Customer Reviews

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

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Since the end of WWII, North Americans have estabkished a new outlook on the individual and social relations. Where once we were part of small town rural communities or even close-knit urban neighbourhoods, now we've moved a major part of our population into the suburbs. Single houses, fenced or hedged keep us insulated from each other and the world. McKibben calls it "hyperindividuality" with each of us following the myth of More and Better. We demand More and Better appliances in our kitchen, More and Better vehicles in the garage with More and Better roads to drive them on. An economy based on this philosophy has touted Growth as a beacon to set the direction of our thinking. The resulting high consumption lifestyle has masked the true costs of how we live.

In this comprehensive and long overdue study, McKibben describes the way our current mindset is driving our lives. As an expressive reformer, he also provides a set of almost painless cures to restore without abandoning what we've become accustomed to. We can rebuild "community" without serious disruption. The "almost painless" simply means a small change in outlook and a willingness to undertake the work to achieve sustainable lives and communities. Finding each other and building more more communicative relationships with each other is a major first step. From those initial contacts healthier and more responsible lifestyles can result. The thin edge of the wedge in achieving this is simply for each of us to ask ourselves "How much Growth do we need?"

Personal interaction is best enhanced, according to McKibben, by the shift to local food and other products. With vegetables travelling thousands of kilometres to reach your dining table, paying increased attention to what is available locally has many advantages. Among the greatest of these is knowledge that the products money stays in your vicinity and are likely right at hand in your area. In North America, the "family farm" has disappeared, replaced by huge tracts of land run by distant owners. Still, "Farmer's markets" have burgeoned in recent years and are increasing in number. The "organic" product has even entered the supermarket chains, a step McKibben feels should be further encouraged. Community-supported agriculture is a major aspect of this book. Along with local small farms, the "urban garden" utilisation of vacant lots has also grown . In both forms, the money you spend remains in your community. In some places, that has given rise to a local currency to facilitate support for local farmers and manufacturers.

The author stresses that our situation doesn't require rapid nor radical change in how we live. What he seeks is a "patient rebalancing of the scales". His native country, although its population still believes it stands above the rest of the nations, has slipped drastically in essential features. He has travelled many lands to witness various solutions that have been implemented. Many of these can be applied here, and it is here that the rebalancing is needed most. Our past values are not flawless, but he thinks we have sufficient common sense to find and use the best solutions where they can do the most good. Living in Vermont, he is favoured by his proximity not only to his neighbours, but to the politicians from the township to the federal level. That situation grants him and his fellow townsmen the opportunity to urge things like shifting subsidies from corporate farms to community ones.

None of his proposals embraces the "warm and fuzzy" feeling the word "community" often evokes. The romantic myth of small towns of closely-knit families is just that - a myth. For starters, there's no defined limit of what size a community must be to be workable. There are, McKibben argues, many "data points" to be considered. The difficulty is that our new mind-set has kept us from considering which ones are available to you and how to utilise them best. This volume, which is as much a guide-book for the future as it is a lamentation of why we need such a road-map, explains how to assess those data points by which you can help create a viable future. Read it and find out how and why. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Few writers tend to capture my attention for long but McKibben had me hook, ligne, and sinker, as they say. He kept me wanting to read more. Every chapter delving further and further into an interesting yet real world that exists. Albeit most exists in minute quantities. This book summarized and engrained my own long lived thoughts and fears of our society, but it also gave me factual information. It allows me to once again be hopeful for a better world.

For most of human history, "more" and "better" have been pretty much the same when it comes to the things we want. Even today, a very large number of people live in poverty, and their main priority is more -- more food, more clothing, more medical care, more things. For them, "more" would still be "better."

But, for many of us, we have long ago passed the point where "more" is the same as "better." Every study that has looked at the correlation between wealth and happiness finds the same thing. Up to a certain point, more money make people happier. After a certain point, however, more money stops making us happier. Many of us are long past that point. McKibben starts with this observation, but then he moves further.

According to McKibben, our wealthy modern lifestyle is actually starting to make us less happy. We are social creatures, and living alone in massive houses, traveling in separate cars and the other things money tends to buy these days tend to isolate us from other people. This makes us less happy, in the end, not more.

And, finally, our lifestyle is less and less sustainable. Our food supply, for example, is highly dependent on cheap oil. While this has worked for a while, it cannot work forever. The demand for oil -- and other limited resources -- will grow spectacularly as some of those in poverty start to adopt some of our way of life. And that is so, even if population stops growing.

I found this book deeply disturbing, but I think McKibben is right about the problems he identifies. McKibben, however, is not so pessimistic. He thinks there are solutions that will allow us to live even happier lives by consuming less, not more. I sincerely hope that he is right, and that more people at least listen to what he has to say.

This is a book that combines a lot of information into one idea. In his discussion of what constitutes a deep economy, a durable and wealthy economy, McKibben explores issues of food, energy, entertainment, public transportation, local businesses, subsidies, radio, television, and a host of other economic activities that make up our lives.

But the book is not a dry discussion of just these economic activities. It's also a beautifully written appeal to community and to personal happiness through getting back to that community. Part of the book is dedicated to the idea of "happiness" and just why happiness has fallen in the United States while it has grown in other places that have less money. Money doesn't buy happiness, is a cliche that most of us has probably heard, but perhaps still don't entirely believe. And it is true: money does buy happiness...but, as McKibben points out, only up to a certain point. After all the basic needs are met through that money, that money actually detracts from happiness or at least doesn't increase our level of happiness any more.

McKibben details our fall into a hyper-individual society that eschews any idea of social connections or "sharing" things with others and defines its individuality through what it consumes, own, buys. This is a trend that has been fostered by corporations and even our own government in order to keep the economy growing steadily as we spend more and more of our money, work longer hours to afford things, but never get any happier.

So what exactly does make us happier? Turns out it's not "things" but people. Connections with the community, time with our friends and family (even if that means working less and having less money), and time with ourselves. It's a pretty old idea, nothing new exactly about that, but something we may have forgotten in our rush to the shopping mall.

Mckibben also outlines how we can make our economy more durable, while not always fixating on growth as the end point. Growth doesn't necessarily mean "good" as he points out in his book. In fact, often it can mean "bad" as we suck up natural resources and call it wealth. Going back to local economies and small scale production, are just two of the ideas he presents in this book.

If you're dubious at all after reading this little description, it's probably because his argument can't be compressed into an Amazon review. Read the book and decide for yourself whether local economies with little growth can indeed be more durable and happier than what we have now.

I loved this book. Bill McKibben offers fact with a contagious child-like optimism. He is a little redundant at times, but overall, a very positive twist to our current consumer societal predicament.