Institute for Nonviolent Economics

BALLE B.C.:

“Serious Business and a Better Party”

By Patrick Malone

I challenge myself to find balance and joy in my hard work. I've attended several conferences where at the end of the day I feel drained, my feet are cold and I curse that “working lunch” that I took part in–giving up the few precious moments I had to nourish myself during a non-stop day of hard work. The 3 rd Annual International Conference of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), held in Vancouver, British Columbia from June 2 nd -June 5 th , 2005, exemplified a healthy mix of work and play. The event catalyzed and strengthened a movement that balances local self-reliance and the common good for Earth's inhabitants. After the first day of meeting/greeting, listening to lectures, networking while enjoying great locally grown food, enjoying performers and dancing to the Vancouver band, Soulstream (that truly has the gift of getting people to move), my feet were happy and I felt inspired and energized to participate in what was to come. Here's a snapshot of how people are creating change in a refreshing way and how visionaries are nudging us in positive directions.

BALLE is an organization that forms relationships, builds networks, refines important visions, educates, and shares important knowledge–in short, it supports the building blocks of local economies. BALLE networks currently represent 19 rural communities, small towns and large cities across the U.S. and Canada. What is a BALLE Network? A BALLE Network is a membership organization of primarily small business owners, consumer groups, government representatives and non-profit leaders who gather regularly for the purpose of creating or preserving a local living economy in their region. BALLE's larger vision is a “sustainable global economy consisting of a network of local living economies.”

BALLE's spirit is a SLIMPLAY.

SLIM –describes the types of companies that BALLE is organizing and promoting:

Small and medium sized companies.
Locally owned businesses.
Independent , non publicly traded companies
Multiple stakeholder model companies. (These are companies that formally take into account those affected by the business such as employees, materials partners, distributors, the local community, the environment, and so forth.)

PLAY –describes the process of BALLE and its local networks.

Passion drives the process.
Leveraging resources leads to replication through grassroots organizing and volunteering.
Action leads to long-term success and the avoidance of over-talking.
Yippee keeps the process fun, joyful and exuberant so people remain engaged, empowered and feeling truly alive.

Last June's conference was a lively and stimulating convergence of more than 250 people–mostly Canadians and US citizens from all over both countries. Themes of integration and respect for differences pervaded the four-day multicultural event. A BALLE youth day preceded the conference on Thursday, which included a group of teens and people in their early twenties who participated in creative brainstorming about local living economies. Don Schaffer, the BALLE National Coordinator, described the youth as having “a ton of awareness and a ton of interest.” Don also mentioned a recent New York Times article that spoke of young peoples' growing interest and involvement in community service. Local B.C. music and performance art, an event and dinner at Vancouver's Museum of Anthropology, a farm dinner (just a walk away at the University of British Columbia's [UBC] own organic farming project), a documentary, much dancing, hors d'oeuvres/mingling time, and experiential exercises augmented lectures, thematic panels, breakout sessions, group question and answer periods and keynote presentations. The conference took place at the beautiful UBC Campus. A local living marketplace accompanied the conference with a wide array of BALLE-style businesses and organizations ranging from Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD, a delivery company of organic and local produce and groceries), to Hollyhock (a B.C. retreat center), to CORE (Vancouver's new Healthy Living Guide), to VanCity (Canada's largest credit union, which is guided by a longstanding commitment to corporate social responsibility).

Delbert Guerin, a First Nations B.C. elder who sits on chief and council of the Musqueam Nation, welcomed us to his peoples' territory at the opening of the conference and wished us a successful event. Delbert actively participated in the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the federal government must protect the interests of aboriginal people and also recognize that aboriginal rights existed before Canada became a country. On November 1 st , 1984, the Guerin Case was won, establishing Fiduciary Obligation of government toward Aboriginal peoples. Fiduciary Obligation, the responsibility of federal and provincial government's “trust-like” duty in handling matters of Aboriginal people, has been used in at least 517 cases worldwide. Delbert enjoys working horizontally with the government and he hopes to re-establish the relationship between young people and elders.

Currently Delbert works on the Greater Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy Steering Committee (www.gvuas.ca). The Urban Aboriginal Strategy is founded on five directions:

1. Target urban Aboriginal socio-economic needs within new and renewed federal initiatives;
2. Coordinate and improve access to services;
3. Raise awareness of the challenges facing Aboriginal people;
4. Coordinate policy research, knowledge, and information sharing related to urban Aboriginal issues; and
5. Improve horizontal linkages and policy integration within the federal government and identify opportunities for partnerships with other stakeholders (e.g., provincial and municipal governments, Aboriginal groups, and the private sector).

