Would you like to find ways to make your local community more resilient, more viable, more self-sufficient? Democratic-Socialism emphasizes appropriate technology to develop local communities, especially in rural areas. We'll look briefly at E.F. Schumacher's chapter on Appropriate Technology in Small Is Beautiful. Then we'll look at the example of a small town in Bavaria, called Wilpoldsried, which macgyvered its way out of where corporatist "development" had left it for dead and into a profitable future using Renewable Energies, the very best appropriate technology for small communities. More below.

Might as well listen to Jack Johnson.

My understanding of democratic socialism comes from a famous book that came out when a young Bernie Sanders was forming his economic philosophy: Small Is Beautiful (1973), by the post-WWII British economist E.F. Schumacher. It is subtitled "Economics As If People Mattered." It is not a textbook, there's no technical language, or math (or any Marx), but a book of popular economics aimed at the general readership. I have read it a number of times and have made a summary, mostly in Schumacher's words - there's lots of excerpts. I cut out the 70's rock...

Part Three deals with the matter of development in the emerging world.
Now, why would the emerging world be important for our towns' becoming more resilient?
Because the lessons from corporatist failure in global "development" apply also to our local towns: since the 70s, corporatist globalists have "developed" our local communities in exactly the same way they distorted towns in the emerging world. In chapter twelve, Schumacher addresses the the need for appropriate technology in developing rural towns ("intermediate" in 70s terminology.)

Twelve - The Development of Appropriate Technology

Schumacher summarized his thoughts on the technological aspects of development as follows:

1. The "dual economy" in the developing countries will remain for the foreseeable future. The modern sector will not be able to absorb the whole of the undeveloped economy.

Not much has changed since then. Most developing economies still have huge disparities between their developed and developing sectors. Since the 70s, corporatist globalism has created in rich countries as big differences between wealthy areas (that profit from globalism) and poor areas (destroyed by globalism).
The historic scourge of civilizations (apart from climate change) - great inequality - has hollowed out the rich world almost completely.

2. If the non-modern sector is not made the object of special development efforts, it will continue to disintegrate. This disintegration will continue to manifest itself in mass unemployment and mass migration into the metropolitan areas; and this will poison economic life in the modern sector as well.

Schumacher would be unsurprised by the disastrous acceleration of these trends over the decades since. It has continued in the emerging world and has destroyed vast swathes of rural America.

3. The poor can be helped to help themselves, but only by making available to them a technology that recognises the economic boundaries and limitations of poverty.

The poor - in the emerging and the rich world - need appropriate technologies.
Our dying rural towns need appropriate and local technologies to become more resilient.

4. Action programmes on a national and supranational basis are needed to develop appropriate, sustainable technologies suitable for the promotion of full employment in developing countries.

Neo-liberal developmental programmes - such as those of the western countries, IMF, World Bank, etc., - tend to create projects that favour the local elites rather than the poor. How this surprises anyone is a mystery: corporate capitalism is by and for western elites. Of course they would just replicate their model in development projects.

What would it look like for a local community to embrace the route of appropriate technology to develop out of the capitalist trap into resiliency and a democratic-socialist economy?

The example of Wildpoldsried

The village of Wildpoldsried in southern Germany is an example of a town that used RE to develop itself by its own bootstraps.

Wildpoldsried, Germany (Wikipedia)

Wildpoldsried is a small agricultural village, which has a population of 2,600 and prior to catching the RE vision, there were no industries or jobs. Today, the village produces 321 percent more energy than it needs. What does it do with the excess? Well, it receives $5.7 million in annual revenue by selling it back to the national grid. Not bad, eh?

Here's the town's 2014 energy generation (Erzeugung) versus usage (Verbrauch). Bear with me, I read German at the elementary school level.

(http://www.wildpoldsried.de/index.shtml?Energie)

Im Jahr 2014 wurden im Gemeindegebiet 30.440 MWh Strom regnerativ erzeugt.
Der Verbrauch im Gemeindegebiet lag bei 6.323 MWh ( - 2,4 % zu 2013)

in 2014, Wilpoldsried produced 30.4MWh of RE:

• 0.055 from the water treatment plant,
• 8.561 from the biogas plants,
• 5.034 from the PV panels, and
• 16.789 from the wind turbines

and the town used barely 6.3MWh (which was 2.4% less than the previous year.)

How did this happen?

In 1997, a new village council was elected and it decided on the following goals:

• to build new industry,
• keep initiatives local,
• bring in new revenues, and,
• create no debt.

Luckily, it found itself in Germany, one of the most RE friendly countries in the world, where federal and state governments run several initiatives to support RE development on a consistent, ongoing, wildly successful basis.

In 1999, the Village Council crafted a mission statement — WIR–2020, ‘Wildpoldsried Innovativ Richtungsweisend (Wildpoldsried Innovative Leadership) — which became the blueprint for how it should consider its citizens’ demands, community projects and future development and growth. In turn, the council hoped that the guidelines would inspire people to get involved, begin thinking greener and create jobs and businesses for the community.

The W.I.R – 2020 focused on three main themes:
1) Renewable Energy and Saving Energy;
2) Ecological Construction of Buildings Using Ecological Building Materials (mainly wood-based); and
3) Protection of Water and Water Resources (both above and below ground) and Ecological Disposal of Wastewater.

Source:BioCycle magazine https://www.biocycle.net/2011/08/16/german-village-achieves-energy-indep...

Wind Turbines (www.biocycle.net)

Energiedorf (meaning Energytown) Wilpoldsried

In the years since 1997, the village has built:

• nine new community buildings complete with solar panels,
• four biogas digesters with a fifth under construction,
• seven windmills with two more on the way,
• 190 private households equipped with solar,
• a district heating network with 42 connections,
• three small hydro power plants,
• ecological flood control, and, a
• natural wastewater system.

Biogas Facility (www.biocycle.net)

Wildpoldsried has become known far and wide for its innovation in RE and the accompanying jobs it created. The village has several B&Bs for visitors and hosts regular energy tour groups.
The community leaders are invited all over Europe to give presentations on their success.
It has become a model for successful transition to RE and a low-carbon, sustainable future.

Natural Waste Water Treatment (www.biocycle.net)

Is this model feasible in North America, with it's corporatist bias against rural development and RE?
More difficult than in RE-friendly Europe, but possibly yes.
The key for Wilpoldsried was the federal and Bavarian subsidies for RE. Could North American local communities receive such subsidies? They could in Ontario, where I live.
But the 50 U.S. states have 50 different points of view on RE. You tell me.

Could a North American local community that has the vision, as the 1997 Wildpoldsried town council had, carry it out even without subsidies in hostile U.S. states? Could it find other agencies to help offset the initial high RE costs and so provide the bootstrapping to turn the town around? I don't know enough to guess.

What do you think? Are there local communities in North America on this same RE trajectory? I welcome your thoughts, ideas, and experiences.

Peace be with us, if we use appropriate tech, like RE, to transform our local communities,
gerrit