Ve rwww. movtcommons.org nt CommoNumber 10 | Februaryn 2006 s VOICES OF INDEPENDENCE RE-INVENTING ECONOMICS

Local Living Economies The Politics of Money Vermont Commons is a print and online forum for exploring the idea of Vermont independ - The New Movement for Responsible Business By Hazel Henderson ence—political, economic, social, and spiritual. Look for us the last Friday of every month in the By Judy Wicks he word is out that economics, never a sci - Vermont Guardian, and visit our website at Tence, has always been politics in disguise. I www.vtcommons.org. We are unaffiliated with socially, environmentally and financially sus - have explored how the economics profession grew any other organization or media, and interested Atainable global economy must be composed of to dominate public policy and trump so many in all points of view. We welcome your letters, sustainable local economies. Yet, tragically, from other academic disciplines and values in our daily thoughts, and participation. American “Main Streets” to villages in developing lives. Economics and economists view reality countries, corporate globalization is causing the through the lens of money. Everything has its IN THIS ISSUE decline of local communities, family businesses, price, they believe, from rain forests to human family farms and natural habitats. Wealth and labor to the air we breathe. Economic textbooks, 1 Local Living Economies: The New power are consolidating in growing transnational Gross National Product (GNP) and the statistics Movement for Responsible Business , corporations that wield alarming control over on employment, productivity, investment and by Judy Wicks many important aspects of our lives – the food we globalization – all follow the money. Happily, all 1 The Politics of Money , by Hazel eat, the clothes we wear, the news we hear, and this focus on money is leading to the widespread Henderson even the government we rely on to protect the awareness of ways money is designed, created and 2 Building Sustainable Economies , common good. By working cooperatively, locally manipulated. This politics of money is at last by Susan Witt owned businesses and conscious consumers can unraveling centuries of mystification. 3 From Common Wealth to Common create an alternative to corporate globalization that Civic action with local currencies, barter, com - Property , by Peter Barnes brings power back to our communities by building munity credit and the more dubious rash of digi - 4 A Direct Stake In Economic Life: sustainable local economies – living economies that tal cybermoney all reveal the politics of money. Worker-Owned Firms , by Gar Alperovitz support both natural and community life. Economics is now widely seen as the faulty 6 The Real Economy , by Dr. Robert sourcecode deep in societies’ hard drives . . . repli - Costanza Socially responsible business (SRB) movement cating unsustainability: booms, busts, bubbles, 7 News of a Second Vermont Republic , Over the last 10 to 15 years, the socially responsible recessions, poverty, trade wars, pollution, disrup - by Jane Dwinell business (SRB) movement has made great strides tion of communities, loss of cultural diversity and 8 The CLT Model: A Tool for Perma - in raising consciousness about the responsibility of bio-diversity. Citizens all over the world are reject - nently Affordable Housing and Wealth business to serve the common good, rather than ing this malfunctioning economic sourcecode and Generation , by Gus Newport simply increasing profits for the benefit of stock - its operating systems: the World Bank, the IMF, 12 Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of Eco - holders. The triple bottom line of people, planet the WTO and imperious central banks. Its hard- nomics: Towards Basic Principles of a and profit has become a new measurement of per - wired program, the now-derided “Washington Bioregional Economy , by Kirkpatrick Sale formance for a growing number of companies that Consensus” recipe for hyping GNP-growth, is consider the needs of all stakeholders – employees, challenged by the Human Development Index FEBRUARY ON THE WEB community, consumers and the natural environ - (HDI), Ecological Footprint Analysis, the Living ment, as well as stockholders – when making busi - Planet Index, the Calvert-Henderson Quality of • Vermont creates a post-Carbon Network ness decisions. Yet, problems have continued to Life Indicators, the Genuine Progress Index and • NOFA conference information worsen around the globe. All natural systems are Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness… not to men - • Live Audio and Video Streaming in decline, global warming is accelerating, wealth tion scores of local city indices such as Jack - • Your cards, letters, poetry, and prose disparity is increasing, and wars over dwindling sonville, Florida’s Quality Indicators for Progress, natural resources pose a growing threat. Clearly a pioneered by the late Marian Chambers in 1983. Join the Conversation new strategy for building a just and sustainable As with politics, all real money is local, created by www.vtcommons.org global economy is crucially needed. people to facilitate exchange and transactions, and to subscribe to our free electronic newsletter, it is based on trust. The story of how this useful contact [email protected] Old paradigm of continuous growth invention, money, grew into abstract national fiat While the SRB movement has brought improve - currencies backed only by the promises of rulers ment in business practices for many companies, and central bankers is being told anew. We witness New Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke opined that overall business success is still measured by the old how information technology and deregulation of the mystery of low bond yields and interest rates paradigm of continuous growth and maximized banking and finance in the 1980s helped create was due to a “global savings glut.” Former Fed return on investment. Stockholder expectations today’s monstrous global casino where $1.5 trillion Chairman Greenspan, whose zero real interest and a “grow or die” mentality move companies to worth of fiat currencies slosh around the planet rates flooded the U.S. economy with excess liquid - expand their brands nationally, competing with daily via mouse clicks on electronic exchanges, 90 ity and helped create the dot-com, housing and continued on page 10 percent in purely speculative trading. continued on page 11 2 VERMONT COMMONS FEBRUARY 2006

Building Sustainable Economies

Dear Friends of Vermont Commons , scale, transparent in structure, designed to profit of her restaurant is due to her understanding of the community rather than profit from the com - and commitment to her customers and a set of f our common interest is to help establish a munity, they can address our common concern for values they support. Her essay describes the Imore independent Vermont Republic, then part safe and fair working conditions; for production spreading of that ethic to businesses around the of that effort will be to build a more independent practices that keep our air and soil and waters country, “an alternative to corporate globaliza - Vermont economy – one in which, as economist clean, renewing our natural resources rather than tion—a decentralized global network of local liv - Fritz Schumacher advocates in Small Is Beautiful: depleting them; for innovation in the making and ing economies composed of independent, com - Economics as if People Mattered , the goods con - distribution of the basic necessities of food, cloth - munity-based businesses.” sumed in a region are produced in a region. ing, shelter and energy rather than luxury items; Peter Barnes, who was a journalist before Therefore, as the brilliant regional planner and and for more-equitable distribution of wealth. becoming the entrepreneur behind Working intuitive economist Jane Jacobs argues in Cities and Building new economic institutions is hard Assets Long Distance Company, has spent his the Wealth of Nations, the strategy for economic work. Most of us rest complacently in our role as whole working career considering the role of land development should be to generate import- passive consumers, not co-producers and co- in the economic system. “From Common Wealth replacement industries. She would have us exam - shapers of our own economies. But it is work that to Common Property” is only one part of a long ine what is now imported into the state and can be done, and fine beginnings are being made musing on how to free our common inheritance develop the conditions to instead produce those right here in Vermont in the development of local (land and other nature-given assets) from private products from local resources with local labor. currencies, worker-owned businesses, community ownership by individuals and convert it to shared Unlike the branch of a multi-national corporation land trusts, and business alliances for local living ownership by all citizens of earth. that might open and then suddenly close, driven economies. To honor the achievements already by moody fluctuations in the global economy, a made and to encourage additional citizen partici - locally owned and managed business is more pation in these innovative programs, this issue of VERMONT COMMONS likely to establish a complex of economic and Vermont Commons is focused on economics. social interactions that build strong entwining In his essay “Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of www.vtcommons.org regional roots, keeping the business in place and Economics,” author Kirkpatrick Sale reminds us Publisher Ian Baldwin accountable to people, land and community. to “take the economic scale that is optimum for Associate Publisher Rick Foley and What then, is the responsibility of concerned the earth’s systems” in shaping our new Rob Williams citizens to help build a sustainable Vermont econ - economies. He shows us how to plan our eco - Editor Rob Williams omy? An independent regional economy calls for nomic activities in terms of the capacities of Art Director Peter Holm new regional economic institutions for land, labor watersheds and bio-regions, choosing limits to Cartoon Editors Tim Matson and and capital to embody the scale, purpose and consumption. He then goes on to describe eight Ian Kiehle structure of our endeavors. These new institu - principles of a bioregional economy, imagining an Editor-at-Large Kirkpatrick Sale tions cannot be government-driven, and rightly so. economics formed by implementation of con - Advertising Manager Ian Kiehle They will be shaped by free associations of con - scious values rather than by market forces. Subscriptions Caitlin Bright and J. Arthur Loose sumers and producers, working co-operatively, Judy Wicks was a single mother and anchored in Business Manager Pat Ullom sharing the risk in creating an economy that her Philadelphia neighborhood when she started Web Editor Rob Williams reflects shared culture and shared values. Small in The White Dog Café. She knows that the success Web Design Figrig at www.figrig.com Web Host Eggplant Media at www.eggplantmedia.com Contributors Editorial Committee Gar Alperovitz , professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founding prin - Ian Baldwin, Rob Williams, Rick Foley, Cheryl cipal of the Democracy Collaborative, is an author ( The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb , 1995) Diersch, Gary Flomenhoft, and Jim Hogue whose articles have appeared in the New York Times , the Atlantic Monthly and other publications. Consulting Editors Peter Barnes , co-founder of Working Assets Long Distance, lives in Point Reyes Station, Califor - Jacqueline Brook, Marna Ehrech, Alvino-Mario nia, where he is a senior fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute; his most recent book, Who Owns Fantini, John Ford, Karen Gallus, Bill Grennon, The Sky? , addresses climate change from a commons perspective. (www.onthecommons.org) Anita Kelman, Ian Kiehle, J. Arthur Loose, Tim Matson, Sharon McDonnell, Thomas Naylor, Dr. Robert Costanza is Gund Professor of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont in Susan Ohanian, Robert Riversong, David White, Burlington. Helen Whybrow, and Kate Williams

