Dane Stangler and Kate Maxwell

DIY Producer Society

When most people in the United States hear the word “manufacturing,” two images
come to mind. The first recalls traditional assembly lines, men sweating over
machines, and long trains of mass-produced goods coming out the other end,
smoke billowing from their stacks. Automobile plants circa 1950 embody this
image. The second image—epitomized by automobile plants circa 2012—is of
shuttered factories and blue-collar workers displaced by foreign competition.

Par conséquent, policy discussions about manufacturing tend to follow this
same dichotomy and to rely on conventional terms, regardless of their applicabil-
ville. Most debates about the future of manufacturing focus on recovering a bygone
era and become a discussion of what the U.S. economy is supposed to look like:
Should we have more production and less consumption? How can the United
States boost exports and reduce imports? Where will the good jobs come from?

What is most disappointing about this state of affairs is that it obscures a new
type of producer society that is taking shape in the cracks in the old system. Ce
do-it-yourself (DIY) producer society, driven by grassroots movements in tinker-
ing, entrepreneurship, and small-scale manufacturing, has the potential to trans-
form how we think and talk about American manufacturing—as well as its role in
the U.S. economy.

Ce, bien sûr, is not the first article to proclaim that manufacturing is chang-
ing. Accelerating manufacturing job losses during the Great Recession have
spurred much talk about restoring the U.S. position as a country that makes things.
Although the United States has never stopped making things in terms of output—
it remains one of the top manufacturing countries in the world and exports billions
of dollars of goods each year—there is a popular notion that we have left behind
the golden age of American productivity and moved away from producing physi-
cal items, choosing instead to export that function. There are frequent indignant
outcries that products like the iPhone and iPad are designed but not manufactured
in America or that the U.S. Olympic team uniforms carried “Made in China” labels,

Dane Stangler is the Director of Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation in Kansas City. In this capacity, Stangler serves on the Foundation’s
Senior Leadership Team and engages in research and writing on a wide variety of
topics.

Kate Maxwell is a Research Analyst at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

Dane Stangler and Kate Maxwell

implying that such facts reflect America’s downward economic spiral. These cries
often emerge from those who wave the ever-popular banner of needing to save
American jobs. Cependant, a close examination of this claim reveals a much more
complicated economic story than that of savings-driven outsourcing.

Visions of the revival of traditional American manufacturing often include the
return of lucrative jobs to American communities. Cependant, the future of
American manufacturing shouldn’t be circumscribed by a discussion of “re-
shoring” jobs. There is already a great deal of false hope around the re-shoring
debate. Par exemple, Boston
Consulting Group released a
report last year purporting to
have found that, within half a
decade, millions of lost man-
ufacturing jobs would return
to the United States because
of rising labor costs in China.
While it’s true that labor costs
in China are rising consis-
tently relative to the United
États, it’s also true that labor
costs constitute a falling share
of manufacturing costs. Le
mix of labor, shipping, et
energy costs will probably
mean that some jobs once
sent to China will return to
North America; for many others, cependant, that calculus will not change. This is
due in part to the fact that the decision of where to locate a manufacturing center
is not determined by such cost measures alone.

The expectation that rising Chinese labor costs will result in the wholesale
relocation of millions of jobs to the United States simplistically assumes that there
is no other reason manufacturing jobs have been created elsewhere. Economists
and others have long realized that the benefits of co-location—when engineering,
conception, and manufacturing jobs exist in the same geographic place—go well
beyond job numbers. Spillovers and returns to proximity matter; moreover, quand
manufacturing jobs leave, the innovative potential of the remaining workers is
undermined and, hence, the skills and knowledge level of the surrounding area go
untapped. A recent article in Technology Review noted that A123 Systems, one of
the most celebrated lithium-ion battery companies in the United States, originally
located its production in China “to acquire the needed manufacturing know-how.”
The company eventually opened a plant near Detroit, bringing with it knowledge
it couldn’t have gained if it had been located initially in Detroit. The company was
later rescued from bankruptcy through a large investment by a Chinese firm, fur-
ther illustrating that traditional narratives about doing business abroad isn’t a com-

nouveautés / Making in America

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

DIY Producer Society

prehensive picture of today’s manufacturing ecosystem. We probably shouldn’t
expect more than a trickle of manufacturing jobs to return to the United States
from China or Vietnam—or from anywhere else.

