As we have seen, technocracy meant the concentration of capital and its associated productive capacity in the hands of the “literate”. The consequences of this historical process were negative for democracy and community autonomy. Now, because globalization is connecting the world’s communities to a number of inherently unstable lifeline networks (energy grids, distribution chains, water supplies), the need to reassert local autonomy has never been greater.

The development of local solutions to meet our most pressing resource concerns is, therefore, imperative. This doesn’t just mean buying hybrid cars or installing energy efficient lighting. Our current situation is so fraught with the risks of conflict and collapse that we are now forced to redefine civilization itself.
Neil Gershenfeld, Professor at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, has given us some important clues as to how this redefinition is already underway. In a recent podcast, Gershenfeld recounts his attempt to meld the latest of MIT’s fabrication technology with the greatest artisans Cambridge had to offer. The result was a class on personal fabrication, which led to the Fab Lab.  In his book FAB, he recalls a revolutionary observation:

I began to realize that these students were doing much more than just taking a class; they were inventing a new physical notion of literacy. The common understanding of “literacy” has narrowed down to reading and writing, but when the term emerged in the Renaissance it had a much broader meaning as a mastery of the available means of expression. However, physical fabrication was thrown out an an “illiberal art,” pursued for mere commercial gain. These students were correcting a historical error, using millions of dollars’ worth of machinery for technological expression every bit as eloquent as a sonnet or a painting.

Fab Labs mean the redefinition of literacy, and the rebirth and transformation of the liberal ideals enshrined in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Just as Marx was unable to predict the preemptive demise of his historical imperative in the form of trade unions and New Deal Progressivism, his 19th century lens would have prohibited him from foreseeing the democratizing effect of the Internet on media, and the subsequent democratization of production through personal fabrication equipment. In the light of Gershenfeld’s research, a proletariat that “seizes the means of production” takes on a whole new meaning.

But far beyond the mythology of political ideology, personal fabrication has deeper meaning for our communities and our current crisis in resource management. Gershenfeld elaborates:

…if globalization gets replaced by localization. The result would be revolution that contains, rather than replaces, all of the prior revolutions. Industrial production would merge with personal expression, which would merge with digital design, to bring common sense and sensibility to creation and application of advanced technologies. Just as accumulated experience has found democracy to work better than monarchy, this would be a future based on widespread access to the means for invention rather than one based on technocracy.

Localization means truly appropriate technology, and will empower communities to mitigate the effects of reckless connectivity. Personal fabrication has the potential to reduce local carbon footprints, to allow for locally appropriate technologies for water management and local food production, all the while empowering communities to harness the economic potential laying dormant in the most unexpected of places.