We talk a lot about localism in Chronogram. We explain its value, feature its adherents, and extol its virtues each month in ways explicit and implicit. For the most part, we discuss localism on a purely economic level, reporting on its salutary monetary benefits: Locally owned businesses keep more of the money spent on goods and services in our communities actually in our communities, they create sustainable jobs that pay living wages, they tend to reflect the real costs of goods, and source locally.
In The Economics of Happiness, linguist, writer, and activist Helena Norberg-Hodge explores an oft-ignored aspect of localism— its benefit to our general well being, and the social and psychological costs of the globalization-driven consumer culture. The film, created by the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of ISEC), argues that an economic model based on endless consumption is not only ecologically unsustainable, its also causing an epidemic of depression and societal breakdown across the globe.
A case in point for Norberg-Hodge is the region of Ladakh, in northern India, which until the mid-'70s was largely untouched by modern economic development. Once the region was opened to outside consumer goods by the Indian government, Ladakh inherited problems typical of any developed country—unemployment, stress and anxiety, loss of social focus—that did not exist there before. Norberg-Hodge's work with the Ladakhis over the past 30 years has convinced her that localism, or localization as she terms it, is not only crucial for ecological and economic reasons, but that it is vital to our very happiness. "Instead of a global economy based on sweatshop in the South, stressed-out two-earner families in the North, and a handful of billionaire elites in both, localization means a smaller gap between rich and poor and closer contact between producers and consumers," Norberg-Hodge says. "This translates into greater social cohesion: A recent study found that shoppers at farmers' markets had 10 times more conversations than people in supermarkets."
Why is fostering conversation so important? According to Norberg-Hodge, community is a key ingredient to happiness, and that on a structural level, economic globalization undermines genuine human interaction in order to makes us better consumers, grasping after material goods in the belief they will provide the love and appreciation we crave. The choice is clear to Norberg-Hodge: We can continue down the path of greater economic globalization, which threatens our very survival; or, we can rebuild our communities and economies on smaller scales and try to find the foundation of happiness that seems so elusive to us.
You've spent a lot of time in the Ladakh region. What first brought you there and what keeps bringing you back?
I first went there with a film crew in 1975, when the area was still sealed off from the outside world. I was only supposed be there for only six weeks but I became absolutely enchanted by the people and the place. The Ladakh people were very interesting, and among the most chilled out, relaxed, deeply contemplative and actively, vitally joyful people that I've ever met, full of humor and lightness. Also, the Ladakhis were better off materially than I had been taught to believe was possible without development or Western-style progress. They didn't know hunger, and there was no unemployment.
What happened when development was introduced to the region?
The changes came very quickly, very dramatically, and made a lot of things clear that in other parts of the world we don't see because they happen much more slowly. I saw how within a few short years unemployment was created. That was in part because the local economy, much of it based on farming, was destroyed. But there was also house building, carpentry, metal work, weaving, and building houses. All the basic needs were essentially met from the region.
All of these basic needs were suddenly trucked in by importers that came from the other side of the Himalayas, transported on expensive roads and a lot of expensive fossil fuels. But the process was so heavily subsidized that within a short period these outside things were selling for less in the marketplace than local products.
And with development came unemployment and competition for scarce jobs and with that came serious psychological problems, among the youth in particular. In the West we look very glamorous and very rich in the media and advertising. But what we have to recognize is that this creates a deep sense of inferiority. Globally, it creates an inferiority complex. So in a way, I've been doing work that I often call Cultural Therapy, as I spend time in different cultures around the world, trying to raise awareness that rural people are not inherently inferior, stupid, or backward. But of course, it's a big job because the media only enforces that idea.
So how do convince people in the developing world that they shouldn't strive to be like Europeans or Americans?
It isn't so difficult to convince people that they shouldn't hate themselves. That they shouldn't have disrespect for their own food, their own skin color, their own clothing. People actually like to hear they're okay. So I think the problem is that there are very few people and very few organizations doing what we do. I have found very often that the message is very, very welcome. Especially backed by the statistics on the epidemic of depression in the West, the problems we have with crime, all of our problems.
People in the developing world see tourists coming and spending large amounts of money every day, but they don't know that we pay 10 or 50 times as much as they do for a cup of coffee or even for a glass of water. They don't know that most people in America don't own a house, especially one without a mortgage, without being indebted. Everyone in Ladakh owns a house without being indebted.
How do you convince everyone in the developed world to turn their back on the outrageous waste inherent in the consumer culture system?
I believe that if there were more written and shown on television to discuss these issues as part of a broader and deeper analysis, I think there would be a lot of people who would be in agreement. The problem is that the framing of issues today is too narrow and too fragmented and that that fragmentation is linked to the growth of bigger and bigger concentrations of wealth that continues to promote this particular growth model. And I don't think that the CEOs of big corporations, banks, and finance institutions are at all aware of the ultimate impact of what they do. I think ignorance is the main driving source of the system. So in contrast to persuading people, I think we need a holistic analysis of where this system is taking us. Some people like to call it capitalism, and say that word capitalism is incompatible with sustainability, and in a way I'd say that's true, but I don't like to use the term capitalism because I think it implies that socialism or communism are a better way. The framework that lies outside of, and beyond communism, socialism, and capitalism is discussing the scale of economic activity and looking at the fact that for most people, in most parts of the world, more human-scale businesses closer to home providing for basic needs—food, clothing, and shelter—is the model that really makes sense for all people around the world, and it's a model that can't bend left or right.
How do we create the proper balance between supporting localization, which you are at pains to say doesn't mean closing borders to imports or economic isolationism, while acknowledging the need for some international trade?
