Restoring a healthy economy will require local focus. Here’s why. | John Fullerton | Big Think

Local economy is now a fairly common idea in this new economy space, and there's good reason for that. Again, going back to the principles in real life, life happens in the context of a unique culture in a unique place. So, a tropical rainforest has its own unique characteristics, very different than a, than a, you know, an Arctic zone.

In human cultures or in human communities, it's not just the geological context that matters, but it's also the cultural context that matters. So, business in Japan or in South Korea happens very differently than it does in the United States or in the United Kingdom. Yet, in our modern understanding of economy, we talk about this thing called the global economy, and we sort of aggregate numbers into a global GDP, which is completely divorced from the unique qualities and characteristics that exist in each place.

I would even go so far as to say that the unit of analysis that we've chosen—nation-states and corporations—is a human artifact that was originated in the modern age using reductionist thinking. In fact, the real or the correct unit of analysis is bioregional scale place. Imagine if you thought about human economic development from a place-based perspective. You would have, instead of a global corporation like Apple thought of as a single thing, you would have Apple's manufacturing plant in China as part of the Chinese bioregional economy.

In one of our hubs in Buffalo, you have the solar polar manufacturing plant that is operated by Panasonic. But our partner in that project is the Panasonic plant manager, not Panasonic in Japan. Because that Panasonic plant manager in Buffalo is part of that local community and is operating in that context and has to understand the history of that place in order to thrive in that place.

So, in a nutshell, we believe that the new pathway toward economic prosperity is going to happen sort of in the context of community in place, and build from there through networking, as opposed to happen from sort of top-down policy initiatives. Even some of the well-regarded, well-read columnists now are onto this. Both Tom Friedman and David Brooks, for example, have written about community-based economic development in the context of, you know, when the nation-state is broken, things work better.

You know, the interesting things are happening at the local level, which is true. What I don't think they've done yet is connect the dots to see that that's actually in alignment with the principles of how living systems work. So, it's correct! It's not just an observation; it's actually what has to happen.

The hopeful sign here is that the worse things get, the greater the pressures that build, the more that these shifts happen automatically. You know, systems don't change unless there's pressure. If you put a pot of water on the stove, it saves a pot of water, and truly turn the heat up, and then eventually it boils. So, the heat's turned up in our global economy, and that pressure is causing the economy to alter and find its way into a more healthy state.

And that's called emergence in complexity science, and we see that happening all over the world now. Get smarter, faster with new videos daily at 5:00 a.m. Eastern.