Businesses MUST buy, sell and promote Local Goods first | Principles | A Community Route

You shouldn’t trust what you cannot physically experience, if it physically exists somewhere else.

Just as we should all avoid foods that don’t resemble their basic, raw form – unless the processing used is simple, such as was traditionally undertaken by hand (e.g. Bread, Butter, Cheese), we should avoid and distrust the processes of growing, manufacturing and production that are not accessible or cannot be accessed, viewed and assessed by people who are known to us and that we can trust.

The world today has abused the trust that so many of us have placed in it by exploiting the rationale that out of sight is out of mind. So that if we cannot see it, we do not care about it, we are not interested in it, we will take the provenance and care for our best interests that go into it for granted.

Corruption is not only a term that relates to financial payments, favours and backhanders that skew decisions that should always be impartial and fair. Processes of all kinds have become corrupted by the self-interest and profiteering that drives them.

There is no reason why the basic goods, foods and services that we all need for life cannot be grown, produced, manufactured or supplied locally – IF we are putting people and a values-based way of living first.

Yes, there may always be a need to trade local goods that exist in excess, for those that cannot be locally produced, or to create a regulated currency for the purposes of exchange that can do the same.

But if we work locally, with local people, in the interests of the locality and the local community, a balance for this will always exist. It is only when greed and the self-interest of the few enter the equation that the process begins where balance, fairness and justice is lost, and it all begins to go wrong.

Local Businesses must always prioritise local suppliers for their services, raw materials and goods.

Quality and experience are always the key, and by chasing profit or by attempting to avoid rules that achieve the same, transparency, provenance, authenticity and everything good will always be lost.