Small Scale Manufacturing - Practical Resources

I had originally intended to discuss sources of practical knowledge in small-scale manufacturing at a later time. This week, however, I've been getting a lot of very good feedback from readers in the U.S. who are interested in small-scale manufacturing. Some of these people are even operating their own small-scale enterprises. So I thought I'd list the resources mentioned by these readers, in addition to listing a few other sources I have discovered.

First, there is the Open Source Machine site (http://opensourcemachine.org/), a source mentioned on another website by two posters who call themselves Fleam and Jokuhl. The Open Source Machine site is dedicated to providing potential manufacturers with small, easily-built manufacturing machines that can be made from recycled and reused parts. Plans for these machines are developed for free and published on the Web without copyright or royalty or intellectual property restrictions, so that anyone can use them. One of their projects is called the “MultiMachine,” described as “...a humanitarian, open-source machine tool project for developing countries.” The neat thing about the MultiMachine is that it provides many metalworking functions in one device that can easily be made from used vehicle engine parts. The Open Source Machine project site also has links to plans to build other machines, including plans to build an air compressor from scrap.

The Fab@Home wiki (http://fabathome.org/), contains information on buying or building desktop-sized“fabs” (computer-aided manufacturing devices) that can “print” 3-dimensional objects. Some of these fabs have been used for making watchbands, bicycle chainrings and sprockets, and bottles.

Then there is the Open Source Ecology Wiki (http://openfarmtech.org/), a site created by Marcin Jakubowski and others. Marcin has dedicated himself to advancing the field of open-source appropriate technology, and his wiki is a compilation of tools and knowledge useful to those who are trying to build safety nets to replace the present breaking economic arrangement. He also has a blog, http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/, and there is a podcast interview with him available at http://agroinnovations.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,182/p,39/lang,es/.

There is also a site run by “Greg in MO,” who left a comment on my first post on this blog concerning small-scale manufacturing. He has a garage business which manufactures clothes drying racks and hand tools. He has some interesting insights on simplifying the manufacturing process so that it can be in essence, a “cottage industry.” His site is www.easydigging.com.

The Practical Action website (http://practicalaction.org) is hosted by the Practical Action group, “...a development charity with a difference,” which focuses first on development of local peoples in the Third World, then on matching appropriate technologies to their needs. They have a lot of technical information available for use, covering such topics as climate change adaptation, agriculture, construction, crop and food processing, manufacturing, information and communication, waste and recycling, and much more.

Village Earth (www.villageearth.org) is a “consortium for sustainable village-based development,” whose website also contains links to many appropriate technology resources, especially those related to small-scale industry. Payment is required to access some of their resources, however.

The AfriGadget site (www.afrigadget.com) is a blog which details the ways in which Africans are “...solving everyday problems with African ingenuity.” One post describes how an Ugandan woman made a homemade cell phone charger. Other features of this blog include its emphasis on “grassroots reporting” by Africans concerning African issues and African responses. These people are actually doing the things I detailed in an earlier post, “A Safety Net Of Alternative Systems – Citizen Media.” They also have posts on reuse of metals in the Kenyan ironworks industry, and the fabrication of hand tools.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the work of bloggers Jeff Vail (www.jeffvail.net) and John Robb (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/), who examined the topic of small-scale manufacturing in great detail long before I did. (See http://www.jeffvail.net/2008/06/rhizome-platform-design.html by Jeff Vail and http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/09/resilient-com-1.html by John Robb.) Their particular focus is on the “fab” machines I mentioned above. My only concern with these machines and others is that new, ready-made machines of this type may be out of the price range of many Americans, who would be forced to build such machines from scrap and used parts if they wanted to manufacture things as these machines do – as 3-dimensional “prints”. I think, however, that I may have a solution to that concern, as follows:

There are plenty of old computers that are not being used anymore because constant “innovations” and “enhancements” to the proprietary products made by major commercial software vendors requires constant changes to the hardware people use. These “enhancements” rapidly render older machines obsolete. However, these old computers can be put back to use for a wide range of applications, if they are run using a Linux or open-source Unix operating system. They can also be programmed with open-source software to function as the controllers in a computer-aided manufacturing process. There are also old appliances being discarded even though they have perfectly good single-phase motors. The relays needed to operate such motors could be scavenged from old relay panels used with legacy programmable logic controllers that are replaced with new models in industrial plants. An enterprising tinker with a knack in computer programming and systems integration could make his own “fab” from an old computer and the motors from such things as a refrigerator, a house fan, a blow-dryer, etc. As long as the parts made by such a fab were not critical to life and limb (no cardiac stents or jet aircraft parts, for instance), the things made by such a fab would probably be perfectly adequate.

