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World of Possibilities: Imperative of Agrarian-Based Localization

Rachel Guevara, Marcel Idels-EcoSolidarity | 30.06.2002 03:03

Describes the Path away from a world of billionaires, megacities and ecocide. Economics of localization and global taxes on trade and fossil fuels for sustainable development worldwide. Stop Bush Stop US Imperialism. Viva Argentina, Peru, Brasil...

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES:
THE IMPERATIVE OF AGRARIAN BASED LOCALIZATION

DIVIDE UP THE LAND TO MULTIPLY THE BREAD.
-Ten-year-old girl in Porto Alegre, Brazil at the World Social Forum campgrounds, 2002.

The kind of future that the world should try to avoid -at any cost - is one with a thousand billionaires chased by forty- million millionaires gorging alongside the vast majority of people who will be crowded into polluted and expanding cities. We must avoid this distopia by any means necessary.
– Jason Marti, Andes-Libre

Five hundred billionaires sit atop the greatest treasure ever accumulated - $1.6 trillion - more than the incomes of half the world combined. Of the 12 individuals who posses more than $20 billion each, only two are not US citizens: Saudi Prince bin Talal Alsaud and the German Albrect brothers. The founders of Microsoft, Gates and Allen, have enough money to create 76,000 millionaires. Switzerland has the highest per capita number of billionaires at 13. Thirty-five women are also billionaires (1).

MEGA-CITY SPIN CONTROL
When things happen in the world like the 9-11 bombings of New York and Washington DC or the Antarctic ice shelf melt, don’t believe the US and experts who say, WE were not fully aware of the threat. They lie for money. Millions of government and corporate researchers study everything and they know it all, even if their narrow viewpoint keeps them from understanding the true implications of public policies.
Among a multitude of crimes of omission and misrepresentation, the corporate media and the “loyal” scientific community are fabricating a fatal excuse for citizen denial about the long run effects of globalization. We are fed the storyline that endless growth is good and that progress requires the intentional creation of hundreds of large unsustainable cities and dozens of mass-polluting megacities of more than 10 million people each (2).
It is difficult to fathom what the corporate rulers are after with these policies, but the effects of this disaster are already before our eyes.
The WTO and globalized free trade create a frenzy of economic activity and investments. This increases the supply of goods and thus commodity prices continue to plummet (3). This price collapse is driving small farmers off the land and into the cities in many regions. Many of these small farmers through their own labor maintained higher productivity with fewer manufactured or imported inputs than large farms (4). Government and international policies favoring the rich and denying participatory democracy to the poor have accelerated these problems and prevent people from defending themselves nonviolently (5).
These policies are leading to increased urbanization around the world. There will soon be 36 megacities up from 23 in 2000. Three hundred cities of more than one million will exist by 2025. There are several regions like Sao Paulo, Brazil and Mexico City, with agglomerations of more than 20 million people (headed to thirty million). Lima, Peru and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will approach the 20 million mark too. Increased urbanization near coastlines is unsustainable because of global warming sea level rises (New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Dhaka, and many more) (6).
A walk down the mean streets of Jakarta, Lagos or Bogotá, with their creaking infrastructure, smog, crime, open sewers, piles of garbage and limited clean water supplies – and soaring populations – will do little to instill faith in the future.
Examples abound of the denial and spin control used to hide the calamity of rapid and premature urbanization. The Economist informs us that In the long run urbanization is good news… Man is a gregarious species, and the words ‘urbane’ and ‘civilised’ both derive from the advantages of living in large settlements.
Cities make the world go round. If there is one thing that EVERYBODY agrees on, it is that urbanization is unstoppable. (7) Intentionally narrow-minded nonsense like this is why the world is in such a terrible mess.
Any new development program or restructuring of the international economic system has to lead to solving all of these problems and also the problems of tribalism, disease, war and terrorism, global warming (8) and the personal/social alienations (drug use, abuse of women, mental illness) that are rampant in all societies (9). There is no program of modest reforms that will solve or even keep pace with these problems.

