The Post-Wall Street Era Will be Local
On a shelf of the Phoenix Bookstore, located in the heart of the ecovillage of Findhorn in the north of Scotland, the title Going Local (Free Press, 2000) caught my eye. The
book was written by the American economist Michael H. Shuman. It was
June 2002, and I had come to Findhorn to attend the international
“Restore the Earth” conference, during which Vandana Shiva, Winona
LaDuke, Helena Norberg-Hodge and some others were to present their
ideas.
Shuman, in his book, underlines the importance of local communities
reclaiming their independence so as not to be crushed by globalization.
His text refers to European and North American successes—showing that
people can “take back control of what is happening to their local
communities” by recreating living economies. The angle of attack he
proposes, doing business as a way to create a better world, seemed
relevant to me. Indeed, big business is the main destroyer of our
environment. But companies—both small and big—may well also be the only
entities powerful and creative enough to reverse this trend.
Thus we need, as Paul Hawken suggested in his book The Ecology of Commerce
(Harper Business, 1993), a way to create businesses that ensures that
the industrial business model, as it currently exists, will be replaced
by businesses that will serve the human community and become the
sustainable producers of tomorrow.
Thousands of local entrepreneurs around the world have in common a powerful and creative vision of the world. (Photo: Ara Shimoon/flickr/cc)
