Economic Ecosystem

A truly sustainable economy is not purely manmade. It is a breathing entity with seasons and fluidity. It is something we work with, something we try to synchronize with as we might do with a regional climate. We fail when we try to control it as western economists do.

Companies always view a quarterly "loss" or stagnation of profit as a bad thing. I think that's wrong; it is a necessary season as the daylight hours lengthen or shorten; or rainfall increases or decreases; or temperature rises or lowers. But when we push too hard for artificial and continual growth we end up with exhausted resources, over-saturated markets, mass consumption culture, etc.  

Rather than thinking of economy as some lifeless abstract concept, think of it as living ecosystem. Now imagine what would happen to any ecosystem if we tried to artificially control some aspect of it. Say we found a way to artificially super heat all the lakes and waterways in a region to force evaporation/condensation, and hence, rain. The ecosystem would experience continual rains, but at what cost?  

A little rain is great for growing crops or ensuring lush vegetation, but if we force it to a level that denies natural cycles, we end up with:

• flooded land
• nutrient stripped soil (as the water run off would leech out the nutrients)
• disrupted river and lake beds
• dying or dead aquatice life, which then affects the food chain
• etc.

Another example - suppose we were to specifically try to eradicate all wolves in a region because short-sightedly concluded that we would have more big game for ourselves without competition from wolves. Although, if we did that, there would be no natural mechanism in place to remove the old and sick from the herds, thereby diminishing overall quality of the wild meat and maybe even threatening us with disease.

Or what if we somehow figured out a way to make it daytime 24 hours a day. Party time! No night! Of course, if we did that, the scorching sun would damage plants, reducing food sources for humans and animals alike. Then entire food chain would begin to fall apart. Not to mention the net negative psychological effect on people and animals with respect to sleep patterns.  

With virtually any aspect of an ecosystem, too much of something is damaging, if not destructive, to the entire ecosystem itself. This is no different when we consider economies. Economies are not simply about money, jobs, businesses; they are holistic in nature. Economies are not rigid structures, but rather, they are fluid, moving, breathing, changing ecosystems. Economies are not one size fits all, but are unique for every region and community, each possessing distinct identities and features.  

This is crucial to understand if we wish to create true sustainable, meaningful community economic development. Too many communities look to mega-corporations from outside that ecosystem to come in and wave a magic economic wand (perhaps a benefit agreement of some sort), expecting that this will fix everything. Benefit agreements or partnerships are not bad, but they cannot be the driver and shaper of local/regional ecosystem (i.e. economy). The mega-corporations lack the understanding, the connection, and the personal stake in caring for the local ecosystem to adequately be able to "develop" it. They often come in with cookie cutter approaches to what the economy is "supposed" to look like.  

This, generally will not be sustainable. They are there to extract maximum benefit as quickly as possible without regard to natural cycles within the ecosystem. They come in like a wooden stake driven into the chest of a local ecosystem and stay until they have taken literally everything they want and then move on, leaving a gaping hole behind. It is not often easy or swift to heal from the hole left behind and often results in communities bleeding their residents who move away to follow the jobs.  

Some may call me idealistic in my thinking, but be that is it may, there a number of actions that people can take.  

On the "idealistic" side, it is an outright rejection of capitalism and its mass-consumption artificial culture. More pragmatically, it means exploring alternative methods for local trade and production and only producing as much as is needed for living. Local farms and gardens, barter exchanges, local stores, locally produced goods, etc. are all parts of the solution. If natural resources are to be developed, then less excessive extraction methods need to be considered and longer term thinking is required versus the short term "extract it all now" type of thinking.  

Coops, worker coops, social enterprises are all tangible mechanisms that can help create a better balance with a greater level of synchronization with the natural rhythms of the economic ecosystem.  

All said, at the core, pure capitalism is inconsistent and at odds with true community economic development in my humble opinion.

CED Capacity Tool

For the past year, I have been working on developing a tool to assist communities in assessing their Community Economic Development capacity. The tool, developed (for now) in Excel, is built according to the this model:


Each of the 'boxes' around the circle have a set of questions that drill down to the concrete level to assist communities in translating the results of the assessment directly into action plans.

One thing I will say, some of the words I have used in this model can be slightly misleading. For example, when I write "Industrial Site," it is not intended in the traditional mainstream sense of big cities. An industrial site could be a gravel pit, forestry (selective harvesting), a sweet grass field, etc. The site, for the purposes of considering this model does not need to be a profit (financial) generating site either. Direct financial gain is not the only form of value. The cultural and spiritual value of a site is equally important and definitely important to note in planning so that they are not interfered with by any potential developments.

In any case, if any of my readers are interested in receiving a copy of this tool, subscribe to my blog with your email and I will send it to you.

Ken

Rebuilding Indigenous Economies

There has been a lot of talk globally about the need to rebuild Indigenous economies. It is seen as the foundation of sustainability, independence, and wealth creation.

