Wasn’t considered consumption and buying locally going to make things better? If you are trying to be eco-conscious these days you probably feel a bit guilty. After waiving the ‘buy less, buy better’ flag for a while they were told that the drop in consumer demand is killing the world’s economy. Now their efforts to buy local could be seen as protectionist and anti-competitive.
It could just be me, but there seems to be a lot of old world thinking in politics about how to solve the economic crisis going against many of the principles of an emerging way of thinking about our role with the planet.
Would love some thoughts from you guys in the comments.
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Hi Piers. I wrote about this on my blog in August last year. It’s a really interesting topic… I think buying local is brilliant. But when you think about it, localism really is a fluffy version of protectionism.
As a build on this… I like the fact that localism is all about freedom to buy locally and a genuine desire to purchase locally (i.e. there is a demand for local goods) whereas protectionism is all about being interventionist and putting up barriers… i.e. reducing freedom.
http://tinyurl.com/cf5rnz
February 4th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I am not convinced that buying less and buying better had anything to do with what’s happened to the economy, and I still think that mantra is going to be what saves us in the end. Requiring innovation for better, cleaner, more responsible products creates better, cleaner, more responsible jobs. And in terms of buying local, if I have to support a company with my money, I’d rather it be one that I know in my community than a faceless one… somewhere.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Buying local is a way of setting up our society for protectionism. During tough economic times it seems correct to make people purchase less and better in favor of bringing in items from other countries. The topic of protectionism is lurking around other sites and makes me wonder if we will see a brief pause in globalization as things get worst. It will be interesting to see the outcome with technology as a variable.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Protectionism is a government-led effort. Going shopping as a policy of grievance also came from the top. By contrast, buying less/better and buying local tend to be bottom-up. Nothing protectionist about that, just people trying to live more responsibly and keep their money in their communities. Less/better and local tends to be higher priced, which may offset more/worse and cheap-crap-from-China as far as the economic impact goes.
I’m not sure if “better” was the desired outcome of buying less/better and local. “Different”, “more responsible” or “higher quality of life” may fit the bill more appropriately.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Just a tiny comment. I think that this kind of topic has to be taken from another point of view: maybe this debate has little to do with the fact that US’s economy its kind of decimononic and antique, which I totally agree. Maybe we have to start thinking about something, its going local even an option por this phase of global capitalism? is localism a contradiction in terms for ths system? maybe, and not that I don´t resent that, we have to face this, because this world system needs world production and consumption, and self-sustained countries or economies might be, a total revolution to capitalism. (obviously, I’m the first one that is encouraging that, but we have to see this problem in wider perspective). It could be protecionism, but we have to see it broader.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I think it’s important to buy food locally. (Read Omnivore’s Dilemma by Pollan). The reason for this is due to the fact that I think we need to go back to obeying seasonality and location based food markets.
For everything else I could definitely see buying locally as anti-competitive as it drastically reduces the realm of competitors for no particularly good reason.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:20 am
the question kind of is:
is capitalism (at least in its current form) and it’s “growth”-mantra compatible with a world that is exhaustible and actually not very far from exhausted.
or, put differently: do “growth” and “sustainability” go together?
February 6th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’m with Scott on the knowing the face issue… shopping from “my dollar is my vote” I prefer to know the people I’m paying, and know where the food came from, and love it when the people in a shop really know their produce. At the same time I also love authentic foods from Greece and Italy and I have no hesitation in buying the real deal. I shop from my dollar is my vote and as per Schumaker’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ I think sustaining small businesses from all countries will make a huge difference. From that context, YES, growth is sustainable.
As far as old world politics is concerned, there’s that Einstein quote about the impossibility of solving problems with the tools from which they were created. The issues we have today have never been faced before therefore NOBODY has the answer for solving them.
We’re connected, and thinking at such an exponential level now, it’s impossible for old world thinking to keep up:))
February 7th, 2009 at 4:01 am
I think the problem is not from what producer you buy. The problem is that all producers has expectations of infinite growth in a planet of limited resources.
February 10th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Isn’t the goal of protectionism the exact same as buying locally? I’m all for supporting our local economies, yet most economists believe that protectionism is a bad thing. So do they also think that buying locally is bad? I honestly fail to see the difference. The only difference I see is the methodology in attaining those goals; one method is enforced buy government, the other is a conscience decision on the part of the consumer. But both desired outcomes are the same.
I still fail to see the difference in outcomes.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:36 pm