Talk Elections

I think it is. I've already made my economic viewpoint clear elsewhere, but to summarize: I think that the crisis currently in place - the result of decades of the Reaganist policy of exporting the means of production to foreign lands - has given us a remarkable opportunity, unique in the annals of history: to intentionally, knowingly, 'uplift' our economic system. Note that I do not believe in socialism or Communism; rather, it is my opinion that the future will be a decentralized version of capitalism, in which every individual owns the means of production, and specializes in the production of a specific thing, buying and selling and serving his community on a local basis. As projects like RepRap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap) and desktop manufacturing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_manufacturing) generally matures, I believe we will see a gradual shift towards this inclusive form of capitalism. In a word, this new system of economic decentralization would best be described as 'left-capitalism'.

This will be a painful process, throwing into tumult all of the old order: the industrial bosses will loathe the transition because it deprives them of their economic hegemon; the powerful unions will feel threatened by it, because it will vastly diminish or totally destroy their utility. But it must be done.

Here's what I wrote in your "New Fusionism" thread:


Is "desktop manufacturing" technologically advanced enough for an individual to create marketable goods?  Even if it is, I'd bet a lot of developers would sell their products to industrial concerns that have the mass-production and distribution channels already in place.

Rapid manufacturing methods have been used in the nation by the large conglomerates since 1986; it's not per se a new technology. But since that time the technology has evolved significantly - it's now possible, for instance, to create a cup (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e26MBnnQEIE) in half-an-hour, using a machine no larger than a laser printer -- and the people who are creating these machines believe that this production time will be radically reduced by the time it's ready for the mass-market. To make a loose analogy, rapid manufacturing today is where computing was two decades ago.

Here's the thing: once these become affordable, everyone will be able to be an entrepreneur, and therefore the larger industries will have become obsolete. The current system will provide the technology to let it happen -- and will therefore "plant the seeds of its own destruction", to borrow an old Marxist concept. It just won't happen the way the Marxists think it will.

Piece by piece we have already been creating the post-industrial world: individuals can now download and print books; we can download music; we can access all the information in the world from our own fingertips: entrepreneurship has never been easier, and yet it will become even easier yet, the standard of the day by the time we are old men.

Probably.  That sure appears to be obamas goal

Don't be an idiot. Obama's economic protectionism is designed to appeal to a dying breed: the mass worker, who is himself a product of industrial capitalism. By transitioning to my decentralized, entrepreneurial 'left-capitalism', we would rid ourselves of unions, populists, protectionists, etc. Obama could never be elected in a world in which the individual man himself owns the means of production, and produces out of his own home. You also remove the need for welfare, because any chump who can save up the money to buy this machine would be able to make a living.

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.

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


Behold, the Audi RSQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_RSQ)


Yes (http://www.laserfocusworld.com/display_article/227426/12/none/none/Feat/Rapid-prototyping-evolves-into-custom-manufacturing).



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

These larger systems will alter according to the demands set upon them. Materials still have to be created in order for the simplest "entrepreneurial" endeavor. This system has already negated the seed of it's own destruction, corrected it's supposed contradictions, post-industrialized or not. This system has very little in the way opposition, and could realistically function with a continuous stream of homegrown workers entrepreneurs decentralizing information production into their own homes.


Individuals are still beholden to the medium they resort to, to gain whatever it is they need to further their creations. Software, materials, money; very little is actually decentralized that enables people to come out from under the shadow of the older business model. For instance, suffocating copyright laws preventing people from acquiring additional information, lack of funds for upgrading computers, technical knowledge beyond wiki, affordable printing capabilities, etc.

 Much of it is an illusion; this libertarian fantasy of decentralized, “power-in-your-hands” scenario. As each new avenue opens, it becomes another way for business to adapt, and there's nothing to say an increase of DYI offers a paradigm shift that endangers industry. Interdependence is the norm; more so in our post industrial society than in the past. 

The fact is that, yes, it's still a form of capitalism: simply a much improved version of the model that has been used since the Civil War.


Which is why Network Neutrality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality) will be so important in the new paradigm, and which is why libertarians will eventually find themselves allying with 'the Left' to preserve it. I would not be surprised in thirty years to find myself voting for a candidate who champions an expansion of Network Neutrality and makes it a core premise of his platform.


Certainly, which is where the 'left' part of my 'left-libertarian' paradigm fits in.

If that's his goal (and I don't think it is), then my support of him just increased.

If industry can't make it in America, then it should just fail and go somewhere else.  Most of us could survive without it.  People who've worked their entire lives in factories couldn't, but that's what happens when you make a bad career choice.

