How Our Businesses Would Come To Change

If we scaled down our consumption, how would our Businesses change? Would our businesses not more closely match and answer the hearts of those in our community? Businesses within a community are an expression of the will of the people within that community. Every business is a piece of the answer to the question, What do the people within the community want, need, and believe? When a community has within it businesses which other communities also have, what does that mean? To borrow some words from the political world, it means those communities lack a unique culture and lack diversity from other communities. And to use a less political idea, it means the individuality of the people within that community is not active. If a community was to remove from their answer all businesses which they share with other communities, and replace them with what it is they exactly wanted, what would they come up with? The answer will always be something that more closely matches the hearts of the people within. And this, will always be a good and better thing. Unity of Community In the same way two family members are more likely to share wants, needs, and beliefs than two random, unrelated people, and in the same way two Americans are more likely to share these things than an American and a non American, two people within a community are more likely to share wants, needs, and beliefs than two people from different communities. What this “unity of community” should lead to is less, or perhaps just one option for each want and need there is within a community. Think about it - if everyone within a community shares core beliefs and preferences, how are there so many options for each business genre? The answer is generalization. For a business to succeed in selling a product to two different peoples, the business must generalize. They must strip away all unique details, culture, things exclusive to each of the peoples. Whether they realize it or not, they ask then say to themselves, If each community was to make their own, what would they all have in common? Let’s make that! This is why they succeed, but again, what we get is less than what we’d be creating if we were creating. It’s true and we shouldn’t be surprised that today we don’t feel that those in our communities are similar to us, that we are united with each other, but is this not because we lack things which remind us of what unites us? Is it not because we lack the opportunity to come together and decide what we all want, uniting us in the process? I think yes. A Reduction in Choice If we were to consume locally, our businesses would come to represent our hearts, our will, and our beliefs as much as they could. Given that we share in these things in large part with our community, the many generalized choices, would be reduced to few specific choices true to the people within it. A reduction in choice is something we’re suspicious of. The word monopoly and its negative associations comes to mind. These opinions are correct. Why, but for the reasons already stated - they take away the opportunity for smaller sets of people to succeed in creating something different that they want more. We must remember that our negative opinions of monopolies belong only to monopolies at national and global scales. A local monopoly is quite different. It’s the opposite, in fact. If a bad monopoly is one for all, a local monopoly is one for each. And one for each, is the best that can be. Competition and Its End The system our businesses exist within is competition. What is a competition but a system to determine a winner? In this “competition,” things are actually quite stable. It seems we’ve reached the end of the competition, or rather, a point of endless competition without a winner. Are we happy with what surrounds us? If this is the end, if this is what we will have forever serving our wants and needs, are we happy? I think no. What would have us the happiest is a clear and obvious choice for each of our wants and needs, determined and created by us, the people it is directly serving, with no influence by those who need to generalize and take away the us within. Advertisements Advertisements are strategy in the game of competition. Their great presence in our modern world implies we aren’t firm in our beliefs, our wants, or our opinion of what’s best or what’s the obvious choice. If our consumption habits changed, and rather than many equally wrong and generalized businesses, a few businesses we consume our wants and needs from became obvious, if the competition came to an end, what need would there be for advertisements? There wouldn’t be any, and they would go away. The next generation would ask, What’s an ad? What would remain? The truth of nature. Learning about businesses and what they offer in the best way possible - fate, spontaneity, and those who know us best - friends who tell us about it, and family who gift it to us. We need to see advertising for what it is - unnatural, attacks on nature that make us believe we want and need things we don't by creating doubt in and forgetfulness of our natural beliefs at all levels of priorities. Higher Quality, Love, and Intention It’s hard to predict the future, which is what this is, but generally we can say a couple things if we began consuming locally. We can assume confidently that the things our local businesses would create would become, as much as they could, higher quality, full of love, timeless and truthful. We have forgotten, or simply no longer believe, that everything a business creates and does can be art. In all things there can be intention, truth, a story, love, style. Take a look at things from the past - lighters, pens, homes, banks, elevators, desks, street lamps, clothing… anything! - and compare them to their modern equivalents. Everything modern is a facade and imitation of a higher quality original. Everything in our present environment is lower quality versions of what was once great. Why? The scale of the businesses which serve us was raised, necessitating generalization. Cheaper ways to achieve the same result were pursued, ways without the art, without the love, without the soul and intention. Were these things cheaper, more efficient, and quicker to get? Yes. But are these the variables we ought prioritize? Look at where and what they got us. The love, care and intention behind and within all is gone. Evaporated. Forgotten. We ought want the things in our lives to not be efficient. Things slow, beautiful, intentional, with presence where you want to take it all in without being rushed and in habit. What would we be willing to do in order to have every single thing that we consume, have the most love within it? What would that take from us? Isn't that a question worth answering? And if it's possible, isn't that a reality worth bringing about? It's valid to ask what the effects would be, but in every possible way, in every possible genre, every single effect is a positive one. And every sacrifice necessary, one worth it. Time to Change the Winners We've allowed the winners of the game that's played for our money to be people and businesses it shouldn't be. It’s time to change this, and bring about better.