of energy descent) have been notably unsuccessful.
> And I don't buy the assertion that "the construction of mass
> movements are necessary for significant change to occur, and then
> only as they are powerful enough to leverage policy changes deep
> in the system."  With the possible exception of labor unions, I
> can't think of a single fundamental societal change of the last
> century in this country that was due to an organized mass
> movement; the big changes have come about either through the
> calculated manipulation of desires by cadres of social programmers
> in the service of wealthy elites or through viral memes (such as
> the ideal of sustainability itself) that spread in a
> self-organizing way until co-opted more or less successfully by
> the same programmers and put to service selling more goods.
> 
> It seems to me that the closest we're going to get to the
> "specific positive strategies and/or approaches to strategy
> development" that Elan was asking for is a vision of a return to
> local self-sufficiency and (eventually, if we play our cards
> right) to the forms of political organization that are only
> possible with local self-sufficiency.  Those forms lie more in the
> direction of Jefferson than in the direction of Marx.  To put it
> another way: the answer to big repressive right-wing government is
> not big counter-repressive left-wing government, because the
> problem is bigness itself.  The adaptive response to the
> crises of energy descent and climate change is not a national
> effort to develop one policy that tries to fit all situations, but
> rather a proliferation of local policies tuned to the challenges
> in each place and the resources available in each place.
> 
> What Jefferson understood is that a country consisting largely of
> people who can sustain themselves through their own labor is a
> country that cannot be dominated by a central authority.  If a
> community can feed and clothe and shelter itself based on its own
> resources, then what a distant power elite wants to do is largely
> irrelevant, because that power is exercised primarily through
> economic and material dependency; cut the dependency and you cut
> the control.  So my "positive" vision of society a hundred years
> from now is one that is largely decentralized and locally
> self-sufficient.
> 
> Admittedly this leaves unanswered how we're going to deal with
> some massive difficulties we'll likely be facing between now and
> then -- including a complete economic collapse and the mass
> movement of populations in reaction to a changing climate.  For
> example, it's becoming clear that the long-term survival of the
> millions of people in our large cities will depend on relocating
> most of them back out to the farm where their ancestors came from
> in the first place.  I don't have a clue how we're going to manage
> this, though I suspect that a successful strategy will rely on
> changing the programming.  In the final analysis, education,
> example, and the relatively uncontrolled access to information
> made possible by the internet may be the best tools we have.
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
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