This raises the question of whether these are in fact the types of jobs we want
to create. As Vaclav Smil, one of the world’s preeminent thinkers on global issues
and development, points out, “We cannot boost manufacturing by trying to repa-
triate millions of lost apparel, furniture, or electronics jobs.”1 Manufacturing is far
from homogeneous in today’s economy, and any debate that tends to treat it as
such is not well informed. There is wide variation in the types of employment
skills, wages, productivity, and innovation different manufacturers need, et
between firms within the same manufacturing subsector. A Brookings Institution
report issued in February 2012 pointed out that over the past decade the United
States has experienced greater job losses in several low-wage manufacturing areas,
including textiles, apparel, leather goods, and furniture compared than in other
manufacturing areas.2 High-wage sectors, including petroleum and chemicals
(which includes pharmaceuticals), had fewer job losses. While some of the lower-
wage manufacturing industries have seen modest job growth since 2009, le
Brookings report states that “the United States remains most likely to retain or
grow employment in high-wage manufacturing industries and those with high
shipping costs . . . Absent a dramatic policy shift, most clothing-related industries,
impression, and furniture will probably continue to lose jobs.”

The popular focus on lost jobs tends to gloss over how vital manufacturing
remains to the American economy and the technology sector. The idea of “high-
tech” normally calls to mind such companies as Google and Apple and jobs in soft-
ware programming, but on the ground, advanced technology is still primarily tied
to manufacturing. Take research and development: the Brookings report noted
que, while aggregate manufacturing constitutes only 11 percent of America’s gross
domestic product, manufacturing companies account for nearly 70 percent of its
domestic research and development outlays. Sectors such as pharmaceuticals, auto
and airplane manufacturing, computers, semiconductors, and machinery employ
disproportionate numbers of scientists and engineers. This only makes sense, de
cours, but it shows that American manufacturing has moved well beyond the tra-
ditional image of how things are made. This also underscores where manufactur-
ing is headed—further into high technology, not backward into low technology.

Most importantly, the conventional debate over American manufacturing—
consumption versus production, imports versus exports, good jobs versus bad
jobs—tends to discount the possibility that new frontiers will emerge. If we have
learned one thing from American economic history, it is that we should not lose
faith in our own ability to create completely new trajectories that alter our sense of
what is possible. We are in the early stages of a manufacturing transformation and
renaissance in the United States, but it will look nothing like 20th-century mass pro-
duction and will have little to do with Washington’s conventional tools of tax cred-
its and subsidies. As so often happens, reality is running ahead of policy discus-
sions—which signals the emergence of a do-it-yourself producer society.3

nouveautés / volume 7, number 3

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

Dane Stangler and Kate Maxwell

The DIY producer society is certainly not a new phenomenon and its manifes-
tations are beginning to penetrate the popular consciousness. In his new book,
Abundance, Peter Diamandis—who, as the founder of Singularity University, has a
great deal of insight into current trends in technology and education—identifies
the DIY movement as one of the primary forces driving the world toward a new
era of abundance. Small collections of “dedicated DIY innovators can now tackle
problems that were once solely the purview of big governments and large corpora-
tions.”4 In this article, we will briefly cover five examples of this emerging produc-
er society and then discuss its broader attributes. At least two of the following
examples will not appear to be related to a discussion of manufacturing, but that is
part of our point: we are entering a new economics of manufacturing that includes
a broader concept of what manufacturing can and should encompass.

We will not dwell on the first example here because it is covered in depth else-
where in this issue. Open Source Ecology has created a Global Village
Construction Set that dramatically lowers the barriers to farming, construction,
and manufacturing. The ramifications of this for developing countries are clear,
but this type of innovation will also be very important for the United States, lequel
has massive amounts of “legacy” infrastructure—prior investments in building and
construction—as well as engineering talent.

The second manifestation is Maker Faire, a festival celebrating the DIY spirit,
which can perhaps be credited with kicking off the entire “maker movement.” Dale
Dougherty, the founder of Maker Faire, explores this later in the issue. Diamandis,
for one, sees “serious abundance potential” in this movement: “Makers are now
impacting just about every abundance-related field, from agriculture to robotics to
renewable energy.”5 Maker Faire is a joyous gathering of tinkerers, hobbyists,
garage inventors, et d'autres. Pick up any issue of Make magazine and you will see
an amazing array of projects, from the frivolous to the serious. This is a mecha-
nism, moreover, to engage the skill left idle by the slow decline of many manufac-
turing industries. Last year, a Maker Faire drew 70,000 people in Detroit—a place
that in fact could experience a return to its manufacturing roots. In the late 19th
siècle, many regions of the United States competed to host the incipient automo-
bile industry. The Northeast, the nation’s industrial powerhouse up to that point,
had obvious advantages, while areas like Ohio, where bicycle manufacturers were
converting to automobiles, were also at the forefront. But Detroit became the cen-
ter of automobile manufacturing in part because of a local culture of tinkering—
hobbyists and mechanics rushed to create dozens of new car companies. (The city’s
riparian location and links to the rapidly growing western United States also did-
n’t hurt.)

