Localtarianism vs. Economic Vitality

What begins sensibly (eat less red meat and more leafy vegetables) invariably proceeds to dogma (vegetarianism) and completes the circle as farce (raw veganism). Likewise, what began as a way to get higher-quality seasonal produce (urban farmer's markets) have served as a gateway drug to a much broader buying-local-is-better religion rapidly gaining popularity for its perceived benefits for both the global environment and the local economy.

But is it really? Folk economics tells us that it's better to buy something in our town than to buy it from the next town, state, or country over. This feels right because when a Walgreens opens up 5 miles away and our little neighborhood pharmacist decides it's time to retire, we feel a certain loss of community and personal service. While there are countervailing benefits (such as 24-hour stores and reduced prescription drug costs), the negative effects can be concentrated in certain areas. If you happen to be the sort of person who believes main street business districts are essentially important, then you may finally arrive at the conclusion that anyone who chooses to buy something from Home Depot rather than the local Ace Hardware is a cretin.

But this sort of thinking scales up very badly. The money which leaves a community when a better drugstore opens up the next town over can return when one of your superior local businesses draws customers from that town. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the benefits of distant trade came over a thousand years ago when the Roman Empire went into terminal decline:

In the Dark Ages that followed, cities shrank, markets atrophied, merchants disappeared, literacy declined and--crudely speaking--once Goth, Hun and Vandal plundering had run its course, everybody had to go back to being self-sufficient again...The Dark Ages were a massive experiment in the back-to-the-land hippy lifestyle (without the trust fund): you ground your own corn, sheared your own sheep, cured your own leather, and cut your own wood.

This, mind you, is in a time when modern industrial scale and technology were not even dreamed of. A small Roman city, if cut off from the world, would probably contain within its borders the means of producing some sizable proportion of the food, clothing, and shelter needed to survive. The mobile phone in my pocket, by comparison, is the product of knowledge, labor, and raw materials drawn from every corner of the globe.

And it's not just fancy electronics, either. The 100-Mile Suit project was a fascinating exercise in which a bunch of artist/crafter/Williamsburg hipster types decided to make a men's suit entirely out of materials and labor sourced within 100 miles of Philadelphia. The end result is fascinating as a commentary on the modern global supply chain, but I wouldn't want to wear the end result. In the end, farmer's markets succeed primarily because the tomatoes taste better than the ones in the Piggly Wiggly, at least during those months of the year when such things grow in New Engand.