Hazel Henderson (Creating Alternative Futures , 1978, 1996) serves on the Advisory Board of the E. Editorial Office and Submissions F. Schumacher Society; her TV series, ETHICAL MARKETS, airs on PBS stations nationally, and 308 Wallis Drive is available on DVD at www.EthicalMarkets.com. Waitsfield, VT 05673 Gus Newport has served on the faculties of Yale and other universities; he is executive director of [email protected] the Institute for Community Economics in Springfield, MA, and a former two-term (1979-86) Business Office mayor of Berkeley, CA. ([email protected]) P.O. Box 66 Orwell,VT 05760 Kirkpatrick Sale is the author of 12 books, including Human Scale, The Conquest of Paradise, Rebels Against the Future , and The Fire of Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream . Subscriptions $20 a year for 12 issues Judy Wicks is the a co-founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a [email protected] network of North American business groups that create living economies in their regions, Vermont Commons including Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. P.O. Box 674 Moretown,VT 05660 Susan Witt is the executive director of the Massachusetts-based E.F. Schumacher Society (www.smallisbeautiful.org). Advertising [email protected] FEBRUARY 2006 VERMONT COMMONS 3

In an essay written for the Poverty and Race Research Association Council, Gus Newport From Common Wealth to Common Property describes the community land trust (CLT) as a model for securing community ownership of land By Peter Barnes while enabling private ownership of homes and other buildings on that land. In my January 2006 e all know what private wealth is, even if we almost all designed to confer some advantage on interview with Gus, which follows, he shows how Wdon’t own much. It’s property we inherit or capital owners. this concept can be applied in the hurricane-rav - accumulate individually, including our fractional Common property – as distinct from common aged areas of the Gulf Coast. There, the CLT has claims on corporations and mutual funds. When wealth and from individual or government prop - become an organizing tool for African-American President Bush speaks of an “Ownership Society,” erty – has a long though little-known history. Fre - citizens to retain control over future land-use deci - it’s this kind of wealth he has in mind. quently it is property owned by a community – a sions in their neighborhoods in the face of massive But there’s another trove of wealth that’s not so tribe, a village, a people. Individual rights to share government and corporate redevelopment efforts. well known: our common wealth. Each of us is the in the property depend on membership. If you’re Through her writings and public appearances, joint recipient of a vast inheritance. This shared born into the community, your share is a Hazel Henderson has devoted her life to helping inheritance includes air and water, habitats and birthright. Conversely, if you leave the community us understand the role of money in the economic ecosystems, languages and cultures, science and or die, you lose your rights. Shares aren’t saleable system so that we can change it. “The Politics of technologies, social and political systems, and quite to strangers as they are with corporate stock. Money” is no exception. Witty and fast paced, it a bit more. Though the value of these manifold gifts Common property is normally managed as a references other contemporary thinkers and is hard to calculate, it’s safe to say they’re worth tril - unit on behalf of the whole community. More - activists in the field of local currencies/commu - lions of dollars. Indeed, according to Friends of the over, future as well as living generations are typi - nity currencies/complementary currencies, and in Commons, their aggregate value probably exceeds cally taken into account by the managers. A classic so doing honors them. Hazel honors us all with that of everything we own privately. case is the medieval common pasture; its survival the inclusion of her essay. There is, of course, a qualitative difference for centuries, contrary to the ‘tragedy’ myth, is the Together with Herman Daly, Robert Costanza between private and common wealth. Private ultimate example of sustainable management. is known as a co-founder of “ecological econom - wealth is normally propertized, common wealth What forms might common property take ics.” Now part of the core faculty of the Gund is generally not. You can sell shares of private today? The answer, as you might expect, is varied: Institute at the University of Vermont, Costanza stock and walk away with cash; you can’t do that conservation easements and outright ownership brings intellectual leadership to the application of with shares of sky. We humans have a long tradi - by land trusts, birthrights to property income (á la new economic programs in and for Vermont. His tion of enjoying gifts of nature and society with - the Alaska Permanent Fund), “copylefts” that essay “The Real Economy” outlines a vision for an out legally owning them. allow non-commercial reproduction (á la Creative “economics of permanence,” to use Schumacher’s It would be sad to end this or any other good Commons licenses), open access and “common phrase. tradition. But in some cases, end it we must, for carrier” guarantees, pollution permits, “time dol - Gar Alperovitz’s new book, America Beyond Cap - the following reason: much un-owned common lars” and more. Some of these rights would be italism , is one of the most important records we wealth is in grave danger. It’s in danger both of tradable, others wouldn’t. Management of the have of achievements that have been made in cre - physical destruction and of enclosure by private rights would be placed in the hands of trusts, non- ating new economic structures. In his chapter on corporations (with the latter often leading to the profit corporations and hybrid entities of various worker-owned businesses, reprinted in this issue, former). Un-owned air gets polluted; un-owned sorts. Managers would be driven not by profit- he reminds us that “[o]ne factor which has con - genes get patented. Because of capital’s ceaseless maximization, but by community-based criteria. tributed to the rise of employee-owned firms is quest to grow, anything valuable that isn’t legally I’d nominate four to the top: (1) preserve common that multinational corporations often must seek nailed down will sooner or later be grabbed or assets, such as gifts of nature, for future genera - the very highest profit they can make on invested consumed. tions; (2) live off income from shared gifts, not capital—whereas workers living in a community We could rely on government to protect our principal; (3) distribute income from shared gifts are happy with substantial profits (rather than the common wealth, but that would be to misplace on a one-person, one-share basis; and (4) the more highest possible) since the other benefits of keep - our trust. Government is, most of the time, the the merrier. ing a plant in town far outweigh differences in handmaiden of profit-maximizing, cost-externaliz - Such common property rights would represent profit rates.” ing capital. Far better, when we have a chance, to the “we” side of the human psyche, just as private This certainly touches on the core of the matter. lock up common wealth as common property, to property rights represent our “me” side. Both Local currencies, community land trusts, worker be passed on, undiminished, from one generation sides, I’d argue, need representation in our econ - owned businesses are all important tools for shap - to the next. omy more or less equally. Common property ing economies. Yet ultimately the health and vital - What are the advantages of doing this? Property rights would also manifest our connection to ity of a local economy will depend on the affec - rights are powerful human inventions. In essence, ecosystems, future generations and non-human tion that the citizens of a region have for their they’re social agreements to grant certain people species, crucial interests that, at present, have no neighbors and neighborhoods; for the fields, (owners) enforceable privileges. Once established, traction in the marketplace. forests, mountains and rivers of their landscapes; they’re constitutionally protected and very diffi - While the main reason we need common prop - for the local history and culture that binds these all cult to take away. If private owners use property erty is to save the planet, there’d be ancillary ben - together; and for their common future. rights to protect their wealth, why shouldn’t we as efits as well. These include non-labor income for The future of Vermont’s economy is in the common owners do so too? all, a more vibrant culture and a less distorted hands and hearts of its citizens. • Because property rights are so powerful, it’s democracy. These benefits would arise because largely through them that economies are shaped. well-managed common wealth adds to well-being Susan Witt Feudal economies were based on large estates in ways private property can’t. Guest Editor passed from lords to their eldest sons, alongside The bottom line is this: a true Ownership Soci - E. F. Schumacher Society commons that sustained the commoners. As capi - ety would protect both our private and our com - www.smallisbeautiful.org talism emerged, the commons were enclosed and mon wealth. George Bush isn’t likely to build it, a slew of new property rights were concocted, but over time, we can. •

Vermont Commons welcomes your input. Please e-mail letters to [email protected] or post to 308 Wallis Drive, Waitsfield, VT 05673. Although we will try to print your letters in their entirety, we may edit to fit. Please be concise. Be sure to include your contact information (name, address, telephone, and e-mail) for verification purposes. 4 VERMONT COMMONS FEBRUARY 2006

