Recently, one of the community activist groups in our area hosted a screening of the prize-winning movie, The Economics of Happiness, followed by a Skype interview with Helena Norberg-Hodge, one of the co-directors and founder and director of Local Futures – Economics of Happiness, formerly known as the Institute Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC).
It’s definitely worth seeing, if you haven’t already done so. In addition to information available on the Local Futures website, a YouTube film clip offers a quick overview of the main themes explored in the movie: The Economics of Happiness – Official Trailer.
In her commentary on the Skype call, Ms. Norberg-Hodge emphasized the importance of launching and supporting community-based initiatives that rebuild the local food economy and deliver education for action.
She encouraged attendees to mobilize democratic action and draw upon the power of the electorate to influence politicians to enact, rescind, or amend laws regarding taxes, subsidies, and regulations so that locally-sourced products have an even playing field with their globally-sourced alternatives.
Her rationale suggested that the resulting decentralization of corporate and governmental structures would increase the number of jobs. It would also provide community members with meaningful work based on values and skills resurrected from a nearly lost ancient wisdom inherent in our cultural roots. In many instances this worthy work translated into farming using simple tools and adhering to millennia-old agricultural practices.
While Ms. Norberg-Hodge did not openly discount technological developments, the significance of them as a defining force on the pace and degree with which our civilization continues to advance received short schrift.
The loss of jobs today comes primarily as a result of technology. The machine replaces human labor–period. Our challenge is to figure out what we do with our time as the machine continues to eliminate the need for us to spend it in drudgery. The increased redistribution of power as decentralization takes hold opens the door for a new definition of meaningful work WITH the machine, not against it.
No doubt, localization will give us the opportunity to learn how to invest our time in our personal development, care and support for one another, and adaptive community cultures. That would be a dream worth making a reality. But if the future of localization means becoming reacquainted with a shovel, rake, and hoe for hours on end, that seems more like a nightmare! Better to master the machine for our well-being rather than our destruction.
Originally posted to Sustainable Local Economic Development by Steve Bosserman on Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Frameworks for Understanding the World 