Sense-Making in a Changing World

Localisation and The Global Economy: Helena Norberg-Hodge with Morag Gamble Part 1 of 4

November 13, 2021 Morag Gamble: Permaculture Education Institute Season 3 Episode 1
Sense-Making in a Changing World
Localisation and The Global Economy: Helena Norberg-Hodge with Morag Gamble Part 1 of 4
Sense-making in a Changing World with Morag Gamble
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Show Notes Transcript

Welcome to the first of this special 4 part series on Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast. I am talking with a pioneer of the new economy movement - internationally claimed localisation activist Helena Norberg-Hodge.  She initiated a global celebration of World Localization Day which is being celebrated on 21 June in 2022, but we are celebrating all month with weekly episodes with Helena.

Helena is the founder and Director of Local Futures, an international nonprofit organisation dedicated to renewing ecological and social wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide.

Helena's first book Ancient Futures has been translated into 40 languages and sold over 1 million copies. She's been the subject of hundreds of articles and written many books, including her latest book, Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness, which accompanies her award-winning documentary, also called the Economics of Happiness.

Helena's work spans almost five decades and she collaborates with leading ecological thinkers. She's been the recipient of a Right Livelihood Award, also known as the alternative Nobel Peace Prize and also the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” 

I first met Helena back in 1992 at Schumacher College, and was absolutely inspired by the work that she was doing and subsequently volunteered with her in Ladakh (Little Tibet). 

This is the first of our series of conversations about localisation. A new episode will be released each Wednesday 

  1. the global economy
  2. the food system
  3. community and ecology
  4. big picture activism

So grab your notebook, listen in wit

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This podcast is an initiative of the Permaculture Education Institute.

Our way of sharing our love for this planet and for life, is by teaching permaculture teachers who are locally adapting this around the world - finding ways to apply the planet care ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. We host global conversations and learning communities on 6 continents.

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We broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. I acknowledge this is and always will be Aboriginal land, pay my respects to elders past and present, and extend my respect to indigenous cultures and knowledge systems across the planet.

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Morag Gamble:

Hello, my name's Morag Gamble from the Permaculture Education Institute. And welcome to the first of this special four-part series on Sense-making in a Changing World podcast with internationally claimed localization activist Helena Norberg-Hodge. Helena is the founder and director of local futures, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to renewing ecological and social wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide. Helena's first book Ancient Futures has been translated into 40 languages and sold over 1 million copies. She's been the subject of hundreds of articles and written many books, including her latest book, Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness which accompanies her award-winning documentary. Also called The Economics of Happiness. Helena's work spans almost five decades. With support and collaboration with leading ecological thinkers. She's been the recipient of a right livelihood award, also known as the alternative Nobel peace prize and also the Goi Peace Prize. I first met Helena back in 1992 at Schumacher college, and was absolutely inspired by the work that she was doing and subsequently volunteered with her in the Ladakh or little Tibet. So in these set of conversations, these 4 conversations, the first one here is about the global economy. And then next, we dive in and discuss the food system, focusing on community and ecology in the third conversation and in our fourth and final conversation, looking at big picture activism and where to from here. So grab your notebook, listen with friends, follow up by watching Helena's films and delving into her study group materials and localization action guide. So before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I'm meeting with you today. I'm here on the lands of the Gubbi Gubbi people and on the banks of the Moocaboola river. So sit back and enjoy, and thank you so much for being here as part of this series of conversations with Helena Norberg-Hodge. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Helena. It was an absolute delight to have you on the show. W e've been talking about doing something like this for a w hile now. And, u m, we were actually talking about doing it f ace-to-face, but then COVID happened and we're across borders that have been kind of closed for a while. So it's lovely to have this chance to, t o come together t o do this. So just forthe listeners, I met Helena gosh, from 1992, I think I was 23 and it was at Schumacher college. And you were talking about the work you were doing in L adakh and something about the way you spoke about the big picture of what you were speaking about, what was happening in L adakh and what the insights that you got from that, just s witched something in me that has been kind of the flame that I think has been underpinning, everything I do ever since. And, and, you know, the, the heart of the young activist and someone who wants to make a difference. There's something about how you have always presented your work. I think it makes so much sense. And it's the way of understanding that I think we all need to hear. So I'm so delighted that we've got this chance to do a series to start with big picture thinking, l ike, what is the need for systemic change and then going into food systems o r economy education and unpacking this as we go. So welcome to the show, Helena, thank you for being here.

Helena Norberg-Hodge:

Thank you.

