Focus and Canada’s Lord of the Rings

I was re-watching one of my favourite movie series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the other day. One of the things I had noted in the story was the focus various characters kept and how that impacted them personally.

Merry and Pippin, the two younger Hobbits, only focused on the here and now. Their goals were simple; stay alive, eat, drink, and take joy in whatever comforts they can find wherever their journey would take them. Frodo was focused on the long term goal of bringing the ring to Mount Doom and could endure present hardships in light of his far off goal. Samwise was purely focused on protecting and helping Frodo complete his task and, more importantly, the journey home.

Most of the heroic characters (Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli) were focused very much on protecting the Hobbits at all costs. Those who failed Frodo, such as when Boromir tried to take the ring, failed because they were not focused on protection or the journey of the Hobbits, but on the power of the ring and how it might be a useful tool in their war against Sauron.

Gandalf had always kept his focus on protection and guidance of the Hobbits. In particular, he imparted much wisdom upon Frodo – wisdom that would later prove critical to Frodo’s success. With this focus, Gandalf remained true and dedicated to loyalty.

These characters, who had never faltered from their paths, kept a vision of the goal – the victory – in mind at all times. It enabled them to keep perspective no matter how dark things looked at various times in their journeys.

Interestingly though, was the results for those characters in the story who did not keep a vision of their desired goals fixed in mind. Saruman The White, described as the head of good wizards and greatest among them, had studied deep into “ways” of the enemy. He had even used a seeing stone, which allowed him to see the workings of the enemy. It was this focus on the details of all the dark tidings and challenges before him and his allies that his focus began to blur. Rather than seeing a vision of the victory he hoped to achieve, he became lost in the despair of all the day to day evils and the enormity of the full breadth of the challenge before him. As a result, he lost his hope and any vision of an alternative to failing against the challenges of Sauron.

The Steward of Gondor had also used a seeing stone. His city, bearing the full brunt of the Sauron’s armies and incursions in the lands of men and elves, had seen the evils and challenges of Sauron daily. Just as Saruman lost his hope, the Steward of Gondor lost his. He became mad with despair, unable to even properly lead the people to defend the city.

Even Frodo, at one point began to lose sight of the goal. He declared to Sam that he could no longer go on. Sam responded:

“I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something... That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.”

It was the focus of the characters that influenced their behaviours and their successes or failures. Focus and balance in what they focused on also played a role. Although it did not get displayed particularly prominently in the films, the books make it very clear how important celebrations and laughter were to giving the Hobbits the strength to continue their journey.

1.       Tom Bombadil and Goldberry encouraged the Hobbits early in their adventure – feasting and giving them a few evenings of merriment and laughter

2.       In the Inn of the Prancing Pony, the Hobbits (mostly the younger two) celebrated in the tavern

3.       In the valley of the elves, the Hobbits rested, feasted and had times to enjoy life

4.       Before entering the mines of Moria, the whole party of 9 (the fellowship of the ring) had some laughter and good times during their encampments

5.       On and on throughout the story, at various times, the characters took time to find some enjoyment in life regardless of the dangers and evil around them

For those of us working in the realm of Indigenous economic development, our challenges are no less daunting. Indigenous peoples are the most impoverished in Canada, kept at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder by the racist apartheid Indian Act. We face the highest suicide rates, drug and alcohol abuse, spirits broken from residential schools and Canadian cultural genocide policies, highest school drop out rates, lowest funding levels for child welfare, education, health, remote communities with food costing as much as 10 times what Canadians pay for, communities without running water, without heat, housing chronically underfunded resulting in overcrowding and mould, diabetes, the lowest unemployment, etc.

Our communities also face funding cuts, and threats from the Government of Canada (ie. Federal response to Attawapiskat state of emergency was to cut funding and place them under third party management in an arrangement that would force the community to pay $1,300 to a white consultant appointed by PM Harper). Our communities face energy and resource companies encroaching on lands to profit from natural resources – often without including our communities or only giving us a pittance for compensation then leaving our communities with environmental disasters and chronic health problems.

Our communities face unilateral decisions by the Conservative Government of Canada that erode rights and safeguards of community lands and resources. Programs, organizations, communities are all facing continual funding cuts under the current government, all while emergency states and third world conditions are ignored.

The challenges before us are great. However, we can learn something from the characters I described above.

