Ted Trainer.

Social Work, University of N.S.W.,

In virtually all countries rural regions are suffering serious economic decline. In Australia many farmers are forced to leave the land every year and many towns are losing businesses and population. The global trend is towards greater dependence of regional economies on national and international economies Large central corporations are becoming more able to undercut the prices of small local firms and take their business. Towns and rural regions are increasingly dependent on importing the goods and services they need from large and centralised suppliers. Governments are trying to reduce their spending and therefore their ability and willingness to support rural communities is declining.

Globalisation is likely to exacerbate the situation in coming years. There is a rapid trend towards a single integrated world economy in which there is great freedom for giant corporations and banks to locate production in those few areas which will enable their incomes to be maximised. This means development focuses on the regions most favourable to the corporations while the rest receive little foreign investment or are treated primarily as sources of cheap resources. Because the corporations operate on a global scale they will buy resources or establish branch plants in your area only if the prices are competitive compared with those of the lowest suppliers elsewhere in the world.

When questions of sustainability are introduced the future becomes even more problematic. Rapid deterioration is taking place in the planet’s biological and physical resources and in the capacity of its ecosystems to cope with the impact of industrial-consumer society. (Trainer, 1995a, 1999.) It is highly unlikely that resource availability and environmental impacts will enable present levels of production and consumption to be kept up for long, and it is clearly impossible for rich world "living standards" to be extended to all people in the world. There is an extensive literature arguing that we are entering an era of scarcity and difficulties, especially regarding petroleum supply. These considerations to do with global sustsainability indicate that the future for most rural regions will see increased neglect and decline, so long as conventional economic strategies are adhered to.

The conventional response.

Conventional economic wisdom offers three basic strategies for solving the problem. The first is to increase export earnings, either by finding new export items, value-adding, or becoming more efficient in the production of existing items. While some towns and regions do succeed at this from time to time, it is obviously not capable of working for all. It is in effect only a recommendation to strive harder to become one of the few winners in the competitive export game that all cannot win. If one town produces more efficiently and wins more export sales, some other town loses. There are limited markets and it is not possible for all to prosper by supplying them.

Australia’s future in this competition for exports is quite worrying given the handicaps set by distance and therefore high transport costs, and by wages that are about 70 times those in some Asian countries, yet the official strategy is that we must become so clever and productive that we will be among the winners in the struggle for international trade. Little attention is given to the fact that it is logically impossible for all to become rich by trading because the volume of exports equals the volume of imports; if one country makes a large surplus from trade then some others must have deficits on their trading accounts. Again it is a serious mistake for struggling rural regions to assume that more vigorous export effort is the way for all rural areas to solve their problems.

It is true that the agricultural exports of Europe and the US are subsidised and that Australian producers could increase exports if these subsidies were reduced. But that would only put European and US farmers out of business. Again the global economy does not need all people and regions and it is not satisfactory simply to strive to be among the few winners.

The second conventional solution is to persuade a transnational corporation or the government to set up a branch plant or office in the town. Obviously very few towns can hope for salvation this way. More importantly they will probably get the branch plant only if they offer the corporation more favourable terms than any other town in the world. There are many examples where towns have had to offer a corporation bonanza conditions only to see it relocate somewhere else when the tax holiday expires.

The third strategy conventional economists offer is tourism. Again some regions can prosper this way, but it is not possible for all to do so. There is a limited tourist demand and not all regions are very attractive to tourists. In addition tourism is ecologically problematic, as it is a luxury trade involving high use of non-renewable resources and often significantly damaging the ecological and social conditions of the host region.

Some towns and regions do survive and even prosper through these conventional strategies, but all cannot. It can be misleading that often the larger rural centres are prospering, giving the impression that the task for the rest should be to understand their formula and follow it. In fact the growth of these centres is largely due to movement into them from dying towns and regions. Overall we are witnessing long term decline in small rural towns and regions and there is little reason to think that the conventional economic recommendations will reverse the general trend in coming years.

Conventional economic theory is especially inadequate in those many instances where rural people have become dependent on ecologically problematic activities such as woodchipping. Usually the only solution it can offer is to save a forest by closing down industries and dumping people into unemployment . Little or no attention is given to the possibility of developing a local economy, i.e., of people setting up small enterprises that might enable them to provide for themselves more of the goods and services they must currently import with earnings from the export of logs.

