This is part 3 of my “beef” with deindustrialization where I continue my screed against Trump’s industrial policy that pretends that manufacturing is going to return to the United States. We can reinvent manufacturing in the US, but it’s not likely to involve many fossil fuels or combustion automobiles. That was the 20th century and we are a quarter of the way into the 21st.

What does this all mean?

I spent two whole blog posts talking shit about big tech, but I am actually not anti-technology. I just believe in technology as a means of liberation, rather than profit-making. I view technology as a democratizing force. I think that taking control of the technology of our lives is an important first step to liberating ourselves from both corporate power and the police state.

Technology is no longer about computers, smart phones, or social media. Technology is about automation, be it physical automation in the form or robots and self-driving cars, or intellectual automation in the form of artificial intelligence. Automation could allow corporate power to eliminate labor completely. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Remember that automation and autonomy both have to with the self. Technology could enable us to protect and enrich ourselves without relying on the state or the market.

Before we can hold corporations and the state accountable, we first have to throw off their hold on us. We are forced to participate in the economy because it is our only way to survive. We sell our labor not just to buy things, but to keep ourselves and our families alive. We can’t hold corporations and the sate accountable so long as they can deprive us of the things we need to live. If you can make your own food, water, and energy, then life-affecting things like inflation, gas prices, and supply chain disruptions aren’t nearly as harmful. We become both sovereign and secure, which gives us autonomy. It is autonomy that gives us liberty.

How do we do this?

As a gen-x punk growing up in the transition from the 80’s to the 90’s, I read a lot of dystopian science-fiction, especially cyberpunk. My favorite stories were of hackers and other outcasts taking on brutal corporate power or violent state oppression. I feel like “The future is already here - it’s just not evenly distributed.” The uneven distribution isn’t just about technology.

I don’t have all of the answers, but I am sure that together all of us do. I think it starts with a conversation about what we want out of life: what our families, jobs, and communities mean to us. How do we redefine all of those things to build sovereignty and solidarity?

I think that a key ingredient of sovereignty is solidarity and mutual aid. More specifically, on harnessing and humanizing technology to enable us to provide mutual aid and solidarity. Unlike the capitalist idea of everyone owning their own house, car, and television, all of which sit unused 99% of the time, we could use technology to connect with each other to share resources. Here are some examples:

Decentralized Energy & Infrastructure Microgrids – Local, often off-grid power systems using solar, wind, batteries. Useful for energy resilience and disaster prep. Biogas digesters – Turn food waste or human/animal waste into usable methane for cooking/heating. Rocket mass heaters – Super-efficient wood stoves that can be built cheaply and locally.
Water Systems Rainwater harvesting & greywater recycling – DIY plumbing hacks that save water and reduce strain on municipal systems. Compost toilets & humanure – Low-tech sanitation solutions that close the nutrient loop. Solar water distillation – Passive tech to purify water using sunlight.
Open-Source & DIY Tech Open-source hardware – Modular machines based on publicly available research and designs that you can build and repair yourself. Libre electronics – Replacing expensive specialty electronics with Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and home-built mesh networks. Repair culture & maker spaces – Fix it, hack it, share the knowledge. Reindustrialization is about empowering, not consuming.
Resilient Food Systems Permaculture & food forests – Ecosystem-based agriculture. Low-maintenance, high-diversity, community-oriented. Aquaponics & hydroponics – Water-efficient ways to grow food, even indoors or in small spaces. Seed saving & community seed banks – Resisting corporate control over food and genetics.
Building & Shelter Passive solar design – Architecture that uses natural light and heat efficiently. Earthships – Off-grid homes made of recycled materials (tires, cans, bottles) with integrated water/food/energy systems. Natural building – Straw bale, cob, adobe, hempcrete—sustainable and low-cost alternatives to concrete boxes. Human scale construction - Building tiny homes and workspaces that are easier to light, heat, and cool with renewable energy.
Communication & Organization Mesh networks – Decentralized Internet and Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) alternatives for autonomous digital infrastructure. Federated social media – Resisting Big Tech through decentralized, community-run platforms. Cryptography & mutual aid tech – Secure tools for organizing and resisting surveillance. Pirate streaming media - Using peer to peer and Internet streaming to deliver locally produced media that benefits local communities. Like public access television or pirate radio for the streaming media age.
Cultural & Social Tech Time banking – Exchange labor, services, and expertise without money. Barter-chains - Digitally connected markets for exchanging goods without money. Co-ops and intentional communities – Economic and social models that align with anarchist or socialist values. Skillshares, hacklabs, and mutual aid networks – Horizontal knowledge transfer and community resilience in action.
Community Defense Cop-watching - Teams of citizens holding the police state accountable. The billionaires and politicians may be above the law, but the boots on the ground are not. Survival networks - Food aid, cultural and historical education, and medic services to shield communities from the violence of hunger, poverty, and neglect. Solidarity and coalition building - Expanding community defense to other marginalized communities that face similar struggles with police, white supremacy, or land defense. Fire arms and self-defense training - Training and arming community members not for the purpose of violence, but to resist violence from hate-groups and police.

In conclusion, re-industrialization is possible, it’s just probably not going to be the kind of industry where people bolt car parts together. Regardless of the market’s decision to reengage American labor, or the state’s decision to invest and develop American manufacturing, We The People can build our own modern industrial society that serve us, not dictatorship or profiteering. Capital has forgotten that the stock market isn’t the economy. Government has forgotten that we live in a society, not an economy. Defending ourselves from both economics and politics will bring both capital and government to heel.

Our species will survive neither by totally rejecting nor unconditionally embracing technology -but by humanizing it: by allowing people access to the informational tools they need to shape and reassert control over their lives… Only by treating technology as ecology can we cure the split between ourselves and our extensions. We need to get good tools into good hands-not reject all tools because they have been misused to benefit only the few. –Radical Software - Volume 1, Issue 1