Black Friday and Wendell Berry

On this Black Friday I am spending some time reading Wendell Berry's essay, "The Idea of a Local Economy" and reflecting on the following excerpt. If you have the time, consider letting it sit with you, too:

"We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics. Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of "the many" who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present.

Sentimental capitalism is not as different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim. Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the "free market" and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to "the many"--in, of course, the future

These forms of political economy may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a political faith for which there is no justification, and because they issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers. They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist. Communism and "free market" capitalism both are modern versions of oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means to good ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means. The trick is to define the end vaguely--"the greatest good of the greatest number" or "the benefit of the many"--and keep it at a distance."

 Then, after tearing into the corporate economic system, Berry comes about like so:

"The principles of neighborhood and subsistence will be disparaged by the globalists as "protectionism"--and that is exactly what it is. It is a protectionism that is just and sound, because it protects local producers and is the best assurance of adequate supplies to local consumers. And the idea that local needs should be met first and only surpluses exported does not imply any prejudice against charity toward people in other places or trade with them. The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. And the principle of subsistence is in fact the best guarantee of giveable or marketable surpluses. The kind of protection is not "isolationism."

Some thoughts for your Black Friday.

Excerpts are from Wendell Berry, "The Idea of Local Economy," 2001. Printed in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002.