The kind of future the world must avoid is one with a thousand billionaires chased by forty- million millionaires gorging alongside the vast majority of people who will be crowded into polluted and expanding cities. We must avoid this distopia at any cost – and by any means necessary. (10)

A u-turn away from corporate fascism and US global domination leads to a world based on natural resource conservation and economic policies of Localization: the Earth Charter (11). The generalized crises of modern human civilization demand that emergency policies be adopted quickly.
To realize the Earth Charter many groups from Food First (12) and Via Campesina (13) to India’s Vandana Shiva and the International Forum on Globalization (14) have been working on a range of policy proposals. The Porto Alegre Statements (15) and the A Better World is Possible, publication are two of the better-known proposals.
The International Plan for Earth (IAPE) has evolved from the work of organizations at the World Social Forums and the worldwide resistance to corporate globalization and the WTO (16). Some groups have suggested that additional policies and values should be included in this plan for international economic restructuring. (17).
The social scientists and community leaders who drafted the plan feel that The 7 Point Strategy for IAPE accomplishes the necessary restructuring for a global transformation and a lasting peace that will enable a shared culture of respect for each culture and for the values of the Earth Charter. The designs for an International program of land reform, agrarian reform and ecological development (IAPE Section II.3) are left up to communities and teams of regional scientific panels to accommodate local customs and resources (18).

INTERNATIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR EARTH
The International Action Plan for Earth sets forth policies to restructure the economic assumptions of a new world. Radical re-structuring programs are becoming the rallying cry of billions of people opposed to any continuation of US-led Global Corporate Hegemony. The People -International Civil Society -demand autonomy, land reform, political overhauls, agrarian policy shifts and an end to US military, economic and corporate interventions worldwide (19).
This is a time for people to share and to fight for a fair share for others and for the future generations.
I. GOAL:
TO CREATE A WORLD OF DIVERSITY, EXPERIMENTATION AND TOLERANCE WHERE CIVIL SOCIETY CAN IDENTIFY AND IMPLEMENT POLICIES TO PROMOTE AND PROTECT EQUITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECOLOGICALLY AND SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES – A GLOBE OF AUTONOMOUS VILLAGES (20).
DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THIS GOAL IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS.
II. THE 7-POINT STRATEGY :
Exert concerted pressure in the streets, legislatures and international forums to force governments and international institutions to adopt the following programs and policies (21):
1. A moratorium on all debt payments (government and commercial) by the poorest 100 nations until an international economic structure of sustainability and localization replaces the WTO Neoliberalism (22).
2. Erasure of all debts owed by the 50 poorest countries and any countries to which significant reparations are owed for past exploitation OR environmental damage (23).
3. Guaranteed and automatic funding for a comprehensive international program of land reform (24), agrarian reform (25) and ecological rural development (26), accomplished through taxes on international trade and finance (27) and additional taxes on all stages of the production and consumption of fossil fuels (28).
This people-decided social investment program would replace the World Bank, the IMF, their clones, all foreign aid programs, and all corporate investments outside of their home nation (29).
4. Penalties for countries spending more than one percent of their GDP on the military (30).
5. A ban on weapons sales worldwide (31).
6. An end to most farm chemical use in the OECD countries (32) and an end to all agricultural production or export related subsidies in the OECD (33).
7. Enforcement mechanisms for the Earth Charter and the IAPE, such as increased taxes for non-compliance, international boycotts and the seizure of the foreign assets and bank deposits of violators (34).

The social, ecological and economic crises mount moment by moment. We cannot wait for the United Nations to act decisively (35). People and communities must quickly push forward their demands. Civil Society has the power in their numbers to enact the changes necessary (36).

III. TARGETS: People should protest or target their rage at those businesses or institutions that they feel are the greatest threat to their communities. The following list presents a generalized prioritization (37):
1. Any public service or public goods like water, electric power, education, mass transit or telephone service that has been privatized should be high priority (38).
2. Foreign corporations, especially banks (39).
3. Large landowners (40).
4. Local partners of large foreign corporations or their subsidiaries (41).
5. Corrupt public or business officials (42).
6. Any business or government enterprise, which creates significant pollution (43).
7. Media outlets (Television, Radio, Newspapers) which refuse to cover popular issues fairly (44).
8. Genetically engineered crops (45).
9. Facilities used to export food commodities (46).
IV. TACTICS (47) (See Appendix )
Actions of civil society in one region inspire action around the world. Be creative and confident - This is what Global Participatory Democracy looks like: The Solidarity of a Globe of Citizen-Directed Sustainable Villages.
JOIN-US-IN-AID. FARMER TO FARMER -ALL PEOPLE !
SUSTAINABLE-PARTICIPATORY-ECONOMICS–AGAINST
THE US-ECO-DRUG-TERROR-CORPORATE WAR AND
THE DEATH PROGRAMS OF THE WTO/FTAA
[ End of IAPE Document]

An economics of Democratic Localism with the priorities of a small farm society can avert the escalating instability of poor countries, by reducing waste, pollution and corruption; redistributing income; raising farm productivity with fewer inputs; improving rural standards of living and halting urbanization.

A Reasonable and Modest Proposal
Most of the IAPE is not controversial. Even the Catholic Church has endorsed major debt relief for poor countries that are struggling to feed, house and educate their people (49).
Bans on arms shipments and excessive military spending have been debated since the end of World War I. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR most people around the world anticipated a peace dividend that would transfer former military spending to social and ecological needs (50).
The failure of the West to switch military spending to sustainable development programs in the Third World is the main reason why one sees the planet beset with the chaos of terrorism, war and economic collapse (51).
Many consumers in developed countries support an end to chemical intensive farming practices , which continue to poison the children, the soil and the water (52). The US and Europe have committed themselves to ending agricultural production and export subsidies which harm the farmland soils and distort commodity prices making a mockery of free trade and at the same time destroying efficient small farmers everywhere in the world (53).
However, the US Senate passed a new ten-year farm bill in June of 2002 that completely violates the spirit of the Uruguay Round and the Doha commitments (54). President Bush has launched a trade war against the world and continues to resist international legal and environmental agreements which 95 percent of the world have endorsed (55).
Enforcement mechanisms for many of the demands of the IAPE are called for under the Earth Charter and initial steps toward a legally binding instrument on development and environment are on the agenda for the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa (56).

An International Social Investment Fund for Worldwide Ecological Agrarian Programs: Sustainable Rural Development and Citizen Participation
The most controversial and important component of the plan is Section II.3. Taxes on trade, financial transactions and fossil fuels will fund a comprehensive international program of land reform, agrarian reform and ecological rural development. More controversial yet is the provision that this new development fund would replace the WTO, IMF and World Bank (57). A deep restructuring, beginning with agriculture and the need for large-scale support for ecological rural development, is the choice that leads to equity and peace.
Many groups have called for international taxes to help poor people and developing countries (58). At the 2002 Monterrey, Mexico Summit, countries from around the world agreed to support the Tobin Tax on international financial transactions (59). The Earth Charter and many economists have also called for taxes on fossil fuels to capture the unvalued externalities from fossil fuel pollution and to help switch consumers and industry to less polluting energy sources (60).
The International Plan for Earth demands that we go much farther and quickly. It pulls all of these well-meaning proposals together into a comprehensive and effective new economic program that can make a difference in the sustainability of poor countries and the Earth.
This economic alternative supports a market economy(61) but it does not allow for corporate capitalism or a market with concentrations of political power or market power. Corporate Capitalism destroys democracy, markets and small enterprises. It leads to an unequal distribution of wealth, property and incomes. Corporate Capitalism makes bad decisions against the will of the people and the sustainability of the future. The kind of corporate capitalism that stalks the world today has nothing to do with a free market or what Adam Smith and the original free marketers believed a free market economy should be (62).
The same is true for the many purported Democracies that the US champions when it needs to. The idea that any country is very democratic is a ludicrous denial of all history and a slight at what humans are capable of (63).
For many decades corporations have received subsidies for investment, insurance and export promotion – and billions of dollars worth of government and university research assistance, grants and training (corporate socialism for growth)(64). Now it is time to reverse this bias of subsidies for the rich and powerful and make reparations to the people, small enterprises and low-tech green investments.
Expand options, experiments and diversity – not one market, one culture, one way! The Earth Charter is the pluralistic and equity seeking way forward. The economic model for this new way is based largely on the ideas of Localization guided by sustainability requirements.

