Economies and Community (LONG)

Sep 5 15:01 UTC 1993

It seems like every other month there's an article by Wendell
Berry in one magazine or another.  Berry's main themes these days
are community and local economics.  He gets a lot of space in the
eco-magazines because he links these ideas to conservation.
 
At first, his ideas sound kind of quaint.  His articles are
almost Disney-esque in their romanticization of small-town life.
Berry makes small-town life in the early 1900s sound like utopia,
with his notions of neighborliness and care for the land.
 
Another of Berry's themes is the idea of local economy vs.
national and international economy.  He contends that the rise of
the national economy is a nail in the coffin (and more like many
nails in the coffin) of many local economies.  In his article in
the March-April 1993 issue of Audobon magazine, he notes that his
hometown of Port Royal, Kentucky had sixteen professional
businesses before World War II, including a doctor and a
mechanic.  Now, there are only five, one of them being the post
office.
 
Certainly, there are many such small towns in Michigan.  As a
bicyclist, I've been through many of them.  The grand, old
buildings are a testament to more prosperous times in the past.
 
So, how does the idea of a local economy connect to the idea of
community.  Berry asserts that community ties are strongly linked
to the health of the local economy.  It's another of the ties
that bind people together.  As local economies weaken, so does
the community.  People move away or they simply don't care about
local issues because their economic well-being depends not on
local conditions, but on companies hundreds or thousands of miles
away.  People just don't care if they know they may have to move
eventually to be employed.
 
To give an example closer to home, think of the users we've lost
in the last year or two.  Brian Dunkle, Tom Doehne, and Steve
Sarrica are three names that come to mind immediately.  Aren't we
poorer because these folks aren't around to participate?
Wouldn't they have stayed if our local economy had been able to
provide them with employment?
 
Berry says that the rise of the national and international
economies tend to destroy the local economy.  I think he's
talking mostly about every-day business, such as grocery stores,
hardware stores, and the like.  But, I'd say that this extends
even to high-tech businesses.  An example of this is Northern
Telecom, the company that brought me to Ann Arbor.
 
Back in the late 70s or early 80s, NT purchased Sycor, a local
manufacturer of intelligent terminals.  Throughout the 80s, NT
basically wrecked Sycor.  They took a thriving company and
bankrupted it, closing the plant completely a couple of years
ago.  In my experience, none of the managers, many of whom were
Canadian nationals or brought in from other places in the US,
really cared that much for Ann Arbor.  Many of the engineers saw
this job as just another in their migratory life as electronics
or software engineers.
 
Detroit is another good example of a local economy--and with it
the community--gone bad. Workers migrated to Detroit to work in
the factories, not build a city.  When the auto industry fell on
hard times, the community went along with it.  The people didn't
care about the city; when the jobs were gone, they picked up and
left.  Now, the only people left in Detroit are those that can't
afford to leave.
 
The question is how do we balance the needs of local economies
with the inexorable push towards national economies, and perhaps
even more importantly, international economies?  How does NAFTA
fit into this scheme?  These are all important questions.  They
will affect not only our prosperity, but our quality of life in
the future.

response 2 of 35:

Sep 5 16:09 UTC 1993

I have become acquainted with a small town in the UP and a number of its
residents. The town has a Mead Paper Company distribution yard, and a
few small shops, which cater primarily to the through tourist trade. They
had their own school once but, like a lot of small towns, with people
of child-bearing age moving away, there were too few children to justify
the school, so a consolidated school districit was formed, the few students
are all bussed to a bigger town, and the local school is closed and
boarded. One day, an entrepreneur came along, and asked to lease the school
building to use for light industry. This would have brought an employer -
and taxes - to the town. The town council, however, turned him down,
becase "it would change the town". Some more industrious local residents
are so disgusted that they think they will move on. The moral of my story
is that there are other problems in small towns besides local economies
vs national and international economies. One of these seems to be short-
sightedness.

response 4 of 35:

Sep 5 20:04 UTC 1993

Small "countercultural" co-ops tend to get mired down in politics and petty
arguement.  I know there are dangers in large co-ops, but having regular, paid
employees and a paid manager doesn't necessarily destroy the co-op spirit.  
Alot of times co-ops get taken over by people with a political mission and a 
need to impose their wills on others, hence become stiff and undemocratic.  I
think this is what happened to the Berkley co-op, which was very nice, had 
coffee shops in their super markets, and even ha
and even had a hardware store.  There's a natural food co-op in Seattle that
seems very nice and professional, runs supermarkets with alot of goods 
prepackaged (not that that's nec. good, but it saves the time and expense of
measuring everything out).  There's a single store co-op in Hyde Park in 
Chicago near the U of Chi that's probably been in bsns since the depression
(now in a store built in an urban renewal shopping center in the 60's).  
They're managed, but i think have a pretty strong democratic spirit.  I 
definately don't believe in aping capitalist supermarkets, with price manipu-
lation, etc.  Anyone who believes a co-op shouldn't have a markup to cover 
expenses and expansion is an idiot, and would probably be outnumbered if the
democratic communication forces aren't frozen by ideologues.  There's defin-
ately a freeze-of-speech problem in the U.S., especially on the left.
When you strike that middle ground between day-to-day involvement in operations
and "democratic dictatorship," you have a workable co-op not require alot of
time on your part.  Further, groups of co-ops that you may want to have share
in and use may be owned by a co-op mutual fund comprising strictly of shares
in your co-ops, and voting according to your policy preferences, keeping you
informed of developments just like a lawyer on retainer keeps his client 
abreast of news affecting his interests.  This would not mean that you could
not step in at any given moment and excercise direct control of your votes.
This co-op mutual fund does not at this time exist.  I am trying to organize
bus co-ops as a base and expand into food, etc. from there.  One of these 
days: Co-op Mutual Funds!

response 6 of 35:

Sep 6 16:18 UTC 1993

Well, Milan (population under 5000, though a larger area is in question here)
has ***3*** weekly newspapers.  I confess to being baffled.

