Comment 47488

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted September 10, 2010 at 07:41:44

While I'm not against efficiency, or economies of scale, we have to be really careful with industrialism. The notion is about much more than "rational organization" or effective time management. Creating large powerful institutions dedicated to centralizing production for profit is dangerous in a democracy or free market. Beyond a certain size, they tend to distort markets and politics too much to be held accountable for their failings. To put it simply, using big machines to make things only works as long as the machines don't cost more than the time/work they're saving.

Costs like marketing, transportation and management today consume far more of our consumer dollars than actual production does. The answer to this isn't more "effective" industries - it's asking ourselves how and why the oil situation got so bad in the first place. The industrial revolution began long before we knew much about petroleum and it will likely outlive it.

Local, decentralized, versatile production is the answer. We need to stop trying to get the lowest unit-cost per knicknack and start asking what kind of system will yield the lowest costs overall.

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