Compeerism solves manufacturing and distribution more efficiently than capitalism

Hannes, Professor of Geography at the University of West Georgia. “Democratizing Infrastructure.” From Capital to Commons: Exploring the Promise of a World Beyond Capitalism. University of Bristol. Pp 101-104. /LJS

While the prospect of a decentralized, autonomous industrial base of small scale manufacturers has frequently been pondered, from an assortment of political approaches, more contemporary work on what a transition to such a system would involve, given our current economic and technological context, is scarce. Where this question has been taken up, however, a favourite example is that of the Emilia Romagna (ER) region of Italy. With just over 4 million people, this region boasts a vibrant and diverse manufacturing sector comprised of nearly 50,000 mostly small and medium sized manufacturing firms, employing roughly a quarter of the regions’ population. The innovative, flexible, and demand-centred small-batch manufacturing system, which relies on significant inter-firm collaboration and networking, has long been an economic engine within Italy and has proven to be impressively resilient to market fluctuations. In 2005 a team sent by the Cooperative Charitable Trust Forum scoped out the region to find a manufacturing model ‘that is practical, has scale, and (is) consistent with social justice values’ (P2PF Wiki, 2018, np). One of the team members documented what they found, describing, ‘a fascinating web of cooperatives, small manufacturing companies, innovative social service programmes, and a complex and dynamic partnership between business, labour, and government’, concluding that Emilia Romagna should be top of the list for anyone seeking an ‘alternative development model’ (P2PF Wiki, 2018, np). Furthermore, in seeing ER as an example that could inform a specifically non-capitalist, use-value form of production geared to meeting the needs of the community, Kevin Carson (2009b, p 5) concludes that, ‘given the small scale of production and the short local supply chains, a shift to production primarily for local needs would be relatively uncomplicated’. This optimistic assessment, however, needs a bit more unpacking, given that the ER industrial system functions primarily as a production centre for components or parts within a complex global manufacturing chain in which assembly is usually done elsewhere. The question thus arises whether assembly could similarly be localized. One possible answer to this query can be found in the emergence of microscaled factories, espoused by a handful of specialized, start-up firms whose vision it is to use digital manufacturing, and especially 3D printing, as a way to outcompete mammoth, dedicated factories. In the words of Kevin Czinger, founder of the automotive-focused Divergent Technologies: There needs to be an alternative to hundreds of thousands of people performing repetitive tasks in a behemoth factory centralized in the lowest cost geography – with loss of manufacturing jobs everywhere else. In our filled-up planet, we should start to re-localize and democratize production. Focus on small teams. Focus on adaptation to the local environment. Think resilience. Think adaptation. Think meaningful, human scale work. And frankly, that’s how we recapture the soul of manufacturing. (Teng and Czinger, 2018, np) Certainly, this vision of microfactory production is very much in sync with the aspirations of the DG-ML model. More critically, it points to a possible path to a compeerist entry into the manufacturing sector, due to the smaller capital requirements for startup and the competitive advantages that can still be attained despite forgoing economies of scale. To get a sense of the emerging capabilities involved here we can look at a few comparisons to big industry, with a particular focus on the automotive sector. Beginning with product development, consider that large automobile manufacturers can take up to seven years to go from concept to production. Yet, in the case of Local Motors, an early pioneer in micro-manufacturing in the automotive sector, their commercially successful Olli vehicle (an electric, autonomous people-mover), managed to go from concept to final product in only a year (Peels and Haye, 2021). Modular, 3D enabled manufacturing also opens the possibility for a much more affordable supply chain by using simpler designs and fewer parts; the low budget, Chinese made LSEV 3D printed electric car, for example, reduced the amount of plastic components from over 2000 to 57 (Coxworth, 2018). Furthermore, Divergent Technologies, which built the first 3D printed ‘supercar’, claims that the dematerialization and efficiency inherent in digital manufacturing fundamentally reduces the material and energy inputs required in production (Weiss, 2015). Looking at capacity, these microfactories also prove to be competitive. To compare, take Daimler AG’s flagship Sindelfingen plant, which employs 25,000 workers in a 14 million square-foot factory to assemble up to 300,000 vehicles per year. Local Motors’ microfactory, in turn, could produce up to 350 Olli vehicles annually, using 20 workers on a 10,000 square foot workspace (Rogers, 2019). When these numbers are crunched, we see the microfactory producing 17.5 cars per worker compared to Daimler’s 12, and 28.6 cars per square foot compared to the 10.3 in the Sindelfingen plant. Microfactories, which are less automated, also require less investment in relation to output capacity, making market entry much easier. Consider here that the construction of the high-tech, US based Toyota-Mazda plant that was started in 2022 is expected to cost over US$2.3 billion (Toyota, 2021). In