Relocalization and The Commons
I think about relocalization a lot. I really believe that it’s a critical part of the solution in fighting these massive issues like climate collapse, ecocide, and late stage capitalism. The concept of relocalization is easy: we rely more on the resources that are immediately available to us in close proximity, preventing us from having to resort to harmful resource extraction in other places.
The benefits of relocalization are vast: you improve your local economy, you build community and connect with people who live close by, you become more connected with the land and resources around you, you think more actively about what you consume, goods have less of a distance to travel so we don’t rely on burning fossil fuel to transport them, we become more resilient as we rely less on massive supply chains. It goes on and on.
Obvsiouly there are some changes that have to take place in order to make this kind of economic and lifestyle switch from relying on a global economy and supply chain towards an economic system that’s closer to home. We would have to lower our overall consumption: you can’t endlessly buy and use and discard with finite resources. We have to change the materials that we use: plastic doesn’t grow on trees and ore is hard to extract. We have to learn to cook and eat foods that are grown locally rather than imported: bananas would be hard to give and learning to eat seasonally would be a big shift for some. We would have to fill in gaps: not every town has a butcher and baker anymore.
The good thing is that relocalization isn’t an all or nothing approach. There will be easy, low hanging fruit that we can start with: if you live in Ontario like me, there’s an abundance of ecologically grown food right where you live. Most towns and cities have farmers’ markets where you have easy access to locally grown veggies, locally raised meat, and locally handcrafted goods. While you might not be able to get your toilet paper locally made, you can probably start with some fruit.
Another good thing is that local economies grow the more that they are used so if you keep supporting local producers and makers, that enables them to spend more time and energy doing the things they do, and their products can become more widely available.
It’s good to remember that supporting local makers doesn’t always mean that THEY are using locally available materials. Bakers will likely import their flour. Tailors are probably not getting their fabric locally. But again, the more we feed into this local economy, the more localized goods become available so the system is self-perpetuating.
The thing is: you probably already know all this. You probably already understand why relocalization is awesome and why local economies are super sweet but you probably still shop at the grocery store and buy clothes that are made overseas. I do too. It’s okay - it’s not your fault. You know why?
Locally made, grown, and produced goods aren’t accessible.
Shopping locally costs a ton more than buying imported goods. And while it’s all good and well for me to tell you to just buy less, we have families with different needs and live in an economic culture that demands a certain level of participation. For most of us, buying everything we need from a local producer just isn’t an option, both financially and because it takes an amazing amount of time to source things locally, not to mention the time spent travelling to different places to buy everything. And that widget that you need for your heater that broke last week? Well, it’s not likely that you can find a wooden replacement handcrafted from a local artisan. It’s much more likely that you’ll be forced to buy it on Amazon because there’s no store in your city even sells them anymore.
Clearly this is not a post about shaming individual consumer practices. While I do believe that we all have a social responsibility to reduce the goods we consume (and ultimately throw away), there are much larger cultural, social, and economic systems at play that need to change if relocalization is going to be part of the solution.
From here, there seems to be an unanswerable question of how to make relocalization more accessible to everyone. Taking food as a primary example, I think a lot about how to supply fresh, local food to people in my community. I think it’s really important. I’ve thought about farming in earnest and starting a CSA, but what pricing model could I offer that would be accessible? I’ve started supporting a local food supplier co-op and I love this approach to local food, but it’s still not affordable to buy all my food this way. Sliding scale or subsidized local food is also awesome but it’s not a long term solution. Food needs to be permanently affordable. As my 6 year old will tell you, it’s stupid that people have to pay for things that they need to survive. (He was quite shocked when he put this together for the first time.)
Yet, farmers need to be paid fairly for the work they do so they, in turn, can afford to keep farming. I don’t want to create food systems where the food producers can’t afford to keep producing! But my kid is right: food really SHOULD be free. When grown and harvested in an ecological ways, saving seed and using natural inputs to help the soil, you can grow food with little to no overhead. It’s all labour.
Free food for all. Sounds wild doesn’t it? But it’s not wild. It’s how we lived as humans in community for thousands of years.
Don’t forget that this capitalist economy has only been around for a whisper of human existence. Prior to capitalism, people lived in community. Before the existence of the colonial state, real communism was just people taking care of each other, sharing what they had, and making sure that everyone had enough. Land, food, water, resources, materials: all these things were held in commons.
I’m just starting to learn about this idea of recommoning: taking back what was once held collectively, but what I’ve read so far fills me with hope. It feels like the path that my brain has been seeking.
I can see now that relocalization isn’t enough on it’s own because it’s not sustainable in a capitalist economy. We need to recommon as well. This means that we need to transition to a shared local economy where the distribution of localized goods is done as needed, without hoarding or taking more than your share. This is a much harder transition than the accessible baby steps of shifting to a local economy. I’m not even sure what the steps towards recommoning look like, but I’m pretty sure it’s what we need to fight these immense battles against climate collapse and late state capitalism. I’m going to keep reading, keep learning, keep sharing, and I’ll let you know when I find the perfect solution. In the meantime, if you have ideas around creating a more localized commons economy, let me know!
Further reading (so much reading…):