There is no consensus about how to do this.

In fact, there are probably more questions than there are answers. To begin the conversation of how we ought to rebuild our economies as Indigenous people, there are a number of questions that we need to ask ourselves and our communities.

1.       How does the culture behind mainstream economic processes compare with our own culture?

2.       Are we seeking to change our own culture to align better with the economic system that is out there or do we prefer to shape the economic system to our culture?

3.       What will we define as economic success?

The mainstream economic culture that currently exists, is largely based upon individualism, infinite profit, “bottom line” thinking, economic value worldview. The conventional thinking here is that in order for an economy to succeed, you must encourage individuals to have ambitions and pursue those ambitions for personal gain. Individuals with great personal wealth will spend that money buying products and services and paying taxes.

As we look at businesses, the principle of infinite profit comes in. Here, businesses are only seen as successful businesses if their profits are increasing quarter after quarter, year after year to no limit. To achieve such growth, businesses and companies are forced to use their bottom-line as the primary criteria in any decision. If it doesn’t increase the money they make or decrease what they spend, it is not worthwhile. In this way, we shape our entrepreneurs and business leaders to view the world as something that must be labelled with financial value. Each activity, person, object is then given a relative value, and is hence, prioritized.

There are many who are comfortable with this economic culture. There are, however, many who are not. Typically, those who are not comfortable with this economic culture have conflicting values from their own culture. Consider those cultures where collective wealth is a value (ie. Communal vs individual). Or those where the land and water are valued above personal or even communal gain.

Understanding the mainstream economic culture and comparing it with our own culture is critical to understanding what directions we need to take as communities and nations.

With that understanding, we then need to ask whether we desire to align our culture with the mainstream economic culture or whether we wish to take what we can adapt to our culture. This is important because if a community is not willing to assimilate into the larger mainstream economic culture, then conventional methods of economic development will not work.

Revising the economic models to fit a different culture than what the mainstream has to offer requires far more creativity and innovation than conventional approaches. It also requires that a community consider what its definitions of success will be. Adopting a different economic model will mean that people and communities cannot expect the same economic results (it’s possible that not everyone will have big screen TVs and two fancy new cars). That is not to say they will not have the same or greater level of success. But it is all in how we define success.

For some, the conventional approach to economic development is to recognize that there will always be the rich and the poor and the goal is really to move away from being poor, up the ladder, towards being rich. We see this in most Western nations as the gap between the rich and poor continually grows.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/inequality----thy-name-is-revolution-117223113.html

If this is not the path that a community wishes to take, then the approaches must be different. Entrepreneurship and corporate empire building that rewards only a small percentage of people in the backs of legions of workers, will not lead to such values as communal sharing and collective wealth creation, for example.

So, defining success, then, becomes critical to deciding what approach to take. Is economic success defined as greater wealth among individual members of the community/nation? Is it defined by a strong and vibrant Indigenous government? Is it defined by collective ownership and wealth generation? Or by improved health or social conditions? Might it be defined by greater sustainability and health of the environment and people?

There is no correct answer, although some will be more or less damaging to various aspects of our world and peoples. Selecting an answer doesn’t require a PhD either – just an honest introspection and plenty of discussion.

Community Economic Development tools

What is community economic development? Many people ask the question, but few receive a clear answer. Some receive confusing answers while others do not wait for an answer. Still others, simply write it off as "left wing" or "socialist" or "communist."

Really, in simple terms, community economic development (CED) is economic development +. It is economic development, but not just that. It is much more than that. CED encompasses all aspects of a community, just as in reality, our lives do as well.

That being said, I find it somewhat irritating when people talk about CED in terms of "business development" and "entrepreneurship" only. Our focus on infinite profit and selfish individualism are not particularly conducive to developing productive, safe, happy communities. I will not repeat the research on CED, but I will encourage you to read this link, which has a pretty good description:

http://www.manitobaresearchallianceced.ca/Documents/51-CED_as_mainstream_alternative.pdf

Interesting to note is that this paper was written on the subject of the merit and value of CED as a mainstream alternative to the current neo-classical system of capitalism BEFORE the global financial meltdown was caused by the same neo-classical Wall Street elite who have since profited from it.

Here is another link that explains CED: http://www.manitobaresearchallianceced.ca/Documents/Thematic_Summaries/CEDandtheNewEconomyNorthern-WEB.pdf

However, I want to focus on the fact that many communities and people interested in CED often miss out on some valuable resources available to them. I will list a few of them here:

• http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/epb/sid/cia/comm_deve/cdhbooke.pdf
• CED Path-finder: http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/ri/ced/pdf/cedpathtoc.pdf
• List of Data sources: http://www.reddi.gov.on.ca/data.htm
• Free CED Capacity tool: http://www.communitydevelopment.uiuc.edu/surveys/index.html

Currently I am working on a tool that I hope that be able to distribute in the next few months. Initially it is only focused on MB, but it may well growth from there.

Ken