A good half dozen or so people have been encouraging me to read Bill McKibben’s book “Deep Economy” and Griff and Tracy have been urging me to write a post now and then. So I guess this is at least two birds with one stone.
In case you haven’t read the book, I’ll give you my summary in a sentence. McKibben argues that our drive for never-ending growth is colliding with the physical limitations of our world and recommends that we switch our goal from “more” to “better”.
He starts with a historic overview. The major accelerator in our economic growth, and, I’ll note, the expansion of wealth, the sharing of political power, the increase of education, and the improvement in health, resulted from the invention of the steam engine. The simplify a virtually all encompasing change in paradigms, by converting a natural resource of fossilized energy, in this case coal, into power, human muscles could be replaced by mechanical machines.
This scientific breakthrough resulted in great gains in efficiency. Fewer people could do more work. The push for greater efficiency in everything began.
McKibben initially focuses, even obsesses, on the impact of shifting from human muscles to fossil fuels in the economic sector affectionately known as “food”. Most of you have long heard of some of the downsides of our current food production system, such as tomatoes with the consistency of baseballs, various food-borne disease outbreaks, and the destruction of the rain forest. The author instead focuses on an issue that is increasingly noticeable to us, a fossil fuel based, or dependent, system requires a substantial amount of energy. He notes that it takes a half gallon of oil to produce a bushel of midwestern corn.
The author advocates for increasing the consumption of locally-grown food. McKibben cites a Japanese study that found that eating local food would be the equivalent of cutting household energy use by 20 percent. He suggests that by disengaging from the global model of massive corporate farms and nurturing locally-scaled food systems would have other benefits. McKibben cites the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture which notes that “smaller farms produce far more food per acre, whether you measure in tons, calories, or dollars”. Finally, he raises recent studies that have found that switching from petrochemical-based agriculture to sustainable agriculture “has led to an average 93 percent increase in per hectacre food production”.
McKibben illustrates successful models of this shift. They’re not all in exotic locations like Japan, Cuba,and England either. One of them is in Burlington, Vermont. The Intervale Community Farm, next to the city’s power plant, and former site of the town dump, produces 7 to 8 percent of the fresh food consumed in Burlington, a city with a population of about 40,000 people, on just 200 acres of land.
The author argues that the financial feasiblity of fossil fuel-based agriculture may have peaked and is now being maintained by false economies, pointing out that “about 70 percent of the value of American soybeans comes straight from the government”. He notes a New York Times article that looked at Denison, Iowa, a town that was once known for the variety of fruit that it produced, but followed an economic development strategy that was linked to government subsidies and now produces only feed crops for livestock.
But enough about agriculture. Let’s get to a topic of greater interest, at least to me, density.
The next target of McKibben’s criticism is sprawl. Quoting James Howard Kunstler on the 1990s, “The dirty secret of the American economy was that it was no longer about anything except the creation of suburban sprawl and the furnishing, accessorizing, and financing of it”. He goes on to offer statistics from the U. S. Census Bureau: “the average density of cities, suburbs, and towns in 1920 was about 10 persons per acres’ by 1990, it had dropped to 4 persons per acre…and the average density of the most recent housing developments in America is only two people per acre”.
He goes on to illustrate the individual costs of a sprawling lifestyle. Reduction of quality time between parents and children, husband and wife, coaches and young atheletes, and volunteers and their communities, are all too common examples. McKibben, coupling it with what he calles hyper-individualism, expands it to the deterioration of our civic institutions, pointing to the decline of public schools, increase in our prison population, and collapse of our highways and bridges.
McKibben extends his solutions for our food sector to the overall economy. He sees hope in a “shift to economics that are more local in scale”. He finds the building blocks for the recreation of our economy, and social relationships, in the farmers’ market: “sociologists studying shopping behavior reported recently that consumers have ten times as many conversations at famers’ markets as they do at supermarkets”. He suggests a return from society to community, quoting neuroscientist Peter Whybrow, that as we move away from local toward global, “the behavioral contingencies essential to promoting social stability in a market-regulated society – close personal relationships, tightly-knit communities, local capital investments, and so on – are quickly eroded”.
This last bit was quite interesting to me. I had read the book, and written the notes, earlier this past summer. When I reread Whybrow’s quote, it seemed that he had been writing about Wall Street.
McKibben concludes this thread with a slogan that could be an empirical goal, “one-tenth the energy; ten times the conversation”.