A Direct Stake In Economic Life: Worker-Owned Firms By Gar Alperovitz

hat individuals work harder, better and with one of the most impressive modern ESOPs. The It is also clear that ESOPs – and worker owner - Tgreater enthusiasm when they have a direct company, owned since 1974 by (currently 6,000) ship in general – have broad political appeal for interest in the outcome is self-evident to most peo - worker-owners in 45 locations around the world, both practical and philosophical reasons. The ple. The obvious question is: Why aren’t large has no “bosses” or formal titles. To ensure com - ESOP concept has been endorsed by (among oth - numbers of businesses organized on this principle? munication and innovation, those working at any ers): Ronald Reagan, Ralph Nader, Mario Cuomo, The answer is: In fact, thousands and thousands one site number no more than 200. Depending on William F. Buckley, William Greider, Jack Kemp, of them are. Indeed, more Americans now work their particular skills, workers may lead one task Richard Gephardt, Mikhail Gorbachev and in firms which are partly or wholly-owned by the one week and follow other leaders the next week; Coretta Scott King. Both parties backed the tax employees than are members of unions in the pri - teams disband after projects are completed, with legislation which now provides over $2 billion in vate sector! team members moving on to other teams. W. L. annual support to ESOPs. Other forms of federal Appleton (Co.) in Appleton, Wisconsin, a world Gore revenues totaled $1.2 billion in 2002; the help include loan guarantees and the financing of leader in specialty paper production, became firm regularly ranks on the Fortune “Best Compa - worker-ownership feasibility studies in the event employee-owned when the company was put up nies to Work For” list. of plant closures or major layoffs. for sale by Arjo Wiggins Appleton, the multina - Another impressive ESOP, Weston Solutions, A number of programs funded by states also tional corporation which owned it – and the 2,500 Inc., is the second-largest environmental firm in provide support for worker ownership. One of the employees decided they had just as much right to the country. Its highly specialized services range most widely recognized, the Ohio Employee buy it as anyone else. Reflexite, an optics company from forestry and urban planning to high-hazard Ownership Center, conducts feasibility studies for based in New Avon, Connecticut, became nuclear and chemical-waste cleanups. The com - potential independent worker buy-outs and for employee-owned in 1985 after 3M made a strong pany has helped rehabilitate “sick” (asbestos, lead transition buy-outs from retiring owners. The bid for the company and the founding owners, paint) school buildings from New York and Michigan Workforce Transition Unit offers loyal to their workers and the town, preferred to Chicago to Decatur, Alabama. It was the lead employee-ownership efforts feasibility-assessment sell to the employees instead. information technology contractor in recovery assistance. Massachusetts funds the quasi-govern - One factor which has contributed to the rise of operations after the space shuttle Columbia disas - mental Commonwealth Corporation which pro - employee-owned firms is that multinational corpo - ter. The company is 100-percent owned by its vides technical and financial assistance to firms rations often must seek the very highest profit they 1,800 employees. In recognition of its creative seeking to establish an ESOP. can make on invested capital, whereas workers liv - structure and its “consistent record of profitability, The extraordinary growth of ESOPs over the ing in a community are happy with substantial growth, and financial stability,” Weston received last 30 years has brought with it growing sophisti - profits (rather than the highest possible) since the the Environmental Business Journal ’s top “gold” cation, the development of expert advisory and other benefits of keeping a plant in town far out - award for 2003. technical-assistance organizations, a group of weigh differences in profit rates. (Often, of course, ESOP firms are also common in other non-spe - advocates and a group of critics, and – importantly when employees take ownership, the change pro - cialized areas: Fetter Printing Company in – an expanding and diverse constituency inter - duces greater efficiency – and greater profits than Louisville, Kentucky, is 100-percent owned by its ested in next-stage development of the institution. those which the multinational registered.) 200-plus workers. The firm has annual revenues of Critics of ESOPs commonly decry the lack of A major boost to employee-ownership came $17.5 million and was recently ranked as one of the democratic control offered to workers in most from passage in 1974 (and thereafter) of federal top 25 printers in the United States. Fastener Indus - trust arrangements. They point out that unlike legislation providing special tax benefits to tries in Berea, Ohio, is owned by more than 100 such a leader as W. L. Gore, many – indeed, most “Employee Stock Ownership Plans” (ESOPs), the worker-owners. Machinists who have participated – ESOPs do not involve real participation; they legal structure which most such firms now utilize. in the ESOP since 1980 commonly receive the often function mainly as a tax-favored legal mech - Technically an ESOP involves a “Trust” which equivalent of an additional three-months pay in anism to help employees accumulate additional receives and holds stock in a given corporation on dividends each year and retire with personal share- assets over time. (It is estimated that only between behalf of its employees. holding accounts of up to $350,000. Parametrix – a quarter and a third of ESOP companies pass At the core of the ESOP idea is the basic financ - 100-percent owned by over 350 employees – is an through full voting rights to worker shareholders.) ing concept urged by Louis Kelso for broadening environmental engineering firm headquartered in Moreover, since ESOPs commonly award stock in the ownership of wealth – namely, if some form Sumner, Washington. The company was recently proportions related to wage and salary levels, they of guarantee or collateral can be arranged to pro - selected as one of the best companies to work for do little to improve overall compensation ratios, vide loans for productive investment, new wealth in Washington State – and was named 2001 ownership by diverse groups (in this case employ - national ESOP of the Year by the ESOP Associa - ees of a firm) can be developed and paid for by the tion. In Harrisonburg, Virginia, ComSonics – 100- he Vermont Employee Ownership Center profits which the investment itself generates. percent owned by 160 employees – makes cable tel - T(www.veoc.org ) is a statewide nonprofit Although ESOPs based on this principle date evision (CATV) test and analysis devices and boasts whose mission is to promote and foster from the 1950s, the modern federal legislation the largest CATV repair facility in the U.S. employee ownership in order to broaden capi - gave tax incentives to corporations contributing A 1998 survey of Washington state firms found tal ownership, deepen employee participation, stock to an employee trust – and, importantly, also that median hourly pay in ESOP firms was 12-per - retain jobs, increase living standards for work - provided benefits to retiring owners of businesses cent higher than pay for comparable work in non- ing families and stabilize communities. The who sell their corporation to employees and rein - ESOP firms. Worker-owners of ESOPs also ended Center organizes seminars and conferences. It vest the proceeds within a defined time frame. their careers with almost three times the retire - also works directly with owners, employee There are approximately 11,000 ESOPs now ment benefits of others with similar jobs. A 1990 groups and entrepreneurs wishing to bring operating in communities in all regions of the study by the National Center for Employee Own - about broadly shared ownership of businesses. United States. Asset holdings total more than $400 ership estimated that an employee making VEOC’s 2006 Annual Conference is scheduled billion. The National Center for Employee Owner - $20,000 a year in a typical ESOP would accumu - for June 6, just before the Business Alliance for ship (NCEO) estimates that total worker holdings late $31,000 in stock over 10 years – no small feat Local Living Economies (BALLE) June 8-10 (of all forms of stock ownership and stock options) considering that the median financial wealth was International Conference. Both events will be reached approximately $800 billion in 2002 – i.e., just $11,700 during this period. A 2000 Massachu - held in Burlington, Vermont. roughly 8 percent of all U.S. corporate stock. setts survey found ESOP accounts averaging just W. L. Gore – the maker of Gore-Tex apparel – is under $40,000. FEBRUARY 2006 VERMONT COMMONS 5 and in some cases actually increase internal firm NCEO, by several teams of economists, and by the ing for employee ownership ideas and supportive disparities due to compounding effects when stock U.S. General Accounting Office all confirm that state and federal policies was in part related to the values increase or dividends are received. combining worker ownership with employee par - economic difficulties experienced by many com - Several considerations suggest that greater dem - ticipation commonly produces greater productivity munities during this period: Employee-owned ocratic control of ESOPs is likely to develop as gains, in some cases over 50 percent. firms not only embody new wealth-owning princi - time goes on – hence, also open the way for The number of ESOP-style worker-owned ples, they help local economies. broader support. First, a significant share of ESOP firms increased from 1,600 in 1975 to 4,000 in With the return of the increased economic companies (some 3,000, or nearly 30 percent of 1980, to 8,080 in 1990 and, as we have noted, to uncertainties created by globalization, additional ESOPs in privately held companies) are already roughly 11,000 in 2002. The number of worker support is likely to build upon, and expand, the now majority-owned by workers. Of these, 40 percent owners involved rose, correspondingly, from a well-developed and growing foundation of accu - already pass voting rights through to plan partici - mere 248,000 in 1975 to 8.8 million in 2002. There mulated experience with worker owned firms. • pants. Second, as workers within specific firms is no question that the feasibility and efficiency of steadily accumulate stock they become majority wealth-owning through worker institutions has This article is adapted with permission of the author from America owners as time goes on. NCEO surveys reveal that been demonstrated, and that the basic concept has Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democ - racy (John Wiley and Sons Publishers) 2005; www.americabeyond the proportion of privately held ESOPs which are great potential for future expansion. capitalism.com. majority-owned increased approximately 50 per - Likely directions for next-stage development cent during the past decade. have been suggested by systematic proposals put It is conceivable that as more and more ESOPs forward on both left and right. During the Clinton become majority-owned, workers will simply Administration one expert (Joseph Blasi) developed ignore the fact that some have little power. On the a comprehensive package which included tax and other hand, the more likely probability – as Busi - other benefits, and substantial support for state- ness Week observed in 1991 – is that ultimately based technical assistance efforts. The Blasi plan workers “who own a significant share of their com - also proposed restructuring tax benefits to redress panies will want a voice in corporate governance.” the greater concentration of ownership among In Ohio (which has been closely studied) a survey higher-paid employees as a result of awarding stock completed in the mid-1990s found that 53 percent in amounts related to salary and wage level. of majority-owned ESOPs passed through voting One of the most conservative Republican mem - rights. It also found that employee ownership was bers of Congress, Dana Rohrbacher, has gone fur - becoming more democratic over time, with three ther. Rohrbacher has introduced legislation – The times as many closely held companies passing Employee Ownership Act of 2001 – the goal of through full voting rights to ESOP participants as which is to have “30 percent of all United States cor - had occurred in a previous 1985-1986 survey. porations . . . owned and controlled by employees of The third and perhaps most important reason to the corporations” by 2010. The proposed legislation expect change is that several studies demonstrate would define a new entity, the “Employee Owned that greater participation leads to greater produc - and Controlled Corporations” (EOCC, which CENTER FOR tivity, and thus greater competitiveness in the mar - Rohrbacher calls “ESOP-plus-plus”), in which over WHOLE ketplace. In general, ESOPs have been found to be 50 percent of stock is held by employees, 90 percent COMMUNITIES as productive or more productive than comparable of regular employees are enrolled in the plan, and all non-ESOP firms. Annual sales growth, on average, employees vote their stock on a one-person, one- Building stronger connections between people, land, and is also greater in ESOP than non-ESOP firms. vote basis. Various tax benefits would encourage community When ESOPs are structured to include greater par - adoption of the ESOP-plus-plus form. ticipation, however, the advantages of worker-own - The development in the 1970s and 1980s of Based at Knoll Farm, Waitsfield, Vermont V 1/5/06 9:48 AM Page 1 ership increase substantially. Studies undertaken by broad Democratic and Republican political back - www.wholecommunities.org

Chelsea Green seeks to build a community of new voices that will empower and inspire individuals to participate in the restoration of healthy local communities, bioregional ecosystems, and a diversity of cultures.