Judy Wicks, the co-founder and co-chair of BALLE gave an impassioned speech detailing the steps of creating a “peace economy” which, in her opinion, could very well lead to “world peace.” Here are some excerpts…

Step 1: Fostering cooperation and sharing, instead of competition and hoarding.

The U.S. economy represents an “economy driven by creating envy through advertising.” Competition seems to be the main driver of the prevailing U.S. business climate. In complete contrast, First Nations Peoples' seal parties represent an altogether different worldview. Seals from successful hunts are shared with the whole tribe: it is unheard of to accumulate more than one needs. This effective method of wealth redistribution is built into the culture of the tribe and helps to take care of the whole—including those members who may have had a bad hunting season or are not able to contribute for some reason at certain times. Messengers spread the happy news through the village by yelling, “Seal Party! Seal Party!”

In the spirit of collaboration with the Seal Party, Judy engages her business community in Philadelphia by teaching competitors and working with other businesses to form groups of businesses with similar goals and values, instead of solely profiting from the market niche which her business has created for itself. Judy worked hard to find a “humane” source of pork produced near her restaurant, The White Dog Café, in Philadelphia to incorporate into her “cruelty-free” menu; then she helped other local food establishments to do the same thing. In such ways, through such “tactics of non-cooperation” as espoused by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, Judy encourages people to refuse to cooperate in the existing competitive system.

Step 2: Changing our measure of success to include success for all people and the earth.

The gap between the rich and the poor is already extreme and is ever-widening. The way that large corporations are structured exacerbates this problem through impersonal distant relationships and excessive CEO salaries that concentrate wealth and power. The majority of large companies have yet to include multiple stakeholders (such as workers, community partners and neighbors) in their chart of accounts. Success in large companies has been exclusive–mainly benefitting management and shareholders with single bottom line profit. Indeed, when businesses grow, they often give up important things such as close personal and professional relationships. Alternatively, businesses can grow in different ways and measure success by deepening relationships, increasing consciousness and cultivating joy. Once basic needs are met, businesses can orient around “being more” not “having more.” For example, businesses can become more by working to adhere to aspects of the Earth Charter (Earthcharterusa.org). Entrepreneurs can also work to fill the needs of their communities as part of their business goals.

With an entrenched U.S. reliance on a cheap oil system, peak oil is making the country less secure and could very well make it less possible for goods to circulate very far. The 21st century has become about fighting for oil. As referenced in the movie End of Suburbia (www.endofsuburbia.com), life will include reduced mobility. Close communal relations will become much more vital and communities will need to develop many aspects and building blocks of their economies in order to fill most of their needs locally. For example, small local companies, like 7 Stars Yogurt in Philadelphia, are working to create new local distribution channels instead of continuing to rely on national distributors with channels that send products so far and don't help local economies by circulating money back into the community.

Step 4: Economic Justice—Decentralizing wealth and power through local ownership.

Continuing the dominance of far-off business ownership and corporate monopolies only serves to further concentrate wealth and power. This issue can be addressed on two fronts—changing large corporations and creating alternatives. Business can “nurture local communities like a watering can” through creating living wage jobs, buying from local vendors, and investing locally. Local investment funds, such as the Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia, present great opportunities for decentralizing wealth. (New Mexico also has similar organizations, such as the New Mexico Community Development Loan Fund in Albuquerque.)

Step 5: Bringing peace by valuing and supporting cultural differences.

The U.S. represents roughly 5% of the world's population, while it consumes approximately 20% of the world's natural resources and is responsible for close to 25% of the world's pollution. This U.S.-inspired corporate globalization monoculture is driving the above consumption and pollution pattern--clearly having an unfair effect on the rest of the world's countries and cultures. By honoring and celebrating global partners and diversity, the U.S. can regain global accountability and ultimately foster more world peace.

Step 6: All life is interconnected and our survival depends on partnership with all people.

First Nation's people have believed that God is in all people and all life. Isn't this view more beneficial than the fundamentalist view that God resides only in some people? Capitalist culture often encourages individuality, isolation, living in fear of not having enough, and not embodying our values. The world's greatest power is love, not the U.S. military. Love and creativity are becoming increasingly important. The present world imbalance can be seen as the dominance of masculine qualities in many aspects of society at large. Let us all—men and women—call upon the feminine in each of us, to bring about more world balance and the honoring of all peoples.

As Judy Wicks spoke about the importance of relationships in a strong local living economy, we examined how to improve relationships in a breakout session on Powerful Partnerships. The facilitators, Tracy Heyland and Jennifer McKenzie, both certified coaches in B.C., presented relationship and conflict design. We put our attention to examining one of our present relationships and asked ourselves questions such as, What makes this partnership unique? What do I value and need in this partnership? What do I bring out in the other person? For what can I be counted on? What is my best hope for this partnership? What is possible between the two of us? Tracy and Jennifer find that bringing such attention and intention to relationships can greatly serve to activate the relationship's highest potential.

The facilitators encouraged us to take the time to design for conflict at the beginning of relationships so that difficulties can be resolved smoothly by asking such questions as, What atmosphere do I always want to hold during a conflict? What is your standard or default response when you are a part of a conflict? How do you want to be approached when you are in this mode? How do you want to be approached when your partner has a challenge with something you did or said? What can you count on from each other in times of conflict? What's bigger than any conflict you experience? The facilitators find that doing this kind of proactive homework creates much more fluidity and success in navigating conflict.

Our group answered these questions, discussed them and acted out scenarios to experience designing relationships more fully. The class was fertile with sharing and there was an atmosphere of trust—as everyone was asked to agree to confidentiality at the start of the class—and the breakout session modeled nicely what the teaching for creating partnerships was for the group. The facilitators also encouraged us to form agreements in our partnerships that we capture in writing which detail our needs, commitments, and the identity of and the vision for the partnership. By redesigning as we go and realigning the partnership to the bigger picture and vision, the partnership can maintain its health, integrity and vital power. I found this breakout to be very dynamic and worthwhile. As the session was coming to a close, the group was just starting to get into another lively discussion about the role that celebrating success has in partnerships.

Jim Hightower, twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, national radio commentator, community organizer, and author of Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush , gave a spirited, comical and significant address. Here are some snapshots of his poetic frenzy! “Invest in grassroots geniuses,” Jim says, “If you've dug yourself into a hole, stop digging!” Too few politicians support small businesses for the long term. Small businesses are being forced out by the powers that be. In contrast, Jim helped a group of African American small farmers by starting a watermelon Coop and the Taste of Texas ad campaign. He helped plug enterprising people into the marketing system through “percolate up economics.” Let's work towards “economic fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all people. Why don't we declare energy independence and independence from any need of oil? Let's retrofit every building in America for conservation purposes—homes, factories and schools. Let's link America with high speed trains to all cities—creating good jobs and never having to send our children to fight a foreign oil war again! Everybody does better when everybody does better! As opposed to: Greed. I got mine. You get yours in the U.S. and all over the world. Never have so few done so much for so few. It's Globaloney! It's time to light little prairie fires of rebellion all around the country. Here's to collaboration and inter-group relationships! One hundred and eighty communities in America have defeated Wal-Mart. The State of Maine has outlawed corporations that use sweatshop production. Borders Books received a 2 million dollar subsidy from the city of Austin, Texas, which put major strain on the local independent Waterloo Records and Books right across the street. “The economy can be what we want it to be. It's up to us. Wearing a button is not enough! Even the smallest dog can lift its leg on the tallest building (a chapter from his book). . . Jesse Jackson said, ‘We might not have all come over on the same boat, but we're in the same boat now!' . . . Let's focus. We can win those local offices and move on up. Allies are important. It's vital that we unify politics to bring together city people and rural people. Why don't we talk about poverty? Why isn't it an issue? Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Lula in Brazil are “anti-corporation presidents.” Government subsidies are being misappropriated in the U.S.—50 billion dollars are being paid to corporations. We need more public financing of all local elections so that the layperson has access to a pool of money and is able to compete with an incumbent. Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Arizona have taken steps in this direction.”

