Kevin Carson book.

Table of Contents

Introductory Material

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

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• A. Local Economies 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

• 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