Morag Gamble:

You know, I don't think anyone has ever got through doing a permaculture course with me without being exposed to Ancient Futures, The Economics of Happiness and your work, because I think when we're looking at this local action, having that big picture is absolutely critical. And it's actually the understanding of the need for local food systems and relocalization and why that is, is actually how I ended up focusing on permaculture itself as an application of that big picture thinking. So maybe we could start with just diving into the deep end of saying, well, what is the need for systems change? I know we're facing so many multiple crises in the world that are, you know, they're interconnected crisis. Where is the systems change or the systemic change that you see that needs to happen? And what's inspired you to see that?

Helena Norberg-Hodge:

Yeah. Well it's been, you know, what inspired me to see it was this experiences in Ladakh and also Bhutan. And in other traditional land-based cultures, but essentially the big picture that we need is to look at, broadly speaking, the economic system. But the economic system today has also become a global consumer culture. That's being imposed worldwide. It's become a system that is shaping knowledge, shaping schooling, that's shaping the media, that shaping the world. It's also shaping democracy and basically annihilating democracy. So when we, when I talk about the economy, I'm talking about this global system that now literally affects all aspects of life across the world. And that system, as an external system, not something that emanates from the world itself is not some kind of evolutionary path that was implemented by people who wanted to become bigger. And human beings don't get bigger and bigger human beings get big, and then they start shutting down and they die. That's the, where the living world. So this economic system is the system that needs to be shifted if we want to do with climate change. If we want to deal the frightening gap between rich and poor, which is in every single country, I don't know of a margin there's really, and I'm from my native country of Sweden to Bhutan, to the most remote corners of the world. That gap is widening in such an obvious and really obscene way. Uh, at the same time, the issue of climate change is often focused on, not the only environmental issue, but we've got this in many ways, more obvious and more frightening trend, which is the extension of our diversity, the extinction of diversity, of all kinds of cultures, languages, and biological diversity. So yeah, these systems change that I'm talking about is the economic system and it's, it's cultural and worldview manifestation.

Morag Gamble:

So how do we start to tackle that? Because it is, so it is everywhere. Like you say, it's this global corporate consumer culture, and yet we are individuals, communities, organizations that are within this. So this is kind of some of the key questions that you explore. Like I'm so interested to hear how you can describe this big picture activism and thinking about how we can, well, first of all, what is going, what is driving that consumer culture and what are some of those underpinning challenges that you see there that we need to address and we need to call out and how can we do that from where we see.

Helena Norberg-Hodge:

I think the, um, this central thread that we've been trying to raise awareness about for a long time is that there have been a series of trade treaties that were brought in, particularly after the, they brought in after the second world war, along with the so-called Bretton Woods Institutions, the world bank and the IMF were brought in along with something called the GAP, which was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Now a lot of people were critical of the world bank's activities and the IMF, but they didn't focus on the trade treaties. There were somehow from left to right. Everybody thought the trade is a good thing. Global trade is fine. So there has been very little awareness of how these treaties are the reason, the absolutely main reason why global banks and other corporations have become so powerful in these last 35 years in particular. So it took off after the second world war and many well-intentioned people were convinced that this was a way to avoid another world war to avoid another depression. So a lot of well-intentioned people supported this idea of integrating economic activity worldwide. But what wasn't recognized was that global traders in food, in pharmaceuticals, in engineering and military, these global corporations were already very powerful. And the second world war in many ways was about whose corporations were going to win. So the role of global trade and global traders really had not been recognized as something that was very destructive.

Morag Gamble:

We'll stop there and explain something you just said, because I don't think I've really heard, it said that way, that the second world war was about..

Helena Norberg-Hodge:

A lot to do with..

Morag:

Yeah can we just talk a bit more about that?

Helena:

Yeah, I haven't studied it in detail, and I can't even remember the titles of the books that did describe in greater detail the way that what was emerging in Japan and in Germany where these very powerful, particularly chemical corporations in Germany, i t was o ne was called[ inaudible], which was a very powerful large corporation. And they were developing very effective techniques, you know, useful in the modern world using fossil fuels and in America, DuPont was t he sort of counterpart. And similarly in Japan, these developments w ere going on. So from the sort of books that I've skimmed and seen over the years, it was clear that the competition between these corporations and between these countries is very much linked to who was going to be controlling resources, global trade, w ho was going to have more, those more resources and more control, you know, more market control. So that was clear. And a gain, this little film that we launched this week, or local. A n 8-minute film, a nd we tried to, to show that we really have to go back to the beginnings of the modern economy to understand why global trade is problematic. And so we tried to show that the beginnings of this modern economy started with slavery and enclosures in Europe meant that elites pushed people off the land through regulations, as they p ushed them into a sort of Dickensian London, y ou k now, which Dickens would write about, they had broken down the social cohesion that people had developed i n, i n, in order to live off the land together and sustainably. Wasn't perfect. T hey're not g oing t o have been c onflict and p roblem, but they did have more human scale decentralized or localized institutions. And now suddenly they were forced off the land fragmented competing in this urban situation, no land, no resources. And of course these cities in the beginning were filthy, you know, pollution, illness, theft, breakdown, and sadly, a lot of the story of progress starts there. So the narrative we're told is 'Ooh, look at that, all that illness, the crime and the mess. And I'm really lucky that we had the economy o f progress to grow out of that mess.' So what we're saying is, wait a minute, we actually need to start reexamining whether living in a more decentralized way, not so dependent on a tiny and not so dependent on global trade could actually be better for the majority of people. So what we show is that as this was happening, it was the globally active traders. W e d o i t really well, you know, using slaves and g athering resources from around the world. You know, having people g row cotton on one side of the world and t hen having this cheap labor i n London who would then turn that cotton into cloth. So this is to look at global trade as promoted by and as implemented by the modern economy. As compared to trade, which always existed forever, even global trade, even in very t raditional i ndigenous c ultures. And i f you know, it's not to say that w e n eed to go back to the way things were then, but it is to be aware of how it is that power has concentrated in the hands of global corporations for a very long time. So even pre, from the 17 hundreds to the first world war t han the second world war, these global t rends i s i ncorporators are becoming more and more p owered. And then after the second world war that was sort of instituted in w ith the help of this institution, is that we're n ow vocally trying to integrate economic activity.

Morag:

So just stopping and just rewinding a few sentences there. You were saying that the power was concentrating more and more in these corporations. How did they get that power? How was that power extracted from people?

Helena:

Well, I always wanted to try to do like an animation about this. When I worked at one point with an animator and I was going to show her when the Kings s ent out the sort of Christopher Columbus characters across the world to gather wealth, you know, the g old and t hen jewelry. And they went across the world to sort of conquer the world. The Kings were in charge, and t hen sort of funding them. The b oats w ere still, you know, I said, w e're under the control of the rulers. And later on, as this traders benefited from the trade and t hen b ecame wealthy, and whether I was g oing t o try to show, you know, this human figure, like Christopher Columbus, suddenly a century later o r so morphing into, you know, h igh-rise buildings a nd o ther sort of s ymbolize i n these giant corporations and banks, b ecause interestingly enough, when you look at it in the banking world, it was a lso through this g lobalizing of the economy that bank started changing how they handled our wealth. So it used to be that we thought were, you know, we were putting the money in some of these and they were keeping it there. But then they started being able to create money out of keeping our money and something called fractional reserve was created where they only kept a fraction of that wealth. So that if, you know, say in a town, if suddenly everybody wanted their money back, it wouldn't be there. But so t hey w ere able to have this make believe. Now that, and I can't tell you the details of exactly t o w hat o bsidian proportions that has escalated, but this took on i n new dimensions, roughly around the same time as the whole global corporate world got more and more power. And one of t he s ign p oles was w hen things moved away from having at least i n the beginning, gold as a standard, and then later on the dollar as a standard. A nd now we're talking about t hese financial institutions creating wealth, essentially because we've given them the power to do so.

Morag:

When I first discovered that the national bank wasn't owned by our government, for example, these ideas that we have about our money and how it's kept and how it's managed and how it's about, you know, giving us back into like, it's a self interesting it words. It's, it's really not that at all. And so being caught into that, um, yeah,

Helena:

I was just going to say that I remember a banker telling me that he could see that in his bank, the young guys were developing this amazing instruments using computers, and they come back and tell the bosses who were older, that wall, you know, we've got this new mechanism now and the older boys, okay, go ahead. But it was in this convoluted internet world where hedge funds and layer upon layer of speculation, competition. Uh, and so dominated to the point that in 2008, there was a little bit of a, of a sort of explosive what was happening as there was this huge crash. And we realized them that these young guys have lots of fun gambling with our mortgages, with our lives. And it ended up costing, you know, a lot of people, their life savings at that point, the whole world knew we need to regulate these banks. We needed to have some democratic process that actually looks at what's going on and regulate it, but it wasn't done, you know, and that's, what's scary is that, that sort of bubble of an economic system that you cannot can not be, it's just not capable of being supportive of life. It's not capable of, it was if not being demanded,[ inaudible] within some kind of realm of democratically rules and regulations, some kind of limits. No. And, and my fear is that since 2008, till now that the sort of quadrillions of dollars that are being generated that's, this is really what I think we have to understand is that it constitutes this sort of giant air bubble of wealth that isn't real wealth and the winners inside this big bubble playing with quadrillions, trillions, and billions of dollars, I'm doing nothing productive, but on the contrary, they're not capable of genuinely productive work. It just is. It's not about evil, more people. It's not about even the people inside those bubbles. If we were really winning as a whereby this ridiculous amounts of money, it's not so much that they're such evil people is what we have. It's a truly evil system. I would say it's an ideal system because it's dividing us from ourselves, from the earth and from one another, it's, it's a destructive system.