The maker movement’s most formal institution thus far is TechShop, another
harbinger of the DIY producer revolution. If you are willing to pay $100 a month to be a member, TechShop will give you access to technologies you would never be able to afford on your own: 3D printers, laser-cutting machines, welding equip- ment, et ainsi de suite. Not surprisingly, TechShop originated in Silicon Valley but now has locations in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Detroit (where it is backed by Ford 6 nouveautés / Making in America Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023 DIY Producer Society Another Motor), with several other locations planned. TechShop also has not escaped Washington’s attention; as Bloomberg Businessweek has described, the Pentagon is partnering with TechShop on two locations with the intention of linking it with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which has always been the government’s hothouse for innovation.6 Several notable innovations have come from people using TechShop, including an infant warmer for developing countries, an iPad case, and the first proto- type of Square’s mobile payments device, which led the company to a recent $3 billion valuation.

Each of these examples,
quintessential embodiments
of the new production
economy, is marked by three
concepts: a culture of DIY,
new learning and teaching of
connaissance, et le
democratization of
technology—and indeed of
production and
entrepreneurship.

example occurs
every weekend in locations all
around the world, when thou-
sands of people participate in an
event known as Startup Weekend.
It is almost exactly what it sounds
comme: 54-hour crash courses in
pitching ideas, forming teams,
building products, and pitching to
a panel of judges. From a handful
of events only a few years ago,
Startup Weekend has expanded to
over 200 events per year in more
que 200 cities around the world,
with projected participation of
over 50,000 people in 2012 alone.7
Like Maker Faire and TechShop,
Startup Weekend is not to be considered frivolous. Real, sustainable companies
emerge from Startup Weekend, and the events foster new networks among
founders, mentors, and those who might not have considered entrepreneurship an
option.

À ce jour, most Startup Weekends have generated mobile and Web-based ideas.
In the near future, cependant, Startup Weekend will hold an event centered on 3D
printing and other specific verticals. While Startup Weekend obviously bears no
resemblance to Henry Ford’s River Rouge plant, it is at the heart of the new pro-
ducer society because, as discussed below, it expands the meaning of “producer.” In
the first place, the Startup Weekend ethos is the same one that underlies Open
Source Ecology and TechShop—the desire to create, to build something. Deuxième, un
software program or line of code is a product that is increasingly important to
manufacturing—your car, for example, is basically a computer—and has market
valeur. It might not exist in the same sense as a piece of furniture, but it can other-
wise play a role similar to the traditional factory widgets.

Another program that echoes Startup Weekend and embodies the DIY pro-
ducer spirit is The Launch Pad, a program for university students that began at the

nouveautés / volume 7, number 3

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

Dane Stangler and Kate Maxwell

University of Miami and has added locations in North Carolina and Detroit, où
they have had tremendous take-up, with help from the Blackstone Foundation.
The Launch Pad essentially provides an open door for students interested in entre-
preneurship, a place they can go to receive feedback on their ideas and tap into a
network of mentors and advisors.

Finalement, this new producer movement has great implications for both our
manufacturing industry and our broader economy. Each of these examples, quin-
tessential embodiments of the new production economy, is marked by three con-
cepts: a culture of DIY, new learning and teaching of knowledge, and the democ-
ratization of technology—and indeed of production and entrepreneurship. All
three are intricately related and represent important threads in the new economy
of production.

The cultural piece of DIY is exhibited across each program, and is perhaps the
most obvious but most difficult to define piece of the movement. From TechShop
to Startup Weekend, the concept is clear: activities like inventing, innovating, et
starting a business are not reserved for a special set of “others” but are in the realm
of you and me. One need not be an expert to create something, and this shift in
attitude and culture is one of the resounding lessons these programs are teaching
us. In this sense, there is a very rich human element.

A new style of learning is manifesting itself within these concepts—one that
emphasizes learning by doing. The Launch Pad and Startup Weekend demonstrate
that what is really underway is a movement in which experiential learning is piv-
otal. The essential elements, as with OSE, TechShop, and Maker Faire, are low
frais, rapid learning, et (ideally) a higher quality of knowledge—all of which
embody what Carl Schramm, former president of the Kauffman Foundation and
renowned thinker on economics and entrepreneurship, calls the “just-in-time
model of skill transmission.”8

This new economy both creates these new learning models and necessitates
their presence. This is not the first article to point out that there are new demands
on America’s talent pipeline that our traditional education system fails to prepare
people to meet. Many feel that high schools and colleges are not adequately prepar-
ing students to face the challenges they will encounter in the workforce, particu-
larly with the near-disappearance of vocational education.