The next sector is the media, in this case, radio. The spotlight shines on WDEV, an independent in Barre, Vermont. It’s a great story, but with local radio personality and entrepreneur Jeff Johnson taking over KYMN, we can check that one off our list. The next topic that caught my interest was “complimentary currency”. There’s Berk-shares, issued by three banks in Western Massachusetts. It struck me as another way to potentially increase liquidity, at least in the local economy.
It’s not just progressive idealists generating creative ideas for decentralizing the economy (and the currency), there’s real money involved. Even in a small state like Vermont, if local consumers “substituted local production for only 10 percent of the food we import, it would result in $376 million in new economic output, including $69 million in personal earnings from 3,616 new jobs”.
Back when I was studying developing economies as an undergrad, I believe that such a strategy would have been called “import-substitution” and was considered radical, even threatening, by some global powers. Taking back control of some of our agriculture, some of our media, and some of our capital investment, is it a radical idea?
Or is it no more threatening that what Wayne Eddy has been saying for years, “Keep Your Money in Northfield”?
Griff Wigley
Kiffi Summa
Patrick Enders
David Ludescher
Tracy Davis
Bright Spencer
Michelle Hawkins
Phil Poyner
Ross Currier
John S. Thomas
David Koenig
Jane McWilliams
William Siemers
Carol Overland
Ray Cox
Rob Hardy
Sean Hayford O'Leary
john george
norman butler
Kathie Galotti
Jane Moline
Anne Sawyer
Liz Messner
David Beimers
Jim Haas
mike paulsen
Scott Oney
Barb Kuhlman
Bruce W. Morlan
David Roberts
Bill Ostrem
Dan Bergeson
Daniel Edwins
Hayes Scriven
Kristin Partlo
linda seebach
Paul Zorn
Randy Jennings
Sandy Vesledahl
Steve Wilmot
Chris Daly
Curt Benson
Eric Sieger
Jessica Paxton
Josh Dale
Joshua Dale
Kathleen Jasnoch
Mary Closner
Nathan E. Kuhlman
Tom Swift
victor summa
A.Ripka
Ally Beyer
Arlen Malecha
Athena Currier
Bart de Malignon
Bruce Wiskus
Christian Hakala
Corrie Erickson
Dave Machacek
David Henson
Don Haugo
Efie Foulidis
Erica Zweifel
Felicity Enders
Jeanette Nelson
Jeff Meidinger
Julie Bixby
Leota Goodney
Lisa Gaetjens
malcolm watt
Marie Fischer
Mary Schier
Penny Hillemann
Robert Palmquist
Stephanie Henriksen
Tim Freeland
Ross – great post. I read the book a few months ago, and agree that it’s both insightful and thought-provoking. I’m going to hold back just a bit on the macro concepts and ask just one particular question of you and the NDDC…. how ’bout re-exploring the idea of “Northfield Bucks” or whatever it was?
You mean “Downtown Moolah”?
The chamber has gift certificates, but they only come in large check-like documents in $5 denominations. They are cumbersome to buy, carry around and use. Having more user-friendly ‘currency’ would be great, and having reloadable gift cards would be better. Being able to buy them online would be another useful incentive. Right now you have to send a check and have them sent snail mail.
Come on, let’s catch up with the rest of the world.
Ross: Sounds like a great idea. Local businesses could all get together to support each other and the community. They could keep those personal relationships and form a network to help each other. Can I suggest a name? How about the Chamber of Commerce?
In the 70′s I was studying the models that the Club of Rome used in their “Limits to Growth” analyses, which are the mathematics of the Malthusian catastrophe. While the Club got a lot wrong (peak oil anyone), their underlying assumption (that growth cannot be unbounded in a finite system) is correct. Even then we suspected that the math might say “slow down” but the politicians would not be able to stand and say that without losing to the grow grow grow mentality.
If you have not read Collapse I’d recommend it at well. Easter Island is a microcosm of what we face on a platetary basis. I’ve read that if the world wanted to live like the US, we would need 11 planets worth of resources. But that’s okay, we are being told we can help (not solve) the problem by living like Europeans (wrong, 4.5 planets). How about we all live like the people in the Dominican Republic (1 planet, today). How about like Haiti? Political realities up against the math, I’m betting on the math.
