Production is Power

30000 village clusters in India, in a sense (Going with 20–25/cluster).

Local basket of needs — consumption — is 70–90%+ from outside the cluster. Even for the simplest basics.

Local production is often down to a couple of commodities. Sold at sub wholesale prices.

The deficit is crazy. Multiplied over 30000 clusters, the value loss(theft?) is crazier. There is obviously a lack of surplus so no job creation possible. Obviously there’s migration. Of people, of value, of control and power. Of equity.

The migration is pressure on the few cities where it moves towards, where value moves to as well because of the above. They’re sinking, stinking and generally have a continuously worse quality of life, even as they release ever more toxic air, water and aspirations into the hinterland.

And because each cluster buys most things from elsewhere, shipped in on the back of a truck, there’s diesel, storage and energy needs. That’s a lot of contribution to climate change. Plus there’s the dependence on fragile supply chains and price fluctuation.

What a crazy game of all-round loss and destruction this is!

(Does Sri Lanka ring a bell!?)

The attempts to fill that gap — poorly and insufficiently — through subsidies, “freebies”, waivers, employment guarantees, charity etc is at best a temporary and partial fix, and in the long run and as a permanent measure does more harm than good.

Producing for the basket of needs (which, as it turns out, is not a small amount in total) keeps a lot of the money in the cluster, creates livelihoods, improved biodiversity since you *need* more of that for production, reduces transport and is generally more energy efficient and needs less packaging.

Consumption, in it’s essence is a weakness and a gap. Production is power.

We need every village cluster to understand this.