Businesses rarely miss the chance to advertise “locally grown” or “locally owned” when the label fits. Clearly they believe local messaging will boost sales; certainly they don’t fear it will backfire. The obvious implication — that buying local is either personally advantageous for the customer or else morally virtuous — does not get questioned much. But should I really feel better about trading with my neighbor than with a person in the next town, state, or country?

Below I will consider the reasons commonly given for favoring local merchants over distant ones. I notice two unrelated propositions getting smuggled in together under the “buy local” theme. The first is that buying local is personally advantageous for the customer. This certainly seems plausible in some cases, as I note below. The second proposition is that buying more expensive local goods is morally superior to buying cheaper non-local goods. This is the proposition that generally offends me. Before studying this issue, I assumed the notion that buying local is virtuous was completely bogus, put forward for purely protectionist reasons. After studying, I soften my position some. I see virtue in paying more to buy local in certain specific and temporary cases. I still believe a thick strand of the buy local message depends on the bad assumption that people nearby matter more than people far away. Read and comment below to let me know what I’ve missed.

Reasons Commonly Given to Buy Local

The first several arguments deal mostly with food items; the last few are broader:

1. Superior Quality. Local goods are sometimes fresher, more artfully crafted, or more tuned to local needs and tastes. In these cases, “local” is just a substitute word for “better” in the eyes of the consumer. Buying goods we prefer is just ordinary and rational economic acting, not part of the moral aspect of the “buy local” theme.
2. Less Harm to Environment. Some argue that the environmental cost of long-distance transportation makes buying local a more ethical option. If this is true, the appropriate policy response is to cap whatever pollutants are involved or tax them commensurate with their harm. This way, the final market price of a good will fully reflect its costs to both suppliers and third parties. Once prices are fully loaded in this way, we should welcome all free market activity around these prices. Some research also questions whether local operations really pollute less. In the case of food products, an Environmental Science & Technology paper found that emissions occur primarily during the production phase, not the transportation phase. If large operations are more efficient in the production phase, they may be more environmentally efficient overall. Either way, proper regulation would let a consumer know by simply comparing prices. To whatever extent prices under- or over-account for externalities, I see virtue in customers mentally adjusting the price — but only to the extent of the mispricing.
3. Big Corporations Get Unfair Subsidies. Government farming subsidies typically go to large commercial farms rather than small family farms. Given this political unfairness, it seems virtuous for consumers to protest and offset this wrong by patronizing small farms — for as long as the political favoritism lasts. Ultimately, the best policy response would be to end subsidies altogether, and have a simple redistribution system that meets the minimum basic needs of anyone who loses their livelihood.
4. Food Safety. Some feel more comfortable with the health of food when they know the farmer. I do not personally feel this way — my bias is to trust that systematic quality controls are in place at large corporations to survive regulatory scrutiny and avoid highly embarrassing and costly recalls — but I understand that people feel differently. In any case, buying safer food would be an act of rational personal advantage, not moral virtue.
5. Animal Welfare. Some farms treat animals as well as they can, and others get them to market as cheaply as they can, even if the animals are tortured along the way. I pay more for products that advertise humane treatment, but I don’t care whether the seller is local or not. Vegan-turned-hunter Tovar Cerulli, however, only buys meat from butchers he knows. For him, knowing the butcher personally is part of feeling sure that the animal is well treated. Over time, I expect market forces will motivate more food producers to claim humane treatment of animals, and I hope trust in the truth of these claims can be established among people and entities who live and operate vast distances from each other. Agribusiness, which has made itself untrustworthy with famously secretive operations, can open up itself to transparent inspection to reestablish trust. But in the meantime, I empathize with those like Tovar who believe you can only be sure that moral treatment is taking place if you trade locally with people you know.
6. Support the Local Economy. Buy local, and your money supports jobs in your community, businesses in your community, tax revenue in your community. Buy non-local, and your money leaves town. This argument is the clearest case of an argument that has the veneer of virtue but is ultimately empty. Money spent non-locally doesn’t burn up, it simply supports a different community more directly. How can supporting Community A be morally superior to supporting Community B? Only because of self-interest would someone prefer to support his or her own community over another community. But this is personal advantage, not moral virtue.
7. Local Businesses Create More Jobs Than Large Corporations. I can’t find a workable moral principle within this argument. Certainly one business that operates in ten towns needs fewer employees than ten individual businesses. But if one business per town is better, why not one business per zip code? One business per street? Milton Friedman once asked why the workers at a canal project were digging with shovels instead of tractors. The answer was that shovels meant more jobs. Milton replied, “If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons.” Operational efficiency inevitably costs jobs, but producing greater output with less input is the definition of productivity. By what articulable principle should we slow progress down somewhat, and yet not stop it completely? As I argued above, we should seek a simple redistribution policy that meets the minimum basic needs of those without jobs — perhaps even money for training in new industries — and beyond that we should welcome productivity and continual innovation.

Tentative Conclusion

To sum up, I see cases where buying local can be personally advantageous to the consumer, and specific and temporary cases where paying a premium to buy local is morally virtuous. I do not see any general or permanent basis by which buying local is inherently a virtue. I believe we’d be better off trying to generate some good will toward potential trading partners around the globe, focusing on a few simple policies to capture externalities in market prices and eliminate unfair subsidies, and enact a very simple redistribution mechanism that meets minimum basic needs and then lets free market activity take place.

One final disclaimer: Many of my family members operate local businesses, and I hope they do very well. What I do not say is that trading with my family is morally superior to trading with someone else.

What am I missing? Please add a comment.