Is industrial capitalism done for in the United States?

[Vepres]

A couple things:

1. Why would the individual own the means of production where they have to go to a store, buy materials, then build it at home? It's easier to have robots in large factories mass produce items that are sold at a store fully made. These technologies sound good on paper, but in the real world I doubt they'll amount to much.

Can they build a car? A computer? Even a computer chip or microwave? No. Sure you could build cups, plates, maybe even a desk if you had the money and space, but the point is is that these technologies aren't going to be as great as you and these websites say. I just can't see how the machine can get any better than it is. Sure it'll be a cool gadget, and yes we may be able to build plastic parts with it, but it's expensive, slow, and big.

2. I really don't see what's wrong with the structure and essence of our current system.  Why go through all that pain when we can improve the current system?

It's no longer industrial capitalism, but engineering/creativity/idea driven capitalism. But the basic framework will still be the same.

[Vepres]

1. Why would the individual own the means of production where they have to go to a store, buy materials, then build it at home. It's easier to have robots in large factories mass produce items that are sold at a store fully made. These technologies sound good on paper, but in the real world I doubt they'll amount to much.

Most rapid fabrication suppliers ship materials directly to the location where the objects are manufactured.

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Behold, the Audi RSQ

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Yes.

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Why continue to accept the pains of mass industrialization - employment and health-care benefits, unionization, and lack of innovation?

A prop and a prototype are one thing, a fully functioning product is another.

I read the links about that Audi. It took a large team of people to design and build.

Hopkinson may predict that these will be mainstream, but will they?

A few examples of wrong predictions:

1. In the late-60s Arthur C. Clark predicted that, buy 2001, we'd have a space station orbiting earth that could hold thousands of people, and that we could have a sentient computer and fly humans to Jupiter, all wrong.

2. Many scholars of the past believed that the advances in technology would make life easier, and that by 2000, most adults would work only a few hours every week. Most daily tasks would be automated and computers or robots would be intelligent enough to complete them. Citation

3. Of course, the best comparison to these 3d printers are humanoid robots. Robotics in this area have advanced very little relative to computers and other technologies. Lots of potential, but probably won't be practical for a few centuries, if at all.