Let us consider then, the craftsman who works with an old-fashioned medium to produce fine pieces of useful art using ancient hand-made techniques, yet uses the net to sell his work. He is both Luddite and technically savvy, therefore prospers and is able to buy cat food.

It is interesting that there is no advance in the quality of consumables connected to the increased capacity to access consumables.

The Wal-Marts of the world have us so brainwashed to expect low prices that we often overlook low quality in preference to saving a few pennies. Ned Ludd would be horrified.

With all due respect Gordo, last I checked there were still plenty of expensive retailers in business despite the abundance of Wal-Marts across the land. One can still buy Bentleys and Saville Row bespoke suits, but to be fair, that level of high-quality goods were never to be found at the Woolco, Eaton's, Zellers and HBC stores Wal-Mart may have displaced through price-reduction schemes.

One was far more likely to get moderate-quality goods at moderate-to-high prices in "traditional" Canadian retailers <i>and that</i>, combined with enormous logistical inefficiencies, sunk a lot of them.

The first thing Canadian Tire did when they learned Wal-Mart was entering the Canadian market was to modernise and streamline their old, inefficient logistics train and replace all of the small, cramped stores of yesteryear with big-box models that had tested well in pilot markets. Not surprisingly, the Tire is still around today and turns a profit.

The one who really lost out was Eaton's which didn't know how to compete against discount housewares as Zellers and its parent HBC did through consolidation.

Who's talking retailers? Mass-market retailers have people thinking that they can get "good enough" stuff for less than they can but from an independent. The problme is that it's veyr hard to count the loss of Karma when buying stuff made in sweatshops and Chinese prisons.

I would make no distinction between big box mass market retailers and the bigger internet box in that regard. Crap in the mail without service is even worse than crap at a store with crap service.

One reason I do well as an independent artist is that there are many people who appreciate the nice item made by the nice guy who lives in town. Same is true with restaurants and farm produce--made locally by your neighbors. AND there is no rule that says that the teapot or flower pot made overseas and sold at Crate and Barrel or Pier One is less expensive. The smart local retailer finds ways to compete, and beat the importers, if he finds the appreciative customers.

In some ways I agree with Gary when I am shopping for books or art or pottery, but I personally prefer online banking and online purchases of the technical sort. Futureshop (DOT ca is my best friend for DVDs. I really, really, really hate standing in line for anything. And service is fine when there is a storefront I can take my online purchase too to complain.

Yeah, that's true. I buy MOST of my books from Chapters.ca (if they want to undercut themselves by up to 40%, I'm fine with that). I do like online banking, but it's not like we really have much choice these days. The banks have so cut staff that what else can we do except wait in long lines to talk to the one or two tellers they still have hidden away?

THere's a phrase that I've learned in the past year that I find very compelling: food miles. Bascially, the less your food has to travel to get to you, the better quality it is and better for the environment along the way. It's not always easy to find less travelled produce and you have to compromise periodically, but it's worth it in the end.

That is fine as far as produce goes, but the philosophy tends to break down when you like things that aren't produced locally. Like say lobsters. Pacific salmon. Mahogany furniture. Certain models of car. Large commercial aircraft. LCD or plasma monitors and TVs. Mobile phones. Video games. What are the karmic effects of buying a Nokia phone manufactured in Sweden versus a Motorola unit manufactured closer to home?

I don't understand the local-is-better fetish. I am all for supporting producers of superior products -- whether or not they are produced by local individuals or companies. If they are local, great. If not, who cares? Just because a guy lives closer doesn't mean he (or she) is a better craftsman or cares more about the quality of their product. The essential thing is the care and craftsmanship of the producer, not their geographic proximity to your home address.

I just happened to watch an old Doctor Who episode called "The Mark of the Rani". The Doctor (#6, Colin Baker) and Peri go back to Killingworth in the early 1800's amidst Luddite riots. A meeting held by scientist George Stephenson, hosting other eminent scientists, is about to take place. Beware, ne'er-do-well Timelords like The Rani and The Master can't be far behind!

As is pointed out on the Doctor Who page, Luddites never attacked pit machinery as it was not a threat to their livelihoods. Wal-marts would have been welcomed by Ol'Ned, until of course they started negotiating down on prices, then it would be Bash Bash Bash!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/markrani/

I like Diggers and Levelers, too, and the people of the Fens. No iPods for the Levelers, baby. They make their own fun.

Chris, I think you misunderstand. Nobody says 'buy the junky and expensive item just because it was made in town'. It is true some people have an over-inflated view of their product, and I think they need to improve their skills and work a little harder. The smart artist has a unique and nicely priced item that sells itself. So, the international market actually provides a big plus for an aware customer 'wow, this is great and affordable and made right here!'.
As I said before, you can't assume that mass made items overseas are either better or cheaper, and what's wrong with opening your eyes and trying to buy local?

Thats funny mike. I bought that DVD last november and just started watching it this past weekend ( I am ahead in the buying of DW DVDS, but not the watching). I remember that ep when I was in high school but completely forgot it was about Luddites.

As my mother said, it's difficult to shop responsibly. I'm still in a quandry over how Green Earth Organics can import their produce from the US and Mexico. Does the fuel used outweigh the organic?

cm, its a great question but you should also be digging deeply into the question of "organic". In many cases "organic" is simply a method of factory farming just as "free range" may mean 10,000 chickens have a foot wide door at the end of a 200 foot barn.

Buying/eating local usually means you can find out more about the producer if you care about that sort of thing. But paying a little more to a trusted intermediary sometimes makes more sense. I could source my own pasture raised, non-medicated, lamb; but it is easier to pay the steepish prices at Village Butcher in Oak Bay and let him worry about it.

I am all for buying local, if local has a high correlation with superior quality and superior value. On that we can all agree.

The geographic reality of the city, though, is such that practically everything I buy (food, clothes, utilities, gas) is produced outside the city limits. If I want to extend the meaning of "local" to Holland Landing (50mins distant via heavily congested Gardiner and Hwy 404) and points north, then some produce starts to enter the equation, but weekly jaunts there are out of the question. Especially when there are two supermarkets with evil foreign asparagus within 5min walking distance. I'm trying hard to mentally justify 2hrs on the highway each week for semi-local tomatoes when I spend barely 5 minutes getting to the grocery store on foot.

Clothes are a possible local item, but I am wary of blowing too much since locally-produced bespoke clothing and dry cleaners tend not to mix too well. I have had a couple local dry cleaners (in two different areas of the city) destroy some pretty expensive suits and shirts. The only guys that get it correct consistently and have not had me writing off a couple grand in custom clothes are the dinky little outlets of the major dry cleaning chains.

I'm just wondering how you guys expect the cityfolk to "buy local" when the entire logistics infrastructure is geared toward getting things here from very far away. And local producers for everyday staple items are relatively distant and inconvenient. The only stuff that I can reliably buy local is TSO tickets and other entertainment items.

Chris-you're entirely right. I tend to think local has different categories, from going to an independent neighborhood bookstore, to buying (in your case) Canadian produce or beer, to buying my stuff from the US, which makes local a north American thing. Perfect! ;^) We're lucky we can ship stuff all over, maybe it is just a question from whom, from where?

Back to Alan's original post, about Luddites. My wife loves fountain pens. They have their appeal, but she is also adept with a computer. I practice an old craft, but use an electric wheel and an electric kiln which is programmed to run by a computer. The point: appreciating the best of the past and preserving that, while being open to what comes along. It is not all good, but a lot of it is.

Screw that. Level the lot and plant turnips.

Chris, the standard for locally-produced food seems to be 100 miles.

Jay, given what I've read recently, I'm starting to ignore the whole organic issue as well and just focus on the fact that I get interesting veg delivered to my door that I wouldn't otherwise buy. And I don't have to shop.

cm, that's true, but the distance I personally am willing to go for locally-produced food is about 2km on foot and about 10km by car/transit. I'm not going to Owen Sound although it's well within the 100 mile range. Not unless someone is coughing up free passage on the MS Chi-Cheemaun. =) There are two spots in T.O. that host weekly farmers' markets so maybe they are worth checking out.

