(2006-01-16) Carson Small Co Effectiveness

Kevin Carson on the effectiveness of SmallWorld. Engagement, Flexibility, Adaptability, etc.; Distribution Cost-s (Cheap Oil) vs local ReCycling/Repair (In addition, Patent laws prevent outside firms from specializing in cheap production of the Spare Part-s necessary to keep other firms' appliances operational.). And see bits on Barry Stein's writing on Workplace Democracy experiments: The literature on participation (industrial democracy) is replete with examples indicating the benefits from such a strategy. It is equally clear that the reason more such ideas are not implemented has to do with control preferences and power issues rather than operating efficiency... And Carson's own experience: most of the problems they sought to address (patient falls, hospital-aquired infections, medication errors, etc.) were the result of deliberate under-staffing. Shit happened because people working on the floor didn't have time to slow down, notice things, or think about what they were doing. But management's "solution" was to do everything but increase staffing.

He compares that to BigWorld: But we don't live in a Free Market. We live in a State Capitalism economy where the state has cartelized most industries: by anti-competitive regulations; by subsidies to operating costs that render corporations artificially profitable at sizes far above maximum Economies Of Scale; and by subsidies to capital- and skill- and R&D-intensiveness that artificially increase the minimum feasible size and otherwise raise entry barriers. We live in an economy, in short, where the average corporation has all the internal inefficiencies and irrationalities of a Planned Economy--but is able to survive because the taxpayers foot the bill for so many of the diseconomies of scale.