The Localist Manifesto
section 6
small business, cultural development
You cannot make the functioning of the market more equitable by creating large, centralized government agencies to regulate large, centralized banks and corporations. Surely we have learned that by now. Banks and corporations, through their control of the political system, just use the regulatory agencies to hasten the demise of small enterprise and expedite the concentration of wealth in fewer hands. You can only temper a market economy by placing small operations, owned and managed by a self-governing citizenry secure in its right to shelter, at the heart of a way of life that will render superfluous the very existence of large, centralized institutions – private and public, big corporations and big government. For that to happen, small enterprises will have to expand – not in the capitalist sense of consolidating and making more money but in the cultural sense of taking on more of the functions of neighborhood life.
On Occupy the Hearth Day, buildings that currently house real estate offices and banks that will crash along with the real estate industry will become available for other uses. These will be good buildings – strong against wind and rain, well-equipped with useful technology. As they become vacant, they will fall under the dominion of the local assembly. Neighborhood residents can bring various proposals for what to do with these buildings to the assembly for public discussion. A local woodworkers’ and carpenters’ consortium might propose that one of these be converted into a woodworking center. People could lug their table saws and drill presses and sanders out of their garages and pick-ups and down to the center, reorganize the space to handle that kind of operation, and then set up shop. Along with making and repairing furniture, toys, and whatever else they can visualize in wood, they would remodel or add on rooms to fill other neighborhood functions – a bakery and eatery for whomever is hanging out, libraries full of books and performance spaces full of musical instruments, rooms for yoga and meditation and prayer, a clinic where a medical staff would be available to treat injuries or give medical/nutritional advice generally, classrooms where kids who wanted to make something in the shop first had to demonstrate their mastery of the necessary math skills to a teacher on duty for that purpose, halls where working groups could meet and discuss the building needs of the neighborhood as a whole and coordinate trade and joint development projects with other neighborhoods and regions, and, of course, gardens and orchards outside the door to produce food for the eatery inside. A woodworking shop, in short, would become a place where work, relaxation, socializing, artistic expression, education, and political discussion were all happening at the same time under a single roof. Such a space would give life to the ideal that everyone should have the right, indeed should come to expect, to participate in all these activities in every stage of their lives. There need be no moment when education stops and “real life” begins, no work that is not also an occasion for ingenuity and fellowship, no job so degrading that leisure becomes a headlong dive into oblivion or so demanding that one has no energy left for hiking or making love, no decisions that are beyond the ken of the people who shape wood, bake bread, teach children, or strum guitars for a living.
Any local enterprise – farm, restaurant, grocery, repair shop, fitness center, whatever – could engage in this kind of development. Traditional small proprietors could also choose to carry on in the old way. No coercion – just a neighborhood assembly where daily grievances and alternative visions of local self-sufficiency can be aired and mulled over. All the institutions of local life that have been obliterated by predatory multinationals like Walmart and Amazon could be brought back to life. The yearning for connection that now provokes so many to spend countless hours attached to phones and computers might again be gratified in the company of real persons living freely and amicably in real communities. The obscenity of mass homelessness in a society of great wealth could readily be abolished once the right to shelter replaces the rights of banks and corporations, under cover of “real estate” transactions, to grow ever richer.
If a neighborhood-controlled style of development is to flourish, local businesses will need to fulfill two functions: 1) provide a decent living for owners and employees (or co-op members for those who take that route), and 2) assume responsibility for the cultural enhancement of the neighborhood so that it is a lively, amicable, and safe place to live and raise a family for everyone who occupies it. A balance will have to be maintained between these functions – an equilibrium negotiated openly and democratically by a citizenry determined, above all, to make their bit of earth a decent place to live.
We cannot achieve that balance if we continue to place such a high value on the individual pursuit of wealth. The idea that social life should be arranged to facilitate the creation of wealthy individuals, and that everything else will take care of itself, is deeply rooted in American culture. Our attachment to that idea, like our loyalty to Democrats and Republicans, is a fool’s bargain. It is another way the 1% secure our allegiance to their way of thinking and getting things done. Accept that bargain and you will have submitted to the will of those who control both the lion’s share of wealth and the fate of anyone bewitched by the idea that they, too, can become wealthy if they just work hard and play by the rules. Decency is the first thing to go, followed by any hope of having some say in the decisions that affect your life and the lives of the people you love and are sworn to nurture and protect. Development then arrives like the weather – a set of conditions, brought on by forces beyond your control, to which you adjust as best you can. Wealth flows out of the neighborhood and accumulates in the pockets of rich people living elsewhere. Prosperity in the penthouses feeds on hard times at street level. The 1% plan their Caribbean vacations; the 99% scramble to survive the latest round of misfortune.
Occupy the Hearth 