SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

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