Of course, there would be the need for machine interlocks and kill switches to make the fab safe. This would not only be to meet codes and OSHA requirements, but to prevent the very real possibility of losing body parts in the works of the fab. An understanding of good machine safeguarding principles would therefore be essential. But it might be possible for someone to construct their own homemade fab for less than $1000.

Oil - The Forgotten Star Of The Show

This blog began with oil – its role in the global economy and social order, and the implications of an impending peak and subsequent decline in worldwide oil production. However, the effects of globally constrained oil supplies have upstaged Peak Oil itself in the public consciousness of the First World. Our ongoing, accelerating economic collapse is certainly not boring, is it?

Yet Peak Oil hasn't gone away, and there is new evidence that the world is past peak. For instance, according to the Barents Observer, Russian oil production decreased last year for the first time in 10 years, suggesting that Russia has indeed passed its own peak production. Russia has recently become the world's foremost producer of oil, passing even Saudi Arabia. The reality that Russia is past peak means that there are only three major nations who are supposedly still able to increase production: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. It is a well-known fact that these three nations vastly inflated their reserves estimates during the 1980's without providing any proof for their inflated reserve figures. Therefore, they may in fact be unable to raise their production of oil. Also, Merrill Lynch recently issued a statement that in their estimation, non-OPEC production may have already peaked. (Sources: http://www.barentsobserver.com/russian-oil-production-down.4542842-16178.html, http://www.marketrap.com/article/view_article/9147/peak-oil-production-in-russia-suggests-worldwide-supplies-on-the-brink, http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/02/03/afx6002345.html)

Against this backdrop, some members of the U.S. Congress are doing some very strange things. For instance, the Senate killed a budget amendment to the Obama stimulus that would have increased general transportation spending by $25 billion and mass transit spending by $5 billion. In its place, an amendment will be introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe to give $50 billion to highways alone. Then there's the Senate approval of a budget amendment introduced by Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski that would allow consumers who buy new cars to get a tax rebate on their auto loans. (Source: http://thetransportpolitic.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/disaster-in-the-senate/) This is very strange – and very stupid. Our government is making some extremely short-sighted choices in order to prop up an unsustainable, collapsing system for just a little longer.

There is one other item of rather bizarre news. Fortune Magazine recently published a short piece titled, “A Recession of Biblical Proportions,” in which the writer asserted that present and recent consumer behavior is running contrary to the Biblical pattern seen in Genesis, when Egypt enjoyed seven years of plenty, saving during those years, then endured seven years of famine in which the nation lived off its savings. (The article is here: http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/02/news/economy/colvin_depression.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009020210) The article is really a very thinly-disguised plea to consumers to go out and start spending again, and it ends with the following warning: “Whatever happens, don't expect miracles. Spending and saving behavior evolves slowly, and our current mess is in some ways the culmination of a long journey. We may not suddenly start behaving with biblical wisdom. But at least let's try not to forget how bad things can be when we get spending and saving backward.”

Now I am a Christian, and I have read the Bible a number of times, and I can tell you that I see nothing un-Biblical about the behavior of most American consumers who have stopped spending because their backs are against the wall, because those who sold them things did so in order to rob and enslave them, because they are beginning to see the evils of consumer culture, and because they are discovering that they really don't need all the mass-produced junk that's being pushed on them by the overlords of our global economy. But it is somewhat amusing that the writers of Fortune Magazine (and the masters who own them) are trying to use the Bible to get me to go out and spend money that would be better used in helping me adapt to a breaking system.

I'd like to quote a few passages from the Good Book to the writers and editors at Fortune: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” (1 Timothy 6:10); “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God,” (Matthew 19:24); and of course, the passage in Luke 16 about Lazarus and the rich man, which I will leave for the writers at Fortune to read for themselves. One day they will find out just how flammable their money is.

Thoughts On Not Needing The Money

The ongoing collapse of our global, “official” economy means that increasing numbers of us are going to be cut off from our present livelihood, just as many of us have already been cut off. According to a recent Washington Post article, some economists are saying that the U.S. economy shrank by 6 percent during the last quarter of 2008. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012902248.html) Those of us who still have jobs and rely on them should have a plan for restructuring our lives so that we can survive without a job (or at least the jobs we now have). Now I can hear some readers saying “Duh! You should have started thinking about such things long before now!” Let me assure such people that I have indeed been thinking about such things for the last several months, though I am nowhere near as prepared as I'd like to be.

