Local control is a foundational conservative principle—but progressives also embrace it. This essay by David Korten was published online by Yes Magazine on April 5, 2017.
[Editor’s comment: I was disappointed to read David’s essay and find no acknowledgement of the facts-on-the-ground of the Community Rights movement’s success in 200+ mostly conservative rural communities across the US. Our movement is one of the few that is already successfully bringing progressives and conservatives together to insist on a community’s right to govern itself, and to protect its own health and welfare from harmful corporate or governmental activities, free from interference by the State. How about in future including some of these success stories already in place across the rural landscape?]
Much has been made of the split between urban voters who favored Democrats and rural voters who favored Republicans. Trump prevailed by speaking directly to the pain of the voters who felt the most deeply betrayed by a system that once offered them jobs with attractive wages, security, and generous benefits. The jobs themselves, however, were often dangerous, dirty, and exhausting—coal mining being an extreme example. Others were mind-numbingly monotonous.
Those who endured the downside of these jobs took pride in their ability to support their families in comfort and dignity without need for government handouts. They valued their contributions to their communities and to America’s position in the world.
Most of those well-compensated, unionized, working-class jobs have disappeared. Those who once held them—or aspired to hold them—are understandably angry. They want back the jobs, dignity, and sense of service an unjust system now denies them.
Despite Trump’s glib promise and the hopes of those who trusted him more than they trusted Hillary Clinton, those jobs are not coming back. The impact of the trade agreements that facilitated the initial outsourcing of those jobs is now superseded by the impact of automation. Moving robots from China to the United States will not bring back the jobs that automation is rapidly eliminating. We must adapt our economic institutions to these realities to meet the needs of all—including our need for dignity and self-respect—in ways consistent with the limits of a finite planet.
Local control is a foundational conservative principle. Many progressives embrace that principle as well, with a call to seek solutions in local economies grounded in local ownership. This area of agreement provides a potential foundation for an effective rural-urban political alliance to establish control of jobs, resources, markets, and finance in the hands of people who have a stake in the long-term economic, environmental, and social health of the communities in which they live. MORE…