Donna Morton, the founder and Executive Director of the Centre of Integral Economics (www.integraleconomics.org), based in Victoria, B.C., brought our attention to the super- transformative potential of taxes. As an example of the present imbalance, Donna spoke of downtown Vancouver where landlords are sitting on single-level parking lots and derelict buildings to benefit from land speculation and tax evasion. These buildings and lots are much needed to provide more affordable housing and economic development possibilities in the city. Donna encouraged shifting taxes away from such things as jobs, investments, and savings and onto pollution, waste, carbon use, agribusiness, mining, sprawl and SUV's. Donna points to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S.'s Rockridge Institute as important tax-use role models. She encourages building little case stories, models and much cross-sector dialogue to form strong grassroots mechanisms—which are vital to put in place before meeting with the media and the public. She urges us to get creative about local banks, credit unions and coops as the best places for assets. Donna looks at economics as stories that we can re-write. Donna guided a call and response with us to highlight her 2 mantras as a finish for her lively talk: #1) It's not how much we tax. It's what we tax. And #2) Taxes are sexy!

Tom Linzey, a Pennsylvania lawyer and president of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, spoke about his journey helping the St. Thomas Township to draft an ordinance that strips corporations of constitutional rights by revoking corporate personhood at the municipal level. As Tom has intimately discovered, corporations can sue local communities to change laws. They can also sue for damages and lost profits. Because of the 1867 Reconstruction Civil Rights Law, corporations have the flexibility to wield the Constitution against local communities. Tom has worked to protect Pennsylvanian municipalities that are standing up to big agribusiness—which was recycling sewage sludge back into Pennsylvanian farmland in a very hazardous way. (Sixty percent of what they added to the soil was sewage sludge!) Tom described the very difficult and often dramatic legal and political battle that has ensued. The conflict even resulted in corporations attempting to jeopardize the ability of municipalities to create their own laws and to maintain their own jurisdiction! With such heretic happenings, Tom encourages the People to come together to say NO! Tom encourages citizens to participate in the 3-day Democracy Schools that take people through the regulatory system and educate them to become empowered so that justice can be served. “Democracy School is a stimulating and illuminating course that teaches citizens and activists how to reframe exhausting and often discouraging single issue work (such as opposing toxic dumps, quarries, factory farms, etc.) in a way that we can confront corporate control on a powerful single front: people's constitutional rights.” Tom notes that Arcadia, California has passed a binding law that refuses to abide by the Patriot Act. Tom states that, “Municipal Nonviolent Civil Disobedience is what this movement is about.” For more information about Tom's work, the Democracy Schools and the ‘Corporate Personhood Ordinance,' log on to www.celdf.org.

Positive change is truly alive. After a very fulfilling experience at BALLE BC, I hitched a ride with some conference goers and continued a stimulating conversation about SEAVU (Seattle Value Units)--the new local currency that was co-founded by one of my fellow ride sharers, Ross Krzysko. A second ride sharer, Alex Tokar, brainstormed about the question of ‘What is enough?' in terms of earning and saving for the future. We stopped at the store near the border and encountered cigarette boxes with very explicit pictures and warning statements on the boxes themselves. We marveled at the effects that these pictures had on us and the effects that they might have on smokers in Canada as well, where such labeling is required. Another ridesharer, Bruce Herbert of Newground Social Investment in Seattle, is working on the forefront of the Shareholder Advocacy movement. He's incorporated primary filing and co-filing into his investment management firm, which goes far beyond mere proxy voting to have a greater impact upon corporate accountability vis-a-vis social and environmental concerns. If any investor owns at least $2000 worth of stock in a company, they have the right to file—either by initiating the filing(primary file) or by joining with a filing that someone else is initiating (co-file)--with a company concerning a certain issue. Shareholder Advocacy is bringing some effective corporate changes from the inside out.

The BALLE 2006 Conference will take place in Burlington, VT from June 8 th -11 th, 2006. Check out their website for more info at www.livingeconomies.org and to find a BALLE Network near you or to receive a starter kit.

Patrick Malone passionately dedicates himself to making choices with money which honor people and the planet. He currently studies and engages himself in micro lending, values-based investing, philanthropy, the growth of local living economies, coops, stakeholder advocacy, and living in moderation. Patrick has a B.A. in German. A graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, he has cultivated various healing modalities along with healing through food; such as herbal medicine and integrative cancer care. Patrick has worked as a chef and licensed massage therapist. He lives in Tesuque, New Mexico.

The Institute for Nonviolent Economics wishes to express much gratitude to Patrick for attending this conference and bringing this report back to us!