But I've also been reading blogs and other writings from others who are thinking of how to survive and thrive without a job. It's natural for many minds to gravitate toward this subject, when one considers that most workers are debt slaves, which leads to becoming wage slaves of corporations. Because these corporate masters put the profit motive above all else, most employees find themselves under some form of constant daily stress from antagonistic or uncomfortable elements of their day-to-day work environment. This stress gives rise to the oft-expressed wish to break away from corporate slave-drivers, yet the debt load carried by many workers prevents them from doing so, and indeed keeps them in a constant state of terror over the prospect of losing their jobs.

As I just said, the stress and fear of debt/wage slavery is fertile ground for thoughts of escape. These thoughts are sometimes expressed in songs, like “Big Boss Man,” “Maggie's Farm,” “Five O'Clock World,” and “A Hard Day's Night,” from the 1960's, or Paul McCartney's “I've Had Enough!” from a later time. But they are also expressed in plans, and the plans all seem to run along one particular track, as follows: One day an employee faces the implications of the fact that most of his “possessions” are only his to enjoy on credit, and that his employer knows that he “needs the money,” and is therefore likely to submit to any conditions imposed on him. The employee naturally does not like this, and longs for escape. To him, escape means “financial security,” which in turn means having all that he could ever need or want without ever again having to worry about how to pay for it.

Those who advise such an employee regarding financial security tell him that the road to that security consists of getting as much money as he can, maximizing his claim on the official economy as much as possible, in order to claim as much as possible of the resources produced by that economy. So our employee may embark on strategies suggested by the media, who hold up examples of people who got rich quick by doing nothing more than showing up on a TV game show, or who struck it rich as singers, cartoonists (like Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert), or freelance writers. Or he may go out every week and buy Lotto or Powerball tickets from 7-11 or Plaid Pantry or Circle K. Or he might try to generate secondary income streams by trying to make money from the Internet, as in starting a “financial planning” website and marketing his own advice. Goodness gracious, he might even take up “frugality,” with the goal of putting aside a little money every week for the purpose of “reinvesting” it in some supposedly wealth-producing part of the economy.

But if the global, official economy is in fact collapsing, and if this collapse is due to the appearance of fundamental, structural ecologic, environmental and resource limits to growth, then such a strategy is profoundly wrong. If the economy is collapsing for the reasons I just stated, then trying to achieve “financial security” by maximizing one's claim on that economy through getting lots of money is as misguided as trying to buy a penthouse office in a skyscraper that is crashing to the ground.

Therefore when I think about learning to live without a job, I am not thinking about trying to become “independently wealthy” in the usual sense. This isn't about money. But it is about readjusting one's life so that one no longer depends on a breaking system. One thing that a person discovers in that readjustment is that a man can't really escape the need to work. As the Good Book says, “If anyone will not work, neither let him eat,” and, “...that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands...” There is also this: “Let our people also learn to maintain good works (more literally, “honest occupations”) for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful.” (Titus 3:14 and other Scriptures, World English Bible.) Work has formative and redemptive value, as long as it's not carried out under conditions of enslavement. But living without a job, as many jobs are currently defined, means being able to find your own work and reap the fruits of your own labor without having to rely on some huge corporate employer for these things.

If we are going to find our own work, many of us will need to develop entirely different skills – skills that are essential to life, rather than merely optional. In a deindustrializing, shrinking economy, most of us will find that we can live without personal life coaches, yoga teachers, baristas, auto detailers, financial consultants, plasma-screen TV salesmen and cable service providers, time management experts, and so forth. But if you can set broken bones, fix infected teeth, create a business that makes bicycle parts, build a rammed-earth house, design a safe (and it had better be safe!) sewage-recycling/composting system, teach basic academic subjects, make secondhand machinery from recycled parts, or do other vital or extremely useful things, you'll have a very large amount of work to do.

Where Does The 40 Percent Come From?

It is widely reported by several reputable sources that the United States contains five percent of the world's population, yet consumes 25 percent of the world's energy. According to the book Science And Technology in World History by McClellan and Dorn, in 1998 the U.S. consumed 40 percent of the world's oil, and in 2002, the U.S. consumed 25 percent of the world's electricity. And according to the book Globalization or Empire? by Jan Nederveen Pieterse, the U.S. spends 40 percent of the world's total military spending. If one digs a little, one can find statistics that show that the U.S. consumes a grossly disproportionate share of many of the world's resources. As a result, there are more cars than registered drivers in this country, there are more shopping malls than high schools, and 66.7 percent of Americans are overweight, with over half of these now being classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as obese. (Source: http://www.ukmedix.com/weight-loss/the_fat_are_getting_fatter_in_america4370.cfm)

We are a nation that is busy pigging out and chowing down the American way, with no guilt or qualms over our conspicuous consumption, yet few people ask, “Where does the 40 percent come from? Or where does the 25 percent come from? If we only comprise five percent of the world's population, how is it that we get to consume so much of the world's resources? How did we get our hands on them? And what is happening to the people in the rest of the world? What do they get to consume?”