On a local note, we may have an opportunity to actually think about this (we have talked about this at Politics and a Pint many times). We have some local infrastructure that may be well protected IF we ask how proposed development impacts those resources. But the global issue is much less amenable to rational processes. Fortunately, we are in a period of change, so the additional 3B people who are coming to dinner in the next 30 years or so will be looking to China (1.3B today) and India (1.2B) for their solutions.
By the way, the Club’s peak oil prediction was for the 80′s, which was pretty much correct in the US. But peak oil for the planet is either just around the corner or has already occurred.
Ross, when I read this book, the biggest takeaway for me were the overarching concepts: Developing and encouraging local food systems; integrating my economic life with that of my “neighbors” (really, all of Northfield) by shopping at local businesses whenever possible; thoughtfully approaching the design and planning of the built environment; and a sustainable use of resources.
All rather large concepts, so I applaud your efforts to bring it down to a practical level in asking what this means for Northfield and how we might approach the ideas.
For example, Just Food Co-0p has done a great service in encouraging local producers and making it easy for Northfielders to buy those products. They’ve encouraged us to “Think About Your Food”. The farmers’ market is another step in that direction, and I’d love to see that expanded.
It’s been too long since I’ve read the book, so I don’t remember if it left a predominant thought burning in my brain afterwards. Rather it solidified a general commitment I had to really THINK about the impact of my daily choices. It does matter whether I buy groceries at Econofoods or Cub. It does matter whether I buy a book from Amazon or order it through Monkey See or River City Books. It does matter if I buy a teapot at Target or Present Perfect. Things like that.
Ross and Tracy, what does McKibben have to say about manufacturing? I think probably half my business is the antithesis to what he seems to be preaching. (I haven’t read the book, but I did ask Monkey See to get it for me.) I’m dependent on more people wanting better, faster, flashier gizmos– things packed with semiconductors. The stuff I make ends up helping semiconductor fabricators make chips faster and with fewer errors. Most of it ends up in Asia. What could I do to go along with McKibben’s ideas?
Ross, Thanks for this thoughtful, detailed post. I read Deep Economy shortly after it was published in May 2007, and I agree with McKibben’s focus on community as the appropriate scale for addressing the seemingly overwhelming problems facing humanity as it tries to find a more sustainable path forward. (I also agree with Bruce Morlan’s recommendation of Collapse by Jared Diamond as a cautionary tale concerning the fate of societies that do not find a sustainable path.)
I appreciated your summary of McKibben’s discussion of the local economic benefits of relocalizing food production. On a related note, the final report of the Northfield Energy Task Force, on which I served, included the observation that Northfield energy consumers (residential, commercial, industrial, institutional) spent about $97 million on energy in 2006 (Figure 3, page 9). Think of the potential economic benefit of, increasingly, keeping those dollars circulating in the local economy, if we can develop a more local, decentralized, energy economy.
Finally, for a very practical discussion of many of these considerations, I encourage LoGroNo readers to consider attending tonight’s gala at the Grand Event Center, Cohousing: Pushing the Sustainable Development Envelope. We’ll have (local!) food catered by Just Food, (local!) music by The Zillionaires, and a presentation by cohousing pioneers Katie McCamant and Chuck Durrett on what cohousing is all about. The cohousing project I am involved in here in Northfield, Buffalo Commons Cohousing, will try to embody the Deep Economy principles articulated by McKibben right here in River City. While our cohousing project is envisioned for a parcel of land immediately adjacent to Northfield city limits (walkable/bikeable to downtown and local employers), with room for food production and about 15 acres of protected wetland and woodland, cohousing also lends itself beautifully to high density infill and redevelopment in urban areas, and is very much in keeping with the principles embodied in Northfield’s new comprehensive plan.
We’re getting some great ideas here. Although it’s useful to think of fun promotional campaigns to stimulate local sales, remember that some people might prefer rechargeable cards and shopping over the internet, praise the potential power of enthusiastic membership organizations, and, someday, discuss the importance of nurturing a variety of local media voices, I had been thinking on a 10,000 feet level (as opposed to either the perspective from the coffeehouse or from outer space), viewing and considering the local economy within the regional and/or national economy.
Perhaps I once again tried to generate a discussion of taxpayer input on municipal spending decisions but ended up causing people to trip over pavers.
I used the phrase “import substitution” in an effort to extend McKibben’s “eat local to save gas” concept more clearly to “invest local to build the community’s economy”. However, although it was good for a shared laugh yesterday with Betsey Buckheit over undergraduate development economics jargon from the late seventies, maybe you had to be there for it to be meaningful. Perhaps a more effective expression of the idea would be “reducing leakage”, a phrase used by the University of Minnesota Extension Service in their Retail Trade Analysis.