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CHELSEA The confluence of form and function GREEN through the medium of masonry P UBLISHING Peter McNeary Welch the politics and practice of sustainable living 6 VERMONT COMMONS FEBRUARY 2006

The Real Economy By Dr. Robert Costanza

tories about the economy typically focus on People make decisions assuming that more international organizations. Natural capital SGross Domestic Product (GDP), jobs, stock income, comfort, and positional goods will make includes the world’s ecosystems and all the serv - prices, interest rates, retail sales, consumer confi - them happier, failing to recognize that hedonic ices they provide. Ecosystem services occur at dence, housing starts, taxes and assorted other adaptation and social comparison will come into many scales, from climate regulation at the global indicators. We hear things like “GDP grew at a 3- play, raise their aspirations to about the same scale, to flood protection, soil formation, nutrient percent rate in the fourth quarter, indicating a extent as their actual gains, and leave them feeling cycling, recreation, and aesthetic services at the recovering, healthy economy, but with room for no happier than before. As a result, most individu - local and regional scales. further improvement.” Or, “The Fed raised short- als spend a disproportionate amount of their lives So, how has the real economy been doing term interest rates again to head off inflation.” working to make money, and sacrifice family life recently, compared to the market economy? The But do these reports, and the indicators they and health, domains in which aspirations remain short answer is, not so good. How do we know? cite, really tell us how the economy is doing? fairly constant as actual circumstances change, One way is through surveys of people’s life satis - What is the economy, anyway? And what is this and where the attainment of one’s goals has a faction, which has been decreasing slightly since economy for? more lasting impact on happiness. Hence, a reallo - about 1975. A second approach is an aggregate Conventional reports on these questions are cation of time in favor of family life and health measure of the real economy that has been devel - rather narrow. The “economy” we usually hear would, on average, increase individual happiness. oped as an alternative to GDP called the Genuine about refers only to the market economy – the Progress Indicator, or GPI. value of those goods and services that are British economist Richard Layard’s 2005 book, Let’s first take a quick look at the problems with exchanged for money. Its purpose is usually taken Happiness: Lessons from a New Science , echoes many GDP as a measure of true human well-being. to be to maximize the value of these goods and of these ideas and concludes that current eco - GDP is not only limited – measuring only mar - services – with the assumption that the more nomic policies are not improving happiness and keted economic activity or gross income – it also activity, the better off we are. Thus, the more that “happiness should become the goal of policy, counts all of this activity as positive. It does not GDP (which measures aggregate activity in the and the progress of national happiness should be separate desirable, well-being-enhancing activity market economy), the better. Likewise, the more measured and analyzed as closely as the growth of from undesirable well-being-reducing activity. For contributors to GDP (such as retail sales and GNP.” example, an oil spill increases GDP because some - salaries paid to employees), the better. Predictors Economist Robert Frank, in his 2000 book Lux - one has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts of more GDP in the future (such as housing starts ury Fever , also concludes that the nation would be from society’s well-being. From the perspective of and consumer confidence) are also important better off – overall national well-being would be GDP, more crime, more sickness, more war, more pieces of information from this perspective. higher, that is – if we actually consumed less and pollution, more fires, storms, and pestilence are all Declining or even stable GDP is seen as a disaster. spent more time with family and friends, working potentially good things, because they can increase Growth in GDP is assumed to be government’s for our communities, maintaining our physical marketed activity in the economy. primary policy goal and also something that is sus - and mental health, and enjoying nature. GDP also leaves out many things that do enhance tainable indefinitely. On this last point, there is substantial and grow - well-being but are outside the market. For example, But is this what the economy is all about? Or ing evidence that natural systems contribute heav - the unpaid work of parents caring for their own more accurately, is this all that the economy is ily to human well-being. In a paper published in children at home doesn’t show up, but if these about? Or is this what the economy should be 1997 in the journal Nature , my co-authors and I esti - same parents decide to work outside the home to about? The answer to all of these is an emphatic mated the annual, non-market value of the earth’s pay for child care, GDP suddenly increases. The no. Here’s why. ecosystem services is $33 trillion globally, substan - non-marketed work of natural capital in providing Let’s start with purpose. The purpose of the tially larger than global GDP. The just-released U.N. clean air and water, food, natural resources and economy should be to provide for the sustainable Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is a global other ecosystem services doesn’t adequately show well-being of people. That goal encompasses update and compendium of ecosystem services up in GDP, either, but if those services are damaged material well-being, certainly, but also anything and their contributions to human well-being. and we have to pay to fix or replace them, then else that affects well-being and its sustainability. So, if we want to assess the “real” economy – all GDP suddenly increases. Finally, GDP takes no This seems obvious and non-controversial. The the things which contribute to real, sustainable, account of the distribution of income among indi - problem comes in determining what things actu - human welfare – as opposed to only the “market” viduals. But it is well known that an additional $1 ally affect well-being and in what ways. economy, we have to measure the non-marketed worth of income produces more well-being if one There is substantial new research on this “sci - contributions to human well-being from nature, is poor rather than rich. It is also clear that a highly ence of happiness” that shows the limits of con - from family, friends and other social relationships skewed income distribution has negative effects on ventional economic income and consumption in at many scales, and from health and education. a society’s social capital. contributing to well-being. In his 2003 book The One convenient way to summarize these contri - The GPI addresses these problems by separating High Price of Materialism , psychologist Tim Kasser butions is to group them into four basic types of the positive from the negative components of points out, for instance, that people who focus on capital that are necessary to support the real, marketed economic activity, adding in estimates of material consumption as a path to happiness are human-welfare-producing economy: built capital, the value of non-marketed goods and services actually less happy and even suffer higher rates of human capital, social capital, and natural capital. provided by natural, human, and social capital, both physical and mental illnesses than those who The market economy covers mainly built capi - and adjusting for income-distribution effects. do not. Material consumption beyond real need is tal (factories, offices, and other built infrastructure While it is by no means a perfect representation of a form of psychological “junk food” that only sat - and their products) and part of human capital the real well-being of the nation, GPI is a much isfies for the moment and ultimately leads to (spending on labor), with some limited spillover better approximation than GDP. As Amarta Sen depression, Kasser says. into the other two. Human capital includes the and others have noted, it is much better to be Economist Richard Easterlin, a noted researcher health, knowledge and all the other attributes of approximately right in these measures than pre - on the determinants of happiness, has shown that individual humans that allow them to function in cisely wrong. well-being tends to correlate well with health, level a complex society. Social capital includes all the Comparing GDP and GPI for the US shows that of education and marital status, and not very well formal and informal networks among people: while GDP has steadily increased since 1950, with with income. He concludes in a recent paper in the family, friends, and neighbors, as well as social the occasional dip or recession, GPI peaked in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that: institutions at all levels, like churches, social clubs, about 1975 and has been gradually decreasing ever ••• local, state, and national governments, NGOs, and since. From the perspective of the real economy, as FEBRUARY 2006 VERMONT COMMONS 7 opposed to just the market economy, the U.S. has was due to Vermont’s attention to protecting and systems to encourage more local economic activ - been in recession since 1975. As already mentioned, enhancing natural, human, and social capital in ity and help build social capital. There are more this picture is also consistent with survey-based balance with gains in built capital — accomplished than 4,000 local currency systems in operation research on people’s stated life-satisfaction. We are through the application of strong, local demo - today, including “Ithaca hours” in Ithaca, N.Y., and now in a period of what Herman Daly has called cratic principles and processes still actively at work “Burlington Bread” in Burlington, VT. While “un-economic growth,” where further growth in in Vermont. these systems have so far not played a major role marketed economic activity (GDP) is actually The lesson from Vermont, and from similar in local economies, the potential for their reducing well-being on balance rather than enhanc - analyses done at the regional level in other locales, expanded use is huge. ing it. In terms of the four capitals, while built cap - is that there is significant variation across the Further reforming campaign-finance laws so that ital has grown, human, social and natural capital country in trends in well-being and quality of life, the needs and welfare of individuals are more fully have declined or remained constant and more than and plenty of good examples we can learn from to and accurately expressed in the national democratic canceled out the gains in built capital. improve the overall well-being of the country. process, rather than the needs and welfare of those During the last four years, the decline in domes - How can we apply these lessons to get out of who currently fund political campaigns. As Tom tic GPI has picked up speed. While U.S. GPI was the real recession in human well-being at the Prugh, Herman Daly and I have argued in our book beginning to trend upward again at the end of the national scale that we have been in since 1975? The Local Politics of Global Sustainability , imple - Clinton years, the policies of the Bush administra - Several policies have been suggested that would menting strong democracy (as opposed to the weak tion have lead to a significant worsening of help to turn things around: and ineffective sham of democracy we currently income distribution (thereby further decreasing Shifting our primary national policy goal from see at the national scale) is an essential prerequisite social capital), an increasing depletion of natural increasing marketed economic activity (GDP) to to building a sustainable and desirable future. capital, and worsening human capital through maximizing national well-being (GPI or some - Ultimately, getting out of our 25-year recession decreased spending on education and health and thing similar). This would allow us to see the in well-being will require us to look beyond the loss of jobs. And the Bush team has certainly not interconnections between built, human, social, limited definition of the “economy” we read compensated for these negatives with a stellar per - and natural capital, and build well-being in a bal - about in the newspapers, and recognize what the formance in the built capital component (GDP). anced and sustainable way. real economy is and what it is for. We must not While the dollar incomes of some wealthy indi - Reforming the tax system to send the right allow deceptive accounting practices – analogous viduals may have improved over this period, the incentives by taxing negatives (pollution, deple - to those that caused the Enron and WorldCom overall well-being of the nation has significantly tion of natural capital, over-consumption) rather debacles – to paint an inaccurate and ultimately declined. Further, the psychological evidence is than positives (labor, savings, investment). Recent destructive picture of how “well” we are doing. that even the well-being (as opposed to income) of tax reforms have decreased well-being by promot - Alternatives are available, but they need signifi - the wealthy individuals has probably not improved ing a greater income gap, natural resource deple - cant further discussion and research. very much and may even have declined. From the tion, and increased pollution. With nothing less than our current and future perspective of the real economy, the country is in Reforming international trade to promote well- well-being at stake, we can certainly afford to rapidly worsening shape. being over mere GDP growth. This implies pro - devote greater effort to learning how to ade - Is the news all bad? No. We recently estimated tecting natural capital, labor rights, and democratic quately understand and measure it. If we want the the GPI of the State of Vermont and of Burling - self-determination first and then allowing trade, things that really matter to our well-being to ton, the state’s largest city, and found that Ver - rather than promoting the current trade rules that count, we must learn how to recognize and count mont’s and Burlington’s GPI per capita had ride roughshod over all other societal values and them, and use that information to inform policy in increased over the entire 1950-2000 period and is ignore all non-market contributions to well-being. a real democracy. • now more than double the national average. This Implementing local complementary currency