The alternative perspective.

The argument below is not that the conventional strategies should be completely abandoned. All regions and towns require at least some export income and attention must be always be given to more effective ways of achieving it. However too little attention has been given to the potential for reducing export dependence by reducing the need for imports, i.e., by becoming more self-sufficient. The concern below is how to build more self-sufficient local economies in which the existing and often idle people, talent, labour and capital can be organised to produce more of the basic goods and services that people need, thereby making them more independent of and secure from the outside economy. There is considerable unused scope for communities to take more control over their own economic fate, to provide jobs and to enrich the quality of life of local people, through focusing not on increasing export income but on how their capacity to provide for themselves can be organised.

This general approach is now being explored in a number of areas around the world. The Rocky Mountains Institute based in Colorado has an Economic Renewal Program which has helped many towns this way. A few ventures of this kind are under way in Australia but we urgently need effort to develop a tried and tested strategy for our conditions.

This exploring of alternative economic strategies can be seen as part of the Global Alternative Society Movement which has emerged in the last decade or so. This movement is based on the conclusion that industrial-consumer society is far from sustainable and that more self-sufficient and cooperative social systems must be developed. (For detailed discussion see Trainer, 1995a or 1999.) Some of the most impressive experimental ventures within the movement are located in Australia. However these mostly involve specially designed small rural communities and this document is concerned with the somewhat different task of working with existing settlements.

Many country towns are doing the sorts of things suggested below. However the importance of attempting to increase local self-sufficiency has not been sufficiently recognised.

Two things are obvious and tragic in any economically depressed town.

• The town will have much unused productive capacity i.e., many unemployed and underemployed people and many firms producing below potential, while at the same time there is great unmet need. Most people in the town are going without things they should be able to have yet they also have much productive capacity that remains idle.

It is important to recognise what a large volume of potential economic activity these two factors represent. If all people were able to engage as fully as they wished in production , town economic activity might be one-third higher than it is. In addition, imported goods probably constitute much more than half of the goods consumed, so if only a small proportion of these were replaced by local production this would make a huge difference to unemployment and to the need to export in order to earn the money with which to import. Thus the volume of economic activity taking place in a severely depressed town might be only around half of the possible and desirable level.

Therefore the basic task in economic renewal is to work out how best to set up new firms that will give people jobs producing for themselves and for the town many items that they are going without and/or importing.

A group forms itself into a Community Development Cooperative (hereafter referred to as CDC.) Ideally the CDC will eventually develop into a mechanism for the participatory self-government of the town or suburb, but at first it might involve only a handful of individuals seeking to explore some humble possibilities. It could of course be set up by a council as part of its community development or welfare service provision.

The CDC is the central agency that begins to identify, harness, coordinate and focus the locality’s resources of skill, energy , experience and good will. The spectacular success story of Mondragon in Spain is instructive here. Over several decades many prosperous high-tech industries have been developed in that region, through a highly cooperative approach which has been able to focus all necessary local resources on evaluating and supporting any new proposed venture. Thus the CDC is in a position to identify needs, research possibilities and get new firms off to a much better start than if individuals have to struggle in isolation. In other words the effort must be collective; its no good expecting isolated individuals to set u p the necessary ventures.

The CDC’s best strategy is to begin with self-help activities for unemployed and disadvantaged people who are cut off from the mainstream economy, but it must not be thought of as an agency that is primarily concerned to help unemployed or low income people. It should be seen as an organisation working on the economic renewal of the region and therefore in time harnessing the talents and energy of the whole region for its benefit. The CDC’s educational campaigns must endeavour to make this clear. For example although the main beneficiaries from setting up an alternative currency (below)will be people who have little normal money, it will also benefit existing shopkeepers considerably because it will make possible many sales which at present do not take place.

The first major task the CDC should take on is to set up a community garden and workshop. Food can make up one third to one half of the budget of a low income family. The aim should not be the usual one of enabling individuals to hobby garden private plots. It should be to establish a cooperative "firm" organised and run by the CDC, especially to "employ" participants, especially low income receivers, in the production of food and other items for their own use. People other than low income receivers could and should be involved, but at first the strategy is primarily about enabling those sidelined by the normal economy to become economically active again. It is highly unsatisfactory that in any town or suburb many people are forced to endure idleness and boredom when they could be working collectively to meet many of their own needs. The CDC must organise this. It must work out what it makes sense for low income people to cooperatively plant or produce. The first concern would be to produce things to distribute among contributors for immediate consumption, but sale of surpluses would generate some cash income.

