McKibben, Bill. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007.
On
the whole, Bill McKibben's solution for the economic failures of
growth-centric, profit-blind capitalism seems appealing. McKibben
advocates and demonstrates that local economics will be the future for
the United States, other western countries, and the developing world.
"These [local economies] may well yield less stuff, but they produce richer
relationships; they may grow less quickly, if at all, but they make up
for it in durability." (p. 2)
Though
statistic after statistic and story after story, McKibben makes his
case. By the time he explains how local economies transform people,
"You go from being a mere consumer to being a participant,
talking about what you like and dislike, expanding your sense of who's
in your community and how it fits together" (pp. 105-106), a reader of Deep Economy
could get fired up, encouraged, and ready to join the local community
supported agriculture co-op. I like McKibben's ideas and possible
solutions. I agree something needs to be done.
But two issues remained unsolved for me after reading Deep Economy.
First is the nature of localism. It is possible for localism to produce
suburban jingoism. I'm not sure McKibben ever raised the potential of
this negative consequence of localism, that localism can develop into
holier-than-thouism. That's a real danger, it seems to me.
The
other problem is that I'm not sure globalism is such a bad thing. It's
a complicated argument, but I'd say that greed -- not localism or
globalization -- has been responsible for shipping lousy unripe
vegetables across the world. Greed also motivates companies to sit on
relief crops that should be expedited to starving refugees. I have a
hard time blaming "globalization" for the actions of greedy jerks, who
use technologies and logistics to bleed every last cent out of the
poor.
These two questions don't seem adequately answered by McKibben in Deep Economy. That's not to say he doesn't have an answer or that I didn't pick up on all the arguments he made. Deep Economy
is a great read. It strikes me as a far more valuable contribution to
global economic thinking than Jeffrey Sachs' recent book, Common Wealth. And I hope the McKibben keeps on going.
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