Business as Usual or Willing to Change?
If we continue business as usual we will find ourselves in a steadily worsening situation. At the national level the over-reliance on global markets and debt-based wealth will continue the downward trend of a worsening economic crisis affecting local economies at home and abroad, unemployment will continue to rise, bringing immense hardship and undermining local vibrancy. The global economic downturn and disintegration of financial pillars already witnessed in the banking systems will be exacerbated by rising costs of energy and declining availability of oil-based fuel and products, leaving national and local economies extremely vulnerable and the least well-off in society exposed to poverty. Locally, over-reliance on a narrow base of growth sectors such as transportation, communications, distribution and construction as well as low energy costs is risky as all of these are currently oil-dependent.
On the other hand if we collectively adopt the approach set out in this Plan, if we bring some sectors of the economy back into local ownership and rebuild local trading networks, we can rekindle a more resilient localised economy based on local resources being used to provide for many local needs. Alongside our current dependence on IT services and tourism for employment, we can begin to strengthen and build a more locally focused economy based on small-scale intensive agriculture, food processing, local provision of services and skills with less dependence on tourism (yet which may, ironically, become an attraction for increases in tourism!). We can stimulate local business and investment through encouraging people to buy local goods and keep money local by using local currencies, such as the Totnes Pound, bartering and local banks such as the Credit Union and the Post Office.
We can take these changes even further and reconsider the fundamental basis of our economy, moving towards the principals of natural capital to underpin our values and redirect investment of time and other resources:
Checking the balance – Principals of Natural Capital / Holistic Economics:
- Community, Friends, Family (nurture our soul – valuing the heart)
- Biodiversity (provide sustenance for food & air, recreation, relaxation. Gaia, / valuing the head & the heart)
- Education & Skills (potential for our future & understanding of the world – valuing the hands & the head)
- Mineral Resources (inc. petroleum oil) (current economy based on this principal only – distorted with credit)
- We can use this system to develop and check the natural economy in terms of overall balance, needs and assets
What follows is one version of how economics might become more localised and sustainable over the next 21 years.
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