In Fisher’s book he describes the shift
from a Fordist era to the post-Fordist era, explaining the transformation of
important characteristics such as production. The shift from an industrial
phase to a spirits-of-networks phase meant power was no longer defined by structural
class divisions and was instead associated with the characteristic of
autonomous nodes and connections with other nodes in the networks. The biggest
change was the blurring of boundaries between producers and consumers creating
a new category of workers: the prosumers.
A new technology that has the potential to further
revolutionize the concept of production is 3D
Printing. This technology further blurs the line between consumer and creator, possibly
posing a threat to corporations as more people are able to produce their own
products. What do you think this means for our economy and our capitalist
structure if more people can fulfill their own desires instead of buying these
fulfillments from corporations? Check
out this interesting video to see how far 3D printing can go. A venture capitalist made a statement that 3D printing will
have a bigger economic impact than the internet. While this is a bold statement, I do think this technology will force our society to
rethink ways of design and production, just like the Internet did. It will
be interesting to see what the discourse will be around this technology once it
becomes cheaper and more accessible to more people. Since it makes it easier
for people to produce products in their home and sell them, this will bring up
political issues in creating policies to address copyright issues and
regulations that people might be bypassing. Power will be further
defined by the network (downloading and sharing 3D models with others on the
network to use with their 3D printer). How else does this impact economic,
social, and political institutions?
