Hyper-Local Manufacturing

Interview

Douglas Rushkoff, interviewed by ERIN LYNCH:

* "There has been a lot of talk about industry 4.0, hyper-local manufacturing, and bringing the means of production back to the individual. What do you see as the largest benefits from putting these types of manufacturing processes back in the hands of individuals, rather than large corporations?

Well, most simply, it retrieves a concept first articulated by the Catholic church when it was trying to state its position on Marx and runaway industrialism. The popes argued for a principle they called subsidiarity, in which no business grows larger than it needs to be in order to serve its purpose. Growth for growth’s sake was seen as the problem. They also believed in what was later called “distributism” – the idea that workers should own the tools through which they create value.

So at the time, that meant the land on which they worked, or the machines they used to make stuff. If they were co-owners, then they couldn’t really be exploited. It was their company, their land they were contributing to. In digital terms, this means the net being able to foster value creation by people on the periphery – not just by workers who travel to the city to work in somebody else’s factory.

* A new industrial age could bring around great transformative change. Do you think we are on the threshold of, or are we in the midst of a period of growth–a new renaissance?

My whole point is that the new renaissance is not a period of growth. We transcend the whole idea of growth (grow what? the economy? at whose expense? the planet’s?). And instead, we learn how to prosper in a more circulatory, “steady state” economy. The objective is not to grow businesses by lending money and then extracting it from the economy. We don’t optimize for growth, but for circulation. We get money moving throughout the economy. We encourage lots of translation and value exchange. We keep recycling the same money.

Instead of “capturing” value and turning it into dead shares of stock, we keep all that value circulating through the economy. Growth is really a trap." (http://www.webvisionsevent.com/2016/01/the-throes-of-change-an-interview-with-douglas-rushkoff/)