The Economics of Localization
Localization is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers. It is not against all trade, but rather it is about reducing to an absolute minimum the waste now caused by having everything from butter to raw logs crisscrossing the globe.
Contrary to the propaganda, the global economy cannot enable villagers in rural China, Bangladesh or Ecuador to live the lives of middle-class Westerners. For the majority it cannot even provide the most basic needs of housing, education, health care, nutrition and employment. Globalization increases the gap between rich and poor, pulling a vast number of people away from the land and into squalid urban slums. Preventing further urbanization in the South requires programs that actively support the rural economy.
Such changes require major shifts of emphasis in the economies of the North, and an end to corporations using the South as both larder and dumping ground -stripping whole countries of their natural resources…the North must produce most of its own goods and services. -Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director of the International Society of Ecology and Culture (65).
At the beginning of this article we discussed the high-tech corporate one-world path that society could follow - megacities. The Earth Charter opposes this path and suggests another one – a green way of local economics and low consumption. This hopeful and sustainable path may be hard for some people to understand or accept. We ask you to involve yourself, to work to understand the options for restructuring and to make your voice heard.
A new politics of Democratic Localism guided by the Economics of Localization and the values a small farm society is the way out of a world of billionaires ruling billions of desperate urban refugees. A new world will have no global corporations, limited long-distance trade and it will be fueled by a cooperative peaceable economy of sharing and renewable resources.
This path requires the prioritization of our efforts and resources to meeting the basic needs of all people in sustainable ways.
Wendell Berry states the case for Localization as, The idea of a local economy rests on two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. People ask what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This is part charity and part economic… there is a significant charity in just prices.
Everything needed locally cannot be produced locally. But a viable neighborhood or community, like a viable farm, protects its own production capacities. It does not import products that it can produce for itself. And it does not export local products until local needs have been met. This is the principle of subsistence…and it applies to regions and nations as well. (66)

Localization prioritizes small farm, low-input agriculture and regional self-reliance. Once international pressure and financing are brought to bear on the corrupt elite and political parties in most countries, these goals can be quickly met in poor countries and will serve as models of sustainability for all people. The people are ready and eager for something new and beyond neoliberalism and the Democracy of the Façade (67).
Neo-liberal economists and even many well-meaning development organizations will dismiss the ideas of Localization as protectionist(68). And that is exactly what they are -a protectionism that is socially just and ecologically sound because it protects local producers and the natural resources (soils, streams, forests) and it is the best assurance of adequate supplies to local consumers.
Localization is not isolationism. The principle of subsistence (low consumption/reduced waste) is the best guarantee of a marketable surplus from a region. Peace and neighborliness will lead to expanding ripples of charity and aid to the less fortunate.
The neo-liberal free trade and structural adjustment programs of the IMF, World Bank and US multinational corporations (WTO World Government) have failed to reduce poverty and are now threatening to create chaos around the world by destroying rural economies and increasing urbanization.
Democratic Localism with the priorities of a small farm society can avert the escalating instability of poor countries, by reducing waste, pollution and corruption; redistributing income; raising farm productivity with fewer inputs; improving rural standards of living and halting urbanization.
The IAPE replaces the World Trade Organization, the IMF and the World Bank with a global tax on trade, finance and fossil fuels. These taxes would be administered by the UN as the International Social Fund for Sustainable Development. Education, health care and support for subsistence farmers, including crop subsidies, will be the priorities. Sustainability guidelines, research and education can help keep this new economic structure on target. Existing models of successful programs in Kerala, India; Cuba; Bangladesh; Brazil and elsewhere can be adapted to fit the cultural and unique situations around the world (69).
Key to this program will be a new type of participatory local democracy, like the examples from Porto Alegre and other Brazilian communities (70). Also relevant is the knowledge that people are gaining from the collapse of Argentina (and now Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia and…) and the formation of new organizations of civil society -the Unemployed Piqueteros and the Popular Assemblies of neighborhoods, communities and regions (71). The Bolivarian Circles of Caracas, Venezuela are also practicing grassroots community improvement in the poor slums of a potential coastal megacity (72).

Storm Clouds and the Wildcard President Bush (shh!)
At the Rio+10 Earth Summit there will be complaints about how poorly the rich countries have done in meeting their commitments to sustainability in 1992. The Earth Charter and other resolutions will be passed and a few action programmers will be drawn up as Partnership–Initiatives for sustainable development.
The stranglehold of the WTO and its corporate clients on the controls of the world will not be broken by this Summit (73). The value of the Earth Summit and the Earth Charter is that they lend validity and legitimacy to the rising tide of rebellion against US and corporate hegemony. At this moment of global crisis and human opportunity, International Civil Society asserts itself -The People -are already beyond the Earth Charter. They demand a New World of ecological possibilities and sustainable options - A world that they will control.
Business leaders around the world will pressure the US to move forward with restructuring the world economy because they know that if they don’t compromise and undercut the demands of Civil Society then revolution is likely to spread along with economic collapse (74).
All the power that rests in Wall Street and the International Banks is as nothing compared to the force of millions of people taking over the streets of their capitals and the largest cities to demand sensible change now.

That day is coming.

Rachel Guevara, Marcel Idels-EcoSolidarity
- e-mail: eco@andeslibre.zzn.com

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Common Sense I can Understand — Michael Orozco
  2. excellent — fati
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