Decentralized Manufacturing
How the industrial revolution went awry and how a sustainable solution is emerging
[Originally published in 2011 by Citizen Doctor]
Let’s examine the immediate crisis facing America, the debt crisis. Why do we have so much debt? We could rightly blame the money system or the political process, or the wealthy elite who control both, but the most direct explanation is that for many years we have done more consuming and borrowing than producing and saving. For decades our productive capacity has been migrating out of our country, so that now there are fewer quality jobs and we must borrow money from foreigners to pay for imported goods that we formerly produced ourselves.
Did you know that televisions are no longer made in the USA? What’s wrong with this picture? Do we really gain something by buying TV’s and other products from big box stores, shipped from the opposite side of the world using dwindling reserves of oil, only to see them end up on garbage scows heading back to Asia because our landfills are already overflowing with junk? We could produce virtually everything we need ourselves as we once did, and then use our surplus products and resources to trade for whatever else we may need. So why don’t we?
Globalization, with its offshoring and outsourcing, was sold to us as a means to a better life based on cheaper products, but it is really a “get something for nothing” scam intended to transfer wealth and consolidate power at the expense of the middle-class. It is the final stage of a process that began several hundred years ago and that has lead us to the brink of ruin. But we have everything we need to save ourselves, once we understand the basic problem beginning with how we got here.
In the early centuries of the industrial revolution, great advances were made in precision mechanical gears such as those used in watches. Gears were also used to transmit power from local sources such as wind and water to increase productivity in a variety of repetitive operations such as grinding, beating, hammering, cutting, sawing, pumping. pulling, and bellowing. But with the introduction of the steam engine in the 18th century, the industrial revolution entered a new phase characterized by centralization and gigantic scale. Steam engines were not cost effective on a small scale. They needed a constant supply of fuel and tenders to operate them, so they were built on a large scale and became the center of sprawling factories that often operated in shifts around the clock and were feed by transportation networks connecting to coal mining operations.
Very large capital investments were required, beyond the means of ordinary individuals and neighborhoods. A worker class evolved to perform monotonous tasks in the factories and mines for long hours and low pay, for the benefit of the few who had the resources to create the infrastructures. The wealthy industrialists wanted a guaranteed return on their investments, so they found ways to ensure that a profitable market for their products would persist for an unnaturally long time whether by influencing labor, patent, tax and tariff laws; using marketing psychology to create artificial demand and an appetite for frequent style changes; designing in short product lifespans and the need for frequent maintenance and repair; or suppressing competing companies and technologies — anything to keep the profits flowing. A steady revenue stream is always preferable to a one-time sale. Monopolies are always preferable to free market competition.
Large factories are like lumbering behemoths, designed for a specific purpose and therefore difficult to adapt to changing circumstances. This centralized industrial model has a built-in resistance to progress, stifling innovation and adaptation because of the need to recoup investments in large-scale dedicated machinery and buildings. In contrast, skilled craftsmen operating locally and with relatively low capital overhead can adapt rapidly to changes, either in market demand or technology. Local industry conforms itself to the needs of society, whereas society must conform itself to the needs of large-scale industry.
In retrospect, it’s unfortunate that electrical machinery did not appear before the steam engine. Because of its efficiency even on small scales and relative ease of transport, electricity could have been introduced directly into homes and neighborhoods, increasing the productivity of manufacturing even more than the steam engine but without as much need for centralization. But by the time electrical machinery appeared in the 19th century, the wealthy industrialists were already in control of society and so brought electricity into their factories to improve their productivity but without changing their centralized system. And so their power, wealth and influence have increased ever since, to this day.
To maintain their dominant position, they must create a steady stream of products whether needed or not, and so they have become experts at sophisticated psychological manipulation as pioneered by Edward Bernays. People must be conditioned to feel that they always need the latest gadget or fashion to be happy, and they must be kept stressed and distracted so that they never realize what is being done to them. But there is more: To ensure that the assembly lines never stop, they intentionally design their products to fail in a short time and they deliberately avoid a modular, reusable approach. If something breaks or wears out, it should be thrown away and replaced; and if it doesn’t break, it must be discarded anyway to avoid the appearance of being unfashionable. And more still: Even despite these strategies demand for new products eventually dries up, perhaps because there is a recession caused by the elite to facilitate wealth transfer. But the factories must keep producing to recoup the enormous capital investment in them, so wars are started to generate artificial demand for military products.
