Another Perspective
The Myth of Buying Local
This Christmas season think locally, buy globally.
Buying local has always been a popular sentiment, but the movement has picked up steam in recent years. Especially this holiday season, consumers are being urged to patronize local businesses that in-turn buy from other local businesses. Better to keep those dollars close to home.
A recent issue of the Shepherd Express, an alternative weekly paper in Milwaukee, gives readers an added incentive to buy local. Readers who pledge to spend $100 at Milwaukee-owned stores can receive gift certificates and other goodies.
There is nothing wrong with buying local, of course. Consumers have every right to choose where they shop. But on close examination, it gets tricky.
Take a locally-owned coffee shop. Very little of what it sells is actually local. The coffee beans come from Brazil, Ghana, Kenya — half a world away. The cappuccino was invented in Italy and many of the machines are manufactured in China. How is it “buying local” when you spend money there?
The trucks that hauled the goods to the locally owned business might be American-made — but probably not in greater Milwaukee, unless the delivery man drives a Harley. And the truck just as likely came from Japan or Germany.
And the customers? They probably wear clothes made in Bangladesh, Mexico, or Indonesia. If they are well-heeled, they might be wearing an Italian suit, or the latest fashions from Paris. They might surf the web on computers made in Japan or Korea and listen to music on an iPod — the back of which proudly says, “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.”
Almost the whole world came together to make this “local” business what it is. And all this is happening at a time when world opinion is as anti-American as ever. This is a marvel of human cooperation across countries. Even a simple coffee shop is a thing of wonder.
Why then, do some people make such a production of their preference of local goods over non-local goods? Why should product origin matter at all?
People rightly take pride in their hometown. But local production doesn’t always correlate with quality. Wisconsin isn’t known for its excellent locally grown coffee. Suppose Wisconsin farmers tried to make coffee instead of wheat, cranberries, or dairy products. That would not be a boon to local consumers.
Better for Milwaukeeans to leave coffee growing to the experts — and better for the rest of the world to have more of Wisconsin’s cheese, beer, and other specialties. That’s what economists call comparative advantage. It turns out that specialization is a good thing.
The way for a town to prosper is for it to do what it does best. And just as importantly, to not do what it does poorly. If every town tried to produce locally everything it consumes, quality would suffer and prices would be much higher because of the diseconomies of scale that would create.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you do your holiday shopping at locally owned stores or Megalomart. Either way, the store’s employees might well live in your neighborhood. Either way, their livelihood depends on your patronage. And either way, they probably aren’t selling local wares.
Buying local is mostly a fiction.
What that means is that the products you buy are made by millions of people from dozens of countries. They don’t know each other and might even dislike each other if they were to meet. Yet they all work together to give you the perfect gingerbread-flavored latte. This is poetry. It’s what the holidays are all about: peace, togetherness, and goodwill toward all men — not just these who happen to live nearby.
About the Author
Ryan Young is Fellow in Regulatory Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (28) | Leave a comment
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DaveS| 12.24.08 @ 7:48AM
Insofar as avoided sales taxes are concerned, should I not get these forgiven when buying online? After all I reduce my traffic contribution, preserve the roadways, reduce truck traffic by a smidgeon, employ a hard-working union UPS or FEDEX driver, and lower my stress level.
Stephen K.| 12.24.08 @ 11:05AM
You don't have to tell me that buying a hammer from the local shop doesn't mean it was made right here in my hometown. I'm not stupid, and neither are your readers.
But I'd rather it's the local shop that makes quarterly profits than Wal-Mart.
Jim Alfheim| 2.10.11 @ 1:34PM
Thank you, that's the whole point of buy local. The profits of the business stay in the local market, not to a corporation based in Delaware. A buy local campaign is not about a vertically integrated business of all local stuff.....That's not the point.
Melvin_Udall| 12.24.08 @ 11:35AM
My local store employs people in my community. My local store pays taxes into my community, helping to keep my taxes low and schools funded.
This poorly articulated defense of WalMart might mislead many. Wal Mart can just as easily be local. If it is, feel free to shop there.
What is far more damaging to local communities is shopping online, where a warehouse across the country makes a huge profit while paying no local taxes, employing no locals, and providing a minuscule discount to the consumer relative to their savings.
Jeremy Lott | 12.24.08 @ 9:03PM
>This poorly articulated defense of Wal-Mart...
Um, this isn't a defense of Wal-Mart.
Paul Milenkovic| 12.24.08 @ 11:20PM
Here in the People's Republic of Madison, we are at Ground Zero of Buy Local, Sustainability, etc, etc, etc.
One local supermarket has "food miles" signs up in the produce and meat sections -- this vegetable over here came upteen hundred miles from Chile, while that one over there only came 10 miles from some local farm.
There is this plant in the mustard family named Alliarea Petiolata (garlic mustard), regarded as an exotic invasive weed, and it is taking over the undergrowth of all of the City of Madison's Conservation Parks. I told an aide to the ecologically-oriented Mayor about this and got a blank stare.
