Decentralization: Chaotic Rise
The great and good are moving back to Feudalism.
But a closer look shows that it is localism that is growing.
This comes from the greater integration of various technologies. Our modern trend to centralization is a relatively recent development, related to the expansion of rapid transportation and communication. Even the most centralized states of the past were relatively decentralized.
“all politics are local”, after all.
Modern states have been desperately trying to hold on to centralization. Recently, Canada has been revising measures to create an “Exit Tax”. But the rest of the world has been moving in a different direction; more global at the large scale, more local management.
This is happening thanks to the merger of various technologies.
The same tools that enable greater control, also promote greater decentralization of production.
Mostly, they lower “barriers to entry”
In the past, businesses faced barriers to entry when implementing new technologies. Costly initial equipment or licenses, or lengthy Research and Development gave established firms an advantage, in addition to “supply restrictions” that limit transfer of new materials, tools, or expertise.
Nowadays, with newer technologies came more technology suppliers; this decreases costs and makes for lower initial investments and higher performance. As a result, new entrants could benefit from have a “late mover advantage”, unburdened by the “sunk costs” of “legacy” technologies. Late market entrants who can then “pay off” any new equipment while market “pioneers” are still paying off older, “legacy” systems.
At the local level, technical development are changing things fast.
In raw material extraction, we are advancing on "agro-mining". With more than known 700 hyperaccumulator species, we can naturally extract various metals, in addition to a variety of rare earth elements. In manufacturing, increased automation is affecting the hardest to automate domains. Even if "the fantasies of fully automated whatever have been revealed as unrealistic", this is happening even in fields that have been traditionally harder to automate; between 2014 and 2016, the US offshore oil industry saw employment decline by a quarter in spite of growing rig counts and increased production. In farming, the intersection of various technologies is reinforcing a drive towards “regenerative farming" or "permaculture”, and making it easier for the deployment of “waste-to-energy” systems and “biogas” digesters.
Once a society turns into a decentralized network and gives up the illusion of control, it may benefit and grow further than a controlled, hierarchical system. This is especially since there are limits on automation that limit central control.
The fantasies of fully automated whatever have been revealed as unrealistic.