Morag:

And also it's, uh, you know, keeping the whole nations, whole continents in poverty. And I wonder whether you could speak a little bit about the global north, global south difference and how this is being supported by the trade agreements and subsidies and all those other.

Helena:

The sort of narrative that talks about rich countries and poor countries is really outdated. And perhaps it was always exaggerated. Cause I remember talking already in early 90s, probably when I met you about how in Bombay Mumbai, you know, the houses cost more than they did in the west of London. And I was trying to point out that the, the really wealthy in India were much more wealthier than the wealthy in the west. So they had to start looking more at the injustice of this wealth created by the few, at the expense of the many. And that our numbers, you know, where we were saying. That was the story I was also talking about in Ladakh that hearing about someone only owning a dollar a day could actually be extremely misleading when it was in a place like Ladakh, Bhutan, where people had all their food, their clothing, their shelter, their water, their healthcare, all of it without money. And so then the dollar a day was just luxury. So they were actually better off definitely as part of the b uildup to all of this, when countries were enslaved and people were enslaved one side of the world and t hey w as selling to the rich countries, there was a discrepancy in wealth as counted by money. But I actually now think that for a very, very long time, the people in the industrialized w orlds, you know, in the west who were told how wealthy they were and how well off they were, w ere subjected to a lot of propaganda, but a progress that wasn't actually progress. Imagine, you know, London in the 1700s, you know, this incredible f ills and pollution, but then, you know, you look at it, you know, a hundred years later, or let's say a hundred years later, there was, there was what was happening was the gap between rich and poor was widening. And the people who w ere less well off, u h, w ere not doing particularly well at all. Then I often also t ry to explain that, say Sweden in the 70s, all of Scandinavia, especially, well maybe especially i n Sweden,[inaudible] faster, but there you had, you know, everything clean, everything comfortable, but people have been shoved away from the land, farming h ad essentially been, you know, taken over by machines. So fossil fuels transformed the economy o nto a nother level of driving, even more people off the land, in to high rise buildings again, using fossil fuels. Cement, you know, unattractive, unhealthy materials. And of course the farming was a disaster, fungicides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, very unhealthy. And people were in this process of being shoved on top of each other, like literally on top of each other, in this high-rise a partment, t hey were pushed into t he system when t here had no knowledge of each other. They didn't even know each other's names. Whereas in the rural areas, in the smaller t own and cities, people knew each other, they depended on each other. They knew that family has a furniture factory. Here are the farmers who are produced the wheat that this baker is baking. And there was that interdependence of human scale institutions. And in the meanwhile in a, in a place like Sweden, as people were t here crowded on top of each other, cut off from life. I used to come back from Ladakh and I talk about this, you know, so I think about the economics of happiness, going back to the 70s and to s ee that there was deep depression and anxiety there. alcoholism, you know? U m, and it was no wonder. I used to talk about way back then, even having a g oldfish could help people have a sense of meaning and purpose b ecause normally y ou wouldn't even have that. You know, the ultimate is that you don't even have a l ife. D o you have a plastic[inaudible b ecause you can't be bothered with looking after that bit of life. So it's, you know..

Morag:

A lot of these patterns that you're talking about a re things that you talked about through the example of Ladakh that y ou n otice there and t hat, that you see repeating over and over and over again. I think what I was asking t oo, behind the question of the different countries, I do a fair bit of work now with communities in Africa, i n east Africa in particular. And it feels like there is a distinct, like it's not just between the rich and the poor i n the country. It feels like there is a distinct extraction model and, u m, continued oppression there and destabilization of communities to make sure that those resources can continue to be extracted. And, you know, wondering whether you had any insights into the sort of underlying forces of that, because it's, you know, it's devastating communities.

Helena:

Yeah. I mean, again, that's so completely the part of the wealth creation by these giant corporation. And then that's when it can look like, you know, they're being exploited, the mining, especially for electronic gadgets. And then as long as we believe that people in the west are really genuinely better off because they've got their mobile phones. And so it looks like, and over there they're paying the price and we're winning as a work, but I just don't see it that way.

