By Will Newman II, Co-founder of OSALT and thoughtful blogger for Think About it
So buying local is the latest progressive thing to do. But what does it mean, to “buy local”?
Here’s what “buy local” means – not just buying from your locally owned store (which is very important), but buying stuff made locally – the closer to home the better, e.g. if you live in Portland, in descending order of “goodness”: made in the Portland metro area, made in Oregon, made in the Pacific Northwest, made in the United States, then Canada, then Mexico.
Here is the real challenge: while it is true that there is much to be found that is made more or less locally, there is also much that is not to be found made anywhere in the West. For example, have you tried to buy a wind-up alarm clock not made in China lately? And sometimes the price of locally made things is higher than the alternatives.
I suggest some strategies here: paying more (at the counter) for locally made things is worth it – the benefit to the local economy (our neighbors) outweighs the additional price (at the counter) because when we do not buy locally we end up paying additional costs: higher unemployment, increased crime, poorer health, and declining neighborhoods.
But what to do when there is no local (say within the United States) article? Now the decision is, do I really need this? Is there a substitute I can get that is produced locally?
Please remember, if we want to be serious about sustainable societies we need to recognize that most of us have way too much stuff. There is a basic rule in sustainability: if you consume more than you produce you are being subsidized. The subsidy is always in some form of energy and natural resources. For most of the history of humankind that energy subsidy has been mainly slave labor/peons/indentured servants/peasants. That pretty much came to an end in the United States in the early part of the 20th century, when we shifted to petroleum energy – but now this abundance of high-density, easily portable energy is coming to an end.
Some years ago we began shifting our subsidies to cheap labor in distant economies. The cost has been the loss of control of our economy, which means that we have lost wealth, resources, productivity, key industrial capability and the skilled labor needed to be a productive society. The price we pay is not only at the cash register (which might be better called a “credit register”), but in the loss of the ability to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves. The question we must now face is “Who do we want to be dependent upon/subsidized by?”
How about ourselves? Buy local? Unquestionably, yes!
What do you think?
{ 0 comments }
