Nothing terribly new, but Patrick Deneen has some good stuff on the decline of small businesses: Finger on the Scale. The piece seems to imply (rightfully, I think) that we can’t ever escape the formative effect that the imagination and goals of society have on economic exchange. The real issue is how we can re-center that influence toward its proper aim. Not to turn all Aristotelian or anything…
This is an open question; no need to agree with Deneen one-hundred percent. But I think we’ve got to wrestle with this.
…perhaps it would not be too difficult to begin looking at systematic ways in which current policy supports concentrated economic power, and to begin its dismantling. It may also be that Government needs to be more active in enforcing anti-trust measures. The Republican orthodoxy will scream that such activity is an intrusion of “Gummint,†but it’s clear that Gummint has already intruded in this area, and is doing tremendous damage to the fabric of the nation (the Republican orthodoxy’s ecstasy in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that ensures unlimited corporate participation in our electoral process does not inspire confidence about their motives). Perhaps some log-rolling is in order: in exchange for a serious consideration about the disproportionate impact of regulation on differently scaled businesses, a sustained look at anti-trust enforcement could be considered…. We will differ even here on how much of a role the Gummint should have in tipping the scales, but it’s quite clear that the scales have already been considerably tipped, and that American towns, citizenship, and virtue have all suffered as a result – and that finally cheap prices are too high a price to pay.
It occurs to me that we could use a set of theses on localism. Food, economic justice, what have you. My conversations have been bogged down by not clarifying my presuppositions. So I’m going to try to write something up.
First, a disclaimer. Davey tends to rebuke my criticisms of localism with these words: “But Frank, I don’t know any localist who believes that.” Hopefully I do a better job this time.
Austin recently re-tweeted a link to this, a write-up about an author doing his best to save, or at least “treasure,” local bookstores. For the record, I think this is cool. A good independent bookstore is a wonderful thing. Like many others, I rarely enjoy a visit to Barnes and Noble, Chapters, Books-a-Million, etc. They’re sterile places with a counterfeit sense of familiarity and comfort. Their book selection is rarely interesting, and I generally find their books overpriced. (Though, in their defense, publishers are probably more to blame for that.)
Yet, I confess that I’m tired of hearing people complain that big-box stores like B&N killed the local bookstore. (Or, for that matter, that Amazon is carrying on that trend.) I don’t really believe this storyline, and in the words of the immortal Calvin, I wish they’d shut up and stop whining.
That sounds harsh, I know, so let me explain myself.
I understand that big-box bookstores have often received tax benefits and other such incentives not available to smaller bookstores. And I agree that this is unfair, even wicked. I’m as anti-interventionist as any of you.
But why should this be the last word? Too often, I think that local bookstores use this as a crutch. Instead of thinking, “How can I be better than Barnes & Noble?” they resign themselves to a fate of dying relevancy. “I’ll never compete be able to compete with them!” To give this a concrete example, we tend to assume that You’ve Got Mail captures this scene with truth: The Shop Around the Corner just can’t stand up to Fox Books. It’s impossible. So let’s shed a tear, share stories about our Spanish lovers, and wait for the big bad businessman to bring us flowers.
I also find it odd that in all the articles I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of them), I’ve never seen anyone ask, “What have local bookstores done wrong?” As someone who’d like to start my own little bookstore one day, I’ve got more than a few opinions on this matter; but they’re not founded upon anyone else’s insight. I’d be much more willing to believe the “bad big box store” line if I saw more self-examination on the part of the independent bookstore. People who complain instead of looking to grow usually will only see their problems grow, so it’s no surprise that more local bookstores have closed in the past several years. After all, who wants to go and buy books from someone who’s going to share their gripes with you?
Before you jump all over me and call me a greedy capitalist pig, remember what I said at the beginning: I love a good local bookstore. Really, I do. The trouble is, I don’t believe that a local bookstore is good in and of itself. I’ve been to plenty of bad ones, and a bad local bookstore is much, much worse (imho) than any Barnes & Noble or Borders. Heck, it’s even worse than a Waldenbooks.
I’d love to see local bookstores blossom. And if I ever get a chance to do a book tour, I’d love to do local bookstore stops. But two things need to happen first: one, I have to write something worth reading again, and two, local bookstores need to start viewing their “predicament” as a “challenge.” There are ways around this problem, if only you try and tackle them.
An endnote. I’ve dropped a lot of generalizations. I know this. I did it on purpose. I know there are top-notch local bookstores out there. Good on you, all of you. I wish I could visit you. I just wish you didn’t have so many siblings that are the opposite. That’s really all I’m getting at.
Just met someone who came into the store who is starting a new CSA in Moscow! It’s June-October, and limited to 15 spots. It’s under the auspices of Backyard Harvest, so your CSA subscription will also provide one for a local underprivileged family. Gyah, I’m so excited! Let me know if you want more details, or want to split a spot.