Morag:

Is this what you were talking years and years ago about counter development or, yeah. So you just want to speak a bit about that because I think it's important shifting what the goal, the societal goal is, isn't it really?

Helena:

Yeah. Yeah. Well counter development. I came up with that term because people would assume that I was there in Ladakh where I had come into a culture that hadn't been affected by modern, by the modern economy that hadn't been developed. They were still essentially living according to their own values and their own resources. And not, I like to talk about community reliance rather than their self-reliance. They were growing their own food. That's trading in the region and building their own houses, still making their own clothing. It was quite remarkable at that late date to experience that degree of self-reliance or community reliance. And I came across there, you know, most vibrant, happiest people I'd ever encountered. And then as I stayed[inaudible] working on language, when I then saw, what started happening, I've become sort of an ambassador for the Ladakhis is to explain that this propaganda basically that was coming in made them feel that they were backward and stupid, made them feel that farming was like shameful activity to have your fingers dirty when you could have a job in the city with completely clean hands. And when, if you wanted to be respected in any way, or loved you need to have these consumer gadgets. So I saw young people in particular, in the beginning getting affected by this and feeling a ashamed backwards on. So there was this great need to, to do what I call counter development to explain that actually in the west, by that time already, there were people who were beginning to appreciate growing a garden with their own hands. They're actually often quite wealthy people who were building Adobe houses like in Santa Fe houses were very similar to the houses in Ladakh made of mud, brick and even with the same kind of ceiling, beautiful wood ceilings. And I started bringing information to the Ladakhis to show there's absolutely no need to feel ashamed or backward. On the contrary, people who are well off, are also actually choosing to live closer to nature. They don't want to be often a city without trees or birds or life. And so a there's a newfor the natural. They'd prefer to have one natural food, want natural fibers. So that was the counter development, which was also accompanied by evidence of how, for instance, in Sweden, the main driver behind the organic movement came out and explained how they had to get the government to stop promoting so many toxic pesticides and chemicals and how they were p romoting o rganic a griculture. And this was countering the propaganda that the government was bringing in with literally promoting DDT and other pesticides in a h o spital with asb estos. A nd then people would farm[inaudible] gri d on it. And that kind of lack of knowledge of the possibility that people who are sm iling and friendly would come and tell you, fine to bake bread on this, you know, fine to use these pesticides. And then it turns out to be really bad foo d. T hat situation had never happened in their traditional experience. So it was very hard for them to know, to believe that thi s fr iendly experts could be tel l th e m th e wrong thi ng. Y eah. I mean, that's, of course still was go ing on in the west today or so. Yea h.

Morag:

Yeah, absolutely. But the same people are more and more wanting that kind of way of life that Ladakhi people had originally, you know, the qualities of that life. Just before we move on, but what is happening in Ladakh these days? How is, how is life in Ladakh.

Helena:

Well now for us, it's quite wonderful that there are younger people who are continuing with the work that we started to promote more organic agriculture. And just now, actually this week, they're having a w ith the local government. The local government is now, u m, has a little b it o f power. It's essentially Ladakhi government, but it's still, y ou know, the pressures of tourism have increased particularly Indian tourism. And yeah, I mean, it's, very much like the rest of the world now where there are some t hat a re definitely want to put the b rakes on this mainstream development and around the issue of food security a re really concerned to keep Ladakhi food production and agriculture alive, and to have it be organic. So that local government is now promoting that. But it's, we have to, again, in Ladakh a s here, I believe the thing that will make a big difference is when activists who have been focusing on one aspect from s ay, pesticides, causing cancer or climate change, or the mountains of plastic, or the poisoning of the water or the human health, and t hat, you know, epidemic now, not only a depression and anxiety, but also epidemics of hypertension, obesity, the gap between rich and poor, the loss of democracy. So the issues to deal with seem endless and very overwhelming. And so what we're trying to get people to do whether t hey're in Ladakh or here is to just be willing to take a deep breath and, you know, our message to them is that a s if you're willing to do that, if you're willing to take a deep breath and slow down a little bit to search for a more meaningful way to address this crisis. And first of all, people m ay need to be reminded or to hear that we have this proliferation of very frightening p rices, b oth social and environmental. U m, but you know, most people are probably aware of that, but then the m essage i s instead of tackling them individually, see if they're linked and try to deal with that. So that's what, what we're...

Morag:

How has your thoughts about it changed in recent years, considering with all the IPCC report saying, you know, the sort of like this time now, it feels like that the pressure is on. Has that shifted how you communicate your message or how you think we need to act? Is there something that's changed or is it just reinforced what you've been saying?

