DIY Producer Society

Abstract

come to mind. The first recalls traditional assembly lines, men sweating over machines, and long trains of mass-produced goods coming out the other end, smoke billowing from their stacks. Automobile plants circa 1950 embody this image. The second image—epitomized by automobile plants circa 2012—is of shuttered factories and blue-collar workers displaced by foreign competition. Consequently, policy discussions about manufacturing tend to follow this same dichotomy and to rely on conventional terms, regardless of their applicability. Most debates about the future of manufacturing focus on recovering a bygone era and become a discussion of what the U.S. economy is supposed to look like: Should we have more production and less consumption? How can the United States boost exports and reduce imports? Where will the good jobs come from? What is most disappointing about this state of affairs is that it obscures a new type of producer society that is taking shape in the cracks in the old system. This do-it-yourself (DIY) producer society, driven by grassroots movements in tinkering, entrepreneurship, and small-scale manufacturing, has the potential to transform how we think and talk about American manufacturing—as well as its role in the U.S. economy. This, of course, is not the first article to proclaim that manufacturing is changing. Accelerating manufacturing job losses during the Great Recession have spurred much talk about restoring the U.S. position as a country that makes things. Although the United States has never stopped making things in terms of output— it remains one of the top manufacturing countries in the world and exports billions of dollars of goods each year—there is a popular notion that we have left behind the golden age of American productivity and moved away from producing physical items, choosing instead to export that function. There are frequent indignant outcries that products like the iPhone and iPad are designed but not manufactured in America or that the U.S. Olympic team uniforms carried “Made in China” labels,