News of a Second Vermont Republic By Jane Dwinell

hanks to several generous donors, the Second Independence Month will have happened on Janu - social change takes money, and we are apprecia - TVermont Republic is now in the process of ary 14. Look for a future issue of VC to let you tive of your memberships and your subscriptions. revamping our website. The new website will be know what happened if you were unable to partic - And if you, or any of your friends, wish to donate more interactive and more user-friendly, with ipate – or check the website for what the media further to the cause, let us know; we have several links, and articles, news clips, archives, stuff to had to say. projects in need of financing. buy, and other surprises down the line. We are Just ahead will be the events on March 4, com - hoping to make it easier for folks to join the organ - memorating Vermont Statehood Day – that day in Jane Dwinell, SVR Executive Director ization, and to learn more about the facts around 1791 when Vermonters gave up their independent [email protected] secession – both in Vermont and around the republic and joined the United States as the four - 802.229.4008 world. Thanks to the creative web designers at teenth state. We have all kinds of ideas up our Figrig Web Crafters of Montpelier for helping us sleeves, but it’s too soon to let you know exactly with this process. what will happen. Be prepared for anything. Advertise with Vermont Commons As we build momentum, a website is a vital tool We are also in the process of setting up a Vermont Commons is distributed every month for connecting, educating, entertaining and inspir - Speaker’s Bureau. We are happy to speak to any in the Vermont Guardian and at select locations ing. We need the help of each and every one of organization to which you belong – civic clubs, throughout the state, with a current circula - you – and your friends, neighbors, co-workers, churches, craft groups, the Grange, unions, the tion of 8,000 in print and many more online. and allies – if we are to succeed in creating a bet - Kiwanis, Rotary Clubs – you name it. Secession, ter Vermont, an independent Vermont. and the practical changes that will come from AD RATES The new website is just the first step down this being independent of the U.S. government, will Business Card $30 Half page $220 road. Look for it soon. Let us know what you affect all Vermonters, so all Vermonters should 1/8 page $60 2/3 page $280 think of the new look, and the new features. find out about what we’re doing. Let us know of 1/6 page $80 Full page $400 By the time this issue of Vermont Commons is in your particular needs. 1/4 page $115 Back cover $600 your hands, our first annual Vermont Independ - As we continue to educate and inspire, we are 1/3 page $150 ence Parties in honor of Vermont History and especially in need of your contributions. Creating 8 VERMONT COMMONS FEBRUARY 2006

The CLT Model A Tool for Permanently Affordable Housing and Wealth Generation By Gus Newport

