Fperalandra

[Originally published in the OTHER paper, Eugene, Oregon in March, 1999.]

A lose - lose situation

by Wanda Ballentine

"'Independent' means what it says: bookstores that aren't locally owned by people who know books and need not tailor their orders to the appetites of a distant city, but would rather honor their customers' interest in regional issues, local authors, small press books, poetry, first novels, things that matter to us, right here, right now. Is this something you can live without?... It's a First Amendment issue. To put it bluntly, chain stores and publishers are in league to manipulate what Americans will see, purchase, and read."
Author Barbara Kingsolver, when a long-time local bookstore closed in her town

Local bibliophiles were shocked and dismayed to learn that Peralandra, a Eugene favorite for over 20 years is closing, yet another victim of the influx of chain book stores. the OTHER paper, and many other media are also losing a faithful advertiser.

Peralandra's last Newsletter warns that small bookstores are being driven out of business by corporate book chains and Internet sales across the country. The American Booksellers Association is suing Barnes and Noble and Borders for unfair business practices, but it will take several years before they get to court. Amazon.com has the financial capacity to absorb millions in losses. Multinational corporations dominate publishing, and Barnes and Noble is about to purchase Ingram distributor, which will force even independent bookstores to buy from the conglomerate.

Petitions against this are being circulated, and Senator Ron Wyden is looking at the purchase under the Federal Trade Commission. (Whatever happened to the anti-trust laws? They only seem to work when corporations want deregulation for their benefit -- sure doesn't benefit the rest of us: i.e., airlines, phone companies and, coming soon, utilities).

Building sustainable communities is a major buzzword today, along with the need for diversity -- but we don't always look at these concepts in all their ramifications; we don't always see how our everyday actions affect them.

Jonathan Rowe, senior fellow at Redefining Progress, in San Francisco, commented on the situation in 'A Civic Economy' in the latest issue of Yes! "For all this country's obsessive concern for its 'economy,' we rarely ask what an economy is for. Economists say it's just a machine for producing stuff, and stuff-equivalents called 'services.' The more stuff we buy, the better the economy is ... But an economy has another kind of product that economists overlook -- human interaction ... it determines how we connect or don't connect with other people.

"An economy is a social system, and the kinds of businesses we have determine in large measure the kind of society we will have. If commerce tends to isolate us from one another -- if it channels us into settings in which we interact primarily as sellers and consumers rather than as neighbors and citizens too -- then we shouldn't be surprised if local self-help, civic action, and plain old-fashioned friendliness start to flag."*

Everything in modern life has been co-modified; corporations and banks constantly hustle, moving around money, jobs, and factories to take advantage of every last percentage point of gain. Money is the only yardstick for value. It's a disease that has infected everyone. We drive across town to get a 15c-off item, ignoring the time and gas used. We go to the 'big box' stores because they have the financial clout to offer discounts local businesses can't match, and we feel smug about our savings. Not to go for the 'best buy' is to be considered a fool.

But one day we wake up and find all the small local businesses have disappeared, the quality and pay of available jobs has declined, and the landscape has dissolved into a boring sameness that looks like any other town along I-5, 101, or Rte. 66. Regarding books, we can also wake up to a terrifying mental blandness; we may be able to get more books for less at the big boxes, but the range of ideas contained therein may be greatly diminished.

Big purchasers will opt for books with the greatest market appeal (and the least offensive to the status quo). "The discoveries of unknown authors, of orthodox viewpoints, will be harder to find," notes the Peralandra Newsletter.

Though small businesses are the backbone of the economy, providing more jobs than do big corporations, they are at increasing risk as the economic feeding frenzies of mergers, buy-outs and takeovers create franchise operations with the money to come in and undercut local businesses. 'Big-box' stores may hire local people, but management has no roots in the community, no allegiance to its well-being. The very nature of the corporate structure decrees it must garner as much profit as possible for stockholders and upper management, so money spent in their store is largely siphoned out of the community.

To have a vital community, both businesses and customers need to nurture it and realize their mutual interdependence. Businesses need to provide both basic goods and services at honest prices and pay wages that provide workers a decent life. Customers have a responsibility to patronize those businesses. We all have to ask ourselves how we are going to make this community sustainable. Is the short-term gain of saving a few dollars today worth the long-term cost of finding ourselves in cookie-cutter communities controlled by non-local interests tomorrow?

Many realize that the Y2K situation, whether or not it creates disasters, points out very clearly that we are totally dependent on systems we do not understand and cannot control to meet many of our basic needs. There aren't that many basic products produced locally, and more and more chain distributors are moving in.

Unless an angel steps forward to buy it, Peralandra will probably close its doors for the last time in early March, but urges residents to stand up for the remaining independent bookstores such as Mother Kali's, The Book Mark, Hungry Head, J. Michaels, Stargate, Tsunami, Black Sun, Greater Goods, and Ruby Chasm.

*YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, subscriptions, $24/yr., POB 10818, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110. yes@futurenet.org; www.futurenet.org.

[Note: See related article, "Desperately Needed: A new economic system", based on excerpts from The Post-Corporate World, by David Korten, in the Spring, 1999, issue of YES! A Journal of Positive Futures.]

Hen Cackles