A garden is the most obviously workable project to begin with, but if possible a simple workshop should be set up at the same time, for instance to enable repair of furniture and appliances for use by participants.

The CDC must then continue to look for areas in which cooperative production could be organised. A promising early possibility would be bread baking. Once or twice a week a cooperative working bee might produce most of the bread etc the group needs, again selling some to outsiders for cash. Another early possibility would be the repair of furniture, bicycles and appliances. The workshop could become a shop where surpluses are for sale. Scavenging from the locality, especially on council waste collection days, will provide furniture, appliances, bicycle parts, toys to be repaired and materials for use in the workshop. Other possible areas of activity would be house repair and maintenance, nursery production, herbs, poultry, honey, preserves, toys, firewood, seed collection, slippers and sandals, hats, bags and baskets.

In some cases the workshops and sales outlets can be located at the local garbage tip. Large quantities of valuable items and materials go into tips so special efforts should be made to arrange with councils for the CDC to set up a recycling operation there. The CDC would also become known as a firm to contact to arrange for odd jobs to be done.

Later the CDC would look for more complex fields in which it could organise productive activity, such as fast growing trees for fuel wood, aquaculture, house repairing, house insulation, recycling and the "gleaning" of local surplus fruit from private back yard trees.

The time inputs of work by individuals would be recorded so that produce and earnings could be distributed accordingly. This would enable contributions from regular and occasional participants. These activities would of course also provide important intangible benefits, such as the experience of community and worthwhile productive activity. The involvement of local people who are not on low incomes would be important, especially gardeners, handymen and retired people. Ideally the garden and workshop would become a lively community centre with information, recycling, and meeting and leisure functions. Specific times in the week should be set when all would try to gather at the site for the working bees, followed by a meal, discussions and social activities.

Contributions to the garden would be paid in a new currency issued by the CDC. This might basically be a LETSystem. LETS enables people with low cash incomes to trade with each other simply by notifying the central recording agency what amount one party has agreed to be credited for a sale or work done and the other has agreed to have recorded as a reduction in his or her account. The person who has accumulated the credit can then spend it by buying something from another member of the system. Thus many people who have no normal money can trade with each other, paying simply by recording the value of the transactions. You can purchase things before you have earned the money, but obviously this incurs a debt which you must pay off later by working for or selling something to someone else. More than 2000 LETSystems have been established around the world, some with several hundred members.

In the beginning payment for work in the garden might have to take the form of credits recorded which some weeks later entitled contributors to a share of the produce their labour helped to grow, or construct. The CDC could work closely with a local LETS, becoming one of the "firms" trading in the existing LETS currency and organising many more activities that will involve LETS transactions.

The CDC would encourage and assist participants in its gardens and workshops, and others in the locality, to begin more producing and trading with each other in LETS currency. It is necessary here to go into the theory of alternative currencies a little. The major initial task for the CDC is to enable trade between those many people who are presently unable to produce, earn and purchase. This cannot be done unless these people acquire money. The normal economy will not enable them to acquire much money because it does not need them as workers. As a result large numbers of people are forced to remain idle when they need goods and services and when at the same time they have among them the time and talent to produce many of those items...because they have no money with which to pay each other. The LETSystem meets this need elegantly, simply by enabling communities to "print" their own money.

LETS makes clear the way money should be regarded, i.e., mainly as something which enables people to keep track of what they owe and are owed as a result of their trading. The conventional economy allows the absence of a device for doing this to cause mass unemployment and depression. The situation is analagous to having a bus system and many people who wanted to travel and could pay but no trade was taking place because there were no bus tickets.

However it is most important to recognise that an alternative currency like LETS is far from all that is required for regional economic renewal. A LETSystem on its own will make little difference to a local economy. Unfortunately this is not well understood within alternative economic circles. LETS has been unable to become a significant economic force. Indeed LETS transactions rarely make up more than about 5% of the economic activity of the average participant, let alone of the region. (Douthwaite, 1996, p. 76.) Why?