he gap between wealth and poverty is growing housing quality and neighborhood stability – such sions and protect current residents’ ability to enjoy Tin the U.S., because policies to stabilize the as requiring that homes be owner-occupied, pre - the improvements into the future. lives of the poor and people of color do not focus venting absentee landlordism. The ground lease is The majority of residents in the Dudley area on long-term solutions. Our economy is unstable, equally protective of the individual homebuyer’s were low-income, and many of them remem - in an inflationary spiral that continues to raise the interests, providing long-term security, while at the bered previous redevelopment processes in the cost of basic goods, including food, gasoline, med - same time providing an opportunity to build West End and South End of Boston, which had icine and health care. Most depressing is the lack equity and benefit from a portion (typically 25 per - resulted in their displacement due to gentrifica - of affordable housing for the poor, working and cent) of the appreciation on the home, should tion. The plans’ promise of improvements to unemployed, and seniors with limited retirement property values increase. these neighborhoods was not realized by these income. The severity of the shortage of affordable By removing the cost of the land from the home residents, who were gentrified out due to rising housing has multiplied in recent years. Barbara price and bringing further cost reductions through housing costs and limited affordable rental hous - Ehrenreich demonstrated the stark reality of the government-provided affordable housing subsi - ing. The Dudley area residents did not want to see situation facing low-income wage earners in her dies, the CLT brings homeowner ship within the this result repeated yet again, insisting on a book Nickel and Dimed in America . She found from reach of lower-income families (CLTs generally process whereby they could participate in design - personal experience that in today’s America, two seek to serve families earning less than 80 percent ing the community plan and improvements. At incomes are required in order to live “indoors,” let of area median income). The interests of the indi - the heart of their concerns was the desire to pro - alone reside in safe, adequate housing. Insufficient vidual homebuyer are balanced with the desire to mote homeownership opportunities for the affordable housing is being developed to fulfill the maintain a permanent stock of affordable housing lower-income residents of the neighborhood. need, and most that is developed remains afford - for future families in need. The homebuyer gains Through a series of policy firsts, DSNI became able only during the terms of the initial financing, the opportunity to earn equity through monthly the first community nonprofit organization in the due to relatively short-term subsidies, after which mortgage payments, rather than building the country to be awarded eminent domain powers time it reverts to market rates. As a result, over the equity of an absentee landlord through rental pay - over vacant land in a 1.3 square mile area of the city longer term, public affordable housing resources ments. However, rather than gaining a one-time of Bos ton. Through a seldom-used statute on the actually aid gentrification, eventually displacing windfall should the home value appreciate sub - books in Massachusetts known as “special study sta - the very people they were meant to assist. stantially, the seller foregoes this full capital gain in tus,” the community plan became the zoning plan order to retain affordability for the next CLT for the area. Having received eminent domain rights The CLT model homebuyer. The CLTs long-term interest in the over 30 acres of land, DSNI sought a mechanism to Thirty-eight years ago, Bob Swann and Ralph Bor - land and property assures that this balance of assure permanent affordability and discovered the sodi developed the Community Land Trust interests is maintained and community wealth is Community Land Trust model. We invited the model, arising from their concerns related to retained. The value of public subsidies used to Institute for Community Economics, the national poverty and land tenure. The model, drawn from develop the affordable housing are permanently intermediary for CLTs, to assist us with the process. the Indian gramdan land-reform movement, was tied to the housing, thus recycling subsidy dollars What we learned was that the CLT did much conceived as a democratically controlled institu - from owner to owner, assuring long-term afford - more than provide a mechanism to hold the land. tion that would hold land for the common good of ability and community benefit. It provided a means to stabilize lives and the com - any community, while making it available to indi - The governance structure of the CLT is an munity through homeownership. As is the case for viduals within the community through long-term important aspect of this stewardship. The classic the majority of the nation’s lower-income inner- leases. Over the years, the model has evolved and CLT structure has a community-based member - city residents, the families of the Dudley Street been applied primarily to the development of per - ship open to all adult residents within its defined neighborhood had little or no control over their manently affordable housing within intentional geographic region – often a neighborhood, city or own housing — the most fundamental aspect of communities and more broadly in urban, subur - county. The CLT is governed by an elected, tripar - household security. With no opportunity to own ban and rural communities across the country. tite board that shares governance equally among their own homes, they were forced to live in sub - Terms within the ground lease balance commu - leaseholders residing on CLT-owned land; nearby standard absentee-owned rental housing, subject nity interests with those of the individual, provid - residents who do not live on CLT-owned land; and to displacement when and if rents increased ing an opportunity for lower-income people to public officials, local funders, non-profit profes - beyond their means. In addition to the stability of earn equity, while limiting appreciation to ensure sionals and others representing the public interest homeownership, Dudley area residents sought to affordability for future lower-income homebuyers. who bring to the board essential skills and abilities According to the classic CLT model, the trust is needed for effective nonprofit administration. a geographically defined, membership-based, non - ermont has some of the most active com - profit organization created to hold land for public The Dudley Street experience Vmunity land trusts in the country, in large purposes – usually for the creation of permanently I first became aware of the Community Land part due to state funding provided by a trans - affordable housing. Like a conservation land trust, Trust model during my tenure as the director of fer tax on real estate sales. The proceeds from a CLT acquires land with the intention of holding Boston’s Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative the tax are dedicated to support conservation it in perpetuity. A central feature of the model is a (DSNI). This initiative grew out of the commu - and affordable housing initiatives within the dual ownership structure whereby the CLT owns nity’s concerns about a new Redevelopment Area state. The concept is that monies raised from the land, but individuals, public or private organi - plan which was being brought forth supposedly to the speculative gain on land should be applied zations own the buildings located on the land. raise the quality of life for the residents, through to key land-use concerns, retention of diverse Through long-term, renewable ground leases, improvements such as housing, open space, recre - ecological landscape and maintenance of each party’s ownership interest in the land is pro - ation and cultural institutions. When this plan - housing affordable for Vermont workers. tected. The CLT retains the ability to repurchase ning process became public, the community came With more than 2,500 members, the Burling - any improvement on the land through a resale for - out in large numbers to voice its opinion as to ton Community Land Trust (www.bclt.net) is mula written into the lease, limiting resale value to what the planning process ought to be, and why a one of the oldest, largest, and most innovative maintain affordability. The lease also enables the method had to be imposed that would assure the CLTs, providing a model for other regions. CLT to impose further restrictions which maintain community’s input in all pertinent planning deci - FEBRUARY 2006 VERMONT COMMONS 9 take control of the neighborhood outside their windows — to deal with aban - vide opportunity for all residents, to prevent displacement, gentrification and doned property, to stop illegal dumping, to stop providing havens for drug the associated racial segregation. dealers and other criminal activity. Faced with an administration that seems focused, more than any in recent Dudley Street has become a renowned example of the power of truly par - memory, on increasing the wealth of the top few at the expense of the many, ticipatory community-building for the long term, which addresses the funda - we have little choice but to find our own solutions and implement them. In mental policies and practices that have caused poverty and decline in cities my new role as executive director of the Institute for Community Economics, across the country. Through the community-controlled land trust, the resi - I hope to raise awareness about the potential for community land trusts to dents were able to create a vibrant multicultural community, developing level the playing field, creating opportunities for people of color. Dudley hundreds of affordable homes and providing an opportunity for residents to Street is the quintessential melting pot, a laboratory where the CLT model has personally benefit from the community revitalization they themselves been tested and proven to provide opportunity across race lines. • planned. The land trust, with its ground lease and resale formula, has been This article was originally published in the Newsletter of Poverty and Race Research Action Council and used proven to empower people by providing an opportunity for homeownership here with their kind permission (www.pprac.org). and equity generation that is normally out of reach for lower-income, largely minority residents. EDITOR’S UPDATE The racial wealth gap I reached Gus Newport in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he is working In his highly acclaimed book, The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How with residents to apply the CLT model to the rebuilding of traditionally Wealth Perpetuates Inequality , Brandeis University sociologist Thomas Shapiro African-American neighborhoods devastated by the hurricane. The presents an extensive analysis of the wealth gap from a perspective of race and North Gulfport and Turkey Creek communities were purchased and set - discrimination in America. His central argument is that family wealth/inher - tled by freed slaves in 1866 and quickly grew into vibrant, self-sufficient ited assets are the key source of the wealth gap, as the black-white earnings gap neighborhoods made up of farms and small homesteads, surrounded by due to income discrimination has narrowed considerably since the 1960s. As the marshland which was the natural protection against hurricanes. the primary asset for most families, housing is the most salient source of the By the 21st century development pressures were taking their toll. wealth gap. Lacking the “transformative” asset of family wealth, African- Higher taxes meant long-time residents were losing their single-family American families must rely on their income and personal savings to qualify homes to foreclosure to be replaced by infrastructure improvements to for a home mortgage. In contrast to white families with a similar income level, benefit tourism. Wetlands were being filled to build casinos, damaging who often benefit from their parents’ wealth through inheritance or other natural defenses. A group of residents began steps to organize the North financial assistance when the time comes to buy their first homes, African- Gulfport Community Land Trust and Turkey Creek Community Initia - American families do not have access to this “leg up.” They pay higher interest tives to repurchase land at foreclosures in order to ensure that housing rates and incur additional costs for mortgage insurance, and as a result build remained affordable to traditional African-American families, while less equity over time. With each successive generation this gap increases. maintaining the historic nature and scale of buildings, and protecting As schools and social services are tied to residence location, the wealth gap wetlands. It was a big undertaking. is effectively leading to ever-greater racial segregation. The current way we After the wrath of the hurricanes, these fledging organizations are fund and provide access to services produces, in Shapiro’s words, a “privatized proving an important way for these communities to pull together to notion of citizenship in which communities, families and individuals try to make their voices heard in the rebuilding effort. Gus is there to help. The capture or purchase resources and services for their own benefit rather than tendency of a federal response to an emergency situation is to make it invest in an infrastructure that would help everyone.” easy for large developers. Take the land by eminent domain, tear every - By creating shared stewardship of land and a mechanism for the wealth gen - thing down and build strip malls and casinos for a newly envisioned erated through housing appreciation to be shared from one lower-income tourist industry. Local people, local jobs, local culture, and local ecology family to another, the CLT offers an antidote for these interrelated problems. are excluded from this vision of development. The land trust can, in effect, substitute for inherited wealth, and thus has the The residents of North Gulfport and Turkey Creek know that it was potential to address the racial wealth gap in this country. Examples like Dud - their neighbors and friends who helped them through the trials of flood - ley Street demonstrate the ability of the CLT to change the dynamics, to pro - ing and storm damage, not the government agencies. Their roots run deep, associations are long-lasting, and love of place is entwined with love of family. They will stay and rebuild. The rebuilding will reflect who they are as a people – predominantly African-American single-family home- owners with generational roots. The CLT concept is a way of organizing and protecting that rebuilding so that the land, and decisions about its use, remain in local control – an alliance of residents, affordable housing advocates, environmentalists, history enthusiasts, and economists. They envision stable neighborhoods of home ownership and well-paid manufacturing jobs rather than the low-salaried employment of the tourist industry. Much work is ahead to bring this dream to reality, to resist the pres - sures of big development schemes, to allow the democratic power of local people to stand against the power of central government bureau - cracy. Gus is helping these groups to rally allies to their cause and vision. Once achieved, it will set an important example for other regions facing similar pressures. • Susan Witt, guest editor

