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Is the Local Economy the Solution to a Post-Capitalist World?
Think local. Buy local. Support your local community. Community investment.
This all makes sense, right? Right. Then why do so many government-funded economic development programs get this wrong?
According to community economics advocate Michael Shuman, mainstream economic development today is a scam. States and local government agencies spend big money to lure corporations to their region but do little to stimulate the local economy or support local businesses. And those small businesses, not the chain stores, are often what give a neighborhood its unique identity and make it desirable to live in.
In his new book, The Local Economy Solution: How Innovative Self-Financing “Pollinator” Enterprises Can Grow Jobs and Prosperity (Chelsea Green, June 2015), Shuman debunks many of the myths around economic development—that tax breaks for wealthy corporations are beneficial for all, that only big businesses create jobs, that consumers only care about price, and that social enterprises can’t be self-financing.
Shuman, who has been a leader in the local economy movement for more than two decades, proposes low-cost pollinator businesses to stimulate the local economy through small business development. He defines a pollinator as a self-financing business with a mission of supporting other local businesses.
Unlike impersonal chain stores, local pollinator businesses foster more connection between consumers and retailers, food growers and customers, and businesses and their employees, resulting in a healthier, more equitable community, which translates into safer neighborhoods that can weather economic fluctuations.
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Federal election campaign’s phoney debate over deficits: Chris Hall
Answers on how parties plan to pay for campaign promises may not come for weeks yet
This federal election is supposed to be about the economy, an opportunity for voters to determine which party is offering the best plan to create jobs, open new markets for Canadian goods and services and to help this country withstand what is shaping up to be, at worst, another recession or, at best, another period of stagnant growth.
- Leaders trade shots on who will or won’t run deficit — and whether it matters
- ANALYSIS | Federal leaders’ tours offer a glimpse at campaign strategies
- ANALYSIS | Chris Hall: Duffy trial testimony has Harper campaign on the defensive
But so far this week those important questions are secondary to a dispute over budget deficits — or more accurately, a debate over why one party is prepared to run a deficit in order to finance their campaign promises.
For now, it’s a phoney debate.
None of the parties have put out a fully costed plan, tallying up how much their promises will cost. Those platforms will come sometime in September when, if current forecasts hold, the Canadian economy will be technically in another recession.
- The CBC Election Pollcast, hosted by CBC poll analyst and ThreeHundredEight.com founder Éric Grenier, explores the world of political polls, their influence on the media and the trends they are showing. Subscribe to Éric Grenier’s Election Pollcast podcast
It’s also not clear whether the federal books are balanced, or if the government slid back into deficit this year because of the plunge in oil prices, with the subsequent loss in federal revenues and increase in employment insurance claims — particularly in Alberta where EI claims have risen eight months in a row through June, and Saskatchewan, where claims were up nearly five per cent that month.
