The Economics of Happiness

Reblogged from Occupy Your Heart:

“People and the Planet before Profits” has been a statement that strongly resonated with me. After seeing Helena Norberg-Hodge in the movie the Economics of Happiness I realize that “People and the Planet before Corporate Subsidies” is a much more accurate statement. Helena Norberg-Hodge succinctly outlines the devastating effects of globalization and the “drone economy” on people, the planet, and ultimately our happiness. Her solution, based on what is emerging around the world, is …

The Easiest Way to Tackle Climate Change

Hopes were high as our leaders gathered in Durban late last year.  But another round of prevarication, indecision, postponement and finally outright refusal to meet carbon targets has certainly left those of us concerned about climate change feeling very discouraged.  Yet not surprised.  Since the very first attempts at addressing carbon emissions, our governments have approached the problem in the same reluctant, reductionist way.  We’ve been led to believe that reducing carbon emissions will involve sacrifice—that we have to tighten our belts and soldier through an economic rough patch if we are to hold back climate chaos.  By way of excusing the Canadian government’s recent reneging on their Kyoto commitments, one journalist quipped: “where there are jobs there are emissions, in equal measure. The only sure fire way of slashing emissions across an entire economy is to have a deep and lasting economic collapse…”  Even the best intentioned among us have a hard time stomaching this idea as we deal with the current credit crunch, widespread recession and the Eurozone crisis.

Fortunately, this widely cited equation of “jobs equals carbon emissions” is completely wrong.  We can have a vibrant, sustainable economy with adequate employment, while reducing greenhouse gases and protecting the biosphere.  To see how to get there, we need to take a long, hard look at how we do business today and how this inevitably leads to ever increasing emissions.

Wedded to a paradigm of unending “growth” our governments have steadily deregulated trade and finance through trade treaties, a whole host of visible and hidden tax breaks, and many other policy measures.  Pressured by multinational corporations, governments have handed over power and it is now big business, including global banks, that determine the direction of the economy.  And in this global economy, there is little room for diversity, for small business, for local production serving local needs, or even for efficiency.  But wait a minute, isn’t the supposed reason for the growing scale of global businesses that they are more efficient?  The fact is, the efficiency of the global economy is possibly the most pervasive myth of our time.  Look behind the scenes and the illusion falls away to reveal wanton waste of people and natural resources, large amounts of pointless pollution and a mass of externalities for which we taxpayers foot the bill.

In nearly every country, production is increasingly geared toward export, which inherently involves more carbon emissions. Policies support this across the board.  For example, in China, re-importing has become common practice.  Selling goods domestically incurs a Value Added Tax (VAT) of 17%, but exports enjoy VAT rebates and imports are completely exempt.  As a result, China’s businesses routinely export goods and then reimport them to evade VAT.  In fact, China imported more goods from itself than it did from the United States between 2005 and 2008. This is just one of the many useless ways we have of burning fossil fuels.

Redundant trade is another: Because companies try to take advantage of minute price swings and other financial advantages, identical products are regularly swapped back and forth from country to country. For example, the United States exports around 350,000 tons of potatoes each year, while importing roughly 320,000 tons.  Beef exports and imports both total around 900,000 tons.  The same holds true for a range of other goods including sugar, bottled water and waffles.  This is not a practice unique to the US; most other industrialized countries participate in the same wasteful food exchange with the same or different goods.  For instance, the UK imports approximately the same amount of milk, bread, eggs and pork as it exports.

You would think all this waste was not only inefficient, but very costly.  It is, but not to corporations because once again taxpayers cover most of the bill: from 2002 to 2008, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) found that US government subsidies for fossil fuels totaled approximately $72 billion, two and a half times the amount directed toward renewables.

If we really want to tackle climate change, shifting trade regulations and subsidies would be a relatively simple and very effective place to start.  If we change our policies to support the local on a global scale, we could not only shave off a substantial portion of carbon emissions, but also take steps to rebuild local economies and communities.  This is what an Economics of Happiness is all about—supporting small-scale on a large scale.  It’s not hard to see how a thriving network of diverse local businesses providing for local needs will generate a people-friendly, job-rich and low carbon economy. This kind of economic localization enables us to reduce our ecological footprint in other ways as well by encouraging more low impact ways of producing food and consumer goods.

