Addendum:
Previously I forgot to mention an important distinction that
the Goodman's stress. They make a point of stating that "standard of
living" as we use it is a social construct and often bears little or no
relationship to the concept of "subsistence."
The other thing I may have forgotten to mention, at least
outright, is their stress on regional autonomy. Not necessarily full autonomy,
but that each city can support most of its population locally, through farming
and local industry. One of the points they stress is that with the post-World
War II tooling and prevalence of electricity nearly every home has the ability
to be a miniature factory. Sewing machines, power tools, and so on are
available in the home, so production could take place there.
The other point they make in this regard is that in terms of
production having multiple assembly lines in one building or small geographic
area is no necessarily more efficient. When a surplus of goods ia
generated in one location it must then be transported, possibly great
distances, to the place where it will be used. The need for all this
transportation may outweigh the "economy of scale" in one large factory
versus multiple smaller factories where smaller pieces are locally assembled
into the usable whole.
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