Certainly I am a supporter of shopping locally, conserving resources (including taxpayers’ money), and saving the planet. However, McKibben’s book made my mind wonder about investment (or, as Tracy suggests, planning) decisions that could be made that would strengthen the local economy (and cut energy use) by producing goods and services locally that were currently being produced and supplied outside our community’s economy.
Perhaps the best example of my specific interest would be the Intervale Community Farm. Admittedly it’s in the food sector, however, it is a public-private partnership that led to the substitution of local products for “imported” products and resulted in increases in local businesses, jobs, and income.
We often talk about attracting businesses to Northfield and convincing them to relocate here. As the recent example of Upper Lakes Food demonstrates, that’s a good thing. However, perhaps there are potential economic gains to be obtained by looking at the existing market, and its (our) consumption of goods and services, and to see if we might identify opportunities for producing them locally.
It could be another way to stimulate local economic development and…
Keep Your Money in Northfield.
Wow Bruce, $97 million, that certainly qualifies as real money.
Great discussion Ross. I’ve read Deep Economy twice. He tackles a lot of issues. the economic impact studies I’ve read support McKibben’s argument.
http://bookweb.org/advocacy/studies
shopping locally makes a difference.
I’m selling Deep Economy for 20% off the cover price.
I did a price comparison of some bestsellers and found that you can save money by shopping locally:
http://monkeyread.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/price-check-in-aisle-1/
Monkey bucks will be available soon. Chimp change it ain’t.
I’m at a loss for ideas to get locals to shop my store.
I blogged my own review of McKibben’s book over the summer (appended to my review is a comment by Brendon Etter, for those who collect such things). Rethinking my review, I would react with a little more skepticism to what McKibben says about Cuba; he’s more convincing when he uses Vermont as an example. Although I agree with the general point about small farmers relying on traditional, local knowledge rather than on petrochemical fertilizers.
Curt -
Really great question. I suppose if I had the answer, I’d be making the big bucks, like them Bobos.
I suppose there are two sides of that coin.
The first side would be: “what can you do for your economy?” Perhaps you could look at your supply chain and see if there are some inputs for your products that could be sourced locally.
The other side would be: “what can your economy do for you?” I wonder if some of the major local businesses purchase products with some similarities to those that you produce. Perhaps the colleges aren’t packing gizmos with semi-conductors, at least not in quantities to be worthwhile, but could any of the area manufacturers gain efficiencies by using your products?
Hey, at the very least, maybe you could work with the Carleton College Robotics Club, providing expertise if not product, and help them win the annual Trinity College Firefighting Robot Contest. Recognition is often a good thing.
Thanks much,
Ross
Tracy: As someone who buys rugs from India, could you put this blog into perspective?
Here’s a photo of Curt buying this book this afternoon from Jerry Bilek at Monkey See, Monkey Read.
One thing the author has way off is the amount of people in the city on one acre. I lived in a luxury hotel with over 260 people in it, and that was only a six story building which could have easily fit into a football field. And there are thousands of buildings like that and much larger and taller in Chicago and all big cities.
I do agree that a lot of food can be raised in a small area, but it is only because we have spent years perfecting the feeding of great masses that we now have the mind set to go back and do it right. OH, there may have been other paths, but we chose that one because we had the machine muscle and no worries about oil, and no concern for health matters in that area. Bascially, we did not have the knowledge required.
As far as shopping locally, I do whenever there is something I see that I cannot get elsewhere, that has real quality or beauty to it and at a fair price. I don’t think I am the only one who thinks that way. Perhaps if
the store owners would sell things on the level of Rain Guitars, or things that you have to see to buy, like shoes, suits for men, and maybe crematorium services for pets, and special homemade treats for pets, too.
“As far as shopping locally, I do whenever there is something I see that I cannot get elsewhere, that has real quality or beauty to it and at a fair price.”
I think this is how many Northfielders approach shopping locally. It’s a novelty. Rather than the other way around, give the local business a shot first. If you can’t get it locally, then you try the competition. It seems to me it’s about marketing. I can offer prices competitive with the chains or internet retailers. I don’t spend $80,000,000/year telling you this, so I lose. I’ve been asked if I will match Target’s prices, but do they match mine, no.
