This talk and group discussion will focus on building grassroots economic alternatives to globalization by creating local living economies - as opposed to the global suicide economy now in place. A Local Living Economy ensures that economic power resides locally, sustaining healthy community life and natural life as well as long-term economic viability. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) builds such local economies by organizing small and medium-sized businesses (the ones struggling for survival against large absentee-owned chains) into networks of support that move the businesses toward profitability and sustainability and reclaim the local economy for the community. We work with businesses in the "building blocks" of a sustainable local economy: sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, green building, zero-waste manufacturing, independent media, downtown retail, and community capital.

I want participants to take away the knowledge that such business networks are possible and working in many types of communities, from urban to rural, from poor to wealthy, and that building strong local business networks that put control of the economy back into the hands of the local community is an activity within reach that addresses many of the underlying economic causes of poverty, community collapse, and environmental degradation.

This session will definitely "encourage thinking and acting that move beyond criticism toward actually building 'another world.'" Participants will break up into small groups to take turns thinking aloud about their own local communities and what it might take to strengthen a living economy there. The session will be conducted in English; I would welcome a translator/interpreter. I will provide handouts for attendees in English and Spanish.

The local economy movement's biggest adversary is the power of multinational chains/corporate agriculture/media conglomerates, etc., and their backing by the US government. Our concrete alternative is a relentlessly positive grassroots organizing effort targeted at an overlooked segment of the population with a history of getting things done - small business owners, the people who will actually build and operate a new economy. Our strategy is networking businesses, strengthening local supply lines, fomenting "Buy Local" consumer education campaigns, developing sources of local capital for local economic activity, and strategizing new approaches to economic development for state and local governments that do not rely on subsidies and tax breaks for large corporations but rather support the existing small business community, among other things.