Nutritionally, it is like having broccoli available for the picking any month there is no snow cover on the ground, and it is probably under the snow cover if you wanted to dig for it. By the way, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale and collard are all variants of just one species in the mustard family.
Food miles is a stupid gimmick. Garlic mustard is really easy to identify, and its slight bitter taste is no worse than the veggies that you are supposed to eat from the grocery store.
All of this business of farmers markets, coops, and grow local is just a marketing gimmick. You could get your vegetable nutrition for free by walking to a city park, getting down on your knees, and grazing like a cow, which I have done to freak out the self-professed sustainability-minded.
Mary Christmas| 12.25.08 @ 10:49AM
>You could get your vegetable nutrition for free by walking to a city park, getting down on your knees, and grazing like a cow<<br />
Eeeewwww! Think of how many dogs piddled there, pidgeon dropplings, human sputum, etc. You could get a lot more than nutrition this way. I'll go to the grocery store, thank you very much.
Melvin_Udall| 12.25.08 @ 12:36PM
>Um, this isn't a defense of Wal-Mart.
Well, since I have no beef with Wal-Mart, Jeremy, I guess it really doesn't much matter. Any further valuable input on the other 99% of my reply?
Jeremy Lott | 12.25.08 @ 4:38PM
Mr. Udall, I just thought it was worth pointing out that you had called the article a "poorly articulated defense of WalMart" when it was not, in fact, a defense of Wal-Mart. Perhaps I was being too picky. In re: buying local vs. buying online, my thoughts on that subject are too complicated to shove into a comments thread. In any event, merry Christmas.
JC| 12.25.08 @ 9:08PM
Mr. Young's article on buying local is on target, but I think he doesn't go far enough. The myth of "local products only" is used to look down at those of us who recognize that it is the coordinated global economy that helps create efficiencies, and generate economic activity.
I have found in my continuing disagreement with my hyper liberal brother-in-law is that it never really is about "buying local" anyway. In the past, I was chided for not buying organic, on his reasoning that only local businesses could provide organic foods. But - once large scale organic farms and products become available - he shifts the goal posts. Now, those large organic farms are "industrial" and don't really meet his approval. It is an arrogant, and elitist. And since only wealthy people can buy that $4 tomato, that is perfectly fine with him - because he has money, but he "cares" and is "helping" the locals.
My argument is "What about those locals?" What about the family of four, making $40k/yr? To many of these "locals", places like WalMart are the places that help make their lives livable. Market efficiencies are what make peoples lives better. That is why in some areas of the Northeast you almost can't afford to live there, as one of the "locals".
Buying local is fine - But I refuse to be looked at as unsensitive to the environment, or uninformed, or a blatant capitalist, because I sometimes choose NOT to buy local. Spare me your condescension.
AND -Merry Christmas!
Joe B| 12.26.08 @ 12:57PM
Buy products made in the USA and purchase using the internet to avoid local taxes: that's my strategy. I live in California, so I resent every cent I have to pay to local, county, or state entities. Such taxes cover the salaries of some of the biggest cretins ever to stumble out of the gene pool. Even the police and fire departments are useless, with hiring standards vitiated to accommodate low performing black and hispanic job candidates.
g| 12.26.08 @ 1:05PM
I buy online because of the convenience and becauase I am allergic to the rock/rap/techo/pop music played in most chain stores.
Roger J| 12.26.08 @ 2:55PM
The main reason to buy local is to keep as much money circulating in that community as possible. It supports and rewards the owner, who is taking the risk of his or her own money to open the business, and the employees.
I can also see why people are increasingly shopping online, possibly better price and convenience. I think the local shops should make online shopping a part of their business model. Example, give the locals the option to shop and order online and have the order ready to pick up when the costumer arrives or deliver it or mail it, and maybe a discount for orders above a certain amount.
Locals --- compete, compete, compete. Don’t try to hold back the evolution of the way we shop - adjust, change, get better. Compete and prosper.
Michael L. Hauschild| 12.27.08 @ 12:41PM
The article and the arguments presented here seem rather convoluted. For example, I have always purchased vehicles manufactured by the "big three." Someone explain what benefit this has been to me and my fellow taxpayers.
Steve Lee | 12.27.08 @ 7:19PM
Buying Local is a great marketing plan if you have to pay US wages and taxes and your competition growing green peppers in Mexico has state-subsidized diesel fuel and pays $2 a day wages.
Think Free Trade
Anne| 1.25.09 @ 11:45AM
To coin a phrase "the world is flat". In a global economy where our home is the planet, everything is local!
links london | 9.10.09 @ 11:02PM
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Pingback| 10.11.09 @ 6:33PM
On the Radio – Buying Local « Inertia Wins! links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 10.12.09 @ 12:30PM
Buying Local « Inertia Wins! links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: