Tea Party criticisms of sustainable development expose major fault-lines in the American political landscape. Sarah Palin targets these issues in her Iowa Tea Party stump speech. Palin points to the “permanent political class” that can and does ignore most Americans. Second, she shines a bright light on “corporate crony capitalism,” the capture of government by big business so as to direct wealth and power to the 1% using tax breaks, subsidies, regulations, trade policies and other government powers. And, bravely, she admits that it is not big government that is the problem, but bigness: General Electric, Bank of America, United Nations, Unions, ADM, Microsoft, Pepsi, Environmental Protection Agency, and the World Bank. The size and hierarchical structure of these institutions threatens the independent, individual-rights oriented thinking and action that once defined America and remains the best hope for democracy and freedom.
Palin, Giridharadas argues, reframes the political landscape. She refocuses our attention on abuse of power by big organizations. It is not government that is a problem, it is instead the benign neglect or outright abuse of power that bigness promotes, including big government. Stated differently, using a positive rather than a negative framing, Palin appeals for more autonomy, individual responsibility, and self-reliance.
I think Palin uncovers some higher ground where adversaries can become allies, where, for example, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street might uncover agreement. Rather than the strained Tea Party’s critique that local government is implementing a United Nations Agenda to subvert the US Constitution, we should instead focus our attention on lost control over our future.
Self-reliant, autonomous individuals and communities want control and sovereignty over their lives and futures. But our lives and communities are moving in the opposite direction. Globalization and the sheer scale of humanity have made us economically interconnected, ecologically interdependent, and socially integrated. Carbon emitted by the rapid expansion of Chinese coal-fired electricity generation plants affects farmers in Africa. A US debt crisis sends European stock markets into free fall. Revolution in Egypt sparks world-wide political debate. Biotechnology invented in Cambridge changes agriculture in India. Investment capital providing jobs in our communities relocates overnight, without barriers or restraint. The food on our dinner tables and the medicines in our cabinets are produced beyond our boarders where our public health inspectors have little regulatory power.
No wonder we feel a loss of control over our daily lives and alienated from our future.
I suggest it is no coincidence that we also see a rise of localism and advocacy for local foods, community investment banks, and “Made in the USA” labels. These programs are based on the (uncritical) assumption that local is good, or better, than global. David Hess examines these trends in detail. His recent book, Localist Movements in a Global Economy, examines the environmental, economic, and social impacts of projects that promote local media, local businesses, local shopping, local food, local investment, and so forth. The results are mixed, not so much as to warrant abandoning localism, but rather to make us think more critically about what we want from localism.
Localism is not always good, as some sustainable developers assert. Just like government is not always bad, as some Tea Partiers assert. The Tea Party and localist advocates need to be more reflective than ideological. Palin helps us refocus on bigness and crony capitalism rather than government as the problem. Hess helps us focus on economic opportunity, environment quality, and community capacity as desired outcomes rather than just being local.
Some solutions might be best when local. I think that is probably the case with sustainable development. Solutions to the enormous and pressing challenges of sustainable development will require local action, an active government, and an engaged citizenry. Hopefully we can get beyond name-calling and ideology to economic and community development that is sustainable.