Many of our recent articles have highlighted how President Trump, Trumpism, and the MAGA movement are hurting local businesses and local economies. The culprits include foolish tariffs, a disastrous war, brutal deportations, regressive tax cuts, and nonstop climate denialism. Collectively, these policies are hurling the country toward a massive bout of stagflation—recession plus inflation—that will keep our economy in the mud for years to come. But, honestly, the Democrats have not performed significantly better on many local economy issues, and in this issue, we critique blue state policies.
Our featured interview this week is with Greg Gerritt, a prolific chronicler and critic of the corporate attraction policies of Rhode Island. Superficially, the state is dark blue, with a Senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, who practically co-hosts the Lawrence O’Donnell show on MSNBC. But like most other blue states, Rhode Island is failing to tackle a host of pressing problems, including affordability, housing, living-wage jobs, and health care. In Greg’s view, the core problem is the state’s addiction to big corporations, which leaves the state inattentive to poverty, wealth redistribution, and public health. He argues that Rhode Island instead needs a new kind of economic development, focused on local businesses meeting basic needs and grounded in bottom-up democracy.
Greg has a new book out, worth taking a look at, called Economic Justice, Climate Justice, and Prosperous Communities in the 21st Century.
Readers will also find our latest listings of local businesses and local investment funds that will happily take your investments. Please give them a look-see.
- Michael H. Shuman, Publisher
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MS: Your new book is titled “Economic Justice, Climate Justice, and Prosperous Communities in the 21st Century.” What’s your 30-second, “elevator pitch” about the book’s central thesis?
GG: The central thesis is that to have prosperous communities, we absolutely have to stop the encroaching climate disaster by getting rid of fossil fuels, we have to make local economies more equal, and focus on what the community wants to work better. We especially need to pay more attention to public health and pollution prevention.
MS: How did you get to be one of Rhode Island’s best-known gadflies? What was your career journey?
GG: I started reading about endangered species when I was 14, and then organized my high school for the first Earth Day in 1970. After dropping out of grad school and hitchhiking for a year, I ended up back in Maine, where I lived in the woods and ran a carpentry business while helping friends on their farms. In 1984, people in Maine started talking about a Green Party, and I immediately signed up. In 1986, I ran for the state legislature on a platform I would still be proud to run on. I then became an activist until 1996, working on campaigns, helping with referendums, and participating in local activism. One of the things I participated in was the Maine Economic Growth Council. I wrote a long critique of the process and suggested they become a prosperity council.
When I arrived in Rhode Island, our state Economic Policy Council came out with a report on the global economy that was nearly identical to what the Maine Economic Growth Council had produced. I critique it, became a stakeholder on the Combined Sewage Overflow project, where I introduced Rhode Island to Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and connected with the Environment Council of Rhode Island, which continues to be one of my main relationships.
Where I separate myself from other environmental activists in the state is that I focus on the economic development process and critique it from an ecological, climate, and justice perspective. You get to be a gadfly by directly challenging the power of money to determine what happens to a community. This also meant that I was among the first mainstream enviros to fully embrace the need for environmental justice.
MS: The way I got to know your work many years ago is your strong, consistent stand against corporate attraction for economic development. Most of us think of Rhode Island as a smart, progressive state, and yet a long line of state leaders, whether Democrat or Republican, have made this corporate attraction a centerpiece of economic development. Is this getting any better now?
GG: No, it is not getting better. The political leadership of Rhode Island continues to go out of its way to help the rich. The state economic development agency, CommerceRI, continues to funnel lots of money to attract out-of-state corporations and businesses that harm communities. In the most recent fiscal year, it spent literally zero money to support the growth and development of businesses in low-income communities or businesses that help us improve the resilience of our communities. There is no understanding that economic development only really works as a bottom-up process. Our economic developers are still caught up in a top-down paradigm.
MS: What are the best types of economic development, and related policies, you see happening in Rhode Island right now?
GG: I am not sure that Rhode Island has any real policies for economic development that work well and help us eliminate poverty. There is a proposal for a millionaire’s tax this year, and if it passes, it probably would help a little. Some folks are suggesting that the state no longer put any public resources into businesses that are part of the military-industrial complex. If we did that, it would help a lot. Outside of policy, we are seeing a growing number of worker-owned businesses, cooperatives, and policy efforts to help fund their development and growth.
MS: You write that the following quote has been on your business card for the last 20 years: “You cannot end poverty without healing ecosystems. You cannot heal ecosystems without ending poverty.” What state or city in the world has some exemplary public policies that, in your view, follow this wisdom? And what do those policies look like?
GG: A model policy is a campaign I worked on in Maine 35 years ago to ban the siting of a nuclear waste dump without a vote in the community to allow it. The community needs to have a say in what comes into the neighborhood.
Right now, I am working with some low-income neighborhoods in Providence that are critiquing the Port of Providence Master Plan for not embracing this principle. Our politicians are always looking to squeeze the community out. The draft presented to the community, after a long public process, is better than it would have been, but not nearly good enough. We continue to ask for the elimination of all fossil fuels and military-oriented businesses in the port. The more open and public the process, the more likely the economic development coming out of it will help rather than harm the community. Again, the politicians do not recognize that economic development must be a bottom-up process.
