SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt
SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt
SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt
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The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy <br />
International Conference<br />
187<br />
capitalist enterprises, we might do business with cooperatives, non-profits, green<br />
businesses, or socially responsible ones. And in terms of finance, we might forgo the<br />
big banks and deal with credit unions, cooperative or community banks, or<br />
microfinance institutions that keep money in the community and offer low-interest<br />
loans or sweat equity options. In revealing the entire body of the iceberg, JK<br />
Gibson-Graham and their colleagues disrupt capitalocentrism—which means<br />
defining all economic activities in terms of their relation to capitalism (e.g.,<br />
compatible with, contained within, the same as, etc.), thereby paving the way for a<br />
potentially infinite array of economic practices, relations, and identities.<br />
Their conception of community economy follows from this economic plurality<br />
and adds the ethical element:<br />
The community economy is a normative representation of the diverse<br />
economy, one in which certain ethics are valued over others. In a community<br />
economy our interdependence with each other and with all earth others is<br />
recognized and respected as we negotiate: what is necessary to personal,<br />
social and ecological survival; how social surplus is appropriated and<br />
distributed; whether and how social surplus is to be produced and consumed;<br />
[and] how a commons is produced and sustained. (“Community Economies”)<br />
These authors and activists stop short of specifying which ethics should be<br />
valued. They aim instead to open up space for debating relevant ethics and exploring<br />
alternatives. They do, however, stress interdependence, with nature as central to our<br />
communal wellbeing.<br />
One last thought on community economies. It may seem from the descriptions<br />
above that a community economy suggests small scale. Certainly, in many ways it<br />
fits into calls by some to localize in response to the ravages of globalization. But a<br />
community economy could be regional, national, or even global. Members of a<br />
given community economy need not be in geographic proximity, though they should<br />
meet or be working toward Daly and Cobb’s four community criteria. Moreover, a<br />
community economy must recognize our embeddedness in larger contexts, even our<br />
inextricable connections with the global economy. Given the dynamics of social life,<br />
it’s not reasonable to envision a “return to tradition” in terms of organization (small<br />
communities) or facilely privilege “local” over “global,” particularly in terms of the<br />
knowledge, skills, and so on that make up the commons. In reality, people select<br />
from a wide variety of ideas and techniques available to them from global, regional,<br />
local, and historical sources. In the imaginative combination of these elements,<br />
something entirely new is fashioned.