On Sat, 31 Dec 1994, William Myers wrote: > > > I think we need a serious discussion of "community," which has acquired a > > mushy saintliness on a par with "democracy." What *is* a community? Is it > > geographic? Ethnic? Is Manhattan Island, home to Wall Street, Harlem, and > > me, a community? > I wouldn't attempt to define Doug Henwood's community. I can identify my > own, as that group of people which gives me support and feedback, as that > eco-system which gives me sustenance and inspiration. That's a rather imprecise, almost fatally subjective, definition on which to base a political economy. Suppose I get more support and feedback from people halfway around the world than I do from my neighbor - how do I design an economy around that? I suppose I could, but it would be massively global. I probably have more in common with an Oxford-educated resident of London than I do with the Dominican family here illegally that lives a block away from me - which is my community? As I go through the day, I'm sure that I'll be consuming products from ecosystems on almost every continent. I'm happy that's the case, but I never nominated community as the cornerstone of economic organization. > > Doesn't the definition of "community" thrive > > on the identification of outsiders, the Not Us, who are outside the > > circle? Aren't many communities full of superstition, xenophobia. Isn't > > the outside world a zone of liberation, and antidote of a suffocating > > insularity? > Does figuring out what keeps me alive and vital necessarily imply any of > these things? That doesn't really address the question that "communities" often define themselves as much by the Not Us as they do by the Us - which is precisely why this rootless cosmopolitan finds the whole concept a bit creepy. > > > Doesn't trade, properly conceived, enrich? > Sometimes, trade destroys and overpowers community and culture. The concept > of community makes us aware of what we are gaining and what we are losing in > a trade. Our community was recently engaged in defensive actions against > the takeover of a local bank by a regional bank and an invasion by WalMart. > We decided that neither of these trade transactions was wholely in our best > interests. Talk to Wendell Barry. Those aren't examples of trade - they're examples of the centralization of ownership. It'd be interesting, however, to investigate the investment practices of that local bank. Many small banks quickly sell their deposits on the federal funds market, which means that local depositors' money almost instantly joins in the global freeplay of capital. Doug Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Left Business Observer 212-874-4020 (voice) 212-874-3137 (fax)
