Local Economy, Right Livelihood, and Profit Sharing
Among the most profound opportunities sustainable communities offer is the potential for residents to create local economies and ‘right livelihood’. Originally taken from the Buddhist ‘eight-fold path’, right livelihood, means avoiding any work that brings us shame – work that exploits or harms other beings or the earth.
Framing it in a more contemporary way, the Swedish government each year bestows a right livelihood award to those, ‘working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today.’ Finding right livelihood is a critical factor in creating a sustainable economy, and – at a time when Gallup polls tell us nearly three in every four American workers is ‘disengaged’ from their work – in restoring and fostering meaning and value to the work that we do.
Cotati, CA co-housing, with community owned commercial space below residential units.
Profit Sharing
In a sustainable neighborhood that owns its ‘commons’ of water, power and communications, opportunities for meaningful work and profit sharing abound. In Frogsong, the Cotati co-housing neighborhood, the 30 residential households equally share the profits that accrue from the seven 800sf commerical spaces on the property! The Market Creek Plaza and BIG Wash are other examples where residents share profits from commerical properties in their neighborhood.
Imagine designing, developing and maintaining systems to collect, process and distribute clean water. Or designing, building and maintaining clean, renewable energy generation and distribution systems. Or doing the same with community owned communications services that provide voice, cable and data connections for a reasonable fee. (Imagine the neighborhood owns the fiber optic ‘pipe’ over which communications flow and charges content providers like Comcast to move their product over the network!) Or creating and running reuse and recycling systems.
Other opportunities include local food production and processing; redesign and retrofit of existing structures for sustainability; child and senior care; continuing education, skill building and technical training; creating and caring for grounds, landscapes and habitat; community and organizational capacity building and facilitation; and providing technical assistance to other communities that wish to go sustainable.
People might make up ‘community livelihoods’ they really love – a day working in the library; a day or two in one of the shops; some child care or working as an aide at the school; a bit of gardening or landscaping; some writing or web design. In walkable communities with ‘co-located’ facilities, it would be easy to work in a variety of places if we choose to.
The possibilities are almost endless – bicycle sales and repair, computer rental, training and service labs, graphics design shops and cafés, wood, metal and fabrication shops, an eBay store . . . Entrepreneurs of all ages could obtain micro loans from the community bank, gain business skills through life long learning programs, and rent affordable facilities to create life affirming products and services that in turn create more local jobs.
What would right livelihood look like for you?
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