This is an installment in an irregular series of quick meditations on what I’m calling the “personal economy,” inspired by E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful.
Schumacher uses the term “footlooseness” to describe the ability of people to relocate freely within a region. Let’s say you live in a small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama. One day, you wake up to realize that you’re sick of sweltering in 90% humidity, and the Crimson Tide’s many national titles have failed to improve your general welfare or earn you respect in the eyes of your peers and enemies. You decide to move.
Whether you pack the car for Chicago IL, Portland ME, or Twin Falls ID, no one can stop you. Thousands of miles may stand between you, but there are no other barriers to renting an apartment, applying for a job, and introducing yourself to the locals. You’ll live in an entirely different state under a different governor, but your president won’t change, and the laws of the land will vary only in minor detail. Whatever you did, however you lived before, you’ll be able to carry on in much the same fashion if you want. Your family can visit any time they please. You’ll still have wifi, and though you may get a new driver’s license at some point, no major existential reinvention is required.
People moving from one state to another within the same country usually enjoy the benefits of footlooseness. But try to move to Lithuania, China, or even Mexico, and you may not find it so easy. The language is different. So are the laws and the culture. As connected and imitative as the rest of the world is regarding the West, you’ll run into quite a few shocks. In fact, the government may deny you the right to live there, at all. The structure of life differs radically enough that relocation isn’t worthwhile for a huge percentage of the greater Birmingham area.
So what?
There will always be footlooseness at some level, whether is sprawls over a nation the size of the United States, or it’s limited to the narrow borders of the Netherlands. The borders of Alabama don’t mean much, but go far enough, and you’ll reach some kind of border that sends you kicking rocks back where to you came from. Each of these self-contained units, in which you can be footloose and outside of which you run into frustration, tends to organize a system to provides for whatever of its own needs it can take care of internally. There will be a government and grocery stores, but there will also be professionals of every kind that the place needs to keep itself running to the accepted standards. Even if you live in a tiny city-state, you can find a tradesman for every need that might arise, because the difference in culture and laws prevent the locals from simply moving somewhere with less humidity.
In my home state of Louisiana (which is more humid than where I currently live), this problem was touted as the “brain drain.” Any kid with any promise tended to finish whatever training they needed, then pack up for somewhere with more opportunities. In the US, that often means moving to the megalopolis. In the case of our Birmingham man, he probably picks Chicago.
Schumacher pointed out in the 1970’s that metropolitan areas can bleed into one another to the point that they no longer make sense as a city, but as a vast, individual urban expanse called a megalopolis. We have several of them, seen on the map below.
These effectively function as a single unit that draws resources, including people, from the hinterlands. Even they suffer some footlooseness as part of a rather homogenous nation, but we see that the scale for self-sufficiency is much higher than the state level—forget about the county. The rural areas become depopulated, and the trades that flourish there become concentrated in fewer and fewer aging hands. Meanwhile, these ginormous cities fill with too many souls competing for two-bedroom apartments. Costs and crime rates rise, conditions deteriorate, some people make lots of money at the cost of their mental health, and the concerns of those outside these narrow bands are mostly ignored, despite the fact that they provide services like…all of the food.
When there are many effective boundary zones on a smaller scale, most needs are met locally. The bigger the zones become, the wider the area from which they have to draw resources, and the more the margins within those zones are stripped while suffering is compounded in the populated areas.
Europe used to have a great many such barriers. Now with the EU, it’s much easier for footlooseness to ravage the marginal areas. Language still holds some folks back, but moving from Warsaw to Brussels in the 19th century was an order of magnitude more complicated. With the talent goes the wealth. I wonder whether places with more people flocking to escape tend to be poorer first, causing people to leave, or whether a greener pasture exacerbated a minor problem.
No matter the size of the unit, people will redistribute within it. You’ll still have those brains, but they may not be close enough to do you any good. Or they may drive up your rent until you have to flee for more remote environs. What we find in this concept is that, contrary to the popular preference of a single untied world with free-flowing people and goods, systems can actually benefit from limiting factors that encourage needs to be met locally.
I don’t exactly long to be stuck in one place, with no hope of leaving. There are downsides, beyond the obvious internecine conflicts that crop up. But Schumacher argues, and I agree, that the mad dash to unite the world—to stuff everyone who matters into the same crowded life raft while the others drown around them—may be misguided. Those with an outward migration suffer beyond doubt. Those who take them in, though they enjoy a burst of wealth and productivity, overshoot carrying capacity and undercut their resource bases in the places they impoverish.
I don’t think the solution is to splinter into small, ornery units and lock down our borders. But when we consume fruits from far away, we might take a moment to ask ourselves a few questions: Does this fortunate concentration come with any drawbacks? What did I leave them with in return? What else have I taken? People don’t gather around a town center to begin with because a politician told them to. They congregate when they feel a place has things to offer—resources, sure, but also culture, values, friends, meaningful opportunities. Small groups are more resilient to big shocks than single mega-entities. If the stripmining of Main Street and the complementary lack of human connection in the urban areas swings back toward balance, it will come when individuals decide to put down roots, find much of what they need close to home, take care of their neighbors, and offer useful goods and services.
Taken as a personal metaphor, footlooseness is just as rich. To what degree are we sufficient unto ourselves? If I find myself with five free minutes while I wait for someone to return, do I take a look around, occupy myself with my thoughts, or pull out my phone? How far do I have to go to be comfortable—the next town over, or the worldwide web? What do I require of distant systems, and what do I offer them in return? And if at my core, I’m the once-thriving town, what’s left of me when my full attention is given over to the megalopolis?