Picture a giant operation stretching across our planet in which conveyor belts bring gobbled up resources into giant processing plants where they are converted into plastic-wrapped products before exiting on other conveyor belts to be delivered into the mouths of force-fed and miserable consumer-creatures, whose excrement collect in vast toxic pits. A few elite fat cats sit on the roofs of their factories surveying their empire, heedless that non-renewable natural resources are rapidly disappearing and the toxic waste spewed by their factories is poisoning the very air they breathe. Animals and plants are dying everywhere, the earth and its oceans are becoming waste dumps, and smog blots out the sun. If this is “economies of scale”, then their idea of economy has nothing to do with what Thoreau practiced at Walden Pond.
Picture instead a world more like the Amish culture, or certain indigenous cultures with ancient traditions of living in harmony with the land, yet having the option to take advantage of remarkable technological advances that can support fractal sovereignty with a manageable environmental impact. It is easier now than ever before to create a society in which perpetual struggle for survival is replaced by satisfying creative work balanced with plentiful leisure and opportunity for creative pursuits, and with such an abundance of the most basic necessities of life that no one need do without them.
We have been conditioned to believe that the conveniences of modern life would not exist without mega-corporations. Why is it then, that we are working harder and longer for less? Why is so much of humanity still mired in poverty? An iPhone is at least a thousand times more powerful than the computers on board the Apollo space capsule that took men to the moon. The increases in productivity due to the 20th century introduction of computers, not to mention other scientific and technological achievements, should have led to a world where people only need work about one day per week to meet their most basic needs. Instead, the bounty of human ingenuity and labor has been funneled to a few elite whose only skill lies in their ability to exploit others, including the tactic of keeping the masses so preoccupied with stress and distractions that they don’t realize there is a better alternative. They’ve convinced us that there isn’t enough to go around; it’s a dog-eat-dog world where they are the alpha dogs and so we’re better off joining their pack and keeping our heads down.
So, we have the advantage of modern electrical machinery and computers along with other innovations such as advanced materials, all together which make it possible for localized, light manufacturing to play a much more prominent role in our society. This advantage is multiplied if we also adopt the open source and modular philosophies pioneered by the computer software community, but which also apply to the world of hardware and tangible products. Open source, modularized software has proven to the world that decentralized innovation combined with free sharing creates a global abundance that greatly exceeds that of the centralized, secretive, territorial and wasteful dominant industrial model. Thanks to the Internet, when open source software or hardware designs are released, thousands if not millions of people around the world instantly benefit, and then they may also incorporate them into their own work, resulting in exponentially rapid advancement for humanity.
The psychopathic controllers and their sociopathic minions don’t like this trend. They are always seeking ways to tap into revenue streams and siphon off the fruits of others’ labor and creativity, and they’ll use any means to accomplish that. I prefer to think of them as predators and parasites. This helps put them into their proper place in the order of things. If you can imagine them as vampire squids and tapeworms, then they can be dealt with on those terms. It’s a simple matter of choosing not to be their prey by disengaging from their systems, which always rely on some form of coercion, manipulation or deception. Their numbers and influence will decrease as their food supply dwindles. No need to despise them; they actually serve a useful role in that they make us stronger in the long run, just as their counterparts do in the natural world.
The more that you and your neighbors become self-sufficient, the less vulnerable you will be to coercion and manipulation. If your neighbors aren’t ready to at least partially disengage from the dominant parasitic system, then it may be better to relocate or find virtual neighbors through the Internet rather than stand alone. There are progressive communities springing up everywhere. As more people join them, they will serve as an example of a model for an abundant and sustainable society for those still trapped in the old paradigm, until a tipping point is reached.
Let’s summarize:
The sustainable development of humanity was hijacked by a predatory and parasitic segment of the population during the industrial revolution, diverting us into a cul-de-sac characterized by central control, concentration of wealth, widespread poverty, diminishment of individual freedom and innovation, depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation, and high-overhead, large-scale operations which alter society to accommodate, serve and perpetuate themselves, even after they become obsolete or destructive.
The way for humanity to return to a sustainable path of development is through massive decentralization, supported by technological innovation shared globally through open communication channels. Creative solutions found anywhere can immediately spread everywhere if the predators and parasites are taken out of the loop, resulting in an explosion of sustainable abundance and advancement.
So, what are we waiting for? Here is a list of resources, projects and movements to join or support, relevant to decentralized manufacturing.
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto
An excellent overview of the history of the light manufacturing revolution by Kevin A. Carson. Available as a book or as a free download.