Gary, I also dig fountain pens and used them extensively in my youth, but regrettably in I.T. there is little opportunity to use them, unless I am filling out HR forms. Everything else (and I do mean <i>everything</i>) has electronic workflow and signatures here. Are you an old-school purist whose pens have that itty bitty (and frustrating easy to accidentally detach while full) ink bladder, or did you opt for the more modern cartridge variant?

I would be amused to observe afar an experiment in which urban dwellers were condemned to buy everything locally, but I would first like to relocate to a rural vantage in an armed bunker.

In some cases it's cheaper to replace shoddy goods at regular intervals than to buy goods that last longer. I'm amazed by the number of home conveniences which become practically valueless (even at yard sales) within a year of purchased-as-new.

Well if we use cm's benchmark you would have to rule out cars for starters. There is no petroleum being extracted (refined, yes, but extracted, no) from the depths of the Earth within 100 miles of Toronto. Nor natural gas, so gas furnaces and water heaters are out. Presumably the subway and electricity would make the cut since Pickering A and B are well within the 100 mile scope. Food-wise you could probably make a go of it, provided you are not old and infirm and can get to one of two locations in the city that host a once-weekly farmers market (Saturday morning at St. Lawrence Market North and Thurs. night at Dufferin Grove). Wouldn't be pretty for anybody over 65 though.

And we would probably engineer some flying species of lamprey that preys on non-urbanites (easily identified by the lack of trace toxins from the municipal water system) as our revenge.

Irc has maybe the most important point: quality.

Chris, I guess my wife has about 60-70 pens, I have about 2 dozen. One or two may be cartridge, a few are modern but have ink-from-a-bottle fillers, the rest are WW2 vintage and older, yes, with the lever filler. They're cool, but messy in my mind, although perfect for drawing. I am nuts about old watches, esp. the old railroad pocket watches: big tough suckers, working just fine after 100 plus years. How much manufactured these days works so well for so long?

19th century Paris recycled its own poo (human and horse) into community gardens so that even in winter there were greens to be had at low cost.

I'm guessing they also abandoned deodorant not long after.

Stuff made by sweated labour in assorted Asian hellholes loses 98% of retail price in about a nano second. It is actually cheaper to pop into my local thrift and buy a couple of sweaters for $2.00 each than having the sweaters I own professionally cleaned.

The whole buy local, organic, curbside recycle thing strikes me as a Veblenian attempt in a culture of abundance, "We are so rich that we can afford to spend half an hour a week sorting our garbage....How cool is that?" Basically you make your life extra difficult in order to pretend to be saving the planet while still taking your car on an hour commute to work. If this is not conspicuous consumption I don't know what is.

gr, I am with your wife on fountain pens and you on old watches. Chris, you can always have a little fun by sending hand written notes to people you regularly IM/email/text. This completely subverts the system and is one of those acts of random Ludditism seemingly beloved by our kind host.

Writing with considered thought attached is a rare thing these days, it is true, but even I have not mailed a letter for years - a T'willigerockian concept, I am sure you will agree.

<p><img src="images/2007a/Veblen.JPG" align="right" vspace="10" hspace="20"><i>Chicago,
1915<p>Dear Jay,<p>Referencing me was itself very Veblenian in this context, Jay. A great move. Masterstroke. If more people understood the world at as many levels as you we would be all the better off.<p>Your pal,<br>Thorstein Bunde Veblen<br>aka Bunny<p>PS: Hold me tight.</i><br><br>

A couple on the west coast did the 100 mile diet. You can read about it here.

I guess some are willing to make the effort do what's right and others aren't. Generally, food that is nearby in an urban centre has travelled a very long distance already to get there. I'd much rather go a bit myself to get food that isn't so well travelled. Certainly, the produce you buy locally hasn't been bouncing around in a truck for hundreds of kilometres already.

Farmer's markets are probably the best compromise, but be sure you look at the labels. You could be just paying someone a premium to sell you the same stuff that's being trucked into the Dominion down the street.

'act of random Ludditism'!!!! Pure genius! Remember folks, when the years have passed and that expression is common and part of the urban mythos, we heard it here FIRST!

Gordo--you people have a forking fantastic farmer's market (Kingston, Ont, is it the oldest in North America?), I have been there, and I have had the hand-made baked samosas. The change returned was mysterious and funny looking, but I got used to it.