If you're a real Greenie, you ought to consider becoming a left-libertarian. By decentralizing the means of production, the environmental impact of industrial capitalism is largely distributed evenly and minimalized. We can accept property as the only ethical order of arrangement; we can rebuild our communities; we can make access to the means of production more egalitarian; and we can protect the environment and preserve energy - we can do all these things and more; but it would require a dedicated effort on the part of the people to sacrifice the current stagnating order for the future.

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 (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/top_story/millennium.html)

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.

If you say so.

From today: Printable batteries (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090702080358.htm)


And you tell me this technology isn't going to have significant future applications. This right here is a direct amalgamation of energy concerns (smaller, more durable, more potent batteries) with 3D printing. I expect to see much more of this in the future.

Technology isn't going to suddenly create the necessary jobs to replace all of those jobs that have been either offshored, or entirely eliminated due to automation. The pattern of the past is not happening now, there's no great new field that will suddenly have rapid job growth.

Of course not. That's why you create your own jobs, which is entirely in keeping with the character of Western-style freedom: you find a niche and exploit it, using the tools provided to you to the best of your abilities.

Why the far-right and the far-left have to unite on one issue - on the axis of neo-Ludditism - infuriates and depresses me. In a sane world, the Right would see technological progression as the welcomed and encouraged outcome of the free market, and the Left would understand it to be the means to achieve a more stable and fair society. Yet both branches now seem content to retreat into a frenzied, apocalyptic nihilism.

Man up, you blubbering pussies, and work together on this.

Starting your own business is a lot of work and has a very high risk factor. Since you wouldn't be too big to fail, no bailouts for you. The government doesn't do much to help small businesses. When Republicans talk about pro-business, they mean those large corporations that they have connections to, not some guy working 90 hours a week for peanuts. I'm not saying that it's impossible to start your own business and have it be moderately successful, but I'm saying that the odds are really against it. And this leaves tens of millions of people unemployed.

Look here: you believe in protecting the environment, right? Well, so do I. I believe in it strongly - and I believe it can be done on the basis of the local free-market.

If a guy in your neighborhood is able to, say, fashion a stereo system using technology in his own possession, and it works every bit as well as one you can buy in the store today, then wouldn't it make sense to buy it, and, by buying it, support your local economy, not pay any sales tax, minimize the gas expenditure involved in making a trip to the store, stick it to the large corporations and promote the use of a new innovation in one fell swoop?

You people on this forum are atherosclerotic in your ideologies, and, because you all hate the other side, you refuse to consider the potential of combining elements from both towards a common end for the good of all.

Let's see how much longer that pattern holds. The large multinationals are a very recent innovation; I see no reason to believe that they will survive this crisis - which I believe will be as fundamentally altering to our present economic system as was the Depression before it. And this is where the 'left' element of my left-libertarian fusionism enters the picture: I am more than willing to support anti-monopoly action against Wal-Mart (monopolization perverts the free-market by causing innovating competition to cease), provided that you can support the establishment of a localized, decentralized capitalist society.

Who is too big to fail, the small business or the large corporation? The problem is that you can't even begin to compete with Walmart. After NAFTA passed, a lot of the manufacturing jobs in this country went to Mexico, where they paid their workers $1 a day. I'm talking about Mexico in the past sense, because they couldn't compete with the Indian companies on wages, so Mexico lost their manufacturing jobs too.


What you are suggesting is some major changes in how we regulate "free trade" and monopolies, and I don't think that's going to come from Obama. Large corporations are heavily favored over small businesses.

Which is why Obama isn't going to be the one that pulls us out of this crisis. He's actually the most likable liberal I've ever seen at work on a national stage, but his politics are mired far too deeply in the old New Deal/Great Society/Reaganomics/Third Way cycle, that emphasized reinforcing the mass industrial society at the expense of the local culture. He'll try his damnedest, but it's not going to work.

But then again, neither will another Reagan-clone. We need fresh leadership, one that will challenge both the supply-side orthodoxy and the pro-corporate liberalism that has held power in this country since the end of the First World War. We need a genuine revolution of values, and neither major Party is offering one - but they might, if there's a big enough call for it.

Correction above, $1 an hour. Way cheaper than anyone can live on in this country, and yet too expensive to compete with India.

Anyways, I wouldn't expect too much from the deadwood politicians in office.

Then let's get the ball rolling: all genuine political revolutions begin from the grassroots.

I want to attempt something that hasn't been done before - and that is to bring together a variety of people, from all ends of the political spectrum, around an agreed-upon set of prescripts, grounded in principles that draw from the best traditions of all philosophies, to meet our present crisis. How this could be done in the context of a forum, I don't know; if it were ever to take off into the larger world, however, I have some ideas as to how its evolution could be guided.