The main problem participants in a LETSystem experience is the difficulty of finding goods or services to buy with their LETS credits, and of finding items they can produce and sell to earn credits. The problem in other words is that participants in general can’t produce many of the items they would like to buy, i.e., the problem is the lack of firms. LETS leaves individuals to look for something they as an individual might be able to sell. Its participants are often people without many skills. The system is not very effective in enabling the formation of productive entities such as a local bakery in which many people with few skills might be able to work and earn satisfactorily as employees. This sets the most important task that the CDC must take on, i.e., the facilitation and at times the establishment and management of new businesses that will provide jobs and goods. The garden and workshop are parts of the CDC’s first cooperative "firm". In time some of these firms can be leased to particular families or cooperatives.

So far the discussion has only been about organising low-income and unemployed people to begin producing for themselves some of the things they need, either collectively via the CDC’s gardens and other enterprises or as individuals or in small private firms, and enabling trade between them via LETS or some other new currency. Thus a new sector of economic activity has been created, involving some of the many people who previously were relatively poor and unable to work. However there are not that many important items the people in this new sector can produce for themselves. For example they can’t realistically produce radios for themselves. Thus the next step must be to enable people in this new sector to trade with the normal/old firms that exist within the locality. These firms are selling many goods low income people want but can’t produce for themselves and can’t purchase because they have little "normal" money.

The question then is how can the new and the old economic sectors be connected, so that a) people with low normal money incomes can use new money to purchase from normal/old firms, and b) normal firms can increase their sales and income, by starting to sell to people who previously could not purchase from them. This is not possible unless new money can circulate between the new and old sectors. In other words people in the new money sector can’t buy from old sector firms unless those firms can accept new money as payment for what they sell to new sector people, and old sector firms can’t accept new money unless they can then use the money to buy things. The crucial difficulty is enabling old firms to exchange the new money they take in for something they need.

Old sector firms might use the new money to trade among themselves for a while. For example, the restaurant might accept new LETS money from some people in exchange for meals they buy, and then use some of this money to buy some table cloths from another old firm willing to accept it, but at some point it must be possible for the new money to flow back to the new sector from which it came, in payment for something from that sector. Otherwise it will just acumulate in the old sector as people in the new sector spend it there on purchases from the old sector firms. (More accurately people in old sector firms will not accept it as payment if they don’t see how they can use it to buy anything they need.)

Clearly people with new money can’t go on buying things from the old firms unless the people in the new money sector are able to produce and sell as much to the old sector as they buy from it. In other words the group of people with little old money can only go on buying meals from old sector restaurants and associated firms, if those restaurants can spend the new money they are paid for meals on the purchase of things produced by the group of people who only have new money.

This is the most important problem the CDC must grapple with. It must study the situation and work out what things the new sector as a whole can start providing to the old sector restaurants etc., and it must think out what new "firms" it has to set up to do this.

When the new town economy is eventually functioning well the main thing that the old sector restaurants and other firms will be happy to purchase from the new sector will be labour. People on low old money incomes will be able to pay for their meals from the old restaurants with wages paid to them (in new money) for working in the restaurants. Unfortunately however this can’t be expect to start happening automatically when the new money is first introduced. This is because although those restaurants and firms usually desperately need more customers and more income they definitely do not need more workers. Their owners are typically underemployed and could supply many more meals before they would need to take on new workers. So the CDC must break this log jam by looking for things the restaurants would want to start buying from the new sector immediately. In the case of restaurants the best answer is likely to be vegetables from the CDC’s cooperative garden (which would be sold to the restaurant for new money thus enabling it to accept payment for meals in new money.) For some other firms it could be the supply of some material inputs to production that can be acquired via waste recycling, for instance by finding unused outputs or organising retrieval from local waste tips.

The new sector does not have to find something to supply to every firm in the old sector wishing to start using new money. The table cloth supplier in the town can accept new money when selling tablecloths to the restaurant, and use it to pay for a meal there, while not selling anything to new sector people. Thus the new money can circulate among old firms for some time, but it must eventually be able to circulate back to the new sector, and it can only do this as payment for something supplied from the new sector to an old firm. So a few old firms could constitute a narrow channel through which new money flows between new and old sectors, just as sometimes a mine is the channel through which town export earnings of normal money enter a mining town’s economy.