The structural issue is: how big, and how global, should businesses be? I would maintain that when a business is more powerful and wealthier than government, we're in trouble. That means we are ruled by for-profit institutions that we don't vote for, or often don't even know about. What we need to ensure is that business comes under the legal and cultural framework that has been set up by nation states. In order to have international trade, we don't need multinational businesses or banks. What has to happen is that the social and environmental movements need to become economically literate about a few basic issues that can help us understand why we're in such dire straits—not just environmentally and socially, but also politically.
People may not realize that even in Scandinavia, and certainly in India, it's essentially giant corporations that are ruling. They are determining the shape, not just of the economy, but of our mindset.
I think it's key that we don't demonize people inside global corporations. They are born of the blindness that all of us have similarly suffered from in allowing this process to continue. Both the left and the right have fostered a model of growth that subsidizes, regulates, and taxes in such a way that not only favors big business, but essentially pressures them to become bigger and more global. We all have to take responsibility for that and start an incremental process of re-regulating global business and shifting taxes and subsidies to support a shift toward more localized business.
It seems daunting to try and change the course of globalization when the people who are at the levers of control, and the politicians, seem to profit from the very system that is being run for the profit of the multinationals.
Less than one percent, and I mean markedly less than one percent, of the global population is engaged in promoting further deregulation. I would estimate that at the most a few hundred thousand people are actively promoting fair trade and finance deregulation. Personally I don't think we'll be able to persuade all the political leaders and CEOs. I think we need to talk to the 99 percent. The 99 percent have the power if they choose to exercise it. I believe that to get the 99 percent to stop and think about this issue would not be so difficult if there was more effort put into doing that.
What I encounter again and again, is that people say, "Oh, yeah, we know that, but we can't do anything about it politically." I've seen a lot of evidence that suggests that people really do not know it. People have a vague idea that globalization was rejected by a few young people throwing stones. They've never even heard from the articulate economists who have very good and reasonable arguments why localization is a grand idea.
What would a society with greater localization and less corporate consumer culture, look like? How do you envision what a community might look like, how might it be different than it is now?
Americans should visit Sienna or Florence in Italy. Even today, you would get a taste of what that would look like. Far more businesses have been there for hundreds of years, whether they are family farms, family restaurants, furniture factories, leather makers—the human fabric is still more intact. It is changing very rapidly in the wrong direction. On another level you can see it in Bhutan or Ladakh, and even in Germany, in Austria and Switzerland; you would get a very good taste of what things look like when you have more human-scale business. I think a very good idea, if we had more funding, would be a sort of reality tour for Americans.
You make a point, talking about Ladakh, that before modernization, there was no unemployment, there was lots of leisure time, there was a greater community bond. Would localization return some of these benefits to our communities?
My husband and I lived in Spain for over a decade, and when friends from England would come out to visit, they were so thrilled and amazed that their teenagers were willing to go out to the bar or restaurant with them, because in Spain, the whole family goes out together. The grandmother and the baby were there in the same place. And suddenly these teenagers from England who wouldn't have been seen dead with their parents because it just wasn't cool, were willing to socialize with them. And that an example that's clearly evident in those cultures.
In the case of Ladakh and Bhutan, it's even more so. You have much bigger extended families. And of course it's changed and changing, but they used to say that every mother had at least 10 living caretakers for each baby. And I think that meant that even if the mother was tired or if the baby was ill, there were always welcome arms and the baby was always carried and nurtured and moving from arm to arm. Which fundamentally may increase and create a sense of being loved and respected. And that in turn, was the prerequisite for being giving, loving, and caring yourself as you grow up.
An interesting fact I picked up from the film is that countries often import and export equal amounts of goods, and that he US actually imports 950 tons of beef and exports 900 tons. What's the economic rationale for doing that? Why don't we just export 50 tons of beef and be done with it?
That economic rationality is one of the fundamental principles of an economic theory called comparative advantage. Basically the idea is that it's not in your economic interest to produce for your own needs, it's in your economic interest to specialize in what you're best at and then export it. I have to say, we really need to examine this thinking in the light of the fact that this theory was developed at the same time as colonialism and slavery. Traders and merchants in the UK when this started were benefiting enormously by putting people onto giant custom plantations and getting them to specialize for trade, but in actual fact it's a very dubious concept.
And I want to be careful here to when talking about self-reliance. It's a big mistake to say that we should all go out onto the land and try to produce everything that we need. There is definitely a role for a certain degree of specialization. There is a role for trade, trade has always existed and been a part of society that has existed forever.
We really do have to start looking at comparative advantage in a different light. Economists are still completely wedded to it. I have spoken to enough economists to know that they simply aren't looking at the real world. There isn't a voice from the grassroots that says, "Wait a minute, we're importing and exporting the same thing." Economists don't even acknowledge that that's even going on. And I'm afraid that it's becoming more and more difficult to stop this madness because the records of import and export are kept more and more by the corporations by themselves.
What is the most important work that your group is doing to promote localization?
I think the most important thing that we've done and will continue to do is to help increase awareness within the progressive and environmental movements. And that's still relatively rare. Because those who do understand usually want to get on with action. There isn't enough attention paid to the framing, or the think-tank work for decentralization and localization. The political left is realizing that it didn't pay enough attention to the think-tank work, where the political right did. But what I'm talking about is something that really transcends left and right. We need to look at the economy in a broader way, broader because it takes a global point of view, but also broader because it gathers the social, economic, and environmental issues in one frame, rather than in fragmented compartments, and I think that's a key.