The good news, cependant, is that entrepreneurs are addressing these challenges
and creating mechanisms to provide this new learning. People have called for
schools to offer software programming skills as one of the basic lessons, droite
alongside writing, reading, and arithmetic. In response, organizations like
Codeacademy have sprung up to teach how to write code. De plus, at the high
school level, FIRST Robotics competitions encourage students to study engineer-
ing and learn how to build things—which could be seen as the earliest lifecycle
phase of the maker movement. Further down the pipeline, apprenticeships are
reemerging in America. In New York City, Par exemple, E[nstitute] has started a
two-year apprenticeship program that places college-age students with entrepre-
neurs as “founder’s apprentices,” enabling them to learn by being tossed into a

nouveautés / Making in America

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

DIY Producer Society

high-pressure environment. Each of these reflects the learning-by-doing spirit that
defines the DIY producer society, and their effects as they scale will be twofold.
They will help fill needs in current sectors and lay the groundwork for entirely new
types of economic activity, both of which will lead to the creation of new frontiers
of innovation.

The last hallmark of the new producer economy is that it democratizes tech-
nology and, more importantly, the ability to become a producer. An excellent
example of this is probably the best-known element of the DIY revolution: 3D
impression. Also known as additive manufacturing, this technology has already been
featured in Technology Review, L'économiste, et ailleurs, and it promises to
turn economies of scale on their heads. Most relevant for our purposes is the fact
that 3D printing helps democratize manufacturing. The maker movement and
TechShop enable ordinary people to have access to 3D printing, which enables
them to build cheap models of their ideas and products. This is the biggest lesson
of the DIY producer society—it forces us to expand our notion of “producer.”

On a larger scale, the DIY producer society will have two effects on American
manufacturing. Because innovations like TechShop and Startup Weekend have
specific geographic locations and are plugged into larger movements, they have the
potential to re-create co-location spillover effects that were eroded by the loss of
manufacturing jobs. These new producer elements also may help reinvigorate
manufacturing productivity. Productivity gains often have been touted as offset-
ting lost jobs, but economist Michael Mandel and others have shown how these
gains may be overstated, if not distorted.9 Various statistical adjustments actually
reduce the last 20 years’ annual productivity rate by nearly half. The innovations
and skills that come out of the maker movement, and from TechShop and The
Launch Pad, are accompanied by lower costs, rapid learning, and potential scale
effects that have the potential to create massive gains in productivity.

Tracing the history of American manufacturing, or indeed of production more
generally, we witness an evolution from the small craftsmen and shops of the pre-
Industrial Revolution to the large and concentrated production systems of the
Industrial Age and the 20th century. In many fields, specialized knowledge was
replaced with machinery and skilled workers with interchangeable ones, who were
easily replaced and eliminated. This economic shift, which yielded large gains in
productivity and social welfare, was spurred to a great extent by new technology.
But no economic organization exists in perpetuity—as the market changes, so does
its organization. In this new producer movement, we can see a shift back to the
small and skilled producer. This revolution is again technology driven, yet the dif-
ference from earlier revolutions is stunning because potential scale effects remain.
The new technological knowledge is not centralized or proprietary, which provides
each individual with both the opportunity and the capability to enter the produc-
tion economy—not as a cog in a machine but as an innovator.

nouveautés / volume 7, number 3

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023

Dane Stangler and Kate Maxwell

Author’s Note

A shorter version of this essay first appeared at Progressive Fix for the Progressive
Policy Institute. See Dane Stangler, “Do It Yourself: Creating a Producer Society,»
Progressive Fix, Septembre 12, 2011.

1. Vaclav Smil, “The Manufacturing of Decline,” Breakthrough Journal, Fall 2011.
2. Susan Helper, Timothy Krueger, and Haward Wial, Why Does Manufacturing Matter? Which
Manufacturing Matters? Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Institution, Février 2012.
3. The idea of doing more to foster a “producer society” was also advanced in Will Marshall, “Labor

and the Producer Society,” policy brief, Progressive Policy Institute, Août 2011.

4. Peter Diamandis, Abundance: The Future Is Better than You Think. New York: Simon & Schuster,

2012.

5. Diamandis, Abundance.
6. Ashlee Vance, “TechShop: Paradise for Tinkerers,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 23, 2012.
7. Dane Stangler, “Europe’s Hope: Entrepreneurs,” The American, Juillet 28, 2012.
8. Carl Schramm, “Expanding the Entrepreneur Class,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2012.
9. Michael Mandel, “The Myth of American Productivity,” Washington Monthly, January/February

2012.

nouveautés / Making in America

Téléchargé depuis http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/7/3/3/704923/inov_a_00134.pdf by guest on 08 Septembre 2023
Télécharger le PDF