Maybe my tag line should be “Always Low Prices.” Where have I heard that before.
[...] limitations of our world and recommends that we switch our goal from “more” to “better”. Ross Currier [...]
It does little good to shop locally for trinkets that are manufactured elsewhere. And we simply do not have a locally grown music instruments stores, art supply store or clothing store. And we probably won’t be able to regrow those capabilities or even want to. Free trade is one of the best protections against conflict, protectionism has failed many times in the past, often to disastrous effect. Although my tag line is that “specialization is for insects”, I have no intention of becoming a manufacturer of everything I need, and do not expect that protectionist policies can ever reset the trading clock back to pre-cheap oil shipping days. But if we are smart, maybe we’ll figure out how to use our high-tech solutions to build a better future, one community at a time. I have been talking about this for years, wish I had the money to do something about it, and I am glad people like Bruce Anderson are able to work toward this more sustainable world. Actually, this is tonight’s Politics and a Pint topic.
Jerry, unfortunately, the economic truth is that you have to be able to overcome the need for a fair price and be willing to pay a premium that represents a voluntary contribution to the local crafter who cannot easily directly compete with cheaper labor elsewhere. After all, a worker in an economic environment where $2/hr is a very good wage indeed is charging a fair price when they undercut a local living in an evironment where $2/hour is a starving wage.
See you in a few, I need a copy of the book that started all this.
Paul Gruchow wrote a book called “Grass Roots: The Universe of Home” (1995, Milkweed Editions) in which he used humorous agricultural analogies for the unrealistic expectation of economic growth as a constant (imagine a dairy cow that keeps getting bigger and producing more milk).
http://www.milkweed.org/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage/product_id,84/category_id,17/option,com_phpshop/Itemid,8/
Jerry, I wonder how fuel prices (which will eventually go back up, and keep rising as the economy recovers) may influence the idea of local book printing / production.
Right now, it may still be cheaper to print and assemble books in China, or far from MN., but this may not always be the case.
Will book printing evolve in response to rising fuel prices as strawberry growing has begun to? Authors like Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) observe that too much of our food presently comes from too far away (iceberg lettuce, strawberries, almonds and milk from California, orange juice from Brazil).
But already, with recent hikes in gas prices, owners of California strawberry fields have been starting to buy land that is more geographically diversified (New England, for example) in order to reduce their transport costs.
So part of the push for quality will come, and is already coming, in response to market factors like rising fuel prices; this involves not only making things better, but making the whole process of production and distribution more efficient (and more local).
Any signs this has been happening in the printing of books? We’ve long had a few small presses around MN, but might local production grow when fuel prices go back up?
We suddenly seem to be headed for a long recession and an age of scarcity.
If consumerism declines dramatically and our Division St. retailers dwindle, what could take their place so that downtown remains vibrant?
Overseas production has a whole lot to do with finance as companies shipping products (technology) to China and India have need counter trade. Meaning sometimes even a US manufacturer can overcome freight and labor costs but still production is moved off shore because the finance terms are better. The government overhead in the US is also a huge adder.
Bruce,
I don’t think McKibben advocates returning all manufacturing to local artisans. In fact he does not even advocate eating all of your food from local sources. McKibben admits to loving bananas and nobody grows bananas in VT.
The point I took from the book is think about everything you do and it’s economic impact. Can you keep the dollars local? More voting with the wallet is needed if we want out local economy to be vibrant.
Griff: You spend too much time reading David Brooks. He seems to think that Starbucks and Pottery Barn are what make America interesting. Bizarre.
Paul,
most books are still printed in the U.S. the exception are art books and some children’s books. MN is home to printers. Mankato, St. Paul and Brainerd all have large printing companies. Scott King publishes books by MN poets. He edits these books in Northfield. He prints these books in St. Paul or by hand on a letterpress in Redwing. two of his poets will read at my store on Saturday, Nov. 14.
Rob wrote,
David Brooks is also a big fan of the Applebee’s salad bar:
http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/2008/06/04/david-brooks-and-applebees/
David L, a few comments ago you asked me to put this into context as someone who does my manufacturing elsewhere (India).
My business happens to be in a field that developed somewhere in the Fertile Crescent or west central Asia and has been an established cottage industry there for at least two millennia. Hand-knotted carpets have never been produced in the U.S., and I’m not about to try to start now.
