Matthew Henry John Bartlett

From Herman Daly & John Cobb’s excellent book For the Common Good (1989):

Power criticises the “economic base” models that treat production for export as the “base” or driving force of economic development, and production for the local market as derivative and dependent on export production. … The real economic base of a community is not exports, but rather, “consists of all those things that make it an attractive place to live, work, or to do business. That means the economic base includes the quality of the natural environment, the richness of local culture, the security and stability of the community, the quality of the public services and the public works infrastructure, and the quality of the workforce. None of these things are produced by the commercial economy or produced for export.”

The quote within the quote is from Thomas Power’s The Economic Pursuit of Quality (1988). It’s relevant to the mining question, to the idea of ‘catching up with Australia’, to the Greens’ beyond-GDP approach, and to the Transition movement.