1.       We must fix in our minds a vision of what success looks like. What are we trying to achieve in our communities?

2.       We must hang on to that vision and find people who will support and encourage us – surround ourselves with those people.

3.       While it is important to be aware of the challenges before us and the tactics of the “Saurons” we face, we must not lose ourselves, our hope, and our vision, by meditating too deeply on them.

a.       Thinking of the entirety of the challenge can be discouraging and cause us to lose focus. Be aware of the overall challenge, but begin to determine the immediate legs of the journey before you.

b.      What can you tangibly do today, to bring you one step closer to the vision you hold onto?

4.       We need to ensure we balance ourselves between focusing on the challenges and on finding enjoyment where we can in this life.

5.       We need to remember the words of Samwise: “there's some good in this world... and it's worth fighting for.”

So as we proceed to apply our skills and minds and hands to raising up Indigenous communities, we need to fix a vision of what the end goal is. The smile of a healthy child, a well-maintained home, a family playing and spending quality time together, a community cleaned up of debris and litter, community events filled with laughter and joy, a beaming graduate holding their diploma, a smiling tradesperson holding their Red Seal certificate, etc.

I leave you with a real life example of someone who has exemplified much of these thoughts: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/this-teacher-is-on-a-mission-to-educate-first-nations/article2289480/

Michelle Durant-Dudley, a teacher who kept a vision of success fixed in her mind. Even endured hardships, personal sacrifice, and physical assault could not deter her from her focus and her hope and vision.

Let us resolve this year to have the same dedication to a future vision full of hope.

Globalization Versus Localization

There are many elements of Globalization whose discussion and debates could fill a book. I thought I would focus on a couple key elements.

There is a false notion that Globalization will mean fair economic opportunity for all, greater efficiencies in product development and distribution and higher standards of living world-wide.

1. Fair economic opportunity for all

Global trade is one thing, but what acolytes of the globalization movement are pushing is not global trade. What they are pushing for is a global open market for the largest companies of the world to operate in. This means that well established companies that have been started decades ago by people from privileged classes and races (typically upper class white businessmen) during times where diversity was not an important social issue, nor was social justice or fair trade.

Now, when many people and nations are starting to rise out from under oppression, colonial rule, and decades of intentional economic exclusion by the privileged classes, the same people who created the unfair advantages are pressing for the opportunity for them to unfairly compete globally.

Consider it like a race. The starting pistol fires and the privileged class runs off down the track. Meanwhile, the remaining runners try to start running only to realize that someone chained their ankles to large stakes in the ground. The privileged class runners, miles ahead finally hear the concerned voices of spectators calling out that it is not fair. So they order their henchmen to go unlock the chains.

As they are running along, the privileged class, now miles and miles ahead, feeling good about themselves, think, “I am so glad I levelled the playing field for those poor people.”

This is the position many of our Indigenous nations are put under. To make matters worse, we are criticized for not winning even after the playing field was “levelled.” This is same position that all “developing” nations are placed under.

These nations, only now starting to form businesses and economies after a long time of oppression, colonialism and exclusion, now must compete against transnational corporations that have had decades to build their vast empires and resources. These same transnational corporations have received corporate welfare for decades in the forms of grants, tax breaks, incentive packages, waived fees, waived regulatory requirements, etc. The moment government or philanthropists consider offering some meagre support to young businesses from the non-privileged classes, the privileged ones rise up and cry foul.

“That’s not fair to give them welfare” they say. “They should stand or fall in a free market economy!”

Is it a noble goal? Yes. Is it fair economic opportunity for all? No.

2. Greater efficiencies in product development and distribution

The basic concept of globalization is that the processes used in producing a product and subsequently distributing will be more efficient. This, in term, will reduce overall consumer prices.

The problem with this thinking is that somebody is going to have to pay. Either front line workers will endure poor conditions with poor pay, or businesses in the middle of the supply chain will have to suffer cuts into their financial sustainability, or taxpayers will need to be put on the hook for corporate welfare. Somewhere, somebody is going to have to pay for the grossly undervalued products we buy at discount rates.

Another problem with this basic concept is that, in theory, it is supposed to make it easier to acquire the products we cannot produce domestically. In practice, we end up paying others for the right to use our own products!

An example will suffice. We have trees in Canada. We cut them and load them on trucks and trains, ship them to the U.S. where American businesses then do “value-added” work to the lumber. This lumber is then shipped back to Canada, and we buy it for a highly inflated price. Why are we not doing the work ourselves?