These are hard questions of the sort that are not encouraged by the masters of empire, lest consciences should be awakened. If the questions are addressed at all, the wrong answers are given. But if most Americans knew the conditions and arrangements under which such generous helpings of the world's wealth were delivered to them, many of them would never again get a peaceful night's sleep – at least, not if they had consciences that were in any way functional. For the answers to those questions have everything to do with lies, conquests, murders, unjust military adventures, crooked contracts, exploitative trade treaties and the support of corrupt, stooge foreign governments whose leaders sell out their own citizens for profit. And the mainstream media in this country do not report on these things. Do you want to see how American excesses of consumption affect citizens of Third World countries? Do you want to see the conditions under which many of these people are forced to live? You won't find much coverage of these stories in papers like the Oregonian or Wall Street Journal or Orange County Register or USA Today.

Too many of us are like my mental picture of a child of the First World living at the turn of the 20^th century in a large house in Africa or India, a child with all the material possessions that money could buy, who looks out his window every day at the poor native children in the street without ever asking why those children are poor and unhappy. But as for me, I'd like to know where the 40 percent comes from, and how we get it.

And it looks like there are a few people who are willing to tell the answer to anyone who is willing to listen. I am thinking particularly of a few noteworthy moviemakers who have chronicled the rape of the Niger Delta in Africa by multinational oil companies. One of their projects is Poison Fire, a movie made by Lars Johansson and others. This movie details how multinational oil companies turned the Niger Delta into an environmental and ecological disaster in order to satisfy the First World's thirst for oil. You can find out more about it at http://www.poisonfire.org/.

There is also Sweet Crude (http://www.sweetcrudemovie.com/), a film directed by Sandy Cioffi, which also documents the human cost of oil extraction in Nigeria – a cost about which the American and European mainstream media are loudly silent.

Watch these movies – if you dare.

A Safety Net Of Alternative Systems - Small-Scale Manufacturing

The global, “official” economy of our modern society is breaking apart. The signs seem to indicate that the breakup is rapidly accelerating. Those who have been trained to rely wholly on that system are increasingly finding themselves in trouble, as the system is now increasingly unable to provide its two staple products – jobs (with income), and goods for consumption – to those who rely on it. Yet there is still a need for meaningful work in the making of the things necessary for everyday life. This post will introduce the role of small-scale manufacturing and industry in restoring our ability to take care of ourselves. This is an especially urgent topic for citizens of the United States, which allowed its manufacturing base to be decimated over the last few decades in the name of globalism.

The Breaking Supply Chain

The availability of goods to the typical “consumers” in industrial economies depends on a long and winding chain of supply. Over the years, the links of the chain have increasingly been held together by easy credit. Here is how it worked: business owners over the years stopped using their own savings to pay for the operation and expansion of their businesses. Instead, they took out loans to cover the costs of acquisition of new equipment, office/warehouse/industrial space, raw materials, vehicle fleets and so forth. The assumption was that they would make payments on their loans with the revenue generated by the use of the goods they bought on credit. For instance, a printing business might borrow money for paper, presses, computers, and related supplies, intending to pay the loan with some of the revenue generated by the use of these materials in the printing business.

This also extended to such things as farming, including large-scale agribusiness. Growers took out loans for seed, mechanized farm equipment and “inputs” such as fertilizer and pesticides, with the intention of making payments on those loans with some of the money received from harvesting and selling their products. And it extended to those who sold finished goods, who purchased these goods from suppliers by means of “letters of credit” issued by lending banks, and who planned to pay back these letters of credit through the commission they earned by selling the finished goods – goods such as textiles, machines, bulk cargoes, cars, tools, consumer electronics, and so on. In fact, the hugeness of the scale of economic activity for the last several years has been due to the easy and widespread availability of credit. The scale of economic activity would have been much smaller, if businesses in the official economy had been required to conduct their activities solely on the basis of their earnings and savings.

