Deep Economy reads as a response to two very influential economic works: Adam Smith's The Weath of Nations (alluded to in McKibben's subtitle: The Wealth of Communities) and Thomas Friedman's much more recent work, The World is Flat. McKibben argues that economic theory and political doctrine valuing growth above all has led us to debase the environment. Moreover, since increasing wealth provides diminishing returns, we are not even becoming happier through this destructive growth. In fact, people in developed countries (particularly America) are becoming less happy. McKibben's urges us to return to community values and local economies. Doing so, he says, is the only way we can regain happiness and avert environmental disaster. Actually, he presents the latter as all but inevitable and asserts that we will need to rediscover local economies because working together in communities will be the only way we will be able to survive the effects of global warming and environmental degradation.

The most interesting thing about this book for me was the conscious dialogue McKibben had with the field of economics. He is very consciously responding to the religion of economics that he traces back to Adam Smith. Importantly, his argument is not with Smith's book itself. He notes that Smith believed that community structures would enable markets to function properly. Smith assumed, for example, that people would know the merchants selling them their goods, and this would prevent dishonest behavior and prevent consumers from making uninformed choices. Today, however, as McKibben argues, markets have gotten so big that they no longer work in our best interests. His most compelling arguments probably center on food. He demonstrates that the food we eat increasingly travels immense distances to reach us, and he argues that this is the result of the economic doctrine: it is less expensive to have one farmer manage a huge monoculture crop than to have many small farmers. The tragedy is that those many small farmers would grow crops in a more environmentally sustainable manner, they would grow a greater variety of food (thus supporting the varied tastes of local consumers), and small farms would actually grow more food per acre. ( )

I have been making personal lifestyle changes for years now. I've replaced toxic home products with non-toxic products, and now I'm replacing those products with handmade cleaning and beauty mixtures I make from simple ingredients. I've reduced my family's CO2 output down to just 10% of what the average American household emits. I live in a small apartment that has a relatively small land and utility impact. Most of my furniture and at least half of my clothing are used. I eat just about as locally as I can. I don't live perfectly sustainably, but I'm doing a pretty good job.

And there came a point a few months ago, where I realized that all of those personal changes were great, but not enough. I needed to do more. Because as I make these changes, I am confronted daily by hundreds of people around me who are not making those changes. And as I make these changes, our community, our city, our state, our country and the world as a whole still has a lot of work to do.

So I came to read Deep Economy, by Bill McKibben. And I loved it. It was a book that exposed some of the real risks of climate change and resource depletion. And then -gasp- it began to delve into possible solutions. It hinted at an idea I'd been thinking about: that sustainable living is not just about eating locally, it's about living locally.

It is a wonderful gateway into the world of a "green", socially responsible economy. From here, I have gone on to learn much more.... ( )

Ideas on a new way to look at our economy. Measuring in human satisfaction and fulfillment instead of measures like GNP growth. How community and ecology interact with economics. Why localization of the things we buy and eat and the energy we use makes sense for the future. How these things might impact global warming and other issues harming our planet and ways of life. Why it makes sense to move away from the extreme individualization of American culture to something more community focused.

Extremely well written, researched, and thought out thesis on where the world should be moving to save it's future. Individualized to what each of us can do to make our lives better while helping the planet. ( )

short, readable, accesable, concise, why the world needs to slow down economically, live with a local economy ( )

an antidote to Kunstler: yes, shit will happen, but this is how we can deal with it and be better off. ( )

As a long time fellow traveler of communitarians and the author of a little known/read book on libraries and community, McKibben hit my sweet spot. I guess any book dedicated to Wendell Berry has me from hello.

McKibben starts with familiar ground (Americans use up too much of the world’s resources / we are mining most resources) and adds some excellent perspective (pre-1970 houses were the size of today’s garages).

He moves on to look at perpetual growth as a trailing indicator of happiness and a poor definition for success. He is not in some mystical world here, but looking at the economics of the matter. If you are hungry, more food keeps you alive. If you are full, more food shortens your life instead of prolonging it.



Next he reports on his attempt to eat locally for a year. Those of us in areas that get snow know that this will be a challenge, though our grandparents though nothing of it. Almost all their food came from the surrounding farms, dairies and ranches. Economically, it makes a great deal of sense to support the people of your community by buying locally, since their purchases in turn support you. This means more than just McJobs at WalMart. The box stores are like strip miners and agribusiness – they leave everything poorer than they find it. If it makes sense for Wisconsin to import potatoes from Idaho, it won’t when the cost of transporting them rises. Add in the shared costs of pollution and exhausted energy supplies and local food makes good economic sense.



In a chapter titled All for One, or One for All, McKibben looks at hyper-individuality. As recently, the though of walling oneself off from society was considered a sign of either divine spark or insanity. Now I’ve got mine is the motto of the Republican Party, gated communities abound and people don’t even know their neighbors. But this is not just kvetching – he has a plan for turning the tide. It involves again focusing and funding the local as much as the mega. It involves shopping as a member of a community, not as just an individual.

