Introductory Material (pdf)

Part One–Babylon: The Rise and Fall of Sloanist Mass Production

Chapter One. A Wrong Turn, and the Path Not Taken (pdf)

A. Preface: Mumford’s Periodization of Technological History

B. The Neotechnic Phase

C. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Neotechnic Revolution

Chapter Two. Moloch: The Anatomy of Sloanist Mass-Production Industry (pdf)

Introduction

A. Institutional Forms to Provide Stability

B. Mass Consumption and Push Distribution to Absorb Surplus

C. State Action to Absorb Surplus: Imperialism

D. State Action to Absorb Surplus: State Capitalism

E. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin (A Critique of Sloanism’s Defenders)

F. The Pathologies of Sloanism

G. Mandatory High Overhead

Chapter Three. Babylon is Fallen (pdf)

Introduction

A. Resumption of the Crisis of Overaccumulation

B. Resource Crises (Peak Oil)

C. Fiscal Crisis of the State

D. Decay of the Cultural Pseudomorph

E. Failure to Counteract Limits to Capture of Value by Enclosure of the Digital Commons

F. Networked Resistance, Netwar and Asymmetric Warfare Against Corporate Management

Part Two–Zion: The Renaissance of Decentralized Production\

Chapter Four. Back to the Future (pdf)

A. Home Manufacture

B. Relocalized Manufacturing

C. New Possibilities for Flexible Manufacturing

Sidebar on Marxist Objections to Non-Capitalist Markets: The Relevance of the Decentralized Industrial Model

Chapter Five. The Small Workshop, Desktop Manufacturing, and Household Microenterprise (pdf)

A. Neighborhood and Backyard Industry

B. The Desktop Revolution and Peer Production in the Immaterial Sphere

C. The Expansion of the Desktop Revolution and Peer Production into the Physical Realm

C1. Open-Source Design: Removal of Proprietary Rents from the Design Stage, and Modular Design.

C2. Reduced Transaction Costs of Aggregating Capital.

C3. Reduced Capital Outlays for Physical Production.

D. The Microenterprise

Appendix. Case Studies in the Coordination of Networked Fabrication and Open Design

#1. Open Source Ecology/Factor e Farm.

#2. 100k Garages

#3. Assessment

Chapter Six. Resilient Communities and Local Economies (pdf)

A. Local Economes of Bases of Independence and Buffers Against Economic Turbulence

B. Historical Models of the Resilient Community

C. Resilience, Primary Social Units, and Libertarian Values

D. LETS Systems, Barter Networks, and Community Currencies

E. Community Bootstrapping

F. Contemporary Ideas and Projects

*Jeff Vail’s Hamlet Economy

*Global Ecovillage Networking

*The Transition Town Movement

*Global Villages

*Venture Communism

*Decentralized Economic and Social Organization (DESO)

*The Triple Alliance

Chapter Seven. The Alternative Economy as a Singularity (pdf)

A. Networked Production and the Bypassing of Corporate Nodes

B. The Advantages of Value Creation Outside the Cash Nexus

C. More Efficient Extraction of Value from Inputs

D. The Implications of Reduced Physical Capital Costs

E. Strong Incentives and Reduced Agency Costs

F. Reduced Costs from Supporting Rentiers and Other Useless Eaters

G. The Stigmergic Non-Revolution

H. The Singularity

Conclusion

Appendix. The Singularity in the Third World

Bibliography (pdf)

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