But the present economic crisis has put an end to easy credit, not only for individuals, but for businesses. Consumers, cut off from credit and hampered by stagnant wages, are not consuming anymore – at least, not like they used to. This is endangering all the other members of the supply chain, such as manufacturers who are no longer to make payments on the loans they received for their equipment, as well as retailers who bought the inventories of their stores on credit and find that they can no longer sell their merchandise like they used to. Farmers are curbing their planting due to lack of credit. Even shippers are hurting, since fewer people are hiring their ships, trucks and planes to send merchandise from producers to retailers. This is illustrated in a recent Times news article, “Commerce Becalmed Over Letters Of Credit (Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5069065.ece).”

It is not an exaggeration to say that the supply chain is breaking. The links closest to the average consumer – the retail store chains – are the most obvious sign. Circuit City, Mervyn's, Linens 'N' Things, KB Toys and Sharper Image are some of the casualties. The United States has allowed itself to become a place where people get the things they need for daily life from stores which sell products made thousands of miles away. Few people here can make the things they need anymore. But now the stores are disappearing. Retailers can no longer secure the credit to buy things made thousands of miles away. Therefore, shipping traffic has almost evaporated. Many extractors of raw materials and manufacturers of finished goods are shutting down. Some analysts estimate that within the next year or two, many things that are taken for granted in the United States may no longer be readily available – either because they are not to be found in stores, or because there are no longer stores that sell these things, or because the foreign makers of these things are demanding a much steeper price for the things made. Some of these things are things that are useful and valuable in our transition to a low-energy future – things ranging from hand tools to bicycle parts.

The Revival Of Small-Scale Industry

It is quite probable that the United States is facing an impending cutoff of many foreign-made goods, due to the worsening credit crisis. This will not only involve such luxuries as consumer electronics, but very basic tools and means of transportation, as well as other necessities. How will we obtain these necessary tools in a deindustrialized nation, a nation whose natural resource base has been largely depleted?

I believe that the answer is twofold. First, we in this country will have to get used to the idea of living with less. Second, we will have to raise up local (or hyperlocal), small-scale industries and manufacturing in order to produce the basic, necessary things we will need. The types of small-scale industries will be quite varied, as the needs of citizens in each locality will be varied; yet there are certain characteristics which will be desirable in all small-scale industries, such as:

• The ability to produce finished goods from salvaged and recycled materials

• The ability to make things without exposing workers to health risks

• The ability to start business with limited financial capital and small (or no) loans

• The ability to make things without polluting the environs in which the industries are located

• The ability to make things using limited inputs of raw resources, energy, and technologically complex processes and machinery

It would be a mistake for anyone reading this to think of small-scale industries as the “next big business opportunity,” a way to cash in on a get-rich dream during an age of declining energy availability. Rather, as one Kenyan said during an interview on small-scale manufacturing, “Anyone who can be able to provide the basic necessities to his family ought to consider himself successful.” The goal is not profit maximization, but creating security for oneself, one's family, and one's community.

The Third World Pioneers

Much of the work done in starting, running, analyzing, and formulating policy regarding small-scale industries has been done by the citizens of the Third World, who for years have relied on these industries for a large portion of their gross domestic product. Several countries have created formal government ministries to promote and measure the progress of their indigenous small-scale enterprises. Among these are the government of India, which created the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (formerly the Ministry of Agro and Rural Industries, and the Ministry of Small Scale Industries), and which has entered into agreements with several other countries, including Tunisia, Mexico, Rwanda, and Romania to further the development of small-scale enterprises. Small-scale industries have been extensively studied in Kenya, where researchers have suggested ways to integrate these industries symbiotically into the official Kenyan economy, providing the owners of small-scale enterprises with needed government favor and aid.

Small-scale industries in the Third World have arisen due to a combination of factors, including the existence of a long tradition of craft laborers who were present before the invasion of Third World cultures by the West, as well as the desire of many Westerners and some Third World citizens to “help” the Third World climb out of a supposedly backward existence into Western prosperity. Small-scale enterprises in the Third World have been hurt, however, by globalization, trade liberalization, and free-market policies forced on Third World governments by First World institutions. In addition, the large-scale industrialization of the Third World has been hampered by the exploitation of Third World energy and mineral resources by First World nations.

But now, as the availability of all sorts of natural resources worldwide peaks and begins to decline, the large-scale methods and technologies of the First World are becoming increasingly untenable, and the small-scale approach implemented by Third World citizens is becoming ever-more relevant. This small-scale approach may be the key to the United States quickly regaining its ability to provide basic tools and goods for itself. I shall examine the implementation of small-scale industries in specific countries in a later post.

