RE: A Different Look at Economics

Lately we have all become arm chair economists, what with the rise of gas prices, the fall of housing prices, and the collapse of Wall Street banking firms over the sub-prime mortgage mess. So I found it interesting to read here lately a different take on what equals a good economy. Bill Mckibben in Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future argues that we need to move beyond the idea of economic growth as the supreme goal of a nation and towards economic sustainability and the emergence of local economies. Basically, he says we should move away from the energy consuming global economy, for it is damaging the earth and won't be something we can sustain much longer with energy resources becoming tighter and tighter. Mega malls, SUV's, corporate farming, and the consumerist mindset are what we need to get beyond in McKibben's opinon. Taking a more humanistic look at economics, he also looks at how our currently structured economy and way of living have made us into isolated individuals who have a difficult time finding community. Hyper-individualism, he calls it, is something he would like to see less of in America, the land of the individual. I think McKibben would point to the news coming out of Wall Street as evidence of a society that has driven itself so far down the road of "me" that it now has to face the word "us" in the form of a government bailout of the financial system. A nation where the food is grown locally, goods are crafted (not manufactured) by people you know, and you know your neighbors and think about their welfare as well as your own, McKibben would say, is a much better society than the one that has produced the latest headlines from Wall Street.

I encourage you to hear McKibben out for yourself and make up your own mind about his visiion for an economy. His alternative vision to the go-go must grow the economy America that we live in today is not one you hear that often amongst the talking heads on television or our politicians or academic economists for that matter. But it should be heard. And if you like what you hear from McKibben, then I would also suggest that you look at the works of Wendell Berry and James Howard Kunstler to name but two from recent times. Henry David Thoreau had a similar message in the 19th century. Before that in the 18th century you had Jefferson vs. Hamilton, with McKibben leaning more towards the Jeffersonian world view of small towns and small farms. Wordsworth struck a similar note with the poem I leave you with.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.