Keep it local

Now more than ever we should be investing in our own communities. When jobs were plentiful and wages were stable it was easier to ignore the fact that local business were closing shop. They could not beat the prices at the local big box retailer, so in the Darwinian marketplace they went under. Your local coffee shop, bookstore, hardware store or pharmacy were likely plowed under in recent years. This did not affect us much. It was a loss in a purely nostalgic sense--the same goods could be purchased for cheaper elsewhere and who needs local "flavor" when you can save more at the Walmart?

Well, times have changed indeed. The chain stores that siphon off local dollars to far flung places (including insanely high CEO salaries) will be "restructuring" in the months and years to come. That means either lower salaries for workers or layoffs. I suggest taking a second look at local businesses. In many cases the owners of these businesses have a stake in the community in which they operate. Their kids go to the local schools, they have friendships and other kinds of connections that are place specific, and often they will sacrifice a bit to avoid having to layoff their workers. When a critical mass of people begin to invest in community businesses, we all reap the benefits of their success: more jobs, higher wages and ultimately lower prices.

It is time for relocalizing our financial activity. We have seen what happens when we buy from overseas exporters--the precipitous loss of high wage manufacturing jobs. We have seen what happens when we put our savings in the hands of Wall Street finance wizards. And we are just now seeing what happens to our low wage service sector jobs when big companies have to recoup their losses--job losses total 1.2 million this year alone (half that since August!). To create the durable communities that we will absolutely need in the years to come, we must begin investing in locally owned and operated businesses now. Seek out a local bank, bakery, grocery store or food coop, a community agricultural organization, bookstore, restaurants, etc... Support local arts by going to a community theater production instead of a Hollywood movie, or go see a band at a local pub. Begin to relocalize your spending now and when your company managers in Los Angeles decide to close your office, you may well have viable options just down the street.

Not just for the tinfoil hat crowd anymore

I admit that I hold a prejudice against the separatists, the guns-beans-band aid hoarders, the end-of-days fanatics, anyone the owns or wants to build a "bunker," and any group that looks with that weird titillating anxiety toward a future apocalypse. These people have always been around and with every crisis they come out of the woodwork to pronounce with satisfaction--"the end is finally here!" We saw this with the Y2K-ers, the Revelationiacs, the nuclear holocaust survivalists, and now with the financial meltdown we hear again the warnings from paranoiacs of every stripe (stay tuned for the 2012 crowd). Many of these folks already live on the margins of society and project their personal failures and sense of alienation into a reactionary stance in relation the rest of the world. They, many of whom tend to be conservative men, deal with their loss of control over their lives, their families and their future with a narrative in which they become heroic leaders in a post-apocalyptic world. Most of these people are harmless and truly hope to contribute in the case of societal breakdown. But some are dangerous and, with their stockpiles of weapons and ammo, look forward to a day when they can enact their own predatory impulses.

This being said, I have to admit to some discomfort writing a blog that takes as its premise the same kind of future social disintegration as many of these wing nuts. I recently looked back over my past few posts and found that I begin each with a short discourse trying to justify my own alarmist tone with facts and figures from the real world. Ultimately, the fact that no one seems to know what the full effects of the global financial crisis will be, indeed we are in a period of history without precedent, urges me to err on the side of caution. So, the idea behind this blog is that things may well fall apart in near future and everyone should be 1) capable of weathering the storm for as long as it takes for boring, beautiful normalcy to return, and 2) prepared to reach out and participate, even as things get serious, in creating durable social networks to ensure that we all make it through in one piece. In the first instance I agree with the survivalists: we must be able to keep ourselves and our families clothed, fed and safe during the crisis. But in the second instance, I insist that we do not barricade our doors, sit on our horded goods and view everyone as a potential threat. If things get as bad as they could, we all need to work to build up our local economies (for example, through a local business alliance http://www.billmckibben.com/pdfs/introduce-residents.pdf); work to keep the most vulnerable in our communities clothed, sheltered and fed; form neighborhood cooperatives in which resource donations are pooled, properties joined to build large gardens, and "neighborhood watch" programs stepped up to combat the probable rise in crime; and work through larger organizations such as faith communities to export donations to other parts of the country and the world.

By reaching out and establishing viable local communities we can mitigate the presence of the gun-toting "mad-max" element which, despite their best intentions, desire the chaos that will be unleashed by the coming global depression. So, get out there and start meeting your neighbors, join a faith community, volunteer at a soup kitchen and/or join a local coop. Get out, multiply your social connections each day and fight the urge to turn inward--it's spooky in there!

