[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] A note on the post-capitalist strategy of the P2P Foundation

[Eric Hunting]

One of the interesting effects of advancing technology is a progressive 
reduction in economies of scale in many industries and systems. Some of 
the bottleneck technologies you note do have some interesting, if still 
speculative, alternatives. Railways, for instance. New proposed systems 
like SkyTran or Hyperloop have significantly lower economies of scale 
than conventional rail--deliberately so because they find themselves 
challenged by political conservatives increasingly resistant to 'big 
ticket' infrastructure investments. There have also been small scale 
systems overlooked in the conventional urban context, like cable car 
systems or, one of my favorites, the 'banana monorail' ( 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_mvBDdWJsM ) which has been 
experimentally adapted to passenger use in the developing world context. 
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icXHfnw-gaw ) These have always looked 
like a lot of fun to me, and could have potential space applications as 
the supports for the cableway can be designed to be self-supporting and 
quick-deployable. In Cambodia there was an aid program to encourage 
rural development through the supply of a kind of simple general purpose 
modular motor that could be adapted to many uses. One of the ingenious 
uses devised by locals was a simple rail car that could be used on the 
long-abandoned traditional rail system. Called the 'bamboo train', these 
have now become something of a tourist attraction in themselves. ( 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilJAczgfmHk )

Satellites have also started to see hints of competition from new kinds 
of lower economy of scale systems, sometimes based on very old 
technology revived with new technology. Satellites have long had a 
problem of taking so long to deploy--because of their Faberge Egg mode 
of development--that they have frequently gone obsolete before they 
could pay for themselves. Sometimes as soon as they have been launched. 
And so the telecommunications industry has long been interested in 
alternatives that had some capability for continuous upgrade. Space 
stations proved too expensive for that, but it has compelled the 
development of alternatives like stratospheric airships and aircraft 
relying on solar power. I long corresponded with a developer of these, 
Michael Walden in Las Vegas. Though more limited in terrestrial 
footprint, these are so less costly and risky to deploy that using them 
in larger numbers to make up for the difference in coverage is 
practical, while offering benefits of much more transmission power, much 
lower latency, and much more bandwidth thanks to the potentially larger 
payloads and solar power capacity.

Shipping now finds competition, at least in some niches, from revived 
sailing vessels, such as the Fair Trade Cruisers which now travel to the 
under-served markets of West Africa and South America. ( 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBKbWL_Mjs ) With the benefit of new 
technology, new kinds of sailing vessels based on technologies like 
rigid solar wingsails, offer potential to make this increasingly viable.

I think these things represent a long term trend in the Post-Industrial 
era. Industrial demassification is driven by the shrinking economies of 
scale afforded by advancing technology--one of the key factors eroding 
Industrial Age paradigms from within.


On 6/18/16 2:49 PM, p2p-foundation-request at lists.ourproject.org wrote:
> Subject:
> Re: [P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] A note on the post-capitalist strategy 
> of the P2P Foundation
> From:
> Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com>
> Date:
> 6/18/16, 2:49 PM
>
> CC:
> p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org>, 
> "networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org" <networkedlabour at lists.contrast.org>
>
>
> The technologies I'm thinking of are the kinds of open-source 
> micromanufacturing machine tools, smelting furnaces etc. being 
> developed by groups like Open Source Ecology, and tabletop CNC 
> machinery being developed by the open hardware community more 
> generally; open-source machinery like the tractors, compressed earth 
> block machines, sawmills and so forth also being developed by OSE; 
> small-scale intensive food production techniques like Permaculture; 
> and so on.
>
> I don't question that there are still many bottleneck technologies 
> that require large scale and capital outlay -- microprocessors 
> probably the most significant.
>
> Railroads are another bottleneck industry.
>
> I don't think electrical power generation is so much -- generating 
> capability can be pretty well dispersed. And if photovoltaic 
> generators still require larger, more capital-intensive facilities to 
> produce, other kinds of renewable power -- wind, or using solar 
> reflectors as heat source for a steam-powered generator -- are 
> producible at the local level. I may be wrong --  I'm a layman on 
> computer hardware issues -- but I think the hosting capability of 
> server farms can be pretty widely distributed among many small 
> facilities over a large area.
>
> But to my mind the most important thing is that the *preponderance* of 
> small-scale means of production for local consumption means a much 
> smaller portion of the economy than in the past, and probably a much 
> smaller portion in the near future than at present, will be critical 
> bottlenecks subject to capitalist control.
>
> And the fewer the bottlenecks, and the less time-sensitive they are 
> (as a result of the increasing availability of expedients like 
> reprogrammable micro-chips, recycling old hardware for functions where 
> lower levels of processing capacity are sufficient, increasing 
> cradle-to-cradle recycling of materials in landfills using local 
> processing facilities like mini-mills, and less dependance on 
> long-distance transportation in general thanks to economic 
> relocalization), the more slack/insulation local economies will have 
> for riding out periods of impasse before they actually have to be 
> restocked from the remaining bottlenecks. That means the bottlenecks, 
> while still remaining, will provide a lot less leverage.
>
> Not saying there won't be a final phase of violence at the last stage 
> of the transition as the most critical remaining centralized stuff 
> changes hands, but it will probably be a lot smaller in scale and with 
> a vastly shifted correlation of forces -- a mopping-up operation 
> against capitalist-state forces that have already been strategically 
> outmaneuvered.

-- 
Eric Hunting
erichunting at gmail.com

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