This is a clever idea, and could serve as a stepping-stone to public acceptance of a local currency project. Here are two articles about the same idea:
You don’t know how wonderfully cathartic blogs can be until you have one. Sending out little missives into the great gnostic beyond – nothing beats it. Gotta get some of this down, lest it escapes me.
Credenda has always been a source of equal parts delight and consternation. A dear friend and fellow chorister at my ancestral church wrote a song glorifying the mag which appeared in the letters to the editor, and another friend’s excoriating subscription cancellation letter also appeared in that section, to be summarily mocked – of course.
All of this made the magazine a must-read. But I must confess the magazine’s latest reincarnation confounds me in a completely different way. I still respect all the contributors and their writings. They are fathers in the faith and I am their man. But despite a more periodic schedule, I cannot figure out Credenda’s new editorial focus. What sacred cows are they tipping? What new directions are they pushing?
First came Luke’s article, “Buy Local”. It stressed the importance of gratitude and abundance, while completely side-stepping any of localism’s substantive critiques – aesthetic critiques, questions of economic justice, the ideal of political subsidiarity, and of the unsustainability of our current system. It missed any chance to criticism localism’s foibles – a tendency to glorify self-sustainability, the postmodern notion of creating ones own cultural meaning, etc. Instead, it accused localism of being a nostalgic, primitivist movement design to alleviate nebulous consumer guilt.
No self-identifying localist or sympathizer I’ve talked to has recognized their position in this article. It is a happy straw men, or an article set against a group of people I have yet to encounter. All of the localists I know derived their position from a desire for a more grateful existence, and to deal with real cultural problems. In fact we were emboldened to be culture makers by Credenda, and by the success of the Christian schooling movement. We were even taught about co-belligerents, allies who share our concerns though arriving from completely different presuppositions and commitments.
But Ben’s latest article also baffles. “Growing Up” contains broad pastoral counsel – good counsel. One of the primary marks of growth in Christ is growth in unity with His body, the church. And that church includes specific members, and those members should come to mind when thinking about the church. People can claim their ‘doctrinal or liturgical or cultural differences’ as a sign of growth when in reality it is a sign of immaturity.
This initially hit hard, but then confounded. It would be great vanity to assume Ben is talking in a roundabout way about my personal concerns, as I assumed on first reading. He’s a direct guy – if he wanted to address natural food or home birth, I bet he would. But it is easy to read it between the very widely spaced lines of his article, if only because I am desperate for people like Ben, who I respect and who I suspect disagrees on these issues, to speak to them openly and forthrightly.
In fact, my greatest fear in these inquiries is to grow apart from the body. I have made myself a nuisance, I know, seeking counsel about these issues, for fear that I will drift and become schismatic.
This is not a “let’s you and him fight”, or a desire to argue for arguments’ sake. These are deep and sincere convictions, all the more frightening for me because I didn’t use to have these. But I also view them as intramural – it’s easy to love and respect those who disagree, even when they don’t seem to understand my first concerns.
In light of all that, I was greatly encouraged to read Pastor Wilson’s post, “Earthly Clay on Our Heavenly Boots” [Link] as a helpful companion to “Growing Up”. In it Pastor Wilson defends loyalty to ones personal history and embodied ideas against abstractions. My convictions about localism (for lack of a better term, as always) developed in the context of a church and a community. To turn my back on these convictions wouldn’t be sacrificing ideology for community, it would be sacrificing people for a shallow unity.
These ideas are of the same cloth. Unity does not mean ‘doctrinal or liturgical or cultural’ uniformity, and loyalty to ones convictions and the people who gave them to you is commendable. If we were all uniform, unity would be easy. It’s the messy challenge of loving our brothers and sisters *despite* our differences that life in the body, and life in community is all about. And that’s a fundamental part of my localist convictions.
So, this is what I get for giving in to Davey and actually posting something on economics. Oh well.
Five good things that Wal-Mart does:
1) It employs handicapped and elderly people who probably couldn’t get a job anywhere else.
2) Its hours permit customers (like myself) to pick up emergency household items at a time when other stores have already closed.
3) It allows countless manufacturers/producers to introduce themselves and their products to a considerable amount of people.I
4) It offers lower income families the chance to clothe their kids in decent, new clothes for less money.
5) It’s a national name that you can trust: need something but not sure where to find it? Wal-Mart is generally nearby.
If you think this is an out-and-out commendation of Wal-Mart, think again. I hate shopping there (as does nearly everyone else I know).
Are there negative sides to some of these good points? Without a doubt. But such is life! Which is what I meant by asking you to “embrace the grey.” I’ve been inspired by Austin to try and search out the positives, and I know there are many to be found with Wal-Mart. (Davey’s admission that he shops there almost every other week also suggests that he evidently finds some positives in Wal-Mart too, even if he doesn’t want to list them.)
