Localism means security

[Peter1469]

Localism means security

I don't agree with everything in the article, but it is pretty good nevertheless.

It is a discussion about resilient communities. And this is a real trend in several places in the US. This is a timely topic considering the pushback against the march towards globalism. Think local.

Through the modern age, communities have found themselves increasingly looking to the outside world for their needs. This began with security. As the state rose and asserted a monopoly on armed violence, communities no longer had to man their walls. Eventually those walls disappeared.In the 20th century, the trend broadened. Instead of relying on local agriculture for food, it was shipped in on national networks such as the rail system. Local electric-power companies, which often began as streetcar lines that sold surplus power, were absorbed into regional systems. Travel became far-ranging with the advent of the railroads; now, in the auto age, it often depends on fuel from halfway around the world.


Globalism has made us dependent on foreign countries for many things. This is true even of finance. The money to sustain our debt-based economy and government mostly comes from abroad.


With dependence comes vulnerability. Much of the world’s oil originates in unstable regions. Obscure diseases from Asia can launch pandemics here. Cyberwar or solar flares can take down our electrical and communication grids. What happens to life, which is still lived locally, when massive failure hits globally?


A new movement called “resilient communities” is addressing this question. The basic answer is that through a combination of new technologies and revived old ways of living we can relocalize the systems our lives depend on. The concept’s foremost advocate, former Air Force officer John Robb, wrote on his website, Global Guerillas:

Read more at the link.

[Ethereal]

The sentiment is exactly right. Community has become an abstraction thanks to globalism and to a lesser extent nationalism. We need to imbue that concept with real meaning again by thinking and acting locally. That doesn't mean we have to dive headlong into a retrograde sort of provincialism, but we must recognize the importance of our communities as they exist within the large context of globalized networks and institutions.

[Peter1469]

Right. And develop a strong local group in case the SHTF.

[Standing Wolf]

A fascinating and important subject. It may be only marginally connected - maybe not - but I have always been curious about the potential for mass panic, widespread unemployment, etc., that would, in theory, be occasioned by a genuine "crash" of the stock market. I will be the first to confess that I know next to nothing about Economics - probably because it bores me to tears to the point where I could barely stay awake in the Business Law and Estate Planning classes I had to take - so it's really hard (for me) to understand how the movement of numbers on a board can cause banks, corporations and entire personal fortunes to go t*ts-up. Is the economy really that fragile? More pertinent to the topic under discussion, is it possible for local businesses (and therefore, communities) to somehow insulate themselves from the consequences of that scenario?

[Ethereal]

A fascinating and important subject. It may be only marginally connected - maybe not - but I have always been curious about the potential for mass panic, widespread unemployment, etc., that would, in theory, be occasioned by a genuine "crash" of the stock market. I will be the first to confess that I know next to nothing about Economics - probably because it bores me to tears to the point where I could barely stay awake in the Business Law and Estate Planning classes I had to take - so it's really hard (for me) to understand how the movement of numbers on a board can cause banks, corporations and entire personal fortunes to go t*ts-up. Is the economy really that fragile? More pertinent to the topic under discussion, is it possible for local businesses (and therefore, communities) to somehow insulate themselves from the consequences of that scenario?

The market economy is incredibly anti-fragile. It's the government systems which are volatile and prone to collapses.

[Peter1469]

A fascinating and important subject. It may be only marginally connected - maybe not - but I have always been curious about the potential for mass panic, widespread unemployment, etc., that would, in theory, be occasioned by a genuine "crash" of the stock market. I will be the first to confess that I know next to nothing about Economics - probably because it bores me to tears to the point where I could barely stay awake in the Business Law and Estate Planning classes I had to take - so it's really hard (for me) to understand how the movement of numbers on a board can cause banks, corporations and entire personal fortunes to go t*ts-up. Is the economy really that fragile? More pertinent to the topic under discussion, is it possible for local businesses (and therefore, communities) to somehow insulate themselves from the consequences of that scenario?

If there is a serious fiscal crash you can't escape the effects of that- the closure of banks, the dollar having no value. But these resilient communities prepare for that so they can be self sufficient (to a degree) if such an event occurs. There is a very large group in the North West. There are smaller groups in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.