In The wealth of communities, McKibben argues that communities are the real measure of wealth and gives examples of real projects that are operating in the sweet spot between too big and too small.

Finally, in Durable future, he looks at the very real problem of global poverty and globalization. He does not see it even physically possible for China to become the US in terms of consumption. There just isn’t that much oil as a start. How can we build a future that will work? Progress, if defined as the American way of life, is not a long-term option. It is already too costly for many Americans just in price, not to mention the long-term cost. Again, he gives worldwide examples of people building a future that actually has a future.

This is another book that has the power to change your life. If it doesn’t, I hope it at least widens your viewpoint. ( )

Don't be put off by the title. This is a tremendously readable journey through the hope and terror of our times (um, not Terror with a capital as in suicide bombs, but lower-case terror as in the world going to hell in a handbasket). It was only great self-restraint that stopped me from constantly regaling companions or passers-by with tidbits.

The subtitle more or less says what the book's about: it challenges the single minded preoccupation with growth as the supreme indicator of economic success, and the 'hyper individualism' that that preoccupation involves; and a durable future as opposed to the likely outcome if things keep moving in the current direction with the current impetus. It's a passionate, research-based argument for renewed -- or brand new -- attention to the local: in food production and consumption, and in all other economic activity. It piles up examples of the loss in human terms caused by the ruthless pursuit of economic 'efficiency' but it also accumulates a persuasive number of counter-examples, of people forgoing large profits for the sake of the common good.
Intuitively, to this uneducated mind, the prevailing view that permanent growth is the only way forward looks like a recipe for disaster. Here is a substantial, reasoned, systematic move towards an alternative way of thinking about these things. Not that Bill McKibben is trying to pass himself off as a brilliant innovator; his brilliance lies not only in his throng of memorable stories to flesh out his argument, but also in the mass of telling quotes from an army of researchers, experimenters and thinkers.

This book starts with the premise that economic growth as we have known it is untenable. McKibben trots out mind-boggling statistics of the amount of raw material that would be needed to outfit India and China to the American level of material wealth.

Economists tend to skew figures in a way that rewards growth: "An orthodox economist can tell what makes someone happy by what they do. If they buy a Ford Expedition, then ipso facto a Ford Expedition is what makes them happy. That's all you need to know. The economist calls this behavior 'utility maximization'." But consumption is not increasing happiness. Many people are not sharing in the prosperity of contemporary America, and, according to McKibben those who do aren't noticeably happier than those who aren't - or than their counterparts of the past.

He is not idealizing a bucolic past, nor is he idealizing the poor but contented peasant making $100 a year in some faraway land. He freely agrees that much of the world does need more money and more things. But he makes a fairly persuasive case that the model of the large-scale corporation has done little to increase either our wealth or our happiness.

He provides a number of counterexamples: successful sustainable, or semi-sustainable, agriculture in regions as diverse as Vermont (where the author lives), Cuba, and Bangladesh; one of the last "full-service" radio stations on the commercial airwaves; and jam bands. These examples are almost by definition scattershot. While McKibben is such an engaging writer that I enjoyed reading about these things, in retrospect I recognized that they did not quite add up to a global model.

But maybe that wasn't his point. He is advocating a way of thinking far removed from statistically-oriented economics, and from Margaret Thatcher's alarming 1987 pronouncement that "There is no such thing as 'society'. There are just individuals and their families." He is talking about a concept of local and regional well-being that is hard to quantify but that can be recognized when it's present.

I mentioned that he is an engaging writer. In large part, that's because he seems like a regular guy. He's a Vermont Methodist who likes the Red Sox and enjoys a beer now and then: not your stereotypical "deep ecologist." He's not preachy, nor is he sentimental. I didn't get a sense that he lived in a glow of superiority to his readers - or his opponents. For that, and for the clarity of his writing, this is an excellent introduction to communitarian economics. ( )

"More is no longer better" is the theme of Bill McKibbens new book. It is not only clear that the earth cannot support our current level of consumption and carbon emissions but that more does not make us happy. McKibben suggests that a different economics--one more local in scale--would demand fewer resources, cause less ecological disruption, better weather coming shocks and allow us to find a better balance between individual and community. And, at the same time provide greater satisfaction. McKibben spends a year trying to eat locally (food from within 100 miles of his house in Vermont). It is distressing to see how difficult this is due to the breakdown of local farming infrastructure. (Nowhere in the state of Vermont can he find milled oats, for example.) However, the tide may be turning. He gives great examples of folks banding together on the community level and making a difference.



This book provides lots ot think about--the failure of growth economics and what communities might be able to do about it. A highly recommended read. ( )

I'm not at all interested in economics, so some parts of this book were over my head, but most of it was accessible. McKibben has some great ideas that need further exploration. ( )