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Wicks, continued from page 1 might join with local dairy farmers to start a munity-based businesses and small farms in other and often eliminating community-based busi - yogurt company, rather than growing a chain or regions and countries in an exchange that benefits nesses around the country and globally. In the national brand. the communities where products and resources end, even progressive companies are often forced Many new business opportunities lie within the originate. Global interdependence is based on to choose undesirable exit strategies when they “building blocks” of local living economies – local trust and mutual respect rather than exploitive become too large for purchase by employees, food systems, renewable energy, alternative trans - resource extraction and sweatshop labor, and family members or neighboring businesses with portation, locally designed and made clothing, trade is facilitated through an intricate global web a commitment to the local community. The recycling and reuse, green building, holistic of small-to-small, win-win relationships that cele - forced buy-out of Ben & Jerry’s, a movement healthcare, eco-friendly cleaning products, inde - brate what it is to be human. leader and innovator of the multiple bottom line, pendent retail, local arts and culture, neighbor - Through global corporate domination, our by the international conglomerate Unilever dur - hood tourism, and independent media. Address - Western business model, which takes more natu - ing the fall of 1999 proved a wake-up call for ing the deeper needs of their communities, local ral resources and gives off more pollution than the those who had looked to that company for inno - business owners can provide more fulfilling jobs, earth can restore, is being spread globally. Corpo - vative leadership. healthier communities and greater economic rate monoculture has no sense of place, and the Many other model companies in the SRB move - security in their region. Success can mean more same chain stores and consumer goods are seen ment have recently been sold to multinational cor - than growing larger or increasing market-share; it around the world. Locally owned independent porations, adding to the concentration of wealth can be measured by increasing happiness and well retailers such as bookstores, coffee shops, craft and power that the movement was intended to being, deepening relationships, and expanding cre - stores, dress shops and restaurants give each town combat – Odwalla to Coca-cola, Cascadian Farms ativity, knowledge and consciousness. and city unique local character. In a system of to General Mills, and most recently a large part of local living economies, cultural diversity flour - Stonyfield Farms to the parent company of Dan - Role of investors ishes, local languages are preserved, and what is non yogurt. The sale of these businesses collec - To provide sufficient capital for growing local liv - indigenous to a region is valued for its quality, his - tively demonstrates that companies committed to ing economies, the old paradigm of measuring tory and uniqueness. continuous growth and national branding, though success simply by maximized profits must also Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, large cor - financially successful and even environmentally change for investors. Traditionally, investors seek porations have historically used militaries to pro - friendly, end up detracting from, rather than con - the highest and quickest return on investment. tect their ability to exploit natural resources and tributing to, the creation of a democratic society But should we not also measure a “return” by cheap labor in less-developed countries, which is where ownership, power and prosperity are long-term social and environmental improve - often the underlying cause of war. Through equi - widely shared. ment? In a living economy, investors seek a “living table and sustainable use of natural resources, return” – one partially paid by the benefits of liv - local food and energy security, decentralized Building an alternative ing in a healthy, vibrant community. power and control, and celebration and under - While there is important work being done to By law, publicly owned companies are required standing of cultural differences, local living reform the corporate system by consumer groups to put the financial interests of stockholders above economies will gradually build the foundation for and companies within the system such as Stony - the needs of all other stakeholders. Therefore, lasting world peace. field and Ben & Jerry’s, a second front of the SRB even “socially responsible” funds, though screen - Around the world, people are speaking out movement has emerged. Rejecting the notion ing out weapons manufacturers and tobacco com - against the destructive role of corporate globaliza - that corporate rule is inevitable; the Local Living panies, invest in a system that values profits over tion in our lives – from indigenous uprisings in Economy movement is building an alternative to people and the planet. By choosing stock market Mexico and farmers strikes in France, to attacks corporate globalization – a decentralized global investments, citizens take capital out of local on McDonald’s in India, and mass protests in Seat - network of local living economies composed of economies and give more power and control to tle, Washington, Genoa and Cancun. Many peo - independent, community-based businesses. The board rooms in faraway places, where the well- ple, especially the young, have lost faith in busi - new movement focuses attention on issues of being of local communities is not a priority. By ness as a positive force, and need a new vision for scale, ownership and commitment to place, investing our savings in community funds that the constructive role business can play in our com - which the SRB movement has largely neglected. loan money at affordable rates to small businesses, munities. Progressive business leaders are The Local Living Economy movement also neighborhood projects and housing develop - uniquely positioned to articulate this new vision, demonstrates the importance of working cooper - ments, we receive a living return of improving the span the gap between the left and right, and direct atively outside of individual companies, often quality of life in our own communities. the energy of concerned citizens, entrepreneurs with competitors, to build whole economies of and young people toward creating a positive triple-bottom-line businesses. Toward a positive future future for our world. • Businesses in local living economies remain Unlike publicly held corporations, independent human-scale and locally owned, fostering direct, companies share the fate of their communities authentic, and meaningful relationships with and are free to make decisions in the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, neighbors and all the stakeholders. Local business owners are BALLE Conference 2006 local habitat, adding to the quality of life in our likely to understand that it is in their self-interest The Business Alliance for Local Living communities. Decentralized ownership spreads to run their companies in a way that benefits their Economies is holding its 4th International wealth more broadly and brings economic own neighborhood and natural environment. Conference on June 8-10 in Burlington. power from distant boardrooms to local commu - Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market Speakers include Bill McKibben, Frances nities where there is a short distance between works well when the self-interest of the business Moore Lappe, Ben Cohen, Gary Erickson, business decision-makers and those affected by decision-maker is clearly tied to the wellbeing of Judy Wicks, Greg Watson, David Korten and the decisions. the community. many others. Workshops include Owner - Local living economies spread business models, Rather than depending on large corporations ship Structure & Succession, Business not brands. Rather than expanding in the con - for basic needs, which gives up economic power Financing, Innovations in Food Processing & formist, cookie-cutter style of the industrial era, and adds to the environmental costs of global Distribution, Small Business & Public Policy, entrepreneurs seek to diversify business ventures, transport, living economies produce basic needs – Growing Your Business with Local Assets, creatively addressing the needs of their commu - food, clothing, shelter and energy – locally and and Fair Trade – At Home & Abroad. Info nity through new business ventures that increase sustainably. This builds community self-reliance, and registration: www.livingeconomies.org local self-reliance and sustainability. For example, a provides new opportunities for ownership and job or call 415-255-1108. restaurant owner may start a retail store selling creation, and keeps capital within the community. local food products, or a local ice cream company What is not available locally is sourced from com - FEBRUARY 2006 VERMONT COMMONS 11

Henderson, continued from page 1 ematical model purporting to “prove” why central practice, founded the SHARE micro-credit system global-asset bubbles, declared himself “perplexed.” banks should be independent of political control, in 1981, created Deli Dollars and other customer- The anomaly involves the global economic imbal - even in democracies. Central banking too, is poli - financing methods in 1989, and is about to help ances between the USA – the world’s largest debtor tics in even deeper disguise, as I describe in “21st launch the BerkShare local currency program. Since – and the developing countries of Asia and those Century Strategies for Sustainability” (download - its founding in 1980, the Society has documented exporting oil as the world’s new lenders. I doubt able at http://www.hazelhenderson.com/recent - other community credit pioneering, such as Michael there is a “global savings glut” or a “Shift of Thrift” Papers/21st_century_strategies_.htm ). Linton’s LETS experiments, Paul Glover’s Ithaca from indebted U.S. households’ zero saving rates to Today, rapid social learning about the politics of Hours, and other projects all highlighted at its 2004 thrifty Asian savers as claimed in The Economist edi - money and how it functions is revealing this key conference Local Currencies in the Twenty-First Cen - torial of Sept. 24, 2005. My view is that there’s a mythology underlying our current societies and its tury . Bernard Lietaer’s The Future of Money (2001); global flood of fiat paper money – mostly trillions transmission belt: that faulty economic sourcecode Lynn Twist’s The Soul of Money (2004); William of U.S. dollars – amplified by the pyramiding of still replicating today’s unsustainable poverty gaps, Krehm’s COMER Newsletter ( www.comer.org ) and financial “innovations” (derivatives, hedge funds, energy crises and resource depletion. Climate James Robertson and Josef Huber’s Creating New offshore “special purpose entities,” currency spec - change is the latest media wake-up call, and pre - Money (2004) continue to inform us. ulation and tax havens) vis-à-vis real production of dictably economists quickly “captured this issue My bookshelf on alternative economics, barter, goods and services in the real world. for our profession,” as a UK economics group put credit and currency system continues to grow, and Today, we see worldwide experimentation with it (Henderson, 1996), to promote their pollution includes Ralph A. Mitchell and Neil Shafer’s indis - local exchange, barter and swap clubs, such as and C0 2 trading “markets.” In spite of such efforts, pensable, eye-opening Standard Catalog of Depres - Deli-Dollars, LETS, Ithaca Hours and other scrip the defrocking of economics, the deconstructing sion Scrip of the United States in the 1930s (Krause currencies in the USA and Canada. Billions of peo - of money systems and the growth of all the Publications, Iola, WI, 1984). It contains thou - ple still live in traditional non-money societies and healthy local, real-world alternatives is propagating sands of pictures of alternative scrip currencies the world’s mostly female voluntary sectors. I widely. The World Social Forum launched in sunny issued in almost every US state and city and many have described these huge uncharted sectors as Porto Alegre in 2000 by Brazilian reformers is one in Canada and Mexico after the Great Crash of the “Love Economy” estimated by the Human of many such worldwide movements. Argentina’s 1929 and the bank failures that followed. During Development Report (United Nations Develop - default in 2001 taught its citizens that they could the 1980s in all my talks across North America ment Program 1995) as $16 trillion simply missing trust their own local scrip, flea markets and elec - advocating local self-reliance and alternatives to from economists’ global GDP that year of $24 tril - tronic swap systems more than the country’s offi - fiat money, I carried this heavy volume along to lion. Others have described these non-money sec - cial currency, the peso. Argentina, Brazil and show how local inventiveness helped overcome tors, notably Karl Polanyi in Primitive, Archaic and Venezuela have announced they will repay their the failures of national banking and finance. Peo - Modern Economies (1968); Lewis Hyde in The Gift IMF loans in full, to free their economies from ple would raise their hands in recognition as I (1979); Genevieve Vaughan in For-Giving (1997); “Washington Consensus” prescriptions. would show on overheads the scrip used in their Dallas Morning News financial editor, Scott Burns I have documented over the years many of the state. “I remember these in my Dad’s bureau!” in Home, Inc (1975); Edgar Cahn’s No More Throw pioneers of money reform, from the Time Store “My Mom used that to buy our groceries!” Away People (2004) and his time-banking programs in Cincinnati in the 1890s; Ralph Borsodi’s “Con - So . . . we have been here before. Today’s global now emulated worldwide ( The Time Dollar How To stants” in Exeter, N.H., in 1972; and during the imbalances, deficits, bouncing currencies, poverty Manual , www.timedollar.org ). 1930s “bank holiday,” Vermont’s own Malted and debt crises require a systemic redesign of that All this hands-on experimenting resulted in an Cereals Company scrip, issued in Burlington and faulty economic sourcecode. Worried finance explosion of grassroots awareness about the the Wolfeboro Chamber of Commerce’s scrip in ministers and central bankers call vainly for a nature of money itself. As local groups and com - New Hampshire. The Chicago Plan, promoted in “new international financial architecture.” They munities created their own scrip currencies and the 1930s by University of Chicago economists, do little but fret about this behind closed doors, at exchange systems, they learned about economists’ sought to reform money-creation by private banks meetings of the G-8, WTO, and in Jackson Hole deepest secret: money and information are equiv - as debt. Through this fractional reserve system, and Davos. Some clever libertarians try to beat the alent – and neither is scarce! As money morphed banks are only required to keep less than 10 per - bankers at their own game with global digital cur - from stone tablets, metal coins, gold and paper to cent of their capital in reserve. Banks can lend out rencies backed by gold. Based in offshore havens, electronic blips of pure information – the eco - the rest at interest, simply creating money out of Nevis, Jersey, Moscow, and Panama, they have nomic theories of scarcity and competition began thin air as those loans in their accounting entries! become platforms for cyber-crooks ( Business Week , to be bypassed by electronic sharing and commu - The American Monetary Institute ( www.mone - January 9, 2006). The rest of us are redesigning nity cooperation. Barter, dismissed in economic tary.org ) founded by Stephen Zarlenga, has healthy, homegrown, sustainable, local economies textbooks as a primitive relic – went hi-tech. eBay, revived the Chicago Plan, which would raise the – all over the world. the world’s largest garage sale, is an example of fraction of reserves banks must hold – and return Before we fall into “either/or” errors, we should how to bypass existing markets. the national money-creation function to the fed - avoid doctrinaire “smallness,” ideological localism, People began to see how central banks and eral government. Money would be created and and knee-jerk libertarianism. None can protect national money-systems control populations by spent into circulation through building and main - local communities from the ravages of market fun - macro-economic managing of scarcity, employ - taining public infrastructure, roads, education and damentalist-driven globalization. Like it or not, we ment levels, availability of mortgages and car vital services. Such interest-free money would save are all “glocal” now. In today’s information-satu - loans, via the money supply, credit, interest rates municipalities and states billions in interest pay - rated world, communities need to understand and all the secretive levers and spigots used by cen - ments on their bonds and prevent accumulation of anew which elements to reject and which to tral bankers. Even Nobel prizes were politicized as debts that lead to bubbles, booms and busts. Ken embrace. Wholesale rejection can lead to rigidity, mathematicians in 2004 challenged the so-called Bohnsack’s Sovereignty Bill promotes these xenophobia, and misreading of history. Wholesale “Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics” demanding reforms, all summarized in Zarlanga’s The Lost Sci - acceptance of current unsustainable economic its de-linking from the Nobel prizes and to confess ence of Money (2004) and The Truth in Money Book global trends will surely lead to loss of local culture its real name, “The Bank of Sweden Prize in Eco - by Theodore R. Thoren and Richard F. Warner. and biodiversity and to resource-depletion. We nomics.” The mathematicians, Peter Nobel, Other perennials – E.F. Schumacher’s Small is humans have been adept at creating new scenarios grandson of Nobel, and many other scientists Beautiful (1973), James Robertson’s Future Wealth and technologies that mirror our lack of systemic object that economists misuse mathematics to (1989), Margrit Kennedy’s tireless teachings, and a knowledge and foresight. From such social changes hide their faulty assumptions – and that econom - record of Robert Swann’s work and papers on com - and unanticipated consequences, we must then ics is not a science but a profession. The row over munity economics – are all available at the E. F. learn and evolve – or suffer ecological collapse. • the 2004 Bank of Sweden Prize was because its Schumacher Society’s Library (www.smallisbeauti - recipients had authored a 1977 paper with a math - ful.org). The Society, engaged in both theory and © Hazel Henderson, Jan. 2006, All Rights Reserved, www.hazelhenderson.com 12 VERMONT COMMONS FEBRUARY 2006

