Three-dimensional printing and co-operatives

[Tzadikim]

I'm not exactly sure where to put this, but it's an idea I just now thought of.

I've always been interested in three-dimensional printing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing) and rapid prototyping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_prototyping) technology. On one hand, the technology has the potential, as it matures, to render obsolete hundreds of thousands or millions of manufacturing jobs; on the other, if it does become cheaper over time to own, as seems to be the case with a great deal of emerging technologies, it could be used to place the power of production into the hands of the masses, if distributed correctly.

This unit (http://www.desktopfactory.com/) in particular, the Desktop Factory, interests me greatly. It's $5000, so obviously it's only affordable by those who wouldn't need it anyway, but I think it could be a key component to democratizing the ownership of the means of production.

[ComradeOm]

In the first place, there are definite limits as to the usefulness of RP technology. Which is why its primary uses remain prototyping (if less so than a decade ago). Cost is obviously an issue, along with its unsuitability to mass production, but that's not the major stumbling block. At the end of the day the material properties of RP (or similar techniques such as powder metallurgy) render it unsuitable for many products/processes. Which is the same with all manufacturing processes. So while it has its uses, and will increasingly be found in industry, RP will never simply displace traditional manufacturing methods, such as injection moulding and die casting, or "render obsolete hundreds of thousands or millions of manufacturing jobs"

Secondly the socialisation of the means of production is not a matter of simply providing everyone with their own workshop or tools. That's a petit-bourgeois vision of some artisan utopia. Communists/Marxists believe in the socialisation of society's existing infrastructure and means of production through collective ownership. This is a matter of bringing the factories, regardless of their technological level, under the control of the workers who occupy them