I suppose you could suggest that if I really want to practice what I’m preaching, I should divest myself of the business I’m in and make pottery from local clay instead. However, I’m assuming you’re asking for a more practical application of the idea.
In my case, I initially opened a retail store on Division Street to sell these products locally, pay rent to a Northfield building owner, eat my lunches in town, etc. etc. Since most of even my retail sales were not local, I didn’t have a compelling business reason to open a store here, but I believed it would add interest and vibrancy to downtown, and I needed an office, so I figured I might as well have a storefront one. I did that for about three and a half years, but during that time shifted the business from importing and retailing to production and wholesale, and our business needs shifted so I closed the retail store.
In our current business incarnation, I still pay rent to a local building owner, purchase my phone and internet service from the St. Olaf telco, buy coffee and lunches in town, and use local people for admin, technical, and professional services wherever possible (too bad we don’t have a local attorney specializing in intellectual property law). All these are conscious and deliberate choices.
I agree with Jerry B. that one of the biggest points of “Deep Economy” is the idea to think about your spending and support local. By that I envision concentric circles around Northfield, the region, the state, the upper midwest, etc. which I try to do whenever possible.
I hope that answers your question.
Rob, what other conservative pundit besides Brooks should I consider following on a regular basis?
As for his comment about Starbucks, et al, he didn’t write that they’re what makes American interesting… he was making a point about those private sector examples that have “enlivened daily life”. In that sense, the private sector coffeehouses here in Northfield do the same, don’t you think? Starbucks is just the epitome of that phenomenon.
Patrick, his Applebee’s mistake was just that. If he’d said ‘grabbing a burger’ at Applebees, then he would have made his point — one I’d disagree with re: Obama, however. Brooks considers himself a Bobo so it’s not surprising that he’s never set foot in Applebees.
FYI:
Details here.
Thought I might add that the folks at the bank want people to RSVP for the event. The Grand has 300 seats:
“RSVP for this limited-seating event by calling Julie at 507-645-5656 or Sarah at 507-664-0820″
Griff: Brooks actually isn’t a bad choice, along with George Will. But conservative intellectuals like Brooks and Will seem to be facing a bit of a dilemma, which is reflected in the Brooks column you link. Brooks is an intellectual, but the GOP has become (especially under the influence of Rove) profoundly anti-intellectual. There was something pathetic about watching all those highly-educated urban East Coast conservative pundits attacking Obama’s “elitism.” Obama, Brooks says, has lived most of his adult life within walking distance of a major university. What’s your point, Mr. Starbucks-Loving New York Times columnist?
Pat Buchanan is pretty fun to listen to.
Griff – you can’t go wrong with http://www.spectator.org/
Griff,
My basic problem with Brooks is summed up by the Applebee’s goof:
David Brooks is an out-of-touch upper-crust conservative intellectual who likes to caricature liberals as out-of-touch upper-crust intellectuals.
In short, I’m not a fan of stereotypes, and David Brooks is a purveyor of stereotypes. See ‘bobo.’
Personally, I find it more fun to follow the verbal antics of Bill Kristol. And yes, if I want a fairly consistent, honest conservative opinion, I probably go with George Will. Or better yet, Bruce W. Morlan.
For the gay, Catholic, Obama-supporting ex-Brit conservative view, I’ve been reading a bit of Andrew Sullivan’s blog ( http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/ ) while I wait for an honest conservative intellectual movement to be reborn.
I am curious how some of you would define ant- intellectualism?
This label is being frequently applied to Republicans and I have a hard time understanding it’s meaning.
Mr. Brooks is not a conservative he is a neocon and now mad because his political views will no longer be respected in the GOP.
He is part of the problem, which his article clearly documents.
To narrow down the “interesting” things about the USA to Starbucks is not only wrong, but has an elitist ring to it.
A lot of Europeans look at Americans as culture less, McDonalds eating, fat and ignorant. Mr. Brooks just replaced McDonalds with Starbucks.
How do I know? I used to share that view before I moved here.
America has been proclaimed dead many times since the idea started. To hear it from people on the inside is not only troubling but dangerous.
IMHO our best days are still to come.
Yes Peter, isn’t it very intellectual to talk up ideas of buying local to improve local economy when the 3 major employers (St Olaf, Carleton and MOM) underpin the Northfield economy through broad trade. Spending a lot of time figuring out what to sell each other is a sure way to get no where fast. I would think spending the time figuring out what can we make in Northfield and sell to everyone else in the world would make more sense.
this discussion is turning into a debate about a book, many people have not read. It’s not an all or nothing argument. Somebody finds one paragraph they don’t like and they dismiss McKibben’s book as pointless. Don’t bother reading it, the cover is ugly.
the book is about economics. McKibben makes the point for people to think about how and where you spend your money and the impact it has.