Here is where I would normally draw the eire of my wife. I don;t like farmers market producd goods like foods and such for the very reason the provincial govt was going to impose stricter inspections, cleanliness. I have this phobia about dirty handed people, especially OLD wrinkly dirty hands, making my food.

needless to say I don't do pancake breakfasts or church dinnners.

Hands are one thing, maybe bad enough in theory, but the worst is the masses who sneeze around food--and that happens everywhere.

It's OK, Gorthos. The germ freaks will die off early and the rest of us, who choose to exercise their immune systems, will continue to eat our homemmade goodies. :-D

I eat mushrooms with shit on them, unpasturized blue cheese, apples with the snot of children's sneezes on them and ever other form of microbe available. That is what makes me fit. When we worked in Poland they used to laugh about Swedes and their inability to digest actually food with out preservatives, pasturization, nuclear zapping and all other phobic forms of fear.

Having recently re-located to the middle of no-where, we were concerned about filling our cupboards and refrigerator. And then we met the farmer down the road, who introduced us to the butcher a little further down the road, and lo, the farmers market not 10 minutes from our door. Now we have chicken, pork, beef, turkey, milk (un-past if you dare), eggs, rabbit (yes, rabbit meat pies), home made preserves, fresh fruit and veggies (seasonally of course) all at prices very close and in some cases cheaper than the big chain store we used to shop at. And everything tastes better. Takes a little more work and planning, but it has been worth it. To me, the big reason is taste and quality, not the environment or social responsibility, that is just a bonus.

If there is a thread of commonality here, it is "moving to the middle of nowhere". That is a pretty significant tradeoff. I kind of like the fact that I can get from home to work (or symphony, or opera, or theatre, or baseball game, or favourite microbrew pub) via subway in 25-30 minutes, and be able to walk from home to grocery store in 5 minutes or home to dry cleaner in 3 minutes. And there is 399 acres of woodland across the street. The only time one has to rev up the car is to go see friends who live way beyond the Kuiper Belt in the Outer Burbs.

Readily available farm-fresh food doesn't really seem like a good trade for making everything else inconvenient.

I understand that completely Chris - but from where I work the "middle of no-where" is a 40 minute commute from my office. I have worked in your part of the province and it's just not for me. I have many friends from TO who, like me, say they live and work in the best City in Canada. Good for you and good for me.

I have spent two years in what, for me, city boy, is the middle of no-where. Closest liquor store is however 15 minutes away and closes a hour or so before I want to go there. Grocery store as well. Oddly enough, in the past few months, all of the stores in Stirling are starting to be open more reasonable hours. My wife is fine with it as she (and I) like the privacy. I however like living in the middle of the city where everything is within a few minutes walk, but I like the woods and teh coyotes at night.

Our new place is equally remote from Kingston as we are from BelleVILE. Egad.

(Oh, Alan. They don't grow mushrooms in Ontario in horse poo anymore, at least the ones you probably buy. They are most likely grown in composted hay/straw)

gorthos, my children will be horrified to know that mushrooms are no longer, as their father assured them, an excuse to live dangerously and eat poo. Now they will simply have to fulfill their sense of adventure by eating random woodland mushrooms.

"What are the karmic effects of buying a Nokia phone manufactured in Sweden versus a Motorola unit manufactured closer to home?"

I don't know about the karmic effects, but I can tell you that in the extremely rural area of Alberta where I live (10 min from the Sask border), Motorolas are the only phones that actually get a signal everywhere you go. The Nokias are pretty, but you can't use them much unless you're near a tower.

"Readily available farm-fresh food doesn't really seem like a good trade for making everything else inconvenient."

It's only farm fresh in the summer -- the rest of the year we have to buy lousy looking produce. It hurts like hell to watch the Food channel and see people in Toronto buying fresh cilantro in January when we can't even get our hands on the dried stuff. There are benefits to living out here (especially for an anti-social prick like me), but the grocery selection ain't one of them. Everything else I need, however, I can pretty much buy online or have delivered. I even have hi-speed Net thanks to a satellite dish parked outside of my shop, so life out here is pretty good for the most part.