Chris and I were talking about localism, and some of the opposition we’ve encountered locally to some new avenues of inquiry (a lil’ agrarianism, a dash o’ distributism, a big chunk of ‘true religion’, higher liturgy, etc. – trust me, they’re all related).
Anywho, he was talking to someone else who’s coming from a different direction (probably not a Co-op shopper, for instance) and the charge was raised that localism is marked by ungratefulness. “We hate corporations, banks are robbing us, WinCo is evil”
Chris made the argument that he’s doing all this precisely in order to be grateful, to know how the food gets from the ground to his mouth. We must always be doing this out of gratefulness and love, emphasizing the positive side of the case. Having a negative case makes it reactionary, a passing fad, and makes it easy to swing all the way to the other side. “We want to explore the benefits of this thing right here, we think it might be good, and growing our own food is healthy and good for our souls and we can maybe share it if we get good at it,” as Chris put it.
All good points, but I think the original objection radically misses the point. I think I might even own that objection. Every new movement is based on discontent, and populated my malcontents. We started our own Classical Christian schools because we were dissatisfied by the available options. All the standard cautions against being reactionary apply, but this community shouldn’t have any problems with movements.
In the end, this is tempest in a teakettle… we’re pursuing this stuff out of gratitude and divine discontent at the same time, and we’re attempting to be productive in all. I’m not an ivory tower kinda guy, so I test every new idea by attempting to do it and see if it works.
No offense intended to anyone, but I’m very grateful for WinCo, but there’s something off about it at the same time. I’m grateful for capitalism, but usury is evil. “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?†y’know?
I haven’t found much to congratulate The National Review about in recent years. Now I have. In honor of baseball’s opening day, NRO assembled a group of 30 distinguished writers and policy wonks (one for each MLB team) to explain their love for their hometown team. This is American localism at its best.
Frank threw down a friendly gauntlet earlier which I’m reluctant to pick up for several reasons: 1) protectionism is a label applied by its enemies to a scatter shot group of economic theories; 2) the question on the table requires lots of back-story and a bibliography way too long to appear on such a fey little webzine like HPN; and most importantly, 3) I’m not even a protectionist, by the common definition.
Nevertheless, here are my 8 theses, naked and unsubstantiated as they may be. A real discussion of all this would require picking up volumes of Friedman, Adam Smith, William Cavanaugh, and G.K. Chesterton, among others.
I.
Protectionism can = selfish nationalism. I’m sure there are plenty of economic jingoists who proudly hold to protectionism. But that’s not anything I wish to defend. I much prefer the “localist” label. So…
II.
Localism stands against globalism, which isn’t to say that it is not concerned over the plight of other peoples. Rather, localism makes the case that globalism is actually one of the great oppressive forces in the modern world. Globalism wishes to provide products and services for the cheapest cost that “The Market” can offer. If a Chinese factory can produce G.I. Joes for one-quarter the cost of a domestic toy manufacturuing plant, guess who wins out? In 1965, manufacturing made up 53% of the American economy. As of 2004, that number is just 9%. So first, from the American point of view, globalism has made us utterly dependent on countless foreign industries to continue to exist. We are no longer self-sufficient. If a foreign power felt emboldened enough to completely shut down its exports to the US (e.g. if the UAE enacted an oil embargo), we would be in a desperate condition. Globalism has fueled almost limitless growth in the first-world, but at a tremendous cost to both the first-world and the third-world.
III.
Localism, even in its most “protectionist” forms, is not against trade between nations. It is not against the idea of imports. And it is certainly not mercantilism—not by a long shot.
IV.
Positively defined, localism prioritizes community rather than growth.
V.
Localism manifests itself in a number of different movements, including agrarianism and New Urbanism. It stands against modernity and its ugly bastard children: suburbanism/urban rot, strip malls, industrial agriculture, corporatism, Washington D.C., and iPods. It stands for urban renewal (read: parish life), regional architecture, small businesses, local and seasonal agriculture, city councils, and the local symphony. Localism doesn’t believe that economic hegemony (i.e. having a McDonalds on every street corner from St Louis to Turin to Bangkok) is healthy for a society. Localism disapproves of putting the liveihoods of a third-world village entirely at the disposal of a first-world corporation.
VI.
Localism emphasizes that in a global economy, the winners are the US corporations who can cut costs and the corrupt foreign leaders who offer up their laborers at unimaginably cheap rates. The losers are the third- and second-world poor. Even worse, when third-world villages are conscripted into the global economy, they become dependent on the “mercy” of their foreign employer. If the first-world corporation closes down production in the village, the workers are even worse off than before.
VII.
Localism believes that just rulers should protect the weak against the powerful. Some might argue that tariffs are a good way to do this. Others might advocate an alternative. See Phillip Blond.
Frank threw down