The importance of this general point about circulation must be stressed. The economic renewal of the region does not depend much on the introduction of a new currency, although that is essential. Merely setting up a LETS or a new paper currency will not automatically lead to a significant volume of new economic activity or new jobs for unemployed people. The crucial needs are for new firms in which previously unemployed people can get jobs and incomes, a) producing items they need and b) producing items that can be sold from the new to the old sector, enabling purchase of goods from the old sector. All this will not happen automatically just because low income people now have new money. These processes have to be organised, opportunities will probably be difficult to find, and the CDC is the agency which must find and organise them.

Obviously the CDC would try to avoid setting up a new firm that would compete with a normal/old local firm (unless it sells imported goods.). The purpose is to help to ensure that all in the locality who want work have it, so there is no point giving work to some by taking it from others.

It is in the interests of the old firms to join in and start using new money, because this will enable them to greatly increase their sales and their real incomes. The CDC must make this clear to existing firms. It is especially important that those firms should not see the new sector or the new money as a threat, which sometimes they do. The CDC’s primary goal is to enable more economic activity by local people previously excluded from trading, so it is not interested in taking business from any local firm that is already providing goods and jobs to townspeople. It must explain to old firms that the purpose is to enable them to increase their trade with people who previously were unable to buy from them, but this cannot be done unless old firms start accepting (some) new money for the goods they sell.

Note that what we have done is create and add on a new sector of economic activity, one that involves the people previously blocked from working and purchasing. Many other tasks must subsequently be taken up before the regional economy will have reached the required form.

After getting the gardens etc functioning satisfactorily, the CDC should organise voluntary neighbourhood or town working bees, perhaps occasional at first but eventually occurring at set times. They should be followed by a get together, communal meal and entertainment of some kind. Working bees can be powerful devices for achieving desirable town development and for building community solidarity. In no time valuable and highly visible town improvements can be achieved, including community workshops, public works such as halls, windmills and swimming pools, "edible landscapes" and other commons. Imagine what the typical neighbourhood might be like now if each second Saturday afternoon for the past five years there had been a voluntary working bee building things that would enrich the area.

At first tasks for working bees should be carefully chosen to increase local economic self-sufficiency, rather than to beautify or clean up or do charitable works. In time the focus can widen but at first the top priority should be assisting the new firms and cooperatives to set up, especially by helping to build the premises for new small firms, and the market places, commons and gardens. Some of these can then become CDC property bringing in a rental income. Keep in mind that building can be carried out at very low cost if earth is used and designs are kept simple.

A most important goal of the working bees is to build and maintain local commons, i.,e., the many public or communally owned and controlled facilities, devices, buildings, ponds, mills, orchards, woodlots, herb beds, bamboo clumps, clay pits etc that all can have access to for food, materials and leisure. Committees must be established to coordinate the maintenance of these resources, not necessarily to do the work but to indicate when a community working bee is required. Commons can greatly increase solidarity and local economic self-sufficiency, especially by making the area leisure-rich.

In the early stages of the venture working bees are also valuable educational devices. Even if only a few attend, the activity can be a highly visible demonstration of aspects of the new economy, especially when that work is going into projects that will benefit the community. Signs should be put up and time taken to converse with people passing by. Reports and announcements regarding the next working bee should go into local papers and shop windows.

Establish a market day to sell CDC produce and products into the mainstream economy, so that many people who do not operate firms or work full time for wages can gain income by selling items they produce in small volume through home gardens, craft activity or family businesses. Avoid the sale of unimportant items, trinkets, luxuries and goods imported to the town. Focus mostly on the sale of basic necessities, locally produced, such as food, clothing, toys, furniture, recycled items etc. In other words it should be a producers' market, not a traders' market, although there is a place for people who bring in and make available some basic goods not produced locally.

The proportion of the town’s consumption that is met by imported goods is typically very high. Production somewhere else of goods to be imported represents jobs that are presently not located in the town but which might be, and it means that money is flowing out of the town. The CDC must take on the import replacement problem.

