What is the industrial commons?

This is a concept I came up with while writing my book gaiome, which is about living in 2-kilometer biospheres in space. In these mini-Gaias, I realized, industry would have to shrink down to a very accessible, human scale. Your food, shelter, clothing and tools would all come from somewhere within walking distance. Moreover, it would be recycled locally with essentially no waste.

This is how people lived through most of history. Of course it's not how we live now. Have a look at the fabrics you're wearing, or the parts in your computer. They probably come from half a dozen nations spanning the globe.

Does human progress require global industry? In this blog, I'll make the case that it doesn't. I'll show how a new industrial revolution is already underway, one that combines:

• high tech
• open source
  
• intensive locality
  

I call it the industrial commons because it requires village-scale management of industrial feedstock and it achieves the advantages of specialization through free, global sharing of automation software.

Industrial commoners would freely replicate and share know-how on a global scale while stretching and regenerating resources locally. Unlike today's globalist empires that derive their wealth from extraction at a distance, the new model derives wealth from creative ways to reclaim and re-purpose local materials. This will bring enormous ecological, economic, political and social benefits to most people in the world.

Along the way, it will dismantle the empires of greed and corruption that plague us today.