DISPERSIONS By Kirkpatrick Sale

Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of Economics: Towards Basic Principles of a Bioregional Economy

conomics of scale is what conventional impossible with large scales and distant chain and copyright restrictions, and agreeing to aban - Eindustrial economies are all about, finding store corporations. don as unnecessary and undesirable almost ways to more profitably and efficiently exploit everything manufactured at the factory level nature. But the scale of economics is what the And here we come to an essential element of a anywhere and anyhow. All of which is no more economies of the future must be about, finding stable economy that dictates much of its scale: complex than the old New England adage: ways to live so that healthy communities may self-sufficiency. If Vermont’s farms were part of Use it up, wear it out, foster a healthy earth. a self-sufficient economy, feeding the 620,000 Make it do, or do without. There are only two essentials to consider in people within its borders as its primary mission, coming at the problem of the optimum scale for there would not be such a concentration on What follows are what I take to be the essential an economy to produce and distribute goods dairy farms (and the resultant pollution prob - elements of a philosophy that would guide a and services: the natural ecosystem and the lems), but a greater diversity of animal products bioregional economy, which I have constructed human community. An economy that does and crops, ultimately to the health of the from a wide reading in alternative economics, harm to the natural world – depleting resources, ecosystems. including E.F. Schumacher’s great range of writ - extincting species, producing pollution, piling Self-sufficiency is operable only at a limited ings (particularly “Buddhist Economics” in Small up wastes – has grown too large; an economy scale – say, bioregions of 10,000 to 20,000 square is Beautiful ) mixed with various economic ideas out of democratic and humanitarian control – miles – where humans can understand the expressed by the Buddha himself, and ideas I where decisions are made by distant corpora - resources at hand, perceive and regulate the enunciated in the “Economy” chapter of my tions and a polity whose choices are beyond variants in the economy, and ensure that pro - Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision (Uni - individual influence—has grown too large. duction and distribution is made rational and versity of Georgia Press). An economic scale optimum for the earth’s systematic. In terms of population, too, there is 1. All production of goods or services would be systems would be based on conservation, stabil - a limit at which self-sufficiency can be achieved. based primarily on a reverence for life, a biocen - ity, sustainability, recycling, harmony. That In research for my book Human Scale, I found tric understanding that includes animals, birds, means, for starters, an economy at a bioregional that historically self-sufficient communities with insects, plants, trees, the living ecosystems, scale that more or less dictates the economy economies of some complexity tended to clus - streams and rivers, forests and wetlands, hills and appropriate to it. An economy based on a water - ter in the 5,000-10,000 population range. Urba - mountains, clouds and rains – fundamentally shed, for example, automatically considers nologist Gideon Sjoberg has said that “it seems Gaia herself, understood as the only living, self- downriver populations as well as headwater unlikely that, at least in the earlier periods, even regulating planet in the galaxy. ones. The human constructs would adapt to the the larger of these cities contained more than 2. All systems have limits and they must be learned environment rather than be imposed, and 5,000 to 10,000 people, including part-time and adhered to in every economic act; overuse, human uses would be confined to those the farmers on the cities’ outskirts.” Even when depletion or exhaustion of a resource or species would be seen as a criminal act of violence; over - bioregion allowed. larger cities grew in the 13th and 14th centuries production of a resource or a species, such as the In Vermont terms, it would be possible to to 20,000 or even 40,000, they were typically human, would be seen as a criminal act of think of the western watershed of the Connecti - divided into quarters—literally four parts – of avarice and greed. cut River, with all the rivers running eastward 5,000 to 10,000 people. 3. The primary unit of production would be the from the Green Mountains, as a bioregion. On a modern American scale we might imag - self-sufficient community, within a self-regarding Another bioregion would encompass the water - ine a mixture of somewhat self-sufficient cities bioregion, which would strive to produce all its shed to the west of the Green Mountains, to within more self-sufficient counties within needs, and essential political and economic deci - Lake Champlain. mostly self-sufficient bioregions within a totally sions would be taken democratically at that level. Dairy and general truck farming would natu - self-sufficient state, and then the economy of 4. Consumption would be limited, for the goal of rally be at the heart of the bioregional economy, self-sufficiency might be quite complex indeed. economic life is not the multiplication of wants although if a truly ecological sensibility informs In terms of Vermont, this might be a mix of rel - but the satisfaction of basic needs. 5. Everything produced, and the means of its pro - it those farms would allow the disastrous atively self-sufficient cities (Barre, Bennington, not duction, would embody the four cardinal princi - waste runoff that now pollutes Lake Champlain Brattleboro, Burlington, Essex, Hartford, Mid - ples of smaller, simpler, cheaper, safer – technol - and other waterways. Nor would they use artifi - dlebury, Milton, Montpelier, Rutland, South ogy on a human scale, comprehendible, afford - cial chemicals and fertilizers, nor allow factory Burlington and Springfield are obvious candi - able for all, and non-violent. farms of 1,000-plus cows and 100,000-plus hens. dates), within ecologically determined more 6. The only jobs would be those that enhance the An ecologically based agriculture would depend self-sufficient shires (perhaps the West, Black, worker, contribute to the community, and pro - on solar power appropriate to the region, on White, Winooski, Lamoille, Passumpsic water - duce nothing but needed goods – and that means human-powered machines, on organic pest- sheds), within the two self-sufficient bioregions goods, not bads. management systems, perennial polyculture and on either side of the Green Mountains, within 7. All people who wish to do so would work, for the permaculture, with markets geared to seasonal the state – whose economy, if independent, purpose of work is not to produce things to sat - and regional foods. could be as self-sufficient as it desired. isfy wants but to nourish and develop the individ - ual soul, aiming at fulfilling the highest nature of The economic scale desirable for the human Such units would need to be guided by certain the human character, including identification community would be one in which decisions maxims to provide a full range of goods and with community and the satisfaction of its needs. about the economy – what is produced, from services, and they would need to adhere to them 8. All economic decisions would be made in accor - what resources, by whom, for whom, how dis - with some ingenuity. But the maxims are simple dance with the Buddhist principle, “Cease to do tributed, how recycled – are made democrati - and thoroughly practical. They would include evil; try to do good,” and the definition of good cally by towns and bioregions. Most power the principle of sharing at the community level, would be that which preserves and enhances the would locate at the level of the community, recycling and repairing (or at a more complex integrity, stability, diversity, continuity and beauty where we can imagine effecting basic economic level, remanufacturing) almost everything, an of living species and systems; that which does the justice: workplace ownership by the employ - emphasis on handicrafts and bespoke produc - contrary is evil. ees, workplace democracy for decision-mak - tion rather than manufactures and mass produc - That is, to my mind, the essential moral and ing, and workplace commitment to the sur - tion, using raw local (instead of imported) mate - intellectual guide to a right and successful biore - rounding populace – all the things that are rials, nurturing local ingenuity without patent gional economics. •