Patrick: I don’t understand how there can be a liberal intellectual or a conservative intellectual. Isn’t there just intellectual? For example, I have no doubt that Mr. McKibbon is very smart; but, his idea/book seems to be politically useless.
I would make the same argument against his book that I made against the Comprehensive Plan. If we design a Comp Plan that bobos love, we will have a plan that bobos love. What about the blue collar workers, the Mexicans, the manufacturers, the people who like to drive cars, the people who are struggling to make a living, and need the government assistance the most? What about those who like Target, Kmart, Applebee’s, and other chains? What plan is there for them?
From Obama’s acceptance speech, I have great hope that he will abandon the idea of liberal/conservative in favor of honest and courageous. We will soon be entering an era, if we have not already done so, where spending $0.5 million dollars to construct a glorified sidewalk will be looked upon as insane.
David,
Did you read his book before you declared it politically useless? I would think his ideas overlap with the what the Northfield Chamber of Commerce does. doesn’t the Chamber promote the idea of people spending their money in Northfield?
If all of the citizens in Northfield were to spend their money on goods and services in Burnsville, business in Northfield would collapse? Our tax base would shift to home property taxes. We would have problems.
I found this on the Chamber website:
“The Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce is the lead business organization that promotes the Northfield area and the local business community.”
McKibben’s book is more about economics and less about politics.
David,
liberal + intellectual = liberal intellectual
conservative + intellectual = conservative intellectual
Jerry: Just from reading Ross’s post it seems as if McKibben is promoting an individual approach. How this kind of thinking becomes a political reality is unclear (useless).
I (and the Chamber) agree that people should shop locally. In fact, the Chamber’s goal is just that. But, the Chamber takes the approach that people will act in their own self-interest, not in the global interest. Go to Monkey See, Monkey Read because Jerry can help you, not because it is the “right” thing to do.
Patrick: Intellectual + liberal = liberal; intellectual + conservative = conservative. Liberal and conservative are alliances of power not systems of thought.
Having actually read the book, I would have to say that what McKibben actually promotes is exactly the opposite of an individual (or individualistic) approach. What he values most highly is community. He says (and you must read his entire argument for this to make sense:
If you haven’t read the book, you should. In fact, you should buy a copy from Jerry. It may not be possible to agree with everything McKibben says, but I think there is much to be said for his argument that ultimately there may be more happiness to be gained from building community than there is from building personal wealth.
David,
You seem to be making up some arbitrary rules there.
A liberal intellectual is different from a liberal idiot, just as a conservative intellectual is different from a conservative idiot. (Same adjective, different noun.) Therefore, while the former and the latter pairs can be lumped together in the political alliances you describe, they are definitely distinct from each other.
I assume you have some reason for wanting to to claim that liberal intellectuals and conservative intellectuals don’t exist. Care to share it with us?
Re: Conservative intellectuals, I recommend this article from the Wall Street Journal.
Rob,
Nice article.
Rob- That’s an interesting article. It makes me wonder about a direction of thought in this country that the common person really doesn’t know how he should direct his life and that he needs to be under the tutilege of an “expert.” I may be interpreting that wrongly, but it brings that question to mind. This is a trend I have perceived since my college days. When we have an economic melt-down as we are experiencing, I think there is a tendency to question the “expertise” of the experts, such as Alan Greenspan. To a point, this is probably good, but society has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Another example is the “new math” theory that was integrated into education a few years ago by the supposed math experts. Young people were taught about integers, etc., but were not required to know that 2+ 2=4, and the square root of 49 is 7. I have personally experienced dealing with these individuals in a check out line when they cannot figure change in their head. If it does not show up on their computer screen, they are lost. I haven’t heard much about this math system recently. I could go on adnauseum with examples, but my main point is that experts in particular fields have not necessarily produced useful results. I percieve this as more of a relationship/communication problem than a “we’re right, you’re wrong” scenario. There must be some means of interaction between those with higher education and those without. My concern about these types of articles is that they promote more separation between the groups than cooperation. I think both groups of people have valuable insights to contribute to life, and eliminating either one leaves us incomplete.