Einzige your optimism is as foolish as your attachment to the system which has destroyed your sad land.

The future is - many americans will live in violent slums without much employment of any kind.  There will remain a core of some modest economic activity, based on brutal exploitation of a very poorly paid (relative to cost of living) working class.  The model for the future of america is clearly to be found in the 'third world', not science fiction.

Look at it this way - the last 30 years have seen far more technological innovation than the previous 30, but what do we find?  Severe and ongoing impoverishment of most people since 1980, in contrast to fairly well distributed increase in the standard of living from 1950-1980.  Technology is nice, but it is political will that creates economic well being.

There's nothing 'left' about it, beside a vague inclusive feeling.

The third industrial revolution
The digitisation of manufacturing will transform the way goods are made—and change the politics of jobs too (http://www.economist.com/node/21553017)

"A number of remarkable technologies are converging: clever software, novel materials, more dexterous robots, new processes (notably three-dimensional printing) and a whole range of web-based services....

The old way of making things involved taking lots of parts and screwing or welding them together. Now a product can be designed on a computer and “printed” on a 3D printer, which creates a solid object by building up successive layers of material....

An engineer working in the middle of a desert who finds he lacks a certain tool no longer has to have it delivered from the nearest city. He can simply download the design and print it. The days when projects ground to a halt for want of a piece of kit, or when customers complained that they could no longer find spare parts for things they had bought, will one day seem quaint....

New materials are lighter, stronger and more durable than the old ones. Carbon fibre is replacing steel and aluminium in products ranging from aeroplanes to mountain bikes. New techniques let engineers shape objects at a tiny scale. Nanotechnology is giving products enhanced features, such as bandages that help heal cuts, engines that run more efficiently and crockery that cleans more easily. Genetically engineered viruses are being developed to make items such as batteries. And with the internet allowing ever more designers to collaborate on new products, the barriers to entry are falling. Ford needed heaps of capital to build his colossal River Rouge factory; his modern equivalent can start with little besides a laptop and a hunger to invent.....

Most jobs will not be on the factory floor but in the offices nearby, which will be full of designers, engineers, IT specialists, logistics experts, marketing staff and other professionals. The manufacturing jobs of the future will require more skills. Many dull, repetitive tasks will become obsolete: you no longer need riveters when a product has no rivets....

Factories used to move to low-wage countries to curb labour costs. But labour costs are growing less and less important: a $499 first-generation iPad included only about $33 of manufacturing labour, of which the final assembly in China accounted for just $8. Offshore production is increasingly moving back to rich countries not because Chinese wages are rising, but because companies now want to be closer to their customers so that they can respond more quickly to changes in demand. And some products are so sophisticated that it helps to have the people who design them and the people who make them in the same place...."

As has been the trend for decades, manufacturing will require more skilled jobs (some of the more delicate stuff may still be by hand, but there will be more engineers and fewer poor immigrants on assembly lines). While unskilled labor has been dead for a while, manufacturing may actually increase as a sector.

Actually, the advent of 3D printing may actually increase the proportion of unskilled labor in manufacturing, by allowing anyone or even little children to manufacture things at the click of a button.

Beet, since you seem to know something about it, could you explain 3D Printing in a way that isn't just "miracle device out of Star Trek that can fabricate objects out of sawdust?"

Technology certainly isn't increasing the number of jobs in the US. More profits does not equal more jobs. Verizon is sitting on $10 billion, and they laid off 40,000  people in the last few years.

Indeed, technology advances usually mean more efficiency and fewer jobs.  Still better than the alternative.

There are numerous different advanced manufacturing techniques all being grouped under the category "3D Printing", the common element being that they are all what is now called "additive manufacturing techniques." Traditionally manufacturing is subtractive, meaning that parts are created the way a sculpture is, by taking a chunk of the base material and then cutting away parts of it in a process known as machining. Additive manufacturing techniques use only the amount of base material that will actually be in the final product, building it up piece by piece. The advantage of additive manufacturing is that it is much quicker to change the design, which is why it has been used for decades for rapid prototyping. The disadvantage now and ever is that it's not efficient for producing large quantities (>a few thousand).

What's happening now is that the quality of rapid prototyping is improving and the cost is coming down to where it's starting to approach the consumer level (but not yet). I would say consumer 3D Printing is where the PC industry was in the mid-1970s. The cost-benefit is low enough for enthusiasts and hobbyists to adopt, but not worthwhile (yet) for the general public.

