Economic Re-visioning

It has been over a year now since the elite of the world nearly destroyed the global economy for their own greed. Recession, fears, cut-backs, debts all have become regular words in our vocabulary. In fact, sad to say, so has greed, corruption, injustice. The very people who caused the recession by nearly bankrupting the system to line their own pockets, have since been rewarded with bail out packages that they have used to give themselves bonuses in the millions of dollars.

How did this all begin? How were they allowed to do this? What implications does this have for Indigenous economy?

To start with, we need to examine the colonial economic system – that is to say, the current mainstream economic system that North America inherited from the British Empire so long ago. That system, thanks to the industrial age, set, as its foundation, efficiency, money, and material wealth. The system was designed to exploit everything and everyone around it for the singular goal of profit.

While forms of banking had existed for a long time already, they had at one time only been a type of safe storehouse. Originally, a “bank” or moneylender would hold people’s money or valuables in a secure place for safekeeping. A fee would be applied to pay for this safeguarding (ie. The salaries of guards and staff to operate the bank). A bank, originally, could only ever lend out as much money the banker him/herself actually possessed personally. Of course with a little interest and safe lending, the banker would earn some profit.

Over time, the bankers became greedier, realizing that people rarely ever withdrew ALL of their money all at once. So they began lending out money that was not theirs in order to earn even more profit. Naturally, this is somewhat a breach of trust, so the bankers appeased their clients (the depositors) by paying out a meagre interest rate for all monies deposited in the bank. Even after this, a bank could only ever lend out as much money as it actually possessed in its vault.

However, this was not enough to satisfy the greed of the private bankers. They exploited a regulatory void whereby they had been given the power to create money. They no longer have to limit their lending power to reality. Now, bankers simply, as though with magic, write into their books additional monies as revenue when someone asks for a loan and then assign that imaginary money to the borrower.

In the past the value of money was based on tangible goods and services, but today, money is rooted in debt. So, when bankers make a loan, they create debt. If that debt is paid, ONLY the bankers profit. If the banker makes a bad loan, they lose nothing. There is no risk.

After the financial meltdown, we have seen that not only do they bear no risk and no loss, they become rewarded for their work through taxpayer funded bail outs and subsequently give themselves bonuses so big that the average North American would have to work 50 full years to earn that amount.

This system of debt and infinite profit seeking is not sustainable. Such a system cannot continue indefinitely and will, at some point, reach complete system collapse. What does this mean for Indigenous economies?

Indigenous nations have always been pushed out to the margins of the mainstream economy. This was done, originally, to harm our nations. However, as we observe the intrinsic failures of the system, perhaps what was meant for bad may well be that which offers us an opportunity.

Our nations have the opportunity to create our own economies in a way that does not bring injustice to our nations. We have a way to create an economic system that does not give banks the power to enslave us and be our masters. We have an opportunity it create a system that ensures people are valued over money.

For example, who says that I must only buy clothes through a retail store? Can I not trade my services or goods that I have with one who has the skills to make clothes? I am talking a barter system here. Barter systems are already being used all over the world and even in urban North America. Barter systems cut out the needless intermediary of a bank and all of the economic leakage into the banks pockets that comes with it. The power to define the value of goods and services is restored to the people themselves. Wealth is returned to its connection to tangible goods and services rather than abstract meaningless numbers that are all too easy for white collar criminals to meddle with.

Practically, how do we do this?

As there are already many communities that have successfully applied some of the mainstream economic tools in their communities, the answer, I believe, is in balance. A blended approach of Tribal/First Nation owned businesses (that are not set-up to compete with any existing member owned business), entrepreneurs, barter exchanges, and other “out of the box” thinking. Perhaps a community owned co-op bank could be created.

Having the mix of options could allow a community to take each of these elements and emphasize those which fit best with their communal/cultural values. It allows communities to gradually shape their economies and take the best elements from a variety of options and approaches to economic development.

The resources are out there too. Google has many resources for setting up a barter exchange, for example.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/creating-community-currency-a-bartering-system.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1471533/how_to_set_up_a_bartering_exchange.html

The main element required for making practical changes to a failed economic system is not to import those failures, but to think creatively about alternatives that are fair for people.

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.

Staying the Course in the face of Disaster

Well, perhaps symbolic of this year's scourge of natural (and not so natural) disasters and their effect on our ability to stay focused on economic development, I have not posted in awhile as I have been distracted.

This year, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec have been hit particularly hard by severe flooding. Communities have been washed out, many have declared states of emergency at various times and more than a few have had evacuation orders. Alberta wild fires have threatened many communities, forced evacuation of others and destroyed at least one. Oil spills in northern Alberta have cause untold damage to the environment and nearby communities, severe storms have battered a number of communities and regions and tornadoes have damaged cities and communities in the USA.