The CDC’s must therefore work out ways of reducing the town’s imports and increasing its economic self-sufficiency and thereby transferring much economic activity from distant locations to within the town. It will have to surey what townspeople are purchasing in order to identify the items the town is most likely to be able to produce. Food is the most obvious item. Another is fire wood, as a replacement for imported coal, oil, gas and electricity. Much money will be flowing out of the town to pay for heating energy and a considerable fraction of this might be eliminated by switching to wood fires and by insulating houses. The CDC must explore how this can best be done and what is necessary to make it happen. Are there existing firms that might be able to replace some imports given particular assistance? Should the CDC itself set up an enterprise to do the job, e.g., to plant fast growing trees and cut them into fire wood? Can it find products local firms could produce competitively in comparison with importers or must we always persuade local people to pay higher than supermarket prices in order to support the town? Can shops selling imports be persuaded to sell local produce instead? How can we facilitate this.

The more import replacing enterprises the CDC can set up and operate in new money the greater will be the capacity of the new sector to sell to the old sector of the local economy, thereby increasing the capacity of people with new money to purchase from the old sector firms. Given the significance of that bottleneck it is very important for the CDC to search for import replacing activities some of its participants could take on.

If it were paying normal wages the CDC would be unlikely to produce these import-replacing items as dollar-cheaply as the importing supermarkets can sell them -- that’s why the supermarkets have taken the business in the first place. In most cases the CDC must try to take those sales through a) campaigns to persuade the town that it is better to pay more for these items locally produced, and b) reducing the price below the level that an ordinary firm would charge, by working somewhat harder for somewhat lower pay.

It is important to recognise that this is the basic condition and cost of having jobs and saving the town. In general distant corporations can produce more cheaply than local people can. The town cannot survive unless people are prepared to work somewhat harder and accept somewhat less income. However it is much better to have to work harder or longer hours, at for example producing food or furniture, compared with people working in a city factory for normal wages, than to have no job at all.

The conventional economist is happy to condemn to the scrap heap any individual or region which cannot survive in competition against all others in the global economy, including people prepared to work for $1 per day in the Third World. This is justified in terms of "efficiency"; it is acceptable and proper to the conventional economist that if one can’t produce an item more cheaply than someone else then one is not allowed to produce it or to earn. No one is permitted to plod along at a comfortable pace and no region is allowed to provide for itself in its own "inefficient" way. All must compete with and survive against the most lean and mean producers in the world, or be killed off. The conventional economist is indifferent to the fact that as a result the few who are most economically powerful quickly take most of the markets and thereby eliminate the income generating capacity of large numbers of small producers. Economic liberal policies may be economically efficient (given the narrow definition of "efficient" used) but they are grossly inefficient means to socially desirable ends such as ensuring that people have a livelihood, that communities are preserved and that ecosystems are protected.

However the CDC has some important advantages over the importing firms. Firstly it does not have to pay dividends or profits, and it can build premises through voluntary town working bees. It should have access to credit on favourable terms from the town bank and as a major town institution it has many combined resources to apply to organisation and publicity compared with a single importing firm functioning largely in the interests of outsiders. Also by direct marketing the CDC’s can also cut out some huge markups (the retail price of "french fries" has been reported as 45 times the price growers receive per tonne of potatoes.)

It will of course be important for the CDC to work hard at increasing the willingness of townspeople to buy the locally produced goods rather than imports. People must recognise that buying locally produced goods can involve paying a higher price. If they focus only on minimising their personal expenditure then they will not support local producers. Therefore the task here is to reinforce the consciousness that will motivate people to pay more in order to enable others in the community to have reasonable incomes and in order to sustain the town. Although most rural people are well aware of this the CDC should devote considerable effort to maintaining and increasing this willingness.

The CDC is in the best position to establish import replacing firms because, as in Mondragon, it can harness and focus the town’s resources to research and evaluate possibilities, assist with the establishment of premises and stock, give managerial advice and encourage townspeople to buy from new firms. These are "business incubator" functions. Some of the assistance, including construction of premises, could be organised via the regular town improvement working bees. Above all a CDC will be more able than any other individual or agency to arrange access to the necessary capital.

Some of these import replacing ventures are likely to become quite viable businesses which the CDC could then lease to families or cooperatives, thereby retaining ownership and final control, while benefiting from these sources of income. (The many CDCs functioning in the US are mostly concerned with acquiring and leasing cheap housing. Note how working bees can do the renovating.)

