Localization v.

Globalization
Why false dichotomies impede solutionary thinking
Posted May 09, 2019

The economic localization movement is

growing, with adherents advocating "buy
local" as the answer to our myriad
problems.

Author Helena Norberg-Hodge begins

her TEDx talk, The Economics of
Happiness, with this impassioned plea:
“For all of us around the world the highest priority, the most urgent issue is
fundamental change to the economy.” She goes on to say, “The change that
we need to make is shifting away from globalizing to localizing economic
activity.”

This, she suggests, is the economics of happiness.

As a humane educator who teaches about the interconnected issues of

human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, I am
uncomfortable with the either/or thinking that leads people to polarize local
economies and global economies, as well as with the fervor surrounding
localization itself.

While I believe the proliferation of farmersʼ markets and local food initiatives
has been beneficial to farmers, communities, and consumers alike, itʼs not
realistic, desirable, or responsible to reject global trade out of hand or to
advocate localization as the primary path to a healthy, happy economy.

A full commitment to local economies would mean that in Maine, where I live,
people would need to give up coffee, citrus, rice, cotton and synthetic
fabrics (among many other things) and rely on potatoes, wheat, hunted and
fished animals, canned food stored from our brief summers, and wear linen
clothing and deer hides.

It would also mean that medicines discovered and produced by scientists

working in New England would no longer be exported to places where they
are most needed. Perhaps they wouldnʼt be discovered or produced at all,
given that many key ingredients and processes are derived from countries
across the globe.

Imagine what would happen to the Ethiopian coffee farmers depicted in the
film Black Gold, whose organic, fair trade coffee would no longer have a
market outside their communities, or to the sustainable and fair trade
collectives in Central and South America, which are exporting goods, foods,
and clothes to the north.

These collectives are lifting countless individuals out of poverty. Many of

them would simply go out of business if their products had to be sold only
locally.

Too often the phrase “local economy” is associated with small, just,
sustainable, and humane, and “global economy” with big, impersonal, cruel,
and destructive.

Yet, plenty of local companies are large, exploitative, and cruel (e.g., hog
factory farms in North Carolina and chicken factory farms on the Delmarva
Peninsula), and plenty of overseas companies are sustainable, humane, and
just (e.g., many fair trade cooperatives).

We need to make more nuanced choices.

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If, for example, our primary agricultural problems lie in monoculture farms,
poisonous chemicals, fertilizer run-off creating ocean dead zones,
environmentally hazardous GMOs, rampant antibiotic use in farmed animals
accelerating antibiotic resistance, fuel-intensive animal agriculture,
exploitation of farm workers, cruelty to animals, and reduction in biological
diversity of crops, we can and should address these problems directly.

Fair trade, organic, sustainable, diverse, plant-based farming are meaningful

alternatives that shift the economics of agriculture away from exploitation
and abuse without closing markets between north and south, east and west,
or in the U.S. between the fertile heartland, citrus-bearing Florida, and
California (where just about everything grows).

Iʼm happy that my state of Maine provides blueberries, potatoes, and lumber
to people across the country (although I would like it to do so without toxic
pesticides and clear-cutting), and Iʼm also happy that I can live in Maine and
still drink fair trade, organic tea produced far away from me.

Globalization does require the use of fossil fuels to transport crops and
products across the globe, but as Michael Berners-Lee reveals in his carbon
footprint assessment of hundreds of products and foods in his book, How
Bad Are Bananas?, local doesnʼt necessarily mean less carbon intensive.

Bananas from equatorial regions, he points out, use a small fraction of the
fuel needed for the hothouse tomatoes that are grown next door to him in
England. And local beef has a bigger global warming impact than wheat
transported across the country.

Ironically, the energy it takes for local farmers to drive their many pickup
trucks to a farmers market often significantly exceeds the carbon footprint of
one semi bringing organic food produced from further away.

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Production and distribution of foods and goods to 7.5 billion people come
replete with complex problems that are going to require innovative solutions
in order to ensure they are humane, restorative, and just. And regardless of
whether we rely on locally or globally produced foods and goods, weʼre
going to have to develop clean energy systems and re-evaluate our
materialistic culture.

It may well be that there are communities and nations that by luck of terrain
and resources are self-sufficient and can forego economic globalization in
favor of cultural integrity and local production, but, for most countries, a
wise mix of local and global trade is probably the best hope for healthy and
thriving economies.

It would be nice if picking the most restorative, healthy, and humane options
were as simple as having a single criteria, such as “buy local,” on which to
base oneʼs choices, but choosing wisely, with all stakeholders in mind, takes
more thought, research, and dedication to complex decision-making than
that.

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A more effective approach for supporting sustainability and justice through

our choice-making is the MOGO Principle of striving to do the most good
and least harm to people, animals, and the environment through all our
choices: from what we eat, wear, and buy, to what we do for work, to our
charitable contributions, to our volunteerism. Often choosing local will
indeed be MOGO (most good), but sometimes it won't.

Making MOGO choices requires effort, but if our goal is to live with integrity
and contribute to a healthier, happier world, it's worth it.

By avoiding the either/or trap and thinking that any single criterion is a
panacea, we will find ourselves better able to harness our strategic thinking
and creativity to become solutionaries who work to transform systems so
that they enable everyone to thrive, whether far away from us or right next
door.