End poverty before worrying about the rich. You can have the rich doing really well with the rest of us suffering, but you will never see the rich suffer when the rest of the community is doing well.
MS: You have a statistic in your book that nine of the last ten recessions have been caused by lax regulation of the rich or lower tax rates. Can you elaborate on this? What do you think is the causal connection?
GG: The data are readily available and quite clear. Under Republican administrations, unemployment goes up, and economic growth goes down. Why? Because in every one of these administrations, they cut taxes on the rich and large corporations, and they eliminate or water down regulations protecting the environment, public health, and worker safety. The correlation is striking. Correlation is not causation, but the evidence continues to accumulate that: when workers are healthier, they work better; when wealth is more equally distributed, more of it gets spent in the local community, contributing to prosperity; when water is cleaner, air is better for breathing, it helps communities thrive.
MS: Should Rhode Island implement a wealth tax? If so, what would it look like? And how could you design it to minimize the departure of wealthy residents?
GG: We are trying to pass a millionaire’s tax this year. Even the governor endorsed it. But leaders in our state legislature owe too much to the rich and take marching orders from their lobbyists, so I’m not sure if it will pass this year. But it would really help the state if it did. The evidence that the rich abandon a state with a wealth tax is very slim. Massachusetts, which is next door to us, passed a millionaire’s tax, and the number of millionaires went up. The people actually leaving our state are younger workers who cannot find affordable housing. Providence has one of the fastest rent increases of any place in the country. What we are really fighting against is a neoliberal propaganda machine that always omits one key fact: When the rich are taxed a bit more, it raises all boats. Even the rich get lifted, because everyone else has more money to spend in their businesses.
MS: What you’re really saying is a principle that Henry Ford understood. The Model-T would succeed best when workers could afford to buy one. Let’s move to reversing climate disruption, one of the central tenets of your book. I believe that to accomplish this, we need to solarize all our buildings with batteries, reduce our dependence on local utilities, and create local investment opportunities to accelerate this. Do you agree? Is there evidence of this happening in Rhode Island?
GG: We most definitely need to put solar on all of our buildings, develop wind turbines offshore, use batteries to store energy, and insulate all of our buildings. It will slow down sea level rise (which is especially critical in Rhode Island) and keep money local that now flows out of state to buy fossil fuels.
Rhode Island has a suite of good policies to help the transition. But thanks to pressure from the White House, our politicians in Rhode Island are getting cold feet and trying to roll them back.
Of course, the Republicans have submitted bills this year to roll back all environmental and climate rules, but these are not serious. The really bad stuff was put directly into the Governor’s budget, looking to reduce the Renewable Electric Energy standard and delaying any increases in it to after 2035. It also calls for massively reducing programs that help lower-income people insulate their houses, switch to heat pumps, or put solar on their houses. The governor predicts this will save folks a few dollars a month on electric bills, but by slowing down the adoption of clean energy, it also will raise the prices we pay for gas. And hotter temperatures and rising seas, of course, threaten both the health of Rhode Islanders and the state economy. Our legislative leadership has not yet understood that climate justice is the key to a prosperous economy.
Most of us know that if we backpedal on the renewable transition, it will crash the economy. Providence has a good policy that requires large building owners to estimate their energy usage, because if you do not know how much you are using as a baseline, you cannot plan for energy reductions. We are now trying to get the state to adopt the plan. Since Providence has 40% of the large buildings in the state, half the work has already been done.
MS: The New York Times columnist, Ezra Klein, co-wrote an influential book last year called Abundance that argued that what gets in the way of progressive policymaking are too many local rules that states should be empowered to cut through. He argues that this is particularly true for affordable housing. Do you agree?
GG: This is a sticky question. I strongly believe that local communities should have the right to say no to inappropriate development. But when it comes to housing for lower-income people, especially for rental units, the real estate industry and homeowners go out of their way to prevent the construction of dense rental units, usually by lying about the effect on property values. Look, we need lots of housing, thousands of units in my city, but we do not want to run over communities and their right to say no. Maybe what we need to do is require cities and towns to come up with their own solutions, and enforce that the solutions create enough housing to meet local needs.
MS: One Rhode Island innovation we’ve covered here is the local investment fund set by Local Return. Does this model comport with your principles of appropriate economic development? And, if so, how can and should the state support it?
GG: Local Return is a good model for some kinds of development, focusing on community-oriented development. Needed but not sufficient, as they swim in an ocean based on the government subsidizing the wrong kinds of real estate development that increase inequality. We are going to have to both foster things like Local Return while eliminating subsidies for commercial real estate and luxury buildings. We can’t leave lower-income communities behind.
MS: Finally, how do you personally invest locally in your community?
GG: I have never had enough money to invest, but I do try to buy from locally owned businesses. I am especially happy that a locally owned hardware store has opened near me, as I no longer have to go to the big box corporate conglomerate stores to buy nuts and bolts for home construction projects.
