The latest research study from C4SS Research Associate Kevin Carson: The Homebrew Industrial Revolution [PDF]

Summary:
Neighborhood workshops, desktop manufacturing, household micro-enterprises and online horizontal networks of peer producers will come to dominate the informal economy that must arise as the state-allied formal economy stagnates and decays.

Excerpt:

“The crushing costs of formal business (State and local government taxes and junk fees rising to pay for unaffordable pensions, etc.) and the implosion of the debt-bubble economy will drive millions into the informal economy of barter, trade and ‘underground’ (cash) work.

As small businesses close their doors and corporations lay off thousands, the unemployed will of necessity shift their focus from finding a new formal job (essentially impossible for most) to fashioning a livelihood in the informal economy.”

[Download PDF] or the ready for print zine.