Local future

Helena Norberg-Hodge

For our species to have a future, it must be local. The good news is that the path to such a future is already being forged.

Away from the screens of the mainstream media, the crude ‘bigger is better’ narrative that has dominated economic thinking for centuries is being challenged by a much gentler, more ‘feminine’, inclusive perspective that places human and ecological well-being front and center. People are coming to recognize that connection, both to others and to Nature herself, is the wellspring of human happiness. And every day new, inspiring initiatives are springing up that offer the potential for genuine prosperity.

At the same time there is a growing awareness – from the grassroots to academia – that the real economy is the natural world, on which we ultimately depend for all of our needs. Only when we embrace a structural shift in the current economy – away from dependence on a corporate-run global marketplace, towards diversified local systems – will we be able to live in a way that reflects this understanding.

Tragically, our political and business leaders remain blind to these and other realities. They are taking us down a different path, one where biotechnology will feed the world, the internet will enable global cooperation, robots will free people from the drudgery of physical and mental effort, and that the wealth of an ever richer 1 percent will somehow ‘trickle down’ to benefit the poor.

What does this future look like? Google’s Ray Kurzweil informs us that our food will come from “AI-controlled vertical buildings” and include “in-vitro cloned meat”. According to Tesla’s Elon Musk, building a city on Mars is “the critical thing for maximizing the life of humanity”, while “30 layers of tunnels” will relieve congestion in Earth’s high-density cities. Goldman Sachs explains that the digitization of everyday objects will “establish networks between machines, humans, and the internet, leading to the creation of new ecosystems that enable higher productivity, better energy efficiency, and higher profitability”.

These ideas are lauded as visionary and bold, but what they promise is simply the escalation of dominant trends – neo-colonial expansion, urbanization and commodification – turbo-charged with fancy gadgets. What they don’t tell us is that, at every level, the system is dumping the most abundant natural resource of all – human energy and labor – on the waste heap. At the same time, our taxes are subsidizing a dramatic increase in the use of energy and scarce natural resources. We have a system that is simultaneously creating mass unemployment, poverty and pollution.

This system is not the expression of the will of the majority: on the contrary, we have been actively excluded from having a say. But I do not believe that a ‘good guys vs. bad guys’ narrative is accurate either. It is true that the people consciously pushing corporate monoculture represent only a tiny fraction of the global population – perhaps less than 10,000 individuals worldwide – but even they are so mesmerized by abstract economic models and indicators that they are often blind to the real-world effects of their decisions.

In a sense, the system has entrapped us all. Even the CEOs of large corporations and banks are driven by speculative markets to meet short-term profit and growth targets – they are under intense pressure to stay on top for fear of losing their own jobs and letting down their shareholders.

Excerpt from: ‘Local is Our Future’.

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org