“To repeat, there are two economies competing: their old economy of bureaucracy, high overhead, enormous capital outlays, and cost‐plus markup, and our new economy of agility and low overhead. And in the end… we will bury them.”
Also available as Free e-book or Free pdf download. See also Kevin’s Political Economy of Waste and his review of Plentitude: The New Economies of True Wealth.
P2P Foundation Open Manufacturing
A comprehensive wiki page on open manufacturing. Includes an extensive list of links.A great example of open source hardware. Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
“The Fab Lab Network is an open creative community of fabricators, artists, scientists, engineers, educators, students, amateurs and professionals located in more than 100 countries and 1,750 Fab Labs across the globe.”
“From community based labs to advanced research centers, Fab Labs share the goal of democratizing access to the tools for technical invention. This community is simultaneously a manufacturing network, a distributed technical education campus, and a distributed research laboratory working to digitize fabrication, inventing the next generation of manufacturing and personal fabrication.”
“The premier publication of maker projects, skill-building tutorials, in-depth reviews, inspirational stories, accessible by all ages and skill ranges.
How to Make Everything Ourselves: Open Modular Hardware
Initiatives like OpenStructures, Grid Beam, and Contraptor combine the modularity of systems like LEGO, Meccano and Erector with the collaborative power of digital success stories like Wikipedia, Linux or WordPress.
An economy based on the concept of re-use would not only bring important advantages in terms of sustainability, but would also save consumers money, speed up innovation, and take manufacturing out of the hands of multinationals.
A Network of Farmers, Engineers, and Supporters Building the Global Village Construction Set. The GVSC is a modular, do-it-yourfself, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.
Documentary film by David Sheen about building healthy houses out of earth.
“It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context. In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons.”
This article is one of ten in my Decentralized series: Manufacturing, Energy, Money, Education, Agriculture, Medicine, Security, Communication, Government, Religion
Decentralized Manufacturing
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I, personally have serious doubts that the Apollo capsule took men to the Moon.
It was way too flimsy and primitive, and yet NASA is claiming "we have lost the technology" as main reason for not going back, implying that we have gone backwards - which we did, but definitely not technologically - and that "it is now too complicated and expensive to redo all the research". Why "redo" a fakery, when they can start fresh, and build something real ?
Skipping past this embarrassingly uncomfortable subject, education is not only a wreck, it is an already foundered wreck, laying dead at the bottom of an ocean of generalised ineptitude. It cannot be rescued anymore, it will have to be replaced by completely new ways to introduce the children to the world they have been kicked in without being asked how they feel about it.
Both curiosity and independent thought are being killed early with the hammer of "listen to the experts and obey the rules", and unless this atrocity is being stopped, there is no hope whatsoever for Mankind. None at all.
I have often wondered... What if our inventiveness and science, since the beginning, had stuck to the principles of biomimicry? https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/
Suppose, instead of reductionistic, fragmented mindset, humanity had simply based its methods of inventiveness and creativity on Nature? For a billion years Nature has experimented, created, refined and optimized every imaginable engineering feat in order to create and sustain Her life forms. Whatever you could possibly need, Nature has already designed and optimized it. So, just mimic Nature's designs and refine it for human needs.
Just about everything mankind manufactures requires violent extraction of elements from Nature. Then those materials are subjected to very high temperatures and enormous pressures in order to fabricate 'raw' materials. Then these materials are elaborated further to eventually arrive at a finished product... a product which is often wholly divorced from and destructive to the Nature that provided it.
Nature, instead, sequesters needed elements directly from its surroundings, elaborates them at ambient temperatures and pressures, and Viola! Food, shelter, protective hardware, optimized interactions with environmental conditions.... it all happens in such a way that nothing is wasted, nothing is poisoned, nothing is degenerated.
Imagine, for example, that humanity had worked with bacteria and fungi in a natural, synergistic way for the last 3 or 4,000 years. What amazing bacterial functions and outputs would we have discovered and optimized over millennia? Imagine our farming methods had evolved from deep, careful observation and experimentation with fungi, protozoa and related soil life over all that time? Coupled with natural interactions of higher life forms, along with various bioenergies, cosmic energies and cyclical rhythms... all carefully optimized over time to develop robust and totally regenerative systems of food guilds?
If you scan through the biomimicry link above, you'll quickly see the obvious benefits to this way of thinking and approaching manufacturing - at all scales. By now humanity should be well along its way growing homes and shelters, generating all manner of fuels from bacteria, on and on and on.