This phenomenon is not limited to forestry. It happens with fruits and vegetables, resources and products of all types. For many products, we export as much as we import. It is utter ridiculousness when we could be producing and prepping our own products for our own consumption. Only the excess of what we require should be exported.

Think for the moment. How can apples still be low priced, if we grow them, then transport them to another country (typically the US), transport them back and then sell them to our own people? Taxpayer funded subsidies given over to private companies as corporate welfare. This is part of the anger among the Occupy movement around North America right now.

In this day, when we are concerned with CO2 emissions, we are actually creating a worse problem through the traffic that comes from globalization.

3. Higher standards of living world-wide

The premise behind this claim is that globalization brings about increased living standards. Does it really? There are a number of key questions that need to be asked.

-          Who defines what the living standard should be?

-          How do you measure living standard?

-          How is living standards monitored?

-          Are living standards truly “one size fits all”?

Often, living standards are defined as the white, English-speaking, North American lifestyle. This lifestyle is essentially based on material wealth, consumption, individualism, and artificially high value on intangible (ie. Low practical value) knowledge economy careers. In this system, a CEO doing only a fraction of the work that the cashier working at the front end of his business empire does. In practical terms, the CEO’s job is of so little value that he should hardly be paid more than the front line employees. Yet, CEO’s often make anywhere from 10-1000 times what their front line employees make.

A computer technician is often valued in school, while teachers frown upon farmers or hunters or fishermen. Yet, in practical terms, the latter are infinitely more valuable in terms of what they produce than the former.

This is not to say there is no place for CEO’s and leaders and technicians, but it is to say that they are artificially valued above the more practical occupations.

Western lifestyle is also characterized by consumption and waste. Why should we impose such a backward value upon other peoples? Why should a developing nation be measured by how much they consume and waste? Yet, this is precisely what our current economic measurements do.

Living standards cannot be defined by the elite, nor one specific culture. They must be defined at local levels.

Globalization will not lead us to economic fairness. Localization is what is required. This is the process of making local economies strong and sustainable. It is not against global trade, but does insist that we engage global trade in a balanced manner. We trade the excess of what we produce. Why on Earth would one trade away that which one needs and then live in lack?

Global trade, without strong local economies, is an illusion built upon the backs of communities exploited for the benefit of the elite.

Ideas for change and how you can resist an unjust Global economy are here:

http://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/generate-alternatives-take-back-the-economy

Economic success in a community

Success. What does this even mean? In today’s world of ever increasing accountability and public scrutiny, we seek to measure the success of every activity. Community economic development is not exempt from this either. But how do you measure the success of a community?

There are over hundreds and hundreds of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit communities across Canada. Some are a couple dozen people big, while others number in the thousands. Some are remote, others are situated on main highways. Some have traditional occupations (hunting and trapping), while others have CEOs and large corporations. Which ones are successful? How do you define it?

Some have tried to take the “socio-economic conditions” approach. There is some merit in this approach where people are compared against the ideals of urban life. Here we look at access to health care, access to clean water, access to transportation, access to markets, employment rates, income levels, education levels, perceptions of safety, etc. Certainly some of this can shed a bit of light on the issue, but it does not tell the entire story.

People have tried to use the “economic measures” approach, whereby they examine how many local businesses are in operation, GDP, local revenues, income levels, employment rates, etc. In reality, this is limited to looking at economic activity, which is still useful information. However, it does not tell the entire story either.

At the end of the day, the vast majority of our approaches are comparative in nature to some ingrained ideal. These ingrained ideals are taught to us, culturally, by mainstream society from a very early age. Some of these include:

·         For Individuals:  

o   personal wealth

o   home ownership or size/appearance

o   type of car or truck

o   employer or position at work

·         For communities:

o   Entertainment options

o   Shopping centres

o   Traffic

o   Number of BIG businesses located in the community

Granted these types of “indicators” are mostly taught to children growing up in urban centres. However, the people working in governments, making program and policy decisions, conducting ‘research,’ are typically those in urban centres.

For some, these indicators might resonate. For others, they may leave a bad taste in the mouth. The key here is that people do not define what they mean by economic development. They do not define what success looks like to them, and they do not ensure their views are in alignment with the underlying values of the community.

