A long time ago I read "Small is Beautiful", a book by William Schumacher, which proposes small scale, less developed models of agriculture and technology. His thesis was that these are better suited to bringing prosperity, motivation, and community spirit to third world countries than the high-tech big business "help" that breeds dependency on corporations and suspicion toward the US and resentment against it's rich, world dominating trade. Some of Schumacher's thinking has rubbed off on me, although I have no illusions about the niave respect he shows to socialism and Karl Marx. I strongly suspect that world trade interests swallow up the soulful quality of local culture, and they draw people into cities, into anonymity, high mobility, and a loss of roots. Somehow I think that eventually too great a dependence on world trade will disempower many and create a "harried" life in many of those it only modestly empowers. We all know that "small is beautiful." But we think that "big is powerful". "Hook up with the big boys, get in with the big thing, that's the ticket," we say to ourselves. But many of our grandparents used to enjoy life better in small towns than we do in cities today. Have the big cities and the world of long distance trade run past their point of prosperity for the average person? Is'nt it time for some of us to consider building up local commerce among smaller businesses and smaller farms?
There is a given level of diversity in any economic structure. Let us observe that the big city has more diversity or specialization, while the small town has less. Dwellers in a small town must be more diverse in their skills, that is to say, less specialized.
Occasionally, big cities get too congested and too restrictive of economic and spacial growth. Many begin to feel trapped, in spite of their mobility. They are trapped in commuterville. They don't say alot about their trapped feelings, because the corporate culture suppresses "negativity". They are trained to be in awe of the entreprenuers who start or lead these corporations, hearing the bardic tales of these men's economic conquests. The Bible specifically warns us not to be in awe of the rich.
The city dweller's commitment to his specialized "glory" in the big city structure makes it socially unacceptable for him to complain about the big structure's limitations. The corporation has it's own culture, one that shames him from starting out on his own in a smaller, humbler structure. He is never to complain about bigness. I don't just mean just complaining about the big city per se. I mean complaining about the whole structure of high specialization and the culture that trained him or her to get stuck in it and to compete within the confines of it's opportunities. The "glorious" world of specialization is complex and mesmeric. New markets are made everyday in an interdependent structure that makes more and more assecories into essential needs. People cannot imagine living without the benefits that become "soma" for their passive relinquishing of small town and small business opportunities and localized influence in the development of their culture in the next generation.
People get bottled up in highly populated areas of high competition for jobs involving high specialization. This congestion benefits some, but causes others to forget that they could compete more effectvely elsewhere. Many would be well suited to living in rural communities with a simpler, less specialized economic structure. Rather than sending so many of our children to college, let's teach more of them how to fix their own car, or how to rebuild their own house, or how to run a small business. Now the way many people have been trained to think about this, it sounds to them like a step down culturally. But actually it is not that at all. Especially scince much of the "step up" in recent years was illusory- it was a high culture pyramid scheme. It brought higher degrees but not enough higher paying jobs for those who invested in them. Even those who had the good jobs also had inflation, long distance commuting, a real estate pyramid scheme, tax breaks for the corporations, a stifling of small business in the community, and a general sense of noncommunity and spiritual malaise. The illusory "step up" brought investment glitter but also consumer drabness. It brought sexy glamor, but only to those who could afford it, who were past the prime of life. It expanded businesses but downsized many people out, leaving many without the promised economic opportunity.
Cheap land bought by cooperating small businesses is the way out of the disenfranchisement of many. It is a very simple and worthy strategy. Remember that in a simpler economic structure, it is the primacy of the land that is the focus. You work the land, you defend it from the interests of big business, and you pray for and seek the good of your local culture, your family, neighbors, and community. It is your REAL estate. In a complex society of great specialization, we forget about the primacy of land. We lose our loyalty to our communities. We of course do pay for "UNreal estate", for exorbitantly priced real estate where bigger businesses and those servicing them in the wealthier areas of super specialization are located; these have less and less space for growth, and hence must beat the drum of their value louder, with ever increasing hype and mesmerizing seductions. We need to remember that modestly priced lands for modest sized businesses affordable by modest incomed families working at modest levels of commercial specialization- these have the advantage of spacial and economic growth that the other more complex economy can never have. It's THE LAND, folks! A simpler economic structure has a PLACE TO GROW without resorting to exploitative or manipulative practices. This localized, responsible growth is also more substantial to and for those inside or near it; it more directly effects the individuals involved in the company or service, for it is THEIR business, or someone's whom they know who buys THEIR products of services, and it is THEIR community and often THEIR family that is directly effected by the profit of all the businesses concerned.
So then, where are the young people willing to train in the more generalized skills necessary to develop commerce in less developed areas?
Whatever happened to the heroic spirit of the pioneers who settled the plains? "Go west, young man." Where are the modern wagon trains, the groups of people organizing their moderate specialization together to refurbish ghost towns on the plains, who see that by working together they can create economic opportunity for themselves?
We must also see that the time is optimum for geographical diversity. We no longer have to live in the big city to have many of the things that the big city has been offering to us.
Today, even some highly specialized small businesses can do well in small towns. They have world markets on the internet that are just as assessible there. The same is true for small mail order businesses that provide products to a wide market. It makes sense to have these businesses in an area where real estate is inexpensive. There are enough of these businesses thriving now to suppliment those that require real locality- that is, the service businesses like landscaping, etc., and the small shop retailers. What a teamwork of small businesses is now possible! And ironically, such small structures of mutual trade can be organized through the big commercial structure of the internet.
