If globalism and centralization are the cause of humanity's exploitation, what is the solution?
According to Berry, “In order to make ecological good sense for the planet, you must make ecologically good sense locally. You can’t act locally by thinking globally. The world is made up of a diversity of countries, climates, topographies, regions, ecosystems, soils, and human cultures. To solve, rather than profit from, the problems of food production and distribution means having a local food supply, not a supply that is dependent on the global economy. Regions must be free to develop local food economies that best suit local needs and local conditions.”
Berry states, “The decision of how to use the land must be made by the people who live there, not by foreign corporations.” In other words, the decision making must be decentralized and local. So how can we switch from an exploitative global economy to a decentralized economy where the people actually care for the land and for each other?
People often talk about revolution, but how is that achieved? We can protest in the streets, but what comes after that? Without a new kind of system, people will just revert back to the existing system because they don’t have any other choice. The solution is not necessarily revolution, but economic secession.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."
- Albert Camus
While Camus may have been speaking personally, we can apply this reasoning on a societal level. Every part of our existence must be an act of rebellion, including the most mundane of activities. We can only do this by completely boycotting the system, but we first need to create an alternative system that supplies all of our needs. A parallel economy will only function if it has a diverse group of people, producing different things and providing different services. This is not something that can be accomplished overnight, and many people will need to learn new skills in order to participate.
The education industry has us believing that we should specialize in one area in order to make more money, but this makes us more dependent on others. Specialization has made us more subservient as individuals, as well as ignorant to the problems inherent in the system because of our inability to see the big picture. If we want to free ourselves, we need a variety of skills, the most basic one being the ability to grow food. The earth provides us with everything that we need, and food literally comes out of the ground ready to be eaten, so it makes sense that we secure our food supply first. A gradual transition to a decentralized food supply will allow us to boycott the global agricultural and food industries, and will be a major step in creating a circular parallel economy.
Not everyone has to grow food, but it should be understood that farmers are an indispensable part of any self-sustaining community. By supporting our local farmers, they will have money to spend on other essential services such as doctors or mechanics, ensuring that the community will be able to support various professions. Other goods that are produced by refining agricultural products, such as herbal medicine or clothes, should also be created using locally sourced raw materials. The goal is to keep as much money as possible circulating within the local economy.
What cannot be produced locally can be imported. This is an advantage of globalization, and this shouldn't be confused with globalism. Having the ability to easily trade with people around the world is a positive thing, but we need to find ways to incentivize the purchase of local goods. Ideally, the money that is spent on imports goes to another community that is also producing its own decentralized food supply. This will result in a global network of independent communities, each with their own local food supply, rather than having all of the communities dependent on a centralized source.
Nothing proposed here hasn’t been said before. There are many people out there that have stressed the importance of buying locally, but it’s only been done on a small scale, in places like farmers markets. The majority of the population doesn't care enough to make the effort of attending farmers markets that only occur sporadically. So how do we scale up this local economy? How do we convince the world about the importance of producing and buying locally?
We don’t have to. This decision is going to be made for us by food shortages. At some point, communities will need to start growing their own food, or potentially starve. Global energy shortages combined with worldwide political tensions will lead to fertilizer shortages. Without adequate fertilizer, industrial farmers worldwide will struggle to produce food.
While this situation may seem dire, a shortage of synthetic fertilizers can be a blessing in disguise, if we prepare for it. Without synthetic fertilizers, people will look for another method of supplying nutrients to the soil in order to grow food. One method is composting, and the most efficient way is to produce it onsite, in the same place where the food is grown. Since compost is best created in a decentralized manner, this will naturally push people towards decentralized agriculture. Humanity's rebellion will begin with food.
"The real work of planet saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous."
- Wendell Berry