The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto

by Kevin A. Carson

A history of the rise and fall of Sloanist mass production, and a survey of the new economy emerging from the networked local manufacturing, garage industry, household microenterprises and resilient local economies.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Technology, History

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2010

Reviews

[nada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carson does not seem to have read George's analysis of interest first-hand; instead, he relies on what Tucker said about George's thoughts on the subject. That is particularly unfortunate because Tucker never actually read George either.... George may in fact have been wrong in some ways about how he viewed interest, but he explicitly refuted the claims that Tucker and Carson make.

Carson accuses George of claiming that the interest on a plow will equal the increase in potatoes that it produces. However, George devoted an entire chapter to very clearly disproving this very hypothesis.

Otherwise, this book seems surprisingly well research so far.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's economic analysis of the corporate centralization of industries of scale is insightful and well-supported, and his exposition on both the dependence of modern industrial economies of scale on subsidies and other support by government and the implications of the accelerating advancement of distributive, small-scale manufacturing technologies are enlightening. For reasons such as these, this is a very important book. Only the author's preoccupation with mutualist-leaning visions of how a future distributed, localized world market "should" work, and implicit dismissal of alternative economic models for the same ultimate economic empowerment of individuals, detracts from the overall quality of the text. Even this, however, is only a mild scratch in the finish of an otherwise exceedingly well-constructed and well-written perspective on the tensions between forces contending for primacy in the economic markets of our age and years to come in the near future.

If you read this entire book with an open mind and do not find yourself wanting to learn new skills like carpentry, machining, sewing, off-grid energy production, and so on (or put such skills to better use in your community, if you already have them), I might eat my hat.

[David Blowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another welcome message of hope

[Joshua]

[read online at http://www.mutualist.org/id116.html ]

(I was surprised to find this on GoodReads...it turned me on to my recent reading of Ruskin, Morris, Kropotkin...)

This is a nice "remix" of Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" (a favorite of mine) with modern open source/ computer-controlled fabrication technology, motivated by the distribution-limitation theories of Borodsi, with the social vision of Kropotkin. Worth putting on the reading list for hackerspace discussions.

[Chris Niessl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better researched, with significantly less room for counterargument (from a practical/pragmatic standpoint) than most other political/philosophy books I've read. While I'm still partial to Georgist principles and (significantly weakened) copyright, everything in here is worthy of consideration. Puts most of David Friedman's work to shame.

[ch1n3du · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting ideas, well researched and thorough

[Neon Snake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Building on Kevin Carson's previous works, this reads almost like an aside before getting into The Desktop Regulatory State - but if it is, it's a most welcome one.

Here, we see the seeds of what would eventually become Exodus - whilst some of the predictions are out (I don't think anyone saw just how hard Capitalism would come down on things like Intellectual Property, or the manner in which they'd do so, especially in 2023 post-pandemic after we scared the shit out of them), there's plenty in here to take inspiration from. 3D printing, for example, may have fallen out of favour and fashion, but that doesn't mean there's no value in it.

Pulling from works from the likes of Colin Ward, SEK3, and a general agorist/grey economy POV, here we see plenty of examples of what *can* be done, with a start-up capital that's not out of reach for *some* people - not all, and that's important to note - but for an amount of us, anyway. Garage workshops, back garden vegetable plots, sharing economies - for those of us who did some of this in the 2020-2022 shutdowns, this is just music to our ears, and an encouragement to keep going.

This, to my eyes, is where KC starts to really develop his thesis of reducing reliance on wage slavery through self-sustainability, networking and mutual aid, which he takes further in his next couple of books.

Highly recommended.

[Robert Stutchbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, would call it a must-read for any prospective engeneering type but it might end up being a scaring the hoes type situation. Currently questioning a basic premise of this book(that the types of society technology allows will come into being over old styles of society or other less efficent types of technological society), but will withhold judgement untill I get a firmer grasp on that question.

[Roberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because, even if the argument is not without merit, and is something I generally agree with. it seems clear now, sadly, that it's predictions haven't come true.

Sadly, we will have to wait longer for this ideas to reappear again in all their truth and see it they can reshape the world when they do