Additional Sources:

Regarding Shipping:

• “Dryships Suspends Dividend, Dumps Expansion Plans,” Reuters, 22 January 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINBNG42208020090122?rpc=44

• “Credit Tsunami Swamps Trade As Banks Curtail Loans,” Bloomberg, 31 October 2008, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aPA4NMYtDIS4&refer=home

• “Shipping Rates Hit Zero As Trade Sinks,” The Telegraph, 14 January 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/4229198/Shipping-rates-hit-zero-as-trade-sinks.html

Regarding Retail And Agriculture:

• “Circuit City Liquidation: 567 US Stores Closing,” The Huffington Post, 16 January 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/16/circuit-city-liquidation_n_158474.html

• “Wave of Bankruptcy Filings Expected From Retailers In Wake Of Holidays,” Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123171955382272193.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

• “Farmers Concerned About Ag Credit Crunch,” WALB News, 14 January 2009, http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9673928

Regarding Small-Scale Industries:

• Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, India - http://msme.gov.in/msme_intcoop.htm

• Memorandum of Understanding between India and Rwanda regarding Small-Scale Industries, http://msme.gov.in/MoU%20Rwanda.pdf

• “Small-Scale Manufacturing In Kenya: Characteristics, Problems and Sources of Finance,” K.R. Gray, W. Cooley, J. Lutabingwa, 1996, http://sbaer.uca.edu/Research/usasbe/1996/pdf/23.pdf

• “An Industrial Solution For Kenya and Africa,” Amollo Lorraine, Changing the Change Conference, 10-12 July 2008, http://www.changingthechange.org/abstracts/abs008.pdf

• “Why Small Scale Industries Deserve Attention,” Henry Muhanika, The Guardian, 24 August 2008, http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2008/08/24/121173.html

The War On Frugality

The present energy and economic crises in the world have caused the return of a long-forgotten culture of frugality in the United States and other First World nations. The return of this culture is due to a grassroots movement among ordinary, everyday citizens who don't have many resources and who are tired of being taken for everything they've got by large corporate masters. This culture of frugality is gaining such strength and spreading so rapidly that voices in the mainstream media are now starting to comment on it, as seen in the following articles:

• “In Recession, Frugality Makes A Comeback,” Los Angeles Times, 13 January 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-fi-pennywise13-2009jan13,0,4887711.story

• “Making Frugality A Habit,” New York Times, 9 January 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/your-money/household-budgeting/10cost.html

• “Ladera Couple Prospers By Living Below Means,” Orange County Register, 16 January 2009, http://economy.freedomblogging.com/2009/01/16/ladera-couple-prospers-by-living-below-means/

• “Frugal Is Cool In Cash-Strapped US,” The Guardian, 4 January 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/04/us-economy-thrift-barack-obama

It might seem to be a good sign that a movement toward sensibility and living within one's means is getting the attention of national media. Yet we must remember that the national media are owned, by and large, by powerful, rich corporatist masters with a vested interest in reviving and growing the “official” economy, which is first and foremost a consumer economy run by big business. Living within one's means, getting out of debt and turning one's back on consumerism is not good for business or for the official economy.

It is therefore no surprise that the masters of our economy have begun to attack this movement toward frugality and simple living. The attack has come in various forms, including media articles which talk about the damage done to the economy by people who refuse to rush out and buy things. Here are some samples:

• “Return to D.I.Y Ethic Erodes Service Businesses,” New York Times, 16 January 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/business/17services.html?ref=business. The Times article contains this amazing quote: “All of these consumers could praise themselves for their newfound frugality in the midst of an economic downturn. But ever step they take toward self-reliance – each shrub they prune themselves, each cupcake they bake from scratch – hurts the people and small businesses that have long provided these services professionally.”

• “Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes,” Wall Street Journal, 6 January 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120525879656021.html. Again, here's an amazing quote: “Americans, fresh off a decadeslong (sic) buying spree, are finally saving more and spending less – just as the economy needs their dollars the most.”

• For those who live in the United Kingdom, there's this: “This Recession Demands That We Employ Logic And Spend Our Way Out Of It,” UK Telegraph, 13 January 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/rogerbootle/4218744/This-recession-demands-that-we-employ-logic-and-spend-our-way-out-of-it.html

• “Don't Be Frugal To Follow Recession Chic,” Marketplace, 17 December 2008, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/17/wilkinson/. This is an archived radio show featuring Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute, a right-wing think tank. One more amazing quote, from the show's introduction: “It's natural to want to penny-pinch when in a recession, but if you're not at risk of financial struggle, you may not need to cut back. Commentator Will Wilkinson says if you can, you should keep on spending.”

