I boycotted the Oligarchs all my life and discovered an additional strategy worth sharing. While playing Monopoly with my 10-year-old son and his friend, I was winning handily because I bought every property I landed on and added housing and hotels as fast as possible to crush my opponents with high rents. But here’s what happened: my son and his friend began working together, supporting one another with loans and rent waivers on the properties they owned. Gradually, the tables turned, and the co-op they formed crushed my efforts to win.
This illustrated our path forward as average Americans. We needed to come together and support one another and our communities. Shopping locally keeps dollars circulating in our neighborhoods, creating jobs and strengthening community bonds.
“For every $20 you spend at chain stores $3 stay here. For every $20 you spend at local businesses $10 stay here.”
Moreover, big box stores and similar national/international retailers in large part handled professional jobs (accounting, taxes, marketing, legal services, financial management, etc.) at their headquarters office or in larger regional office (e.g., a city somewhere in the Western US), and not in the retail outlet where local money was spent.
This second detail comes from John H. Giordanengo’s book, “Ecosystems as Models for Restoring our Economies (To a Sustainable State), 2nd edition.”
When we raised gardens and shared harvests, we reduced dependence on corporate food systems. Buying less and sharing more decreased corporate profits while increasing our collective resilience. “No Shop Friday” was organized to send a message to the billionaire class that they could not continue taking advantage of us. The dollars we spent locally became powerful votes for the kind of community we wanted to build. United we STAND, divided we FALL.
Publishers note: John Giordanengo, Principal/Owner of Economic Restoration Services and President of Economic Restoration Institute, also recently spoke at the Yreka library, thanks to the Friends of Yreka Library for sponsoring the presentation.