Strengthening social networks

As I mention in the previous posts, the future is uncertain, and planning for uncertainty, as difficult as that appears, is necessary for getting through the oncoming crisis. Indeed, the financial system's decline has been something of a spectator sport for many of us in the past few weeks (or months, if you've been paying attention). Any of us with money in the stock market feel the pain acutely, but if our economist kings manage to turn this all around, then worry not--we may be back up to 14,000 in a year's time, but maybe not. Those of us without much invested in the market have just been watching the carnage from afar--but not for long I think. The link between companies and the financial markets is direct, and when credit does not flow, and investments have been eviscerated, many companies will not weather the storm in the months to come. Many will go out of business and there will be mass layoffs; unemployment will rise quickly, and it is questionable whether the government will be able to handle a sudden increase in entitlements. In my city, there has been a hiring freeze in effect for about a year now, and with state budgets drying up, there is no end in sight. Unfortunately, the scarcity in government jobs (i.e. jobs that pay fairly well and tend to have good benefit packages) means that there are many of us who must do the best we can in the service sector (poor pay and no benefits). As companies trim down on operations in response to a sudden drop in demand (let's face it, folks are scared and cutting back even now), the masses of unemployed will rise along with all of the social ills that come along with unemployment: crime, mental illness, poverty, etc...

If this is the case, and we have a deterioration in social conditions in the coming years, it is more important than ever to bolster your existing social networks--we will all need to depend on one another as circumstances change. From the go-go 1990s until recently, hyper-individualism has been possible and perhaps, given the circumstances, even desirable; however, it is no longer a good idea to put so much of our time and attention on pleasing ourselves. This practice of self-indulgence has been part of the problem--many of us have over-extended ourselves on credit over the past decade or so (it was so easy to get credit cards), largely in the service of short-term self-gratification (flat screen TVs, big cars, lots of home decor, electronic devices of all sorts). It is time to start placing our shrinking resource into building the kinds of social ties and community institutions that will bolster our chances of making it through the global depression. This means re-prioritizing where we sink our money, time and energies.

I suggest a good place to start is (for those of us not already involved) joining a church. I am not a religious person: if you had asked me a year ago if I would ever consider becoming a member of an organized religion, I would have certainly said, "hell no." But times change. Churches foster strong communities through volunteer work and sustain an awareness of the needs of their neighbors. These venerable institutions can be a positive influence in the community and will help you directly if you find yourself in a difficult situation. Find a church that tends to be more inclusive and tolerant. If you have no preference, ask a church-going friend about theirs and invite yourself to the next gathering. Once you are part of a congregation, get to know folks and volunteer for church-sponsored outings or charities (soup kitchen, food bank, toys for tots). The point here is to multiply your social connections and, who knows, broaden your spiritual horizons. Churches foster dense social networks and often friendships that are connected to a larger institution and mission tend to be more durable than the connections forged at work or in chat rooms.

It is easy to find a church...just look in the yellow pages or ask around. Have an idea of what kind of church-going experience you want to have: for the fans of doctrine, saints and incense there is the Catholic Church; for those who prefer rousing sermons and lively music, look into a Baptist congregation; for lovers of diversity, try a Universalist or liberal Methodist church. Again, initially anyway, this is a means to multiply and deepen you social connections--it will allow you to depend on others in times of trouble and place you in the position to help others as they require help. If you join a congregation that preaches intolerance and hatred toward outsiders, you will be contributing to the many challenges that will beset our communities and families in the months and years to come. We will come through the global depression with stronger communities and intact institutions from which we will all benefit; perhaps we will also gather deeper, more meaningful social relationships in the process--enriching our lives more than the consumer goodies that we bought to fill the social vacuum that characterized, for many of us, the last last few decades.

Remember, civilizations fall when societies dissolve into factions--and when civilizations fall, people suffer all the abuses of power that tend to arise in the absence of civility. This does not mean that you you should not prepare yourself (see the previous post on stocking up on dry goods etc...); but withdrawing into your bunker and adopting a "survivalist" mentality is not helpful to anyone, not even yourself (who wants to live like a paranoid hermit?). With a strong social network, a sense of empathy and a desire to alleviate the suffering of those around us--these things will see us all through this mess together--and perhaps we'll be better of for it.