I have seen many communities, including one First Nation that is a fly-in community (call it community A) with plenty of access to in-home running water. In this community, there are almost no employment options, rampant welfare, violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, marital unfaithfulness to the extreme, child neglect, etc. I have seen another community that is also a fly-in community (call it community B), but that has less than half their people connected to running water. Despite the employment options being few, this community does not share the same level of social dysfunction.

Why? What causes one to have different results than the other? Many people use some of the aforementioned approaches to defining economic success and conclude that both communities are failing. While community B certainly has its challenges, I disagree. I believe that community B is a successful community. Many of the people there are happy in spite of the challenges of water access and distant health care.

What happened to community A? Did they lose hope when outside urbanites came in and repeatedly told them they are failures and that they must strive to be like the big cities? Were they driven to despair when their own definitions of success was trampled on by well-meaning, but misguided bureaucrats, and replaced with an urbanite definition of success?

Often the presence of a flat screen TV or IPod Touch or IPad in the home is a sign of individual economic success. But is it really? Is it a success when we spend more of our time melting into a couch in a zombie like state while being spoon fed mental fodder? Is it truly a success when our children turn away from their soccer balls and become sedentary in front of their tech toys and video games?

Or is it more successful when they do not have these distractions and instead, walk along side the older generations, learning skills and knowledge?

There is no single answer, as it will vary person to person according to their cultural upbringing, personal and communal views. One thing for certain, measures of success are pointless if success has not been defined.

For program or project managers, and especially for government workers, it is absolutely critical to listen to a community about how THEY define success and shape the measurement of success from that.

Economic meaning

Many people have been drawing up conclusions that economic development is the path to empowerment and autonomy for communities - specifically First Nation communities. To some degree, I agree with this.

However, one must ask, what does economic development even mean? What does progress look like?

For starters, here in North America, we live under an economic system that is dominated by "new classical" economic philosophy and the culture of consumerism, materialism, and mass production. As Indigenous nations begins to build their own economies and strive to break free of the shackles of opression and poverty, it is important to ask the questions above and answer to what type of economic system is desired?

The prevelence of new classical and the predessors, "free market" and  neo-classical, greatly concerns me because it is essentially based, at least partly, on the following principles:

• That currency has actual meaning
• Infinite accumulation of profit is the highest goal to be pursued at any cost
• Immediate profit gains equate to progress and success
• Supply and Demand are the greatest drivers of what society needs and wants
• Government has no place in regulating or interferring with the economy

All of our current top business magazines and university courses continually drive these messages into the brains of anyone with entrepreneurial ambitions. In turn, media, marketing and business that have bought into this system preach the messages of consumerism and materialism to the general public, shaping and forming what society is supposed to want.

While there have been some definite positives that have come out, we often forget to ask "at what price?" and "to who's benefit?"

With the first principle listed above, currency has meaning, we have lost the very meaning of work and life. Currency, was never inteded to have value in and of itself. It was, in its original use, intended to facilitate efficiency in trade between people and groups.

What I mean by this is that suppose you were skilled in making clothing. I might require some clothing and since, for example, I have a garden of vegetables, I come to you to offer a trade with the excess of the vegetables I have for some clothing. If you were in need of vegetables, great, we have a deal. But if you were not, then I would need to inquire what you are looking to trade for and find someone to trade vegetables with in order to get the trade items I need to meet your needs. Obviously that could lead to a long chain of trades. This is where currency simplifies things. Dollars represent, not value in and of themselves, but a representation of either a service rendered or a good produced. Hence, trade is simplified between us and we have no need for a long complicated chain of intermediate trades.

Thinking of things like this, work done in one country will carry an equal value in any other country - exactly as one would fairly expect. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. I can do the same amount of work here in Canada as someone in Congo, let's say, and my work will carry many times the value. What is the reason for this?!?

We have allowed banks and the financial sector to change their roles from safe storehouses of our representative symbols of goods and services (currency/money) into regulators and definers of what the symbols mean and what are their value. It is precisely this issue that gave rise to the current recession and near global economic collapse. It is precisely this enormous power we have allowed the financial sector to take that enabled them to manipulate the value of our goods and services - our very skills.