This is perhaps the most challenging pressure on a community's planning. How can a community remain focused on the plans they worked so hard to develop when natural disasters make day to day living a challenge?

There is no easy answer. However, the work put into a plan need not be wasted. The plan represents the community's vision of what they hope to achieve. When a natural disaster hits, these plans are still valid.... except, there may need to be a few more steps at the front end added into the plan. If I had a community vision of a supermarket and a flood recently destroyed the main road into my community, the vision still stands, but now, instead of developing supply lines as my first step, getting the road repaired or rebuilt will be my first step.

One thing that will have been affected though, is the capacity of the community to engage in community economic development. There will be a need to re-assess this capacity after a disaster has struck. It is only when a community fully understands where their capacities lie that they can accurately plan for the future. I have been working on a tool to do just that and will post it soon (like in the next month or so).

In the meantime, if you are facing a disaster, be encouraged - all of your previous planning efforts are not wasted.

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.

Crab Bucket Mentality

I was reading a recent Maclean`s article the other day about Justin Bieber (http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/02/28/the-persecution-of-justin-bieber/). The article was about the irrational persecution of Justin Bieber by the legions of `Bieber haters`.

I started, as the article was doing, thinking about why this is. Why is such persectution occuring? Then I realized where I had seen this before. This is the crab bucket mentality that exists in many of our Indigenous communities.

You see, fishers seeking delicious crab meat need only a bucket and more than one crab. If a fisher places only one crab in a bucket without a lid, it will, naturally, climb out. However, if there is at least one other crab in the bucket, neither will escape. Why? Because each time one climbs toward freedom, the other will grab its leg and pull it back down.

I see this in many communities. One person starts a business, and starts to climb out of the bucket of poverty and instead of helping her, the others drag her back down. "Oh look who thinks she's all big and important now that she has some money" or "I'm not supporting her business, she just thinks she is better than us because she has money now."

Sometimes, the crab bucket mentality is not as vindictive as that. Sometimes it is "Why would I buy from her, I can get this widget 10 cents cheaper over at Walmart." And so we make the empires rich and sacrifice our own brothers and sisters.

This is what has been happening to Justin Bieber as well. All the haters are typically people who have no talent, no skills, and no accomplishments and who are simply jealous. What this all made me think of is that we can turn all of this around. Rather than being a hater or jealous, we can go develop our own skills and talents so that we can, in turn, share them with the world.

What to do if we see someone else hating? Encourage them to develop their own gifts rather than tear down others'

New Reserve System Announced

For years, researchers, bureaucrats and journalists have been trying to get the message out that the reserves are not sustainable. With inadequate access to healthy food, insufficient Federal funding for proper education, health services and dismal employment outlooks, reserves, in their current state cannot meet the needs of the people.

Add to this mix the increasing presence of organized crime, drugs, contraband tobacco and home brew alcohol in “dry” communities, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Thankfully, our wise Government has crafted a solution to give the poor North American Indians a better future. For the past few years, the Federal government has been investing billions into new state of the art resident compounds that are fully equipped with all the necessary amenities, health services and even gourmet meals all freely provided. We are pleased to announce that these residences are fully staffed with a large number of employees whose sole responsibility is the well-being of the residents.

There are psychologists, counsellors, spiritual counsellors, educators all fully dedicated to serving the needs of each resident. Other amenities built in to these facilities are gyms, tennis courts, recreation halls, television and movies, and others.

Why should Indians bother with unsafe, ill-equipped communities when they can live in these state of the art facilities free of charge? However, despite all of these benefits, it seems that the uptake by Indians has been somewhat lacking. It may be the “too good to be true” perspective. Fortunately, our government has been implementing incentives to encourage greater uptake.

Some of these incentives include:

·         Cutting funding to programs aimed at protecting Indian women (Sisters in Spirit)

·         Cutting anti-gang programs

·         Cutting youth recreational programs

·         Cutting funding to on-reserve policing

·         Cutting funding to education

·         Withholding funds that would otherwise improve communities

All of these incentives are aimed at helping Indians clearly understand that their current reserve communities are not comfortable to live and that the federally provided residences are a much better choice.

We have even been streamlining the application process by making it easier for judges to award longer stays in the residences. We have also removed to 2 for 1 time loss while applicants await the decision of their acceptance or rejection into the residences. While, under previous governments, many applicants were turned away conditional or “in the community” decisions, we have imposed limits on these types of decisions that impede Indians’ ability to enter the residences.

We are very pleased to announce that the new reserve system, often endearingly referred to as “Club Fed” is in full implementation.

Contact your local Corrections office for more information about how you can apply for a residence near you.

NOTE: In case you haven't noticed, this is a satire about the grossly over-representation of Aboriginal people in the prison system and the 'get tough on crime' approaches taken by the Government.

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