on 11/1/01 9:44 AM, Steve at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> --- "Chiaviello, Anthony" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Buying locally is considered one of the advantages of
>> bioregionalism,
>> enabling regions to exist and prosper as units. Do I see a can of
>> worms
>> opening here?
>
> Well, no if you don't mind the potential hit to the standard of
> living.
>
> Steve
>
I am mostly a lurker on this list - but this issue requires some comments.
While bioregonalism in the strong sense is utterly impractical - I am
originally from Kansas in the Great Plains - and unlike CA or BC, the Great
Plains bioregion would have great difficulty producing a viable diet and
many goods for its population.  Even CA needed a continent sized, if not
world sized, network during the very bad drought of some years ago - let
alone what would be the case if a drought the size of some recorded in tree
rings were to take place for 20 years or more.

However, at the same time, traditional economic efficiency models eliminate
from theoretical gaze (by terming them "externalities") many aspects of
local production that are not reflected in the price system.  For example, a
city street with many small shops generates street traffic that keeps crime
down - without increasing police forces and the like.  There are many such
examples.  (In a sense the higher prices of small stores helps pay for these
"services" but because there is no clear connection between these advantages
and the prices paid, this often fails to be taken into consideration by a
buyer.  Thus, in some ways the standard of living (if incorporating non
monetary values) may well decline even as it rises in purely dollars and
cents terms when buying goods.

Human societies, like natural communities, can be understood as complex
ecological relationships - see the work of Jane Jacobs for example. The
strength AND the weakness of the price system is that it economizes what a
person needs to know to operate effectively in a complex market order.  But
price systems do not incorporate "externalities" and "externalities" can not
be completely incorporated into a price system, regardless of what some
libertarians might think.  The more economic relationships spill over from
purely consumer relations to impacting these "externalities" the more
purlely contractual market exchanges cannot be assumed to automatically
improve human well being simply because they lower money prices over all.

One of the strengths of the bioregional vision is that it is sensitive to
the complex webs of relationships within local communities, both socially
and within their natural environment, that are NOT reflected in economic
reasoning, and that tend to become impoverished over time as purely
economioc incentives dominate social relations.

Gus diZerega
Dept. of Politics
Whitman College
Walla Walla, WA 99362
USA