The Mobility Paradigm

Our assumptions about economic growth do not act alone. Especially since the late 19th century, but reaching back as far as the early capitalism of the 15th century, capitalists of all nationalities have understood that profits often require the identification of  new markets. Columbus did not sail the ocean blue out of pure curiosity; he and his patrons sought access to new markets for European goods, and resources -- sugar and gold, in particular -- to bring home. The desire for gold therefore drove a growing need for physical mobility over ever-expanding geographic frontiers.

Americans enshrined this economic impulse as a cultural value. John Winthrop, Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau, Huck Finn, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Ford, John F. Kennedy, and virtually every other American icon reinforced the idea that to be American was to move, sometimes restlessly, sometimes purposefully, but always beyond current boundaries. When "going west" was no longer possible, we fled the cities and created suburbs. When wagons and then trains and then cars could not take us far enough, fast enough we flew.

Combined with the urge to "grow the economy," this fundamental ethic pushed us away from the parochial concerns of our immediate neighborhoods. Generations no longer remain in the same place, doing similar things with similar people. Local institutions, from town halls to banks and farms, matter less than larger-scale ones. Better transportation and other technology allow us to work and go to school farther and farther from where we live. Our food does not come from our backyards, but from across continents. Our news and even our gossip focuses less on people physically close to us and more on figures of national and international fame.

One profound consequence of this long-distance mobility is an utter dependence on fossil fuel. What we do without internal combustion engines to get our kids to school, our selves to work, our food to the market, ourselves to the food? In other words, the ethic has shifted back to an economic and cultural imperative. We know longer have much choice in the matter; we can hardly imagine how to live a life without the mobility we have come to expect.

For millenia, however, people have lived mostly local lives. Most humans still do live that way. It's not strictly necessary to live as we do. Rather, it's a way of life based on a paradigm that could -- and perhaps will -- change at any time.