After the conference, I was left, as I came down off the endorphins and cognitive high, regretting that I didn’t get to more fully answer or discuss some of the questions and comments brought up by those in attendance. It’s the limitation of these one shot workshops, and why I hope if you’re reading this you do drop me a line, Justin at project2050 dot org, and pick up where we left off. I know a few emails have already gone out from my end. However, in the mean time, I wanted to pick up where we left off with what I’d have like to have said at the time.

Several people brought up boycotts as a possible way to influence economic decisions of corporations and private businesses. I commented that, in my mind, everything that has been fixed by boycotts has already been fixed, and we have to look to new methods and tools to bring about change. That answer, though I believe fundamentally true, needs some expounding.

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the blog: boycotts won’t bring institutional change. A boycott of a certain business might change a specific policy, such as dumping chemical waste or logging in protected areas, but it won’t change the underlying reasons businesses dump and clear cut: it’s profitable. And businesses are, of course, required to optimize profits. So even if everything else I say about boycotts isn’t true, the bottom line is that unless you have another tool in the box, a successful boycott just means you’ll have to do it again in a few years when businesses try to optimize their profits at the cost of people or the environment.

Second, someone brought up the Montgomery bus boycott as proof boycotts can work. Indeed, the boycotts were important, but not in the way that’s typically portrayed. The boycotts didn’t actually achieve the desegregation of buses, that belongs to a USSC victory – the true value of the boycotts was as a galvanizing force that created momentum and organization for the civil rights movement to come. There had been busy boycotts before Rosa Parks, and they didn’t achieve the desired outcome.

That said, boycotts truly depend on there being a feasible alternative to whatever it is being boycotted. In the case of the bus boycotts, people walked and carpooled. When we talk about some of the particularly heinous economic polices of modern times, the kind we’d like to curtail through some form of political or economic action, it becomes a bit trickier.

Power companies are a great example of a lack of alternatives: boycott the power company by refusing to turn on your lamps all you want, but you don’t have anywhere else to get your power from. In the future we’ll see more ‘green’ power sources come online, but don’t be surprised when it’s Puget Sound Energy that owns those ones too. When you’re dealing with monopoly or oligopoly, boycotts don’t work: you’ve got no where else to go.

And we can’t escape the fact that most Americans don’t have enough flex in their budget to pay more for solidarity. I said it at the conference and I’ll say it here, just in case anyone missed it: voting with your wallet is a privilege of the rich. If you’ve got so little money that you either shop at Wal Mart or go without, choice doesn’t enter the equation. And with 50% of Americans – and rising – in poverty every day, the number of people even able to take part in a boycott, never mind willing, shrinks daily.

If you come up with a boycott that will work, more power to you. Tell me about it and I’ll probably get on board. But I’m not holding my breath. The conditions we live in select against boycotts as an effective means of social change.

And speaking of Wal Mart, there may have been some uncertainty about the place ‘big box’ stores and other retail outlets have in network production, or just in our modern life in general. The number one thing I want people to remember about Wal Mart et al is that, while yes they create a net loss of jobs, the create a net increase in total buying power for people able to shop there. That’s because the drop in total income in a community after Wal Mart moves in is smaller than the drop in prices you get from the mega-retailer.

I never shop there. I avoid the place like the plague. I laughed my lungs sore when South Park spoofed Wal Mart. I hate that stupid dancing smile. But, I’m not blind: a lot of people depend on their prices. Big box stores save gas, by allowing you to make fewer stops. Their labor practices are deplorable, their gender policies belong in the 19^th century, and their advertising comes somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Leave it to Beaver for pure fantasy. But, I’m not blind: the rest of the economy is going south, and regardless of where Wal Mart sets up shop, people are making less now than they were 10 years ago.

So if you can afford to avoid Wal Mart, good. I’m with you. But don’t forget there are a lot of people who can’t, and that doesn’t make them bad people, and if Wal Mart means they make their food budget work, then maybe Wal Mart isn’t all bad either.

And I know that’s going to make me super popular.

