Paradigm shift #3 Ethical, resilient and equitable local economies

The basis of Permaculture economics are the same as the ethics. 

An economy must :

Care for the earth, aggrade (the opposite in this case of degrade) the environment. The opposite of our economies of today

Care for people, the goods and services produced must improve people's quality of life, health and mental well-being. The opposite of most of today's production. 

Create abundance and share it.

Implicit in these ethics is the concept of multi-generationality. The economic activities of one generation must leave for future generations healthy environments and more resources not less.

Governments, central banks, industries and most economists persist in pushing macro-economic approaches. They continue to believe and try to convince us, that they are capable of controlling our global economies. They may as well try and balance a match on their noses during a storm. What do we actually see? A recession that comes around every 10 years or so, wealth being accumulated by a small elite, destruction of the environment, over-exploitation of natural resources, climate change etc all symptoms of a systemic crisis that we pay for each time.

As I write we are faced with a toxic cocktail of crises. Covid 19 plus climate change plus inequity plus .... the list is going to be too long and depressing ! Suffice to say that the recession is going to be hard and maybe long. But as we say in Permaculture, "the problem is the solution". This crash is the ideal opportunity to change course.

It is very difficult to find studies that have been done looking at local economies. The ones that we can find show that local businesses return a higher percentage of there incomes to the local economy when compared to for example supermarket chains. The local businesses also create more local jobs. This is the opposite of what we hear from governments, industry and economists.The big chains make our local communities more poor, with fewer workers with whom they share a minimum of their profits, they make, however, their owners and shareholders more and more wealthy. We win all the way if we stop using these chains and use local shops selling, as much as possible, local produce.

When we use Permaculture to analyse a system, a part of this analysis is aimed at identifying opportunities that are unused or unoccupied. The inhabitants of a local community have needs, products and services,. When these are lacking in the local economy people are obliged to purchase them from outside their local economy which, as discussed, makes their community poorer.

Before people start shouting that its impossible to source all needs within a given local area I will just add the following. The approach discussed here is to create resilient communities, so they need to produce as much as possible locally. These local economies are then connected together by webs of interdependancies based an adaptation of the economic principle of comparative advantages. It may be difficult or impossible for a particular community to produce something but easy for another. This opens the possibility of creating the webs of interdependancies that are such a feature of natural systems. Ideally these exchanges are between communities that are in the same bioregion. 

Another thing to note is that, whilst in Permaculture we emphasise the importance of local resilient and ethical economies, we are not necessarily against longer distance trade. We are against how it is transacted today. A counter example to this is a local business in Brittany, France. They sell coffee and chocolate, obviously these can't be produced in their area, they are imported, by boat. A sailing boat, using the wind.

The analysis of which I wrote earlier will reveal opportunities. Goods and services needed but not locally produced. This means economic roles available for local people. The more there are good and services to exchange the stronger the multiplier effect in the economy and the better off everyone will be.

Analyse :

• What economic roles are unoccupied and what resources are being wasted or unused?

• Each activity has needs and primary and secondary products. How can these activities be best organised so that the "waste" products of one activity are a resource for another activity.

• How can we wok with each member of the local community to find a role for everyone? Everyone has a creativity, what is yours? What have you always dreamed of doing? How can that dream be realised and intergrated into the local economy?

• What goods and services are too difficult to produce locally? For whom is it easier? How can you create an inter-dependant exchange with them?

Don't forget :

• The basis of a Permaculture economy are the ethics.

• There is no waste, the local economy is circular and products at the end of their life become a resource for an activity.

• Negative externalities are eliminated from the system. No pollution, no production of toxic products or wastes, no environmental destruction, no resource over-exploitation.