Helena:

I think it hasn't changed at all. It hasn't. I mean, the only thing that's changed that, where I'm a bit hesitant to talk about it. But I really think we have to understand that not only that these crises are linked, but that they're linked to the power of global corporations and that those global corporations are now spending more and more money to ensure that we don't identify them as the problem. And so the amount of money that's going into a type of propaganda and a type of distortion of issues and not lying, it's not so much about lies. There's about a mission and about a narrow focus. So from my point of view, what, what may, you know, what may win ultimately in terms of, for the next few decades, the world, just her hurdling from one crisis to the next. More pandemics, more frightening weather events and so on. More violence more, yeah. Is that we're not, we're not taking the time to step back and look because it can feel so overwhelming. So people often tend to shy away from looking at that bigger picture. When I really feel, I just want to beg them now, please, please do this because when you do, and you see that there's a way focusing on central structural ways of changing things, it becomes so much easier. And particularly when one of those aspects of that is to actually start the process of localization, which is so healing. So you understand how centrally important that is. It can be so satisfying and nurturing to engage in that. But of course, the problem is that we're saying, that's not enough. We're saying that we also want to, um, that is still, it's still, I feel like if people could hear what we're trying to say, their anxiety could be reduced. Their sense of empowerment could be increased. Their sense of not a sense. Their health could be improved, both mental and physical. By simply taking those steps to localize. And then we're saying we're twice as much energy and more health and strength and turning the I into a we. You will also be empowered to tackle change at the policy level. And that's very very urgent.

Morag:

And so how do you think people can tackle the policy level of change? How do localized communities do that? And what scale are you talking about?

Helena:

Well, this is something too that I feel like I should write more about. First of all, the way that the whole sort of localization movement is beginning to tackle policy challenge. A lot of it is from the bottom up and first reaching more local governments. But so for instance, you know, one thing that's happened, and I think partly through our work and someone who worked with us, they've started a system in America where, which is known several states where people who get food stamps get twice as much for their money if they buy from local farmers markets. They're actually tackling a major environmental issue and a major social issue at the same time. And it's, and it's the exact opposite of what's been happening because government subsidies have been supporting the big to get bigger. And in doing that, you know, all the time policies are locked into using the most energy intensive, the most resource intensive way to do things from farming to house-building to everything. But farming is so centrally important. Why destroy jobs, you know, on a crowded planet. So yeah, so one way is from the bottom up, but what we're, what we also want is for people to understand that the key, the key issue we're talking about is deregulated banks and corporations are all[ inaudible] governments their structures. And that's quite a bit reversed, but what we have is world where these global corporations operating and with their power and their influence in a rather invisible way. And lots of propaganda wants to prevent us from seeing that. And then the meanwhile as government are getting elected as they seek election, the talking to the voter, and they talk to the voters about jobs, about things they care about. And then the minute they're empowered, they don't seem to be listening anymore. And I've seen that with so many friends. I've had many friends who were activists who went into politics and just had to change there, too. And I don't see it. So for me, it's not about good people and bad people. It's about understanding that the structures absolutely do not serve democracy.

Morag:

So going into politics is not necessarily the answer.

Helena:

It's absolutely not the answer. It's not. The answer is not either to lobby politicians. The answer is to, if you can imagine that we create a new economy movement, which is growing, but it's getting often co-opted into focusing either on just the social or the environmental issues. As they get co-opted. And in America, it's happened in a huge, huge way into the social issues. It becomes a politics of identity and the belief that if we just have more women and people of color, then everything will be fine. Not looking at the structures or you have resource economics, environmental economics. That again, they're not dealing with the problem of the corporate takeover of our government. And that problem will be solved through new trade treaties. And those trade treaties now need to be actually negotiations between governments. They aren't actually, as much as they are negotiations between governments and corporations. So the corporations are at the table, they're the ones sort of winning from it, whether it's beef from Australia to Korea or, or, you know, the UK Australia trade treaties. No, it's just. So people need to, they don't need to become trade experts. They don't need to become ecnomists. They just need to be looking more at the materials that, you know, groups like wheat like we produce to start speaking out about this. Then to build up and it could happen quickly. And if you imagine that people, you know, okay, so I'm now being told that just focusing on climate isn't enough, they need to be looking at what's causing poverty and the gap between rich and poor as well, and the way to do that is to deal with economy. And then when the economy is to do with it, trade treaties, there could be a sort of explosion of interest, but then the big issue is how you get it out.

Morag:

Where have you seen this working well, like in which communities have you seen this movement of, of action at a systemic level? What's a great example.