Placing an artificial value on an otherwise meaningless item (a dollar), gives rise to the pursuit of infinite profit. With the goal of infinite profit, little or no thought is given to environmental sustainability, future generations, ecological impact, fair benefits for local people, fair wages for workers, etc. So many examples of this could be given - oil spills, strip mining operations and toxic deposits left behind, mercury piosoning of Grassy Narrows, nuclear waste poisoning by nuclear projects, clear cutting of forests, pollution of water ways and lakes, sweat shops, human trafficking, slave labour and/or incredibly unfair wage rates, etc.

While profit is not a 'dirty' word in and of itself, when it becomes the driving principle, it loses its purpose. Progress should not be measured by the accumulation of endless profit. There is no reason why a business or corporation needs to strive for infinite profit. Yet in our current system, this is what shareholders demand so that they in turn can receive maximum gains for their investments. In our current system, our stock traders and financiers all demand infinite profit that they may siphon off their cut.

As a mini case study, why does Wal-Mart need to be a global empire with more buying power than nearly every country in the world? Why does CEO of this empire get to profit 587 of times more than the average worker [Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Definitive Proxy Statement (Form DEF-14A) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 20, 2009, p. 36]? Does he do thousands of times more work? Not likely.

In a recent article (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-08/wal-mart-to-end-employee-profit-sharing-in-february.html), Wal-Mart anounced that they plan to end their employee profit sharing program by February 2011. Why? Why is it that this empire needs to pocket even more of the share of the pie? This is precisely the problem with the pursuit of infinite profit to the exclusion of all else. Virtually every ranking system we have counts profit and growth as the supreme indicators of success. Even leaders, CEOs, Managers are all judged in their resumes with these very false indicators.

To draw an analogy, this is like slaughtering an entire herd of bison to trade its fur or horns, rather than hunting the one or two individual bison required to feed your family. It is like clear cutting an entire forest (gone forever) to become rich trading all the wood, rather than cutting only the few trees you need to build a home.

Obviously, as my third listed principle states, this is prioritizing immediate gain at the ignorance of future loss. Who cares that our processes are polluting the world with plastic? Who cares if I am creating a nation of poverty among workers? Who cares if I am crushing the livelihoods of local businesses? As long as I get immediate gains and profits, my resume and accomplishments will look good.

The fourth principle I have listed, that of supply and demand being the best indicators of the will of the people, is rather deceptive. On the one hand, people may reason, "if people didn't like it, they wouldn't buy it. Hence they support the product and its practices." Although, what is often forgotten is the fact that supply and demand are manipulated by media/marketing and by the selective exclusion/inclusion of choices in communities. Will my quality of life truly be lower if I do not buy the latest 70" flatscreen 3D HD LCD television? Suppose you have an appliance that runs perfectly fine except for one single part that you need. Good luck finding it. It is in th best interests of companies to stop supplying such a product so that you will have to throw away the appliance and buy a new one.

Companies have purposefully stopped making high quality items (like the cars or tv's of 40 years ago that are still running in near perfect condition), because they cannot pursue infinite profit if a customer has no need for another product for 40 or 50 years. So items are now produced with a much shorter lifespan. Who cares what damage that will have to our environment with burgeoning garbage dumps?

Supply and demand? Supply mixed with skillful propaganda (marketing) is the driver and demand is the dependent in reality.

Finally, we come to the role of Government. What is government? The representation of the will of the people (ideally... but politics is another topic entirely). Naturally, it is in the best interests of a company pursuing infinite profit to have little or no regulation. This way, they operate however they wish to maximize their profits without those pesky human rights and corporate responsibility concepts. If government has no power or influence or control over the parameters by which business operates, what voice or hope do the people have?

Who is there to stop a business from bumping toxic waste into the fishing lake? Or leaving toxic deposits behind on the land where run-off guides the toxins into the playgrounds and school yards of children?

All of these thoughts are simply that, my thoughts. I do not claim to be some infallible authority on the subject by any means. However, I will offer some closing thoughts.

Whether or not the economic system, nationally (or even globally) as a whole can be fixed, changed or altered, I am not sure. However, I do believe that local economies within communities can strive to be different and build a system that is more balanced and conducive to the human element. This can only happen if people begin to question what "economy" truly means and what is it they wish to see in their communities. Who should benefit from their work and by how much? Should the manager of a local IT shop make 10 times the amount of the technician who actually does the work? Is that the system desired? Who determines the value of specific occupations? Is sheer profit the goal? Or is it that a business is built to supply the needs of the community, not only in what it produces, but in what and how it compensates those involved?