Thank you for your comment.

To begin with, you are right in your critique on “locally produced”: “locally manufactured” would sound much better indeed.

In a nutshell, our article adopts Feenberg’s idea that (2002, 15), ‘‘technology is not a destiny but a scene of struggle . . . a social battlefield’’, where individuals and social groups struggle to influence and change technological design, uses, and meanings. What we attempt to argue is that a core feature of network economy is the radical decentralisation of the capital (in our case in the form of desktop manufacturing) necessary to produce not only information but also its material manifestation. This is true for software, it’s true for music etc and it could become true for material production as well. It is not claimed that the decentralisation of (some of) the means of production ensures equitable distribution of wealth or decentralisation of power.

Overall, we assume for the current context that ‘‘the real issue is not technology per se, but the variety of possible technologies and paths of progress among which we must choose,’’ (Feenberg 2002, v) trying not to be limited to a dichotomy between two polarized extremes (those who claim that technology is neutral and those who think that technology is malicious and threatening to humanity).In the conjunction of Commons-based peer production with desktop manufacturing, technology could be considered as subject to contestation, reconstruction, and democratic participation enabling people ‘‘to participate effectively in a widening range of public activities’’ (Feenberg 2002, 3).

Thank you once more for your constructive critique.

Like all politics being local, everything is produced locally somewhere. Arguably, desk-top printing takes localization to a higher level, but the tool is not produced where the printing occurs. In fact, arguably, it succeeds in falsifying the truism that everything is produced locally somewhere, because now we will see products appear from the virtual nowhere, with the least amount of local involvement possible. Are we seeing a misunderstanding of the meaning and value of community in this proposition that desktop 3d printing is “local”? Or, in other words, are we confusing the value of expanding access to useful global products such as wind turbines to every local with the notion that genuine local marketplaces are a powerful tool in sustainable development. Imho, that real value is in local production for local consumption, and the 3d printer is a profoundly flawed entry into that equation because it is at least separate from and potentially denies the possibility of empowering local development of local resources for local consumption. For the sake of illustration, if I produce potable water with this tool where there is no other potable water, then I will (1) make water production and consumption in that location 100% dependent on an imported technology such that the local community will not have control of this essential resource and by extension not have freedom to control any resources except those granted by the manufacturer of the printer, and (2) I will be helping create a community that is not empowered and/or impelled to protect human and natural resources: a “company town”. Imho, the 3D printer is a a powerful tool that will reshape manufacturing and redistribute wealth, but it does not ensure equitable distribution of wealth or decentralization of power. Perhaps quite the opposite.