Under network production, however, we have an opportunity to put the big box phenomenon to work for us. What allows Wal Mart to sell things so cheap is, of course, economies of scale: they order in such large quantities that producers can lower their costs by producing in large lots. For those unfamiliar with marginal cost, it’s how much it costs to make the next one of whatever you’re making. Marginal cost tends to fall the more you make, so while the first widget may cost me $1, the second might cost me $.90, the third $.80 etc. So the more you make, the less you have to spend per widget.

If we’re using our retail network to plan production, it means we’ll have a good estimate of the quantities of products we’ll need. This means that, as a whole, the economy will be able to avail of those same economies of scale, since we are in essence bargaining as one giant consumer through thousands of smaller vendors. This brings down total production costs and, hopefully, prices with it.

Will there be a Wal Mart in a network economy? I don’t know; I admit I’m partial to the convenience and logic of one stop shopping. As I said, it saves gas, time, and certainly it’s an effective use of space. But even if we do end up basing the economy on smaller corner shops for distribution, those corner shops will be ordering products produced en masse, and they’ll be getting those low low big box prices we all love. Can I have my cake and eat it too? Could be.

And speaking of corner stores, I neglected to bring up the buy local movement during the workshop. Buying local is something like a boycott, often called a buycott, which is when consumers intentionally buy products of companies they want to support. I fully support buying local, but it’s incomplete for greater social change. For one thing, unless you live in certain parts of China, very few things you buy are made locally. Second, while buying local guarantees local producers a certain market base, there really isn’t any community large enough in Washington to absorb everything most farms/dairies/manufacturers make. Those companies have to export their goods, even if its only to other states, or scale back production, which also means scaling back employment.

Which is not to discourage people from buying local and supporting local farmers and local businesses. Do so, but do so knowing that buying local, on its face, does not challenge the actual source of most of the problems we just lambasted on Saturday. Buying local doesn’t guarantee a living wage for workers, depends entirely on an affluent consumer base able to pay higher prices for local and/or organic products (I just paid 4.95 for a dozen eggs … really), and ultimately depends on businesses that face the same crunch any for profit firm does come lean times.

Which is why it’s so important to expand the interest in supporting local, dare I say strategic, industries by pushing that alternative currency. If you are serious about supporting local business, and keeping it going in the face of global competition and economic uncertainty, you can’t leave their fates to the fickle whim of the market. I was introduced to a very promising currency program after the conference (www.fourthcornerexchange.com/) and will, hopefully, be able to post something about the program in the near future. I’m really impressed by the whole system and don’t want to speak without being properly informed, but suffice to say I’m very encouraged by this happy surprise.

Finally, remember to act like this is going to work. The world looks bleak, blacker on some days than others, and it’s easy to get disillusioned and overwhelmed. Even when we band together, in movements, in groups, in families and circles of friends, we each face those long dark minutes as we fall asleep alone, and I know there are more than a few nights I’m left wondering how I, one lone human whose life is already one third over, can hope to do so much in so little time.

I don’t ascribe to the belief that all we can do is throw our pebble in the stream and trust that, with time, we will change the course of the river. Not because the pebble won’t move that stream, but because there are some conniving, unscrupulous men with chainsaws and hammers building dams and diverting that river where they like it. Throw your pebble in the stream, and all you can have faith in is that water will run over it only as long as it serves the purposes of the people who actually own this country.

I prefer to aim big, and I know I heard more than a few people protesting that this can’t be done, it’s too big, it’s too much, it’s out of our reach. No it’s not. We look to the horizon, and forgetting the world is round, we think that is all there is to see. The world goes on far past the horizon. If I decided to drive to Spokane, I couldn’t point and say, ‘That’s Spokane there, that’s where we’re going.’ But I could point south and say, ‘We’re going to Spokane, and that point there is along the way.’

We will get there, but we have to make a few stops along the way. In fifty years we’ll look back on this and wonder how any of us had any doubt. For now, try to borrow a bit of our future confidence to see you through tomorrow. And bring enough for the day after, because I won’t lie, it’s going to be a long fifty years.

posted by Justin  # 1/31/2008 10:48:00 PM