Political Crossfire Forums

I had a conversation with a fellow undergraduate who is working at the sustainability institute regarding this topic, and the whole buy locally thing.

So what we were taking about was essentially that more and more people will begin producing things (coffee, corn, bread, beer, anything really) in their local areas, and the local areas will purchase that product over the same product produced somewhere else, through a combination of nationalism, statism, and cost effectiveness. This would also be a good thing due to the decreased use of fossil fuels and in general overall efficiency. If you're a company and you sell products nationally that you grow nationally, if fuel continues to rise in cost, than it would eventually become more efficient and cheaper to move your facilities closer to your consumers.

For example: many people on the forum are a huge fan of microbrews, in particular they tout their state as "producing awesome beers" etc... (Oregon, Colorado). There is a certain bit of pride involved, and desire to be associated with something produced locally. It's communal and hippy.

But also as a matter of national security. Having California produce 80% of fresh fruit or something just isn't very safe.

Idk, kinda rambling.

Thoughts?

I think it will go more and more local, it's not like it wasn't this way in past decades. As you said it's basic economics... balancing out economies of scale with transportation costs. I don't know the exact breakdown of freight being shipped via truck, plane & rail but honestly I see rail picking up and trucks being relegated more for local deliveries as fuel prices rise.

I don't really buy the import substitution model for a couple reasons:

One, it's an argument by stolen concept. Free trade exists because investors are alienated from local communities in the first place. Import substitution takes their alienation for granted, stealing their ideas.

Two, it's the quality, not the quantity, which counts in formulating local communities. Merely substituting production won't inspire people to keep producing nor invent new forms of production when the situation changes.

The import substitution model seems dependent upon desperation in the future, preying on people on the bottom of society to save the Titanic from sinking, or being the first to drown. Community insiders don't care because if the economy struggles, they aren't vulnerable.

Localism's fine, but culture has to change first. Otherwise, everything else is superficial.