The loss of available time is indeed a major factor.  But it's also true
that "despite the fact that Michigan townships have never had so many
people or so many problems" there's not a whole lot local governments can
*do* about their problems.  One reason for this, discussed a lot in (I think)
the original posting, is that people aren't localized any more.  (I live in
Milan but work in A2 - actually in Scio Twp.  I suspect that the *majority*
of Milanites work elsewhere.)  But also, the room for self-governance has
basically been preempted by the state and federal governments over the last
century and especially the last 50 years, both in terms of legislation and
in terms of taxation.

(I'm *never* a broken record, right?)

response 8 of 35:

Sep 6 17:55 UTC 1993

You've hit the nail on the head, Dave.  Why do you live in one place,
yet work in another?  How many AA residents actually work in the
Detroit area?  Do we realize how much time this eats up?  First, there
is the commute time, the time needed to take care of the car (get gas,
maintenance, etc.), and then the time needed to run back and forth for
entertainment, etc.

I think Berry would say, too, that people today want too much.  One of
the reasons we have no time is because we want to do too much.

response 10 of 35:

Sep 6 20:19 UTC 1993

I only commute 500 miles/wk, 3 hours/day.  What's the big deal?:) 

response 12 of 35:

Sep 7 03:26 UTC 1993

#8: I don't know about here, but back in Toronto, there are very, very few
    people who work in downtown Toronto who can afford to live anywhere near
    downtown Toronto. Of course, Toronto has something called public transit,
    something I'm not sure exists in this area. Public transit (a good one
    at that) produces more commuters, and few people feel compelled to live
    in downtown.

#5: I know who our neighbours are. Actually, only some of them. I've only
    lived here for three years. I lived in a house in Toronto ("big" city)
    for about 5 years and I talked to my next door neighbour once or twice,
    and they're even Chinese (Cantonese, but what the hell). It wasn't just
    me either -- I never saw neighbours talking to each other. Everyone
    was too busy working, making loads of money (so they can live on a 
    expensive street where no one knew anyone else), and keeping up with 
    their neighbours' material possessions (though they never talked to 
    each other). A very interesting street, indeed. (BTW, just to throw a
    wrench into the gears, everyone on that street were either Jews or
    Chinese -- both big money holders in Toronto). 

response 14 of 35:

Sep 8 03:50 UTC 1993

   I've lived in my neighborhood for fifteen years (since I was five months
old) and know most of my neighbors.  Most of the people in my neighborhood know
eachother.  Is this a really weird neighborhood, or what?

response 16 of 35:

Sep 10 12:25 UTC 1993

Your nearest neighbor is literally a mile away?  This is in Washtenaw
County?  I didn't know we had areas so sparsely populated.

response 18 of 35:

Sep 16 02:59 UTC 1993

This whole "world village" is a result of revolutions in transportation and
communications.  Cites were first founded at natural harbors and good locations
on rivers, often at river junctions.  Railroads freed development the the
necessity of being on water.  With the interstate highway system, the science
of economic geography practically died... you could put a factory anywhere, 
not even necessarily on a rail line.  Container ships and double stack freight
trains have so lowered the cost of shipping long distances that "national,"
not just "local" has lost its meaning.  We have a very pertinent-to-this-item
debate going on right now- "NAFTA."  As cheap as it is to ship from Asia on
container ships, Mexico, with its close proximity w/o slow ships will further
take away the "home advantage."  Will our refrigerators soon be imported?
Building panels?

response 20 of 35:

Sep 17 19:08 UTC 1993

Is it drift to state that I support NAFTA simply as an extention of
Art I Sec 8 of the Constitution. It's part of the Americanization
of the planet, a relative copy ofthe European Common Market, which
was debate with the same vocabulary some 20+ years ago.

response 22 of 35:

Sep 20 05:50 UTC 1993

Re 21.  "Corruption is much worse in US than most peeps are aware ..."
Your oh-so-chic cynicism really undercuts your argument.  I was skeptical
about NAFTA from the beginning, but I'm starting to feel some sympathy
for the thing when it's attacked with cheap, mindless garbage like this.

I've been involved in politics for more than twenty years, starting with
the antiwar and environmental movements in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
I've served in numerous elected, appointed, and political party offices.
I've seen the political system, in detail, from the inside, been at times
frustrated, fascinated, disgusted, amused, and whatever other reactions
that any organized or unorganized human activity can inspire in a person.

Yeah, there are plenty of problems, examples of pettiness and self-dealing
and greed.  I've got plenty of "war stories" about embezzling treasurers,
biased judges, vindictive councilmen, etc.  However, these stories are
interesting precisely because they are the exception.  At least in Michigan,
I can say with some authority, it just isn't all that bad.  

If you weren't so blinded by your automatic sneering mechanism, you'd
notice that the level of political and bureaucratic corruption varies
from state to state within the U.S.  The blithe assumption that "all
politicians everywhere are corrupt" tends to be self-fulfilling, since it
makes it impossible to get rid of the ones who are.

response 24 of 35:

Sep 20 09:44 UTC 1993

Larry, I took him to be making a statement of fact, not sneering.  (And I
think he's probably wrong; there are so many people who do make the blithe
assumption you mention that they swing the balance that way.)