posted 3 months ago
Industrialism, which started the social and ecological crisis, is making many of one thing. Often making so many of one thing to be the only supplier for the whole world.
I suggest the antidote to this would be workshops that make one, or a few, of many different things as needed locally.
I suggest human scale, self-reliant communities should all have one of these workshops, perhaps as shared public property. A really effective workshop to replace industrialism would probably be beyond individuals, though I am not very experienced in metal, plastic, wood, electrical etc workshop technology, so don't know for sure.
A "super-workshop" perhaps a good word for it, sounds a bit vainglorious maybe but we have "super" markets, none thinks that sounds conceited.
Working in conjunction with local metal and other recycling seem a good idea in theory, though I don't know how practically possible.
It is an open question how far this can be taken, and it would change over time with innovation if science and engineering started working on the local and "small" rather than selling themselves to the highest, usually biggest, bidder.
Any thoughts?