Smaller is Better…

Smaller is better.

…And you’d better learn how to adapt quickly. Remember the dinosaurs? HUGE failure to adapt problem. The new “it” thing is small. Now I am not denying that we live in a global economy, but self-sustainability truly begins at home.

Self -sustainable businesses and communities can and should sell to a global market…what they should NOT do however, is try to become the global market. It is lack of diversity and conglomerate corporate greed that have taken the economy down. The only way out of this mess these ‘Goliath’ businesses have gotten us all into, is to let ‘David’ (the American people) use his slingshot.

Hand ‘David’ the ammunition he needs to rebuild the economy one business and one community at a time. The pebbles for his slingshot will cost a mere pittance compared to what it will take to pull Goliath out of the hole into which he has fallen (and dug for himself.) Simply grab a shovel and fill the hole with dirt, and let Goliath rest in peace. Otherwise, the hole will continue to grow until every last one of us falls in.

Small isn’t new. Life is cyclical, and that quote about being doomed to repeat history is true. There are a number of things we CAN and SHOULD be doing instead of bailing out Goliath. Here are a couple of my favorites…

• Pick up the book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, by E.F. Shumacher.

• Call the Sirolli Institute. They teach entire communities all over the world how to create a diverse economy for less than $3,000 per job created. Seems a drop in the bucket when you compare it to the $100,000-300,000 quoted in the stimulus figures. Heck, it’s way better than the $50,000 per job cost we have been paying through the conventional economic development programs we’ve already been funding. Plus these project communities learn how to work together to support the people who are already there! With business sustainability rates of something like 85% after five years using Sirolli know-how at a time when something like 70-80% of new businesses fail, it’s a logical step to take.

If you agree that it’s time we helped ourselves…(I mean, really…does it look like D.C. is paying attention other than to grab sound bytes on the news?) Pass this on to everyone you know who wants their community to do better, to be a better place to live, and to get us back on the road to economic Wellville.

I’d like to share my favorite quote, as it is so appropriate, and so true…

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead

For all you visual thinkers…imagine a plush, thick green lawn. Now imagine a dry, hard patch of dirt with two giant blades of grass waving in the wind. Which patch of land will cease to be a ‘lawn’ if two blades are plucked from each. That’s what our economy has become. A barren patch with a hand full of giant blades of grass. I know which lawn I’d pick.