Buy Co-op, Buy Local, or Buy Nothing

Food for thought:

• During 1980-1995, corporate revenues rose 129.5%. Corporate profits rose 127% and corporate executive pay rose 182%. Measured in constant (inflation adjusted) dollars, full-time non-supervisory workers (75%-80% of all workers) have suffered a 19% decline in real wages over the last 25 years. In 1972, a worker took home $315.44 per week. Today, the same worker takes home $255.90 per week.

• In 1949, the richest 1% of the population owned 21% of all assets; today, that same 1% owns more than 40% of all assets.

• In 1950, taxes on corporate income provided 26.4% of federal tax income; in 1995, federal income from corporate taxes had dropped to 11.6%.

• The economy of General Motors is larger than Denmark, Thailand, Hong Kong and Turkey -- Ford Motor Corporation has a larger economy than South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Norway. Exxon is larger than Finland, Poland, and Ukraine. Wal-Mart stores have a larger economy than Israel and Greece. Small wonder air pollution and fair wage laws are so hard to get.

• Corporations are among the most authoritarian and undemocratic organizations ever created. Caring only about short-term financial gain, corporations must make decisions that return a profit to investors. That is all they are set up to do.

As David Korten has written, "It is no exaggeration to say that local communities everywhere are on the front lines of what might well be characterized as World War III. It is not the nuclear confrontation between east and west, between the Soviet Union and the United States, that we once feared.

It is a very different kind of conflict. There is no class of competing military forces and the struggle is not defined by national borders. But it does involve an often violent struggle for control of physical resources and territory that is destroying lives and communities at every hand.

It is a struggle between the forces and institutions of economic globalization and communities such as yours that are trying to reclaim control of their economic lives. It is a contest between the competing goals of economic growth to maximize profits for absentee owners versus creating healthy communities that are good places for people to live.

It is a competition for the control of markets and resources between global corporations and financial markets, on the one hand, and locally-owned businesses serving local markets, on the other.

Reprinted from Environmental Research Foundations, Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly.