The advanced industrial societies face their greatest test, then, not in mobilising for permanent war, but in dismantling the military-industrial complex and freeing resources for a post-capitalist, post-imperialist commonwealth of local communities working towards economic and environmental security.

Conclusion

The transition from globalised capitalism to local sufficiency brings formidable challenges. But not insurmountable ones. Economies can and do change. Whether at times of mobilization for war or with the loss of an essential overseas energy supply, the reallocation of resources to achieve new forms of production can be done quickly and successfully. Crisis, rather than meaning chaos, can stimulate creativity and determination, drawing on the full range of human beings’ physical and intellectual skills.

Never have these been more needed than today. We are at the fag-end of a bankrupt system that must be replaced before it totally destroys the planet and human civilization. Right here, right now.

Economic and environmental policies constructed around the goals of local sufficiency and security can satisfy basic material needs, eliminate carbon emissions and significantly reduce finite resource consumption. This will provide the breathing space, quite literally, for the stabilisation and recovery of the world’s major eco-systems.

A commonwealth of local communities will be in a much stronger position of economic and environmental security while achieving, in practice, what the international system has failed to do on issues like climate change and disarmament.  These communities can look with increasing confidence to a strong form of local economic democracy.

Polluting and resource devouring industries can be closed down, safe in the knowledge that local alternatives now exist. A good test will be the confidence not to consume oil, coal, gas and uranium but to leave them in the ground where they belong.

Never again should human society and the planet be exposed to such destructive economic and environmental forces. Never again should the growth fetish pervert the capacity of all human beings to fulfill their true potentialities.

The future starts right here, right now. Less is more.