Common Demand

Community is universally accepted as a good. But it is often superficially applied.

The word means “common”. Thus it can be applied to any instance where people are doing the same thing. Today, these abound. They occur under numerous names, such as: hobbies, clubs, teams, groups, institutions, associations, gangs. And they involve everything from stamp-collecting to motorcycle riding.

Community?

This is a mistake. It is the dog returning to his own vomit. Each of these activities appear to be of value because they resemble mutual reliance, and because everyone must make a virtue of necessity.

We live in a society so large that everyone is anonymous. We run about randomly, hoping to run into the right people, by means of fancies. Instead we should have around us those whom we need, and they us. And when I say “need”, I mean it in the profoundest sense: the support and control of life. I find this acheived in a certain form of local society.

It consists of two things. The first is generic, democracy. The second is the structure on which it hangs. This is frequently neglected. I speak of self-sufficiency. Democracy is rule by the people. But most of the time there is nothing important. And it is a lot of trouble to get the people together. Thus most of the time there is no ruling. There must be something to exercise the body politic.

Man needs certain things for himself and his family. These propel him to engage other people. In our current state, this drive is wasted. We go to alienated labor and international corporations. These relations without the democratic element remain worthless. Instead of strengthening us politically, we become convinced that we are alone: in this way the body politic remains flabby.

To change this, the simplest step is to change how we spend money. But it will still require a paradigm shift.

We are currently at the mercy of market-speak. We treat money as eternally useful. We seek to hoard as much of it as possible, for the voracious tomorrow. This is consumerism. The unthinkable is that we would purchase according to need and capacity, decided before the fact.

Of course people make lists before they go shopping. But that is already too late. Necessity must be judged outside of the market. It must be done in peace and quiet: What do I need? What can I afford? And each thing considered should be scrutinized.

Only by doing this can you maturely suggest what local business there should be. The question then is, how to consume locally? It becomes a reason for democracy.

“Buy Local” and “No Farms No Food” are the slogans of private life, and they don’t work. The rich and groovy are a minority, and we speak of no aristocracy. So local business must push beyond. But where are they? Instead of waiting for anyone to come along with the thing you need, demonstrate local demand. Let it precede supply.

Many are resigned to the idea that local business is passe. They turn it into a fetish. It comes to superfluity. Thus there are restaurants, cafes and overpriced markets. The principle is spending more. This is a mistake. It should be a question of where. The problem is that most of your money goes elsewhere. You don’t need to invent demand, only to organize it.

There is a modern habit of calling people “consumers”. This is to reduce us to mere indolent animals: they too can “consume”. It draws attention from the ways: private and public. When we do things as individuals we are weak. We are swallowed into a niche of “like minded”, from which we never escape. Our right as citizens, however, allows us to organize on a large scale, locally.

Form a Town Board of Local Economy. Introduce as an article on the town warrant a program for the aggregation of purchasing power. It might be to learn what necessity the citizens would be interested to buy locally, of what quality, how many or much they would consume annually, and at what price per unit they could afford. Select amounts that would include at least the majority. Nothing need not be final. It is about starting. Then with the population calculate what that would bring. Write a request for proposal. Publicize it throughout the town by all means. Share with neighboring municipalities. See what response you get. By defining demand, you will have a chance at general affordability, and therefore local society.