Here is rich irony! We are suffering an ecological and economic disaster caused by the decision by the masters of the global economy to hoodwink ordinary citizens and their governments to live beyond their means for as long as possible. These masters created an economy that is built on debt and that runs on credit and that devours anyone who can't make his payments on time. That economy has begun to crash, leaving millions of bloodied victims in the aftermath of its fall. These victims have been turned into the prey of the rich masters of this economy. Now that we ordinary people are seeing all of these things come to pass, we are trying to protect ourselves from being jacked any further by getting out of debt, living within our means and learning to be self-reliant. And you mean to tell me that the spokesmen for the rich are trying to make us feel guilty for this?!

But it gets even better. Not only are the masters of our official economy trying to talk us common people out of frugality, but they are even enlisting the help of the government to punish and frustrate frugal living. Cases in point:

• The Times of England recently published an editorial titled, “Punish Savers And Make Them Spend Money (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article5469589.ece),” full of policy recommendations for the governments of the United States and Great Britain. One such suggestion is as follows: “Instead of reducing taxes on interest payments, the Government could tax all bank deposits and other risk-free savings. This would create a negative risk-free interest rate, encouraging savers either to invest in property, shares and other productive assets – or simply to save less and consume more.”

• The United States Government has passed a law, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, that will require all thrift stores to test all toys and clothes sold for children for contamination by lead or lead-based paint, starting in February 2009. (Source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift2-2009jan02,0,2083247.story) The testing is designed to be so expensive that thrift stores – thrift stores! – will be forced to stop selling secondhand children's clothes and toys because they will not be able to afford the tests. This law will also drive the makers of handcrafted toys and handmade clothes out of business, as well as shutting down other cottage industries. You'll just have to go to Mervyn's or Wal-Mart or Toys 'R' Us instead. After many people protested, the Consumer Product Safety Commission modified its proposed enforcement of the law to grant thrift stores a temporary reprieve, but the law is still on the books.

Note: This law is typical of recent legislation and executive orders passed or enacted by the Federal Government. Other examples include the National Animal Identification System, proposed ostensibly to “keep the nation's food supply safe from terrorists,” whose real effect is to drive small livestock farmers out of business. There are also the cumbersome FDA regulations recently enacted for small slaughterhouses, regulations that are so expensive to obey that only big agribusinesses can comply. The funny thing about these laws is that they don't protect us from contamination via products sold by big businesses with lots of money.

Make no mistake. Frugality is one tool by which ordinary, rank-and-file people can become self-reliant and can free themselves from exploitation by a corporatist system controlled by the rich. The rich masters of our present system understand this, and will do everything they can to wage war against the frugal and the self-reliant. But we're on to them. Do these things make you mad? Then let your congressman know that you've got his number.

I leave you with the following quote from the novel The Likeness, by Tana French. I read the quote for the first time on the Schneier on Security website. Here it is:

“Part of the debtor mentality is a constant, frantically suppressed undercurrent of terror. We have one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world, and apparently most of us are two paychecks from the street. Those in power -- governments, employers -- exploit this, to great effect. Frightened people are obedient -- not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. If your employer tells you to work overtime, and you know that refusing could jeopardize everything you have, then not only do you work the overtime, but you convince yourself that you're doing it voluntarily, out of loyalty to the company; because the alternative is to acknowledge that you are living in terror. Before you know it, you've persuaded yourself that you have a profound emotional attachment to some vast multinational corporation: you've indentured not just your working hours, but your entire thought process. The only people who are capable of either unfettered action or unfettered thought are those who -- either because they're heroically brave, or because they're insane, or because they know themselves to be safe -- are free from fear.”

Report On The Portland "Fix-It Fair," January 2009

I have a number of things to talk about, and they are all somewhat unrelated from each other, so I will be publishing three short posts over the next few days. Tonight's post is the first of the series.

Last weekend, I attended a “Fix-It Fair” sponsored by the City of Portland, Oregon's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. According to the City website, the Fix-It Fairs are “...free events designed to save you money and connect you to resources. They are held on 3 Saturday mornings during the winter (November - February) from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at various locations around the City of Portland.” The goal of these fairs is to teach residents how to spend less and stay healthy while conserving natural resources, all by the use of environmentally responsible techniques.

I learned of the Fix-It Fair via a mailer sent out by the City to all the homes in my neighborhood. I was intrigued by the impressive list of classes offered during the fair, as well as the fact that the whole thing was free, with free lunches provided. The classes started at 9 AM and lasted 45 minutes each, but I didn't manage to arrive until a little after 10 (I had stayed up too late the night before, doing things like blogging ;-) ). Since there were 40 minutes until the next class, I visited the exhibition tables and talked to a few staffers while snapping some pictures.