relation to its estimated yearly car production (similar to the Sindelfingen plant), we arrive at an estimate of just over $7500 per car. According to Divergent Technologies, its small, digital manufacturing microfactory can produce up to 10,000 vehicles per year and cost roughly 20 million dollars, which comes out to be less than a third of the investment per car compared to the Toyota case (Weiss, 2015). While the ER region and microfactories demonstrate the potential competitiveness to be achieved through smaller-scaled component production and assembly (at least with cars), it is worth noting some additional benefits to downscaling being pursued in some other industrial sectors. Growing concerns about the environmental impacts of large-scale facilities, for instance, has led to downsizing initiatives in industries that have long pursued economies of scale. Hence, the advent of the electric arc furnace has triggered a boom in the use of mini-mills capable of smaller, more targeted batch production of recycled steel; and in the chemicals industry there is growing promise in utilizing much smaller, modular, and more environmentally friendly production plants (Scherrer, 1988; Seifert et al, 2012). We are also beginning to see a greater emphasis on downsized, more localized manufacturing to overcome the problem of uncertain and shifting demand. Deloitte, the largest professional services network in the world, reported on this trend in 2015, stating: ‘The digitization of manufacturing … has made manufacturing more repeatable and portable. Individual designers and small businesses now have the ability to produce high-quality goods locally at low cost’ (Hagel et al, 2015, np). They point to the 160,000- square-foot ‘Manufacture New York’ facility in Brooklyn as an example. In line with the DG-ML’s scalar ideals, this centre was created ‘to enable more small manufacturers to subsist locally and be more responsive to local needs’ (Hagel et al, 2015, np). It is worth briefly noting here that this focus on ‘local needs’ could portend a broader change from a supply driven industrial system focused on throughput to a more user-driven approach emphasizing quality and durability/repairability. Importantly, such a shift could also mean placing significantly less strain on localized industrial capacity as the lifespan of goods would be significantly increased, a potential that is often neglected when considering the output limits of small-scale production. We will, however, leave the broader environmental implications involved in more demand driven, prosumer-oriented production to the next chapter. Still, despite the growing potential of localized, small-scale manufacturing, it is nonetheless important to acknowledge that the cost-benefit analyses of pursuing such an approach will vary across industries. This means that the ‘manufacture local’ ideal will undoubtedly be more difficult to implement or justify in some areas. For instance, in the high-volume manufacturing of some standard items, from the spinning of thread to the injection moulding of basic tools, using fast, large scale, specialized processes will still be much more economical in terms of resource input and product output ratios than engaging in small-scale, versatile production arrangements. Ignoring this reality, as some DG-ML proponents tend to do, would be naïve. The 99 per cent reduction in the price of solar panels in the last four decades is a case in point; it is a development directly related to Swanson’s law, which stipulates that a doubling of panel production leads to a 20 per cent decrease in price (Kavlac et al, 2018). As such, in some realms of manufacturing, compeerists will be forced to contend with the overpowering logic that favours the embrace of specialization and economies of scale. This ‘contending with’ for compeerists here is in line with the related ruminations triggered in the realization that some components of the electricity and IT infrastructures must be allowed to function on a macroscale, as per the previous chapter, or, as we will see in the next chapter, that the production of primary goods (natural resources and agriculture) will undoubtedly remain subject to a degree of comparative advantage and hence transregional trade. While these larger scaled arrangements are undoubtedly more difficult to square with compeerist aims, they should not, however, be assumed to be irredeemably incompatible with them. In the end, navigating the question of scale within commons-oriented industrial aspirations will be up to compeerists themselves. They must determine where, and to what degree, localized/regionalized small-scale manufacturing should be pursued. This decision will inevitably be based on a careful weighing of factors to determine the best option for achieving the goals set out by the compeerist enterprise and variously involved stakeholders. As a whole, achieving community focused production, supporting the commons, and sustaining worker and environmental welfare will be the primary driver in making production decisions. Nonetheless, achieving input-output efficiencies will still have to be factored into the overall compeerist equation, because efficiency, after all, remains a critical factor in both achieving market viability and maximizing the production of use-value goods. If the compulsion to pursue such efficiencies then leads to opting for larger scaled production, compeerists will need to ensure that they do not sacrifice the core principles that motivated this production in the first place. We turn next, therefore, to the entrepreneurial governance options available to compeerist-aligned manufacturers in successfully dealing with these various pressures and imperatives.