[p2p-research] thinking about leapfrogging

[Kevin Carson]

On 10/2/08, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:

>  but what if centralized infrastructures and large scale production
>  (not necessarily in the same form as today, of course, that's another
>  issue) intrinsically **were** the best scale to create hi-tech
>  necessary goods or maintain large necessary networks?
Cfr:
>  http://p2pfoundation.net/Thoughts_on_P2P_production_and_deployment_of_physical_objects

> > But leapfrogging to decentralized, ephemeral systems may be the only
> > viable option... And the "small is beautiful" stuff may be all
>  > that's left.

>  the problem is how much in _real_ quality of life we'd lose by
>  resorting only to such systems.

>  > I expect that we're in the early stages of a number of dovetailing
>  > crises that will render the old kind of large-scale, industrial
>  > capitalism unsustainable

> agreed, but is that enough to be sure that we don't need anything
>  "large-scale" anymore, in any field?

Well, a lot of it depends on what you mean by "centralized" and "large
scale."  I don't expect household and informal production to
completely supplant factory production.  But Ralph Borsodi argued that
some two-thirds of what we consume could be most efficiently produced
using small-scale electrically powered machinery in the household, and
I believe he would have agreed that much of the other third could have
been best produced in small factories serving local markets.

What he envisioned, as he described it, was a shift in production of
most of the goods we consume from the factory to small-scale machine
production in the household, with relatively small factories existing
mainly to produce the small-scale household machinery rather than to
produce consumer goods for direct consumption.

There are some forms of production that require extremely large scale,
like the kind of heavy engine block IC engine that has prevailed in
the auto industry since WWII, the large jet aircraft, and the
microprocessor.  But with the removal of all subsidies, I'd expect the
production of passenger and cargo jets to virtually disappear, because
they simply won't pay for themselves in a free market.  The fraction
of existing long-distance shipping that would survive in a
decentralized economy would probably rely almost entirely on
railroads.  I would also expect the demand for automobiles of
present-day design to shrink by more than an order of magnitude, as we
moved toward walkable communities and the use of light rail for travel
between communities, and much lighter electric vehicles were
sufficient for the remaining functions of transporting people from
rural areas into town or transporting goods from railheads to retail
outlets.  Microprocessors are probably most problematic, but a shift
to reprogrammable chips will probably reduce primary production to a
small fraction of the market, with most of the need being supplied by
the recycling of chips from old appliances in the same way a major
part of present-day steel needs are met by small mini-mills recycling
scrap metal.

And in almost all other industries besides that tiny handful, the
prevailing firm and plant size is far, far beyond the optimum for
meeting economies of scale.  So we could get the vast majority of what
we presently consume, more efficiently, with the largest scale of
production being a small factory serving a local market area of a
hundred thousand people or so--and most production being carried out
at the level of household and neighborhood or small town.  IMO, once
we reach a minimum threshold of technical development (say, that of
the industrialized West in the 1950s), the single biggest factor in
quality of life is the balance between work and leisure.  With an end
to subsidized waste and to the portion of commodity price that
reflects embedded rents on IP and other forms of artificial property,
I'd expect the average workweek to be one or two days.  That's an
immense improvement in quality of life, even if we have to give up
SUVs and use composting toilets.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Anarchist Organization Theory Project
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html