It’s time we recognize that the driving force behind climate chaos is the globalising economy, not our innate failings as human beings.   Unfortunately, however, many of us have become trapped in a cycle of self-recrimination.  We are told that we are not doing enough to reduce household energy use, that we are driving and flying too much…  In the meanwhile, our tax dollars contribute to an escalation in redundant trade and other wasteful business practices.   It’s high time that we start looking beyond individual consumer choices, and come together to push for real policy change. While it is absolutely true that we have a part to play as consumers, our individual efforts will do little to halt the warming of the climate if government and big business continue to promote an energy-hungry economy.

The first step in shifting direction is to inform ourselves about the workings of the global economy—it is an issue that unites all of us working for change in the world, whether our concerns are primarily environmental, social or economic.  Through this deep understanding of how globalization impacts our lives, we can join together to push for a new economy—one that is smaller in scale, more localized, and more in tune with the needs of people and the Earth.

A Tale of Two Cities: Beijing and Detroit

This is a piece I wrote recently for Yes! Magazine. The original story is here, or you can read the full text below:

Around the world, two opposing forces are contending to define our future. On one side are those working for a new economy—one that is more equitable, decentralized, and attuned to the needs of people and nature. On the other are the forces behind corporate globalization and its consolidation of political and economic power. While thousands of people have braved the winter cold and pepper spray to alert the world to the plight of the 99%, our governments are still forging ahead with destructive deregulatory treaties. The latest of these comes in the form of a new Trans Pacific Partnership, which will further line the pockets of the 1 percent, while increasing redundant trade and CO2 emissions.

After three decades of studying the impacts of globalization on cultures around the world, I am convinced that focusing on the re-regulation of trade and finance is the path towards creating a more just and sustainable economy. Because it runs counter to the interests of the powerful corporations and banks, this can sound more daunting than it really is. Once people recognize that economic deregulation lies behind not only global warming and toxic pollution, but also poverty, unemployment, and societal conflict, then the groundswell of public pressure could turn the tide.

To see the effects of globalization and its antidote, it’s helpful to look at what has been happening in two very different parts of the world: Beijing and Detroit. About 15 years ago, I visited rural China, and found that despite decades of Maoism, the people I encountered were able to meet most of their basic needs locally, using their own labor and ingenious small-scale technologies. In the villages, we were greeted with spontaneous laughter and humor, simple but delicious food, and examples of vibrant, intergenerational cooperation.

When I visited China again a few years ago, while shooting footage for our documentary film, The Economics of Happiness, much had changed. Thanks to global trade agreements, Western corporations and banks had moved their operations there, in search of cheap labor and lax environmental standards. As a result, China’s cities had grown at a furious rate: Beijing’s population alone to about 20 million. Many villagers had been drawn into the cities by the siren song of a ‘modern life’ offered by these supposed opportunities. Among those with “good” jobs in a TNC-linked factory, the work week ran 80 hours or more; the rest struggled to feed themselves and their families on meager and inconsistent wages. According to GDP, people had prospered, but living amid Beijing’s grimy streets, gridlocked traffic and choking pollution, their quality of life had actually declined. Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor was widening dramatically.

This wasn’t good news for the environment either. Far from being more efficient, urbanization causes per capita resource use to rise dramatically. When people are concentrated in a high-rise world of cement, steel and plastic, every need—food, water, building materials—has to be met from outside, requiring massive investments in infrastructure, along with huge amounts of fossil fuel for transport.

On the other side of the planet, the city of Detroit is moving in the opposite direction. Having tied its economy to the fate of the auto industry, Detroit suffered a steady loss of jobs as global competition and outsourcing led to factory closures—another symptom of globalization. But when our film team went there five years ago, we found a grassroots revolution underway. Tucked into streets lined with empty houses and crumbling factories, nearly 200 community gardens had sprouted up. These green oases provided a gathering place for community members, encouraging a sense of sharing, cooperation and belonging, and providing a vital link to the natural world. Today Detroit boasts more than 2,000 urban agriculture projects, each one helping to bring life back into the heart of the city.

In villages, towns and big cities throughout the industrialized world, a whole host of initiatives are helping to rebuild local economies, reconnecting people with each other and the earth. The importance of this fledgling movement should not be underestimated: while the Occupy activists are asking fundamental questions about the nature of our economic system, these locally-based projects are beginning to demonstrate a tangible alternative: localization.

Localization doesn’t mean ending trade or producing everything we need at the village level; it simply means meeting as many of our needs as close to home as possible. This not only reduces energy use and greenhouse gas emissions; it also fosters well being. The smaller scale of local production means less pollution, and a healthier living environment. Localization also builds a foundation for psychological wellness by providing a sense of belonging to place and community. Another strength of localization is its adaptability: unlike the globalizing model being imposed worldwide, there is no single blueprint for localization that can be applied everywhere; instead it reflects the diversity of place and people.

