It was hard to read Isaac Maas’ My Turn of May 21 (“Why the mayor’s budget deserves our support”). His call for our better selves to accept cuts to the municipal budget that cause the least harm is crucial. We all resonate with his request to the City Council to think beyond specific budget items and think of what is best for the city as a whole.

But his piece seemed to suggest that communities have to settle on a strategy of scrimping and cutting. It ignores the reality that economic exploitation is strangling our communities and robbing us of the financial resources we need to build a future that meets our needs.

Cutbacks in our public schools, attacks on our immigrant workforce, the exploitation of the Connecticut River and our farmland for cheap power, the prohibitive cost of healthcare, housing, and higher education are undermining our community. As a result, we lack the resources to maintain our physical and social infrastructure.

We are living with the growing stress of keeping ourselves and our community going and minimizing pain, while a few others profit from the labor, intellect, and natural resources of local communities.

When we start to bring attention to what living under economic exploitation looks like, we gain an understanding of its power over us, both in the obvious ways of physical survival, but also in more subtle ways, in the way in which we are encouraged to make negative judgments about those of a different color, gender, culture, or education. We may begin to see that our differences pale in the face of our common plight of being exploited.

Economic injustice needs to be part of every budget discussion, every community meeting, and every activity. Our awareness of it needs to be elevated rather than drowned out by the urgent budget crisis. By bringing the effects of economic exploitation into the open, we gain a clearer, more objective understanding of what is going on. We are not blinded by our emotional response to the stress it causes.

Of course, as Mass notes, we must work together to address a municipal budget. But getting better at belt-tightening will not make the core problem of economic exploitation go away. The work can’t stop there because we will constantly be being worn down and asked to make more cuts.

Instead, let’s take the next step and start envisioning what we need. Instead of saying, “What can we learn to live without?”  let’s ask, “What do we need?  How much will it cost? What needs to happen to get it?  

Trillions of dollars are being moved around the world by oligarchs and CEOs with the click of a mouse. This wealth has been created by communities worldwide through their labor, intellect, and natural resources. The question for communities now is: How can we stake a claim to this wealth to secure the reinvestment we so desperately need?

Projects to recapture community wealth are underway in the Pioneer Valley. For example, Paul Fenn, a nationally renowned expert on renewable energy and the CEO of Local Power, LLC., is working on an energy project that enables municipalities to generate renewable energy and free themselves from the power grid. Many towns are already freeing themselves from Comcast’s shackles by forming their own internet company. 

Beyond the Pioneer Valley, similar locally centered projects are emerging. Communities are beginning to form their own financial institutions, establishing credit unions, worker cooperatives, community-owned stores, and circular economic projects that include tool libraries, clothing swaps, electronic recycling, and local art and cultural festivals. Success in these endeavors will help build local organizational and political power, enabling us to begin realigning our state and federal budgets with the needs of communities.

Yes, these are frightening times, but I’d like to imagine this could be an incentive to reconsider, with the hope of changing, how resources are invested, from benefiting a few to benefiting the rest of us. 

Christopher “Kiffer” Sikes is a 40-year resident of Franklin County and founder of Common Capital, a nonprofit that finances small businesses and community projects in western Mass.  Any comments are appreciated and can be sent to kiffersikes@gmail.com.