Helena:

I mean, I definitely feel encouraged by the growth and then there's sort of new economy initiatives and organizations. I do also feel encouraged by even a bit into the mainstream media, after COVID and the clear concern about being dependent on a global market when you don't even have enough masks, you know, so, and, and, and also, you know, clear shift towards interest in food security and even in the seed conservation. So I see lots of things, but I don't see, I can't point to any one country where I can say that there are a huge, significant steps forward. I have a lot of interests in South Korea tomorrow. I think, what day are we today? And I would do on Sunday, they're coming to film for a television thing. And I've been in the mainstream media there a fair amount.

Morag:

So getting this into the mainstream media is something that you think would help make a big difference.

Helena:

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it's really, it's worked.

Morag:

Having the conversations and getting the word out, not trying to be in the system, but being independent to be able to speak up and speak out about it and these conversations being had in at all levels.

Helena:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think that is the potential for that sort of AHA! Thing where all those people are still, you know, really concerned. I mean, and then the frightening thing is as people get more poor, especially in[inaudible] time in the west is one of the most scary thing. The time poverty, which leads to simplistic, you know, the social media. Superficial stuff is very scary. So taking the time to think more deeply and ideally doing groups, is..

Morag:

I remember you created study group materials a long time ago. Do you still have those? I mean, that's something I think that, you know, even using, I know it's better to be in a group together, but while people are in lockdown, even creating online conversation groups that can connect people globally too.

Helena:

Yeah. I keep meaning to do that in the form of courses and what we do still have those materials, but, you know, back then it is that it's really scary when they think of that. Cause you know, people were willing to take much more time over it and because we were dealing with, we really trying for people to understand what was happening on the other side of the world. And it was, you know, it took off to the extent that we had a few hundred groups, there was a lot of interest, but you know, when I think back, if I think could we have done things differently if we'd only focus on that and not, you know, say on the film, the economics of happiness or yeah. I'm not quite sure.

Morag:

Can you, so with the economics of happiness, where has that film take from shifting, from say ancient futures into the economics of happiness, ancient futures went around the world with your book and with the film was, did you notice the same uptake with the economics of happiness?

Helena:

I've done I would say, I think Economics of Happiness is in about 23 or 25 languages, which I think Ancient futures between the book and the, and the film were more like all the 40 languages actually suppose to 50, but we lost track of some of them. But it still had a huge response, the Economics or the Happiness. And then we set up a Facebook page, and it shot up to 140,000 very quickly, but then we've been shattered bad and it's not growing. And that's really scary. And it's really, it's sort of, we know that this whole idea of decentralizing and localizing is very threatening to global corportation and there's absolutely not enough Facebook for the avid proponents of verbalization.

Morag:

No, I know all the algorithms, you see the things that grow. I watch and things you talk about little simple non-threatening things they'll go through the roof, but if you talk about anything challenging, it just gets nothing. And I wonder whether it's the people, it's not that people aren't interested. I just, the algorithms that are behind it, don't let it be seen somehow. I try not to think of anything conspiracy or anything, but it's just the algorithms don't pick it up. And even to the point, like when I started my YouTube channel, I said, I'm not going to advertise on it. I don't want any advertising on it. And then I discovered that unless you put advertising on a YouTube channel, the algorithms wouldn't let people see your stuff as much. Soon as I started putting advertising on my, like allowing people to advertise, it went up. And so you have to play with this thing, like, do you want to be talking to crickets or do you want the word to get out? And, and it's this fine line that you have to walk. And, um, it's so challenging.

Helena:

Yeah, no, it's very challenging. It's very worrying. And I think that the social dilemma, you know, spelling out what's happening with the algorithms and the polarization, very important that we understand that

Morag:

I was asking you where you've seen some examples, but I also wanted to ask you, who are you looking at now that is really inspiring, continuing to feed and nourish you. What thinking and what work are you seeing? What people, what writing are you reading?

Helena:

Well, I was very inspired by the book Humankind by Bregman. I don't know if you've heard of it. He is Dutch. I'm so glad to see that get out. I just it's been very scary that that message people don't realize has been silence. And it's a key part of rethinking this whole path of progress. Because, the, you know, the part that was pushed is that we are greedy and aggressive by nature and that many pieces of it also is just that when everything went down was once we started[inaudible], which is not true, you know, which locks us into this sort of world view where, think that we can't feed ourselves and without destroying the planet, it's absolutely not true. And, and it never was true. It was this industrial agriculture that was so destructive, you know, much later. But anyway that book, I'm very happy that had so much influence and he's a great friend. I think, um, you know, I really like what Russell Brand is doing, and he's also been, you know, of support and I had, I was going to say most of these, they're not actually, Bregman and Russell Brand. Luckily [inaudible] is about my age, maybe not quite. And also I had a daily conversation with recently was working wonderful, but I do worry that there aren't so many young people who have that faith, that we were actually more collaborative and happier and healthier when we lived in more intergenerational community-based structures, closer to live closer to the animals, to the plants. And again, you know, not perfection, not, I think Ladakh was probably exceptionally harmonious, but it's still the truth of benefiting from particularly intergenerational connections and the connection to nature. That's so vital. And I feel maybe more than anything, I've been inspired by the young people I'm in touch with who are getting on with, fitting in with people like you. The young people I've known over the years who get on with the community building the local food. I just find them happier and healthier than any people. So that that's more than anything is what inspires me.

Morag:

I know that you've been forever also talking about this, you know, redefining progress and redefining what is that narrative that we need to be thinking into so that we can reimagine the future that we're working towards. And maybe that's where we can go in some future conversations, exploring the type of food systems, the type of building community and placemaking and education. Exploring the type of education. I know you've had lots of conversations around that topic because it's I've chosen to homeschool my kids. Well actually they chose to homeschool. They found the education system lacking in many ways. And I think considering where we're going right now, what it is that all of our young people are spending their days learning is critically important a s what they're learning and how they're learning. So perhaps, you know, spending a bit of time talking about that in a future conversation would be great t oo.

Helena:

Yeah. I'd love to do that. I'd love to do that. And I feel that yeah, I feel like there's so much more to say about the big picture, but wow.. time goes so quickly.

Morag:

I know! Well, I mean, maybe we can wrap up this part of our conversation series by looking at what is the key call to action that you would like to share with people? And then also to let us know where it is that people can find the information that you're sharing, and I'll make sure that all of that gets in the show notes below.

Helena:

Well, I suppose I like to leave people with five words or in terms of call to action and it's.. first one is connect. The next one is rethink, resist, renew and celebrate. So we're urging people as a first step to seek out some like-minded people. This could already sound, I suppose, like a huge challenge. But I think it's a question of just thinking of someone, you know, maybe a friend who is willing to go on this journey to realize that if we don't quickly move beyond treating isolated symptoms to treating this crisis, we face in a linked up way where we're just going to see more and more problems. And then, you know, on top of that, we're offering that very real message that if you do connect with others, you're more likely to heal from p roblems a nd c onflicts as well. So it's sort of a healing part, and the rethinking is a very important part of the call to action. Now that m ay, you know, may have to take a while. I looked at some of our films or o f o u r w ritings so on, and then we're urging people not to shy away from being willing to say no, and it's a n o to the continuation, th e e xpansion of this system. There they need to be to a whole range of ideas that take us do wn t he path. I would as sume t h e i ssue, or even of treating symptoms in a way that actually really exacerbate about the problem and the re newal i s the realizing path. And then th e c elebration is the reminder to everyone to keep reminding themselves and others of their remarkable beauty, health and joy that is to be found in the real living world. So with all of this, ye ah, we have materials on our website. I mean, I suppose one of the things people could do is sign up for our IAL and they get some ma terials, so me a rticles, an d s o on. The International Alliance for Localization. And so the first thing to do if they come to our website, which is localfutures.o rg, and should also please look at the wo rd l ocalization day programs, which hopefully will give people a sense of th e w ide array of really positive things that are going on. But also some of the clear minded people who are questioning the dominant pa rt f or progress. So a s you said, you know, redefining progress is one way to, to look at it. And that al so m eans redefining what it is that we really need. And we really want. Who we really are. We've been told we're really aggressive and that we want all these consumer goods. This comes from us, we're demanding it. No, it's never happened that way. It was foisted on us. And it wasn't foisted by us by evil people, but it was foisted no tice b y a s ystem that had become so big that nobody was looking at it. There was no, you know, you wo uld h a ve h ad to be God himself to sit above that whole empire looking down to see this. And it's, it really is just by chance. In o ur case, started with Ladakh had been left out of that influence. Most of the world had already been influenced through colonialism or even slavery.

Morag:

It's the comparison between the two that the difference to see it so closely. I think it's having the opportunity to come up and volunteer with you in the dark and seeing it from myself as well, because there's one thing hearing it, isn't it. And there's another thing being fully in it and seeing it, and I'm like, you've seen it over time, that change, incredibly powerful and an amazing insight. And thank you so much for sharing today, Helena.

Helena:

Thank you. I hope we can get it out and thank you for all your work. And, I really appreciate it.