While the Occupy activists are asking fundamental questions about the nature of our economic system, these locally-based projects are beginning to demonstrate a tangible alternative: localization.

Going local on a global scale would require several key steps: first, it’s vital that society determines the rules for business, rather than vice versa. ‘Free trade’ treaties have freed global business from oversight by communities, regions, and even nation states. We have to insist that our governments get back to the same tables where they signed our rights away—this time to agree that businesses need to be place-based or localized, making them more accountable to those they affect. Second, subsidies need to be shifted. Rather than promoting the large and global, we need to begin supporting the small and local instead. For example, phasing out subsidies for energy and technology—and using the money saved to decrease payroll taxes—would dramatically reduce both CO2 emissions and unemployment. These kinds of policy shifts would also help stem the destructive tide towards urbanization in developing countries.

In the end, the trajectory of change in China may yet catch up with that of Detroit. Just a 45-minute drive from Beijing lie the ruins of “Wonderland”, a never-completed theme park once slated to be the largest amusement park in Asia. Today, the 100-acre site looks like a dystopian Disneyland, complete with abandoned “castles”, faux medieval villages, and skeletal hotels. But like the urban gardeners of Detroit, farmers from a nearby village are already reclaiming the land, growing food in the shadow of a potent symbol of the excesses of globalization.

 

From Dismay to Purpose: A reflection.

The following is written by Susan Claire, A founder of Together Yes, Inc., who recently screening The Economics of Happiness in her town:

           Last night was a ride through valleys of disheartenment and hills of optimism for me. My local organization sponsored a community screening of “The Economics of Happiness” by Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick, and John Page (ISEC, 2011).

Together Yes is our nonprofit grassroots organization, dedicated to sustainability and community building. As a founder, I viewed the film once to see whether it would speak to our fellows here in Norwood, Massachusetts. Then I saw it again at our event where I sat among my community and became more than an organizer and activist: I was a grandmother, a neighbor, a country girl relocated to the suburbs of Boston and longing for the simpler ways of my past.

The documentary, so beautifully filmed and interlaced with piercing and pertinent observations by social leaders and elders, began by contrasting industrially developed, crowded, and overworked populations with cultures living more slowly and communally (the divisiveness of competition at a minimum).

I felt unease with my lot in life, as I reminded myself that next morning I would hit the decks running (as always) and not stop until I went to sleep at night. I mourned for a little slow living in my own days. I reflected on the children in my neighborhood, and the benefits slow living might bring them; and I despaired of my town’s prospects for self-sufficiency.

Norwood is a goodhearted, somewhat conservative town. It is where I live, and it is my community. Norwood is where I begin each day, writing and working to promote community and sustainability. I sometimes feel like Sisyphus rolling his rock uphill, but I am not being punished. I am a willing volunteer.

Then, and timely it was, the film began describing the reasons for my malaise. Incentive took over as causes of economic upheaval, environmental degradation, and unhappiness were illuminated. While Together Yes has always worked toward the small and local, I was given clearer reasons for doing so.

How to do so became the question, and the documentary moved deftly into what’s needed. This last quarter of the movie lit a path. As I was introduced to small societies enjoying relative economic stability (some just building it and some not having lost it in the first place), working together almost as families rather than co-residents, and sparing Earth the onslaught of industrial growth, I firmed my resolve.

I was not alone; in the follow-up discussion of “The Economics of Happiness,” it was apparent that my neighbors experienced despair, information, and inspiration along with me as we watched the film. We didn’t come away with a prescription for action; each community must find its own way. However, we more certainly perceive the goals, and from there we can move forward.

There is an expression, preaching to the choir. Yes, most of us attending the film were already converted, were informed about the issues, were indeed already adherents standing with the choir. But the event, with its clarity of message, will perhaps cause us to sing more loudly and more often. With the singing comes a joy, and thus begins happiness.

I don’t know what will become of my town, as we are thoroughly indoctrinated by corporate and marketing proponents of the need for competitive economic growth as our saving grace. Our well-being is not of concern to these greedy and urgent efforts. Moreover, we live in the United States, arguably the most aggressive villain of corporate colonialism. Any progression toward “happiness” will necessarily result from personal and community effort.

I recommend and endorse “The Economics of Happiness” for individual and group viewing, and suggest time for discussion afterward. My support and thanks go to the makers of this film and the International Society for Ecology and Culture.