Appalachia’s Economic Transition is Underway: Three Broad Strategies to Get Us There

“What’s needed is not a dilution of our commitment to the environment or social justice, but an expansion of our strategy to include working folks, and their needs and concerns as central to our efforts,” Anthony Flaccavento writes about strategies to make real progress on strengthening Appalachia’s economy. Photo by Jessica Kennedy.

Last week, I briefly described three key questions to frame the discussion about economic transition in Appalachia and around the nation:

1. Is the economy for people, or are people for the economy?
2. What is the proper role of government, the right balance between the ‘public sector’ and ‘the market’?
3. How do we live within our means, cultivating more widely shared prosperity, with less energy, waste and dependency?

In this second part to last week’s post, I’ll suggest three strategies I believe to be essential to making real progress on economic transition that builds greater prosperity, self-reliance and ecological sustainability. As someone whose work focuses on the details of economic diversification and transition, my perspective here is deliberately broad in hopes of providing some guidance applicable across sectors, communities and regions.

Strategy 1: Systematically connect “practice” with “policy” and the public discourse.

As tobacco farming entered a steep decline in the late 1990s, few local leaders or state politicians offered ideas about what might replace it. Organic farming, to be sure, was not being talked about. Yet within just a few years, several state legislators and Tobacco Commission members were visiting a former tobacco barn in Lee county, Va., now converted to a regional packing house for organic produce, eggs and other items being sold to hundreds of supermarkets. The on-the-ground practice of tobacco farmers transitioning to other crops helped change both legislative and institutional priorities, broadening support not only for organic farming but for economic diversification.

Real world examples of economic transition help persuade skeptical lawmakers and bureaucrats. Farmers, local business people and activists better recognize both the obstacles and opportunities inherent in public policy. They’re synergistic; Good policy enables and accelerates the work on the ground, and that in turn leads to more informed, ambitious policy. What’s more, young people are increasingly engaged as entrepreneurs, farmers and activists — an exciting trend to encourage and cultivate.

Strategy 2: Put working people at the top of the Progressive and Environmental agenda.

There is no doubt that Fox News and right wing pundits have helped paint environmentalists and progressives as elitists who are out of touch with and even opposed to the interests of working folks. But in truth, many of us in those movements have frequently played into that image by putting broader principles and goals ahead of the very folks hardest hit by changes in the economy. Think about it: How does a “Beyond Coal” campaign sound if you, your spouse or kids work in the coal mines? Especially when few have proposed, let alone developed, clear alternatives for those miners and their communities?

It is long past time for leaders and advocates in the environmental movement and in progressive political groups to put working people — especially those working the land from which we harvest our energy, food and fiber — front and center in terms of their priorities, strategies and resources. We must give equal weight not only to protecting the mountains, but to the people working the coal seams, not just to forests or fisheries, but to loggers and fishermen. What’s needed is not a dilution of our commitment to the environment or social justice, but an expansion of our strategy to include working folks and their needs and concerns as central to our efforts. Rather than celebrating the closing of a coal-fired power plant, let’s work with ACME Panel in Radford, Va., to expand its production of energy efficient building panels to the coalfields, or with MACED in Berea, Ky., to accelerate its on-bill financing program and the energy efficiency jobs it’s creating.

Strategy 3: Retake the debate – from the factless, feckless, well-heeled pundits and media outlets, to the next generation of community-based entrepreneurs, activists and journalists committed to the truth.

There is no question that oversimplification is an easier sell than trying to explain complex issues in 30 second soundbites. That’s why the “war on coal” messaging worked so well in our region, and why the myth that “the market is always more efficient and productive than the government” has become so widely accepted. Combined with an increasingly corporate media that has laid off the majority of its journalists and news staff, it is no wonder that our debate has become so angry and shallow. The question is, how do we retake the debate, not just to counter the worst lies, but to tell the story of the emerging new economy, the many experiments in community resilience, and the truth of who wields power?

I am not a journalist, but my own experience as a congressional candidate in 2012, and my reading of folks such as John Nichols, Robert McChesney and Joan Walsh leads me to propose two fundamental steps for retaking the debate. First, we must begin to talk less but say more, in our media efforts, our political campaigns and our conversations with our neighbors. If you’re like me, this ain’t easy! But I also now know that plenty of ordinary people want to go beyond the simplistic slogans and talk about real issues. The number of dummies and zealots out there is not insignificant. But there are far more people with plenty of smarts, looking for some respect and honest engagement.

Secondly, our efforts to retake the debate should be guided and informed by the other two broad strategies – putting working people at the center of our efforts and continually linking practice and policy. If we do this, we’ll kindle a debate based on substance and we’ll do it in a way that engages a much broader range of people. And that may just be the most important thing we can do to bring about a just and sustainable transition.

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