SPONSOR CORNER
The National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3) is dedicated to educating, advocating, and activating community capital and serves as MSJ’s fiscal sponsor. Thank you for being a part of a growing movement! Contact NC3 for support in integrating local investing in your work: info@nc3now.org.
NC3 UPDATES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
NC3 CEO Chris Miller recently led a panel at the Just Economy Conference, hosted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). The breakout session, Community Investment Funds: The Antidote to Extractive Capital, drew over 120 attendees, with standing room only in the room. Session attendees were engaged, and many stayed after the session to meet and talk with panel members. The conference itself brought together more than 1,000 practitioners and advocates from across the country and featured keynotes from national leaders like Michael Barr, Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Chris was joined on the panel by Brent Forsberg, innovative real estate developer building the first project funded by the Lansing Growth Fund; Brett Theodos, Director of the Center for Local Finance and Growth at the Urban Institute; and Jessica David, President and Co-Founder of the Rhode Island Community Investment Cooperative, the nation’s first Diversified Community Investment Fund (DCIF). Together, they explored how communities can build and control their own capital. The panel presented NC3’s DCIF as a practical model for doing just that.
The positive reception has carried forward, with more than a half-dozen follow-up conversations taking place since the conference. NC3 is energized by the momentum and looks forward to seeing where these conversations lead.
NEW INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Below is our list of recently posted investment opportunities across the United States. Please note that our listing of these opportunities does not constitute an endorsement. Remember that all investments carry risk. Click on the hyperlinks and read the details carefully before investing.
Use the map below to help you find an investment opportunity near you. Each issue, we’ll highlight about a half dozen active campaigns.
COMPREHENSIVE LISTINGS
Click the images below to view our comprehensive list of investment opportunities, organized by theme or region.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES BY KEY THEMES
✔️ Energy 💡
✔️ Food & Farming 🌱
✔️ Housing 🏡
INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES BY REGION
✔️ Great Lakes
✔️ Mid-Atlantic
✔️ Midwest
✔️ New England
✔️ Rocky Mountains
✔️ South
✔️ Southwest
✔️ West
FUNDS OPEN TO GRASSROOTS INVESTORS
The following is our first draft of funds that invest in local businesses and are open to non-accredited investors. Please help us add to this list!
MSJ & PARTNER EVENTS
When the State Goes Digital: Public Platforms, Cooperative Hybrids, and the Politics of Infrastructure - Virtual Event: May 11, at 9 am ET
Mondays With Michael - Virtual Event: May 11, at 3 pm ET
Community Wealth Building: Grassroots Approaches and Solutions - Virtual Event: May 12, at 1 pm ET
Unlocking Community Capital: Lowcountry Local First’s Invest Local Initiative - Virtual Event: May 14, at 1 pm ET
What Does a Solidarity Economy Approach to Housing Look Like? - Virtual Event: May 14, at 3 pm ET
World Localization Day - June 21
Michigan Good Business Summit - In-Person Event (Detroit, MI): June 25
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California Center for Cooperative Development: Executive Director
Cooperative Development Institute: Executive Director
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About The Main Street Journal
The Main Street Journal aims to catalyze the movement of $50 trillion from Wall Street to Main Street, facilitating economic development and economic justice. It’s sponsored by the National Coalition for Community Capital. We welcome feedback on all aspects, from our design to our content. Please send your ideas to Jen Risley at jen@main-street-journal.com.
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Our Team:
Michael Shuman – MSJ Publisher
Paul Spinrad - Decent Tuesdays Writer & Editor
Jen Risley - MSJ Editor
Wendy Wasserman - Strategic Advisor
PARTNERS
Abrams+Angell | American Independent Business Alliance | Candide Group | Capital for Change | Capital Institute | Community-Vision Solutions | Cordata Capital | Council Fire | Crowdfund Better | Crowdfund Capital Advisors | Democracy Collaborative | Eleanor LeCain | Exit to Community Collective | Fair Food Network | Garlic and Roses | Impact Finance Center | ImpactPHL | Initiative for Local Capital | Institute for Local Self-Reliance | The Kassan Group | Longfellow Health Clubs | Mission Driven Finance | National Coalition for Community Capital | Natural Investments | Neighborhood Associates | Neighborhood Economics | New Majority Capital | Next Egg | Nonprofit Quarterly | Ownership America | Ownership Capital Lab | Ownership Matters | Partnership for Southern Equity | PathLight Law | Project Equity | Project for Public Spaces | Prospera Partners | Raise Green | Revalue | Rising Tide Capital | Schumacher Center for a New Economics | Shelterforce | Slow Money | SOCAP | Sun Valley Institute for Resilience | The Super Crowd Inc. | Sustainable Business Network of MA | Transform Finance | Uwharrie Bank | Village Well | Zebras Unite
We welcome any nonprofit or for-profit entity committed to local investment as a partner. If your organization is interested, please contact Jen Risley at jen@main-street-journal.com.