The main limitation of the current consumer models, IMO, is the limited material they can use (only plastic). Essentially it's a chemistry limitation. Current consumer models all use a variant of fused deposition modelling, which is where the raw material (filament) is fed into a nozzle by a motor. The nozzle is heated to melt the filament as a very thin layer of it (usually between .01 and .1 mm) extrudes out from the nozzle, and settles onto the surface of the base. At the same time stepper motors are used to move the nozzle around rapidly, creating a "layer" of object. Then, the base is lowered by .01 to .1 mm and the process is repeated again, creating the next layer. The material is typically a plastic and comes out as the same plastic that are used in Lego sets. But since only plastic can be used (due to it's melting point properties, can't be too high) you can't use these devices to print circuit boards, glass, rubber, wood, etc. So obviously their utility is very limited. Further, they're usually monochromatic or bichromatic. The current models run at about $1300-$1700. Until some of these big limitations are overcome and the cost comes down under $500, you won't see this become a household item. But given the progress that has been made in the past several years, I wouldn't be surprised if these problems were indeed overcome. Other types of 3D Printing, such as laser sintering, can definitely print metals.   


That really isn't true; I mean, are there more jobs now, or were there in 1800?

In theory, technology is supposed to lower costs, which increases demand. As demand increases, then jobs are created to fill that demand.

What's happening now is a bit more complex. It's a part of the overall increased stratification of the world between haves and have-nots. Only in this case the "haves" are the select few with the engineering, computer, energy and medical skills that are in demand, while the "have nots" are everyone else.

Lots of engineering jobs have been lost in recent years. Those people aren't exactly haves any more.

Industrial capitalism is the only path to mass prosperity. Will explain when free.

I should have added something about "in a specific industry, more efficiency means fewer jobs".  Obviously there are "more jobs" now than 200 years ago, but it takes a lot less people to make, say, a shirt now than then.  Just like it takes fewer people to make a car now than it did thirty years ago.  We have less factory work now but we make more than we ever have.  This is a good thing because factory work sucks.  Granted, if you arn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and don't mind working in a loud, dangerous place pushing the same button over and over again for thirty years it kind of sucks for you, but for the rest of us it's better because our lawn mowers are cheaper.  Sure, unloading trucks at Sears doesn't pay as much as putting fenders on Fords did in 1979, but it was pretty stupid of us to pay Johnny High School dropout more than we paid Mrs. Englishteacher.

But to your point, yes, it is better to be in medicine or technology.  Everybody knows this.  My school counselors in the late 80s knew this.  If you want to make money, you go into fields that make money.  If you want to do what you love, you can probably survive doing that, but you're not going to make as much as the guy that went to trade school to learn HVAC work and why should you?  Few people dream of being and HVAC guy when they grow up, but it's something that is obviously needed.  If you do something nobody wants to do, you'll get paid more, that's how it works.  Nothing is stopping people from going to their local community college or trade school and learning a needed trade, in fact, it's actually pretty easy, even if you're flat broke.

You are underestimating the ruthlessness of the American owning class. If desktop manufacturing ever so much as looked like it could realistically replace heavy industry as the driving force for production in our economy the threatened elements of the owning class would utilize their limitless capital to rid themselves of the problem (essentially what happened to electric cars in the 90s).

Your society could only exist after the destruction of the owning class, but is unrealistic as a means of riddance. Interesting idea though, I assume your model's ultimate end is anarchic in nature?

People still think "big business" killed the electric car?  How quaint.

Rather beside the point, too, considering the millions upon millions of americans they have killed and continue to kill every year. enormity of their actual crimes offenses.

Note to moderators:

I edited the above post because, though I think it is a standard and accepted tenet of Marxist thought that 'big business' does in fact cause the deaths of working class people, I was afraid it might be in spite of this be considered 'excessive hyperbole'.  Finally I also thought that 'crimes' might be a bit too strong, as in fact what they do is perfectly legal - instead I used 'offenses' in the sense that what they do offends (or harms) their class-victims or may be perceived as having done so.

Is there any way I could get some friendly and helpful feed-back (sans death points) on whether my thinking is correct here?

I suppose you are about to tell me that it's was the omnipotent will of the free market that killed the EV1? I suppose the multi-million dollar lobbying campaign and patent buy outs by big oil was merely coincidental and also The Hand's will?

You might have a point if the electric car was dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currently_available_electric_cars#Highway_capable), it's not.  I can't wait until they get all the wrinkles out and the price down as I'd love to have the instant power electric motors give.  The biggest issue is the less than adequate battery.  Figure that one out and you'll be a trijazillionare.  My money (if I had any) would be on the super capacitor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_capacitor).