I was impressed by the number of volunteers and nonprofit organizations who had exhibition tables. These exhibitors had literature and displays which informed and instructed visitors on a number of topics, such as:

• How to clean a house without harsh artificial chemicals

• How to reduce stormwater runoff by garden design and disconnecting rain gutter downspouts

• How to transition from meat-based diets to vegetarianism

• How to weatherize a home to save energy

• How to compost

• How to choose a reputable home construction contractor

• as well as opportunities to volunteer to help meet neighborhood needs via the Oregon Food Bank and Friends of Trees, among other groups.

One of the most intriguing tables I saw was sponsored by a the ReBuilding Center (http://www.rebuildingcenter.org/), a group that teaches environmentally responsible building and structure demolition. They also demolish structures in such a way that most of the disassembled materials can be reused, and they stockpile these materials in warehouses that are open to the public. There was also a table sponsored by Growing Gardens (http://www.growing-gardens.org/), one of my favorite nonprofit groups, which holds classes on food gardening and helps plant food gardens in economically challenged neighborhoods.

At last, 11 AM rolled around, and I went in to a “Home Weatherization” class taught by a staffer from the Community Energy Project (http://www.communityenergyproject.org/). The class featured some very basic, yet valuable tips on how to reduce heat loss from windows, doorways and even receptacle and light switch openings in the walls of a home. At the end, each of us was given a free weatherization kit good for one or two windows of a house.

Once the class ended, I went out to the main exhibition hall in search of lunch, only to find that over a hundred people had thought of the same thing and the lunch line was barely moving. Disappointed, I tightened my belt and gritted my teeth and went to the next class on my list, a class on building raised beds in your yard in order to grow vegetables. This class too was very informative, as the presenter taught the various methods of preparing soil for vegetable planting. His favorite method was, of course, sheet mulching – a technique which is also my favorite. In addition, he gave us some facts concerning his own food garden (he has around 40 fruit and nut trees, either as dwarf trees or on espaliers), and the total cultivated area of his garden is 6000 square feet. He devised an interesting equation to illustrate his gardening philosophy:

NS + HI = AS ↕ HM

where, NS stands for natural systems

HI stands for human intervention

AS stands for altered systems

and HM stands for human maintenance.

His point was that in order to be a successful gardener with the least effort, one should alter natural systems as little as possible; otherwise, the amount of human maintenance would go up.

After his class ended, I went back again to the exhibition hall in search of lunch, but by this time the lunches were all gone. (This is one of the few bad things I could say about the event.) So I tightened my belt a little more and gritted my teeth a little harder, and attended the final class on my list, a class titled, “Emergencies – Beyond the First 72 Hours.” This class was well worth the minor inconvenience of an empty stomach, as I found it to be the most interesting of all the classes.

The instructor informed us that government offices such as FEMA typically promote having enough supplies to survive the first 72 hours of an emergency. The 72 hours, however, is a baseline estimate of the time between the onset of a disaster and the start of government help. This means that people in a disaster in the U.S. might have to be able to hold out much longer than 72 hours. The key to surviving the first 72 hours is to have adequate stored water, food, sanitary means and appropriate shelter.

But the instructor said that the key to surviving after that period is sustainability, which he defined as the ability to supply oneself with the basic necessities for the long term. The measures of sustainability must be integrated now into daily activities now, so that they are not foreign to people when disaster strikes. The instructor talked of the need for individuals, neighborhoods and families to come together and draft plans for long-term survivability, including making timelines for the activities needed for people to stay in place after a disaster, as well as finding space and finances for stored supplies. He also mentioned that businesses who practiced good disaster planning found that every dollar spent on preparation saved 7 dollars in response.

He went on to talk about long-term food storage, even mentioning the extremely helpful articles found on Captain Dave's website (http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/index.htm), as well as the importance of learning to garden for food and the need to use heirloom, non-hybrid seeds in gardening. There were times when his food security advice seemed to be right out of Casaubon's Book! All in all, it was a very informative class (as I said, well worth a skipped lunch), and at the end, the instructor said that he is available to visit neighborhoods and present a somewhat longer and more in-depth class to anyone who is interested. I think I'll take him up on his offer.

Below are some pictures from the fair. Enjoy! For those who live in Portland, the next fair will be on Saturday, 7 February 2009.

P.S., This fair is not the product of some special virtue or intelligence confined only to Portland. Any community can do such things as this. All it takes is a network of volunteers willing to look realistically at the world we live in and the times we are now facing, and to begin to learn and teach the skills needed for coping with such a world and such times. This is what it means to build a safety net of alternative systems. Build the network. Be a volunteer.