There will be a powerful incentive coming from use of the new currency for shops within the existing old money sector to switch from selling imports to selling locally produced items. This is because the many people who will only have the new currency can't pay the normal money that must be paid for imported goods. Old firms will be able to sell to thee people only if those firms begin using the new money.

9. Reducing the need for money in the first place.

The CDC must constantly focus attention on the importance of living simply, making things yourself, home gardening, repairing and re-using. The fewer goods people consume the less that the town will have to import or provide. The more simple their demands the more likely they can be met from local resources. The more people do without or make things for themselves the less money they need to earn in order to buy things. Every dollar people can cut from their expenditure the less the town needs to export to pay for individual lifestyles, and the less work that has to be done to earn money. Moving towards materially simpler lifestyles can make a very big difference to a household’s economic prospects without reducing the quality of life. So the CDC should encourage simpler lifestyles and more household self-sufficiency, for example by spreading homecraft knowledge to do with gardening, preserving, repairing, knitting, sewing and making things. One of the CDC’s goals must be to reduce buying as a source of personal satisfaction and increase the extent to which people gain enjoyment and leisure opportunities from the household, garden, community activities and local landscape.

The CDC could develop craft groups to increase home production of many items for use within the home. It might organise classes, skill sharing, display days, local sources of materials for pottery, basket making, woodwork, sandal making, weaving, leatherwork, blacksmithing, etc The CDC could develop and make available information on gardening, repairing, and how to cut household costs, including recipes for nutritious but cheap meals mainly using plants that grow well locally. It could list skilled people willing to give advice or run classes.

10. Leisure, entertainment, celebrations, festivals and culture.

Another committee within the CDC should focus on the possibilities for providing local and cheap entertainment, including regular concerts, dances, visiting artists, craft and produce shows, art galleries, picnic days and festivals. For example can a drama club, a comedy group, a choir, a gym display troupe be formed? After the Saturday morning market a regular afternoon working bee might function, followed by a town meeting, games, evening meal, party and performances of some sort. What regular celebrations, rituals and festivals can be organised? What about a Saturday night youth club? Can a group work on the local history, museum, culture and folklore? How might the town centre be made into a more convivial space that will facilitate informal meeting, discussion and leisure activities?

11. Capital; Form a town bank (or credit union).

In general little capital should be needed to get the new local economy going because the main enterprises are mostly humble and labour-intensive and do not need elaborate premises or expensive stock. It is important not to approach normal banks for capital if at all possible. Thought should be given to unorthodox ways of raising capital, e.g., by "pre-selling" meal or swim vouchers long before the restaurant or the swimming pool is built.

The CDC can organise campaigns to accumulate voluntary donations of capital for particular development projects that are important for the town. It can also operate voluntary taxation schemes. Some communities have low or zero interest town development accounts into which those who are willing and able deposit some of their savings because they wish to support desirable local development. Note how those developments can proceed even if only a small number of people support them; it is usually not the case that nothing worthwhile can be done unless all agree.

The town or region should at some stage establish its own bank or credit union. Normal banks take local savings and lend them to corporations far away. The town bank should have as one of its rules that the savings of local people will only be lent for projects within the region and that top priority will go to borrowers who intend to develop the town in desirable ways. This means depositors will probably be subsidising town development. The bank which gives low or zero interest loans to worthwhile ventures and does not make the highest returns on all loans will probably not be able to offer to its depositors interest rates as high as they could get from banks that are only concerned with maximising profits.

12. Taking control of the region.

In the long term the goal is for the people of the town or suburb to have taken over control of most of the social, economic and cultural activities occurring in the region, via mechanisms that are highly participatory, open and democratic. For ecological reasons and for reasons of economic security, in a sustainable society almost all of the economic decisions that affect people will be made fairly close to where people live. Some important functions might still remain for state governments to carry out, but many important issues will be decided right down at the town or suburban and even at the neighbourhood level.

The core institutions here will be voluntary committees, town meetings, direct votes on issues, and especially informal public discussion in everyday situations. In a sound self-governing community the fundamental political processes take place in cafes, kitchens, town squares and bowls clubs, because this is where the issues can be debated and thought about until the best solution comes to be generally recognised..

13. Moving from a market to a gift economy.

In a satisfactory society there would be much less emphasis put on economic affairs than there is in our present society. The production of all the things needed for a high quality of life within "The Simpler Way" would be easily and quickly achieved, enabling most of our time to go into more important pursuits. As much economic activity as possible would be moved out of the market sphere. As much economic activity as possible would be organised in terms of "gift and reciprocity". People would produce many goods and services and give them to each other and to the community, knowing that many of the things they need would be given to them. Working bees, recycling systems and voluntary taxes are ways in which people can give to their communities and receive from them. The community commons are gifts all can take from, and contribute to. In a satisfactory community surpluses are given to others or left in the neighbourhood workshop, and people willingly give their time and skills to each other. The more people give the stronger the feelings of appreciation, debt and reciprocity and therefore the stronger the bonds of good will between people.

Good will, generosity and helpfulness are like knowledge in that the more that any one of these is given away to others, the more of it there is. On the other hand the present economy only deals with zero-sum transactions; if one buys or takes something , no one else can have it.

14. The vital research and educational functions of the CDC.

The most important functions for the CDC are to do with education. At the start few people in the town will be thinking about the issues being discussed here so the CDC’s basic task will be to gradually build an understanding of and a commitment to the project. This can be combined with its important research task. Various audits will need to be made, especially of what goods are being imported and might be replaced by local products, what items existing firms would be willing to buy locally if they were available, and what attitudes and problems are evident among townspeople. While door knocking to collect this evidence information on the basic renewal project can be communicated and discussed.

Obviously the CDC must work to develop and then to maintain within the town or suburb a clear and strong vision of the project’s goals. As many people as possible must come to understand that they can no longer hope to prosper within the normal global economy (or that if they manage to be among the few winners in that arena many others will have been losers in the process). They must understand that the goal is for the town to come together to take control over its own economic fate. This must involve people in cooperating to build up the town’s capacity to provide for itself most of the things it needs. This will not succeed unless people are prepared to live more simply, work together and support the town, e.g., by buying locally, coming to meetings and working bees, and often choosing options that will not maximise personal short term advantage. People will have to willingly accept higher costs and lower standards for many goods and services.

Above all it is important to increase awareness of the global significance of these efforts to transform the local economy. People must be helped to see that only if we develop these new local economies can we solve the major global problems threatening us. The more people are conscious of this connection the more likely they will be to become involved. If they do not see the connection they will understandably think it is pointless to be trying to develop local self-sufficiency when better quality products can be bought from the supermarket.

The CDC must therefore make sure that people become clear about the overall goal. This is not "prosperity" conventionally defined. It is not to do with raising the town’s "living standards" defined in terms of GNP per capita. It is not to bring more income into the region. The goals are to enable the town, suburb or region to collectively provide itself with many of the basic goods and services needed to ensure that its people can have a satisfactory quality of life and to enable all those excluded by the old economy to have access to productive activity and incomes, secure from the unreliable and predatory national and international economies.

Conclusion.

If we achieve a sustainable and just world then the transition will very likely have been begun by small groups of people who have taken on this task of working out how they can start to change their towns and suburbs into highly self-sufficient and cooperative local economies. The Eco-village Network is well down this experimental path with respect to intentional rural communities but more pioneering ventures focused on the transformation of existing towns and city suburbs are urgently need.

Again it should be kept in mind that the ultimate goal is not just to save the town but to save the planet. Only if there is a shift to forms of settlement and to economies which enable people to live well without consuming much can we hope to eliminate the resource depletion, the Third World deprivation, the environmental destruction, the scarcity conflicts and the social breakdown being caused by the present commitment to affluence and growth. That move cannot be made unless people take up the task of starting to build examples of The Simpler Way where they live.

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Douthwaite, R., (1996), Short Circuit, Dublin, Lilliput.

Trainer, T., (1995a), The Conserver Society; Alternatives for Sustainability, London, Zed Books.

Trainer, T., (1995b), Towards a Sustainable Economy, Sydney, Envirobooks.

Trainer, T., (1998), Saving The Environment; What It Will Take,Sydney, University of NSW Press.

Trainer, T., (In press.), What Is To Be Done -- Now?