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Zeihan made a particularly interesting point about 3D printing in one of his talks: Manufacturing is increasingly being moved closer to the consumer. Toyota pio

Zeihan made a particularly interesting point about 3D printing in one of his talks: Manufacturing is increasingly being moved closer to the consumer. Toyota pioneered a lot of this with their JIT system, moving the factories to the region the vehicles are being sold in, and retooling as needed based on what was selling. While we've seen a lot of failures of JIT in the past two years, we've also seen a lot of failures due to centralization and long supply chains, so the idea of deglobalization is probably making a lot of sense to a lot of people right now.

Nasrudith 5y ago
How does that square with the known vast benefits of economies of scale? That is why industries are dominated by megaconglomerates as opposed to a vast number of small practices. Contrast that to say law firms and private practices of doctors. While there may be some law offices who warrant their own skyscrapers they don't come close to matching even insurance companies in centralization. Different situations may call for different approaches. Logistically difficult and custom goods are where 3D printing and automated mills work especially well, and time sensitivity favor local approaches. If you make eyeglasses to order 99.99% of the time, prosthetics or similar then it makes sense.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Laws around law firm ownership also limits their size. They can’t have share holders and traditional corporate structures as we typically see in big biz.
  - yourapostasy 5y ago
    If you're talking about the US, can you please post a cite of these laws? I've recently become interested in historical business law because I've read in passing one theory proposed that the massive US centralization of urban populations and the concomitant cost of living inflation is due in large part to US business domicile and operations laws that were repealed in the 80's-90's. That is, supposedly there were laws that for all practical purposes limited the size and centralization of US companies (hence my interest was piqued when you posted about laws limiting law firm sizes via ownership structuring permissions) by limiting specific aspects of their operations to within a declared domicile state. I know that happened to banking, but the original poster claimed it was for nearly all US businesses. But I can no longer find that discussion nor the relevant laws, and I'm hoping trawling your cite(s) might lead me to them.
    - vineyardmike 5y ago
      Unfortunately I don’t have any good citations just IRL lawyer friends. Should be easy to google the rules though. IANAL but The rule is basically that law firms can only be owned by lawyers. The idea being (i think) that lawyers have a legal responsibility to their clients and that’s be corrupted via existence of shareholders (or, shareholders without legal responsibility too). Regarding your theory, I think it’s bunk. There has been a consistent trend to centralized big companies throughout American capitalism long before the 80s. Just look at the history of GE. In fact, the growth of index funds actually indicates a shift away from big corps (or at least big corps with disparate business groups) because investors can pick and choose markets better without relying on conglomerates to do that for them. But it should be obvious that massive urban centers are not due to US laws… because we have 1k+ years of cities before that with good documentation of life and laws in those cities.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        The “general" rule here is Rule 5.4 of the ABA model rules [0], though the actual rules in a particular jurisdiction (state) may be different since the model rules are not the actual rules of any State. Note that this doesn't actually prohibit any particular structure (well, implicitly it prohibits publicly traded corporations), it just prohibits non-lawyers from being stockholders (if a corp) or partners in a law firm or (except as part of an employee compensation within a law firm) having a claim on revenue generated by lawyers through the practice of law. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_5_4_professional_independence_of_a_lawyer/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...
- pphysch 5y ago
  Yep. For every 3D printer printing passable products at the edge, there will be some crazy advanced and inimitable machine in a factory with an elite team putting out very high quality products at scale... Both models will succeed.
- GravitasFailure 5y ago
  Economies of scale and large scale manufacturing certainly don't go away, but decentralization does add robustness and nimbleness that a gigafactory can't. Geographic diversification also helps if you scale beyond a level that the area your current factory permits (or any location that makes sense to move it to). Manufacturing processes are also changing thanks to automation and more general tools, like laser sintering 3D printers, that don't require extension retooling to make a completely different part. This is doubly true if savings from scale get nuked by shipping from wherever your factory is.
- pas 5y ago
  > economies of scale there's also diminishing returns. there's an optimal point of factory size.

Nasrudith 5y ago

How does that square with the known vast benefits of economies of scale? That is why industries are dominated by megaconglomerates as opposed to a vast number of small practices. Contrast that to say law firms and private practices of doctors. While there may be some law offices who warrant their own skyscrapers they don't come close to matching even insurance companies in centralization. Different situations may call for different approaches. Logistically difficult and custom goods are where 3D printing and automated mills work especially well, and time sensitivity favor local approaches. If you make eyeglasses to order 99.99% of the time, prosthetics or similar then it makes sense.

vineyardmike 5y ago
Laws around law firm ownership also limits their size. They can’t have share holders and traditional corporate structures as we typically see in big biz.
- yourapostasy 5y ago
  If you're talking about the US, can you please post a cite of these laws? I've recently become interested in historical business law because I've read in passing one theory proposed that the massive US centralization of urban populations and the concomitant cost of living inflation is due in large part to US business domicile and operations laws that were repealed in the 80's-90's. That is, supposedly there were laws that for all practical purposes limited the size and centralization of US companies (hence my interest was piqued when you posted about laws limiting law firm sizes via ownership structuring permissions) by limiting specific aspects of their operations to within a declared domicile state. I know that happened to banking, but the original poster claimed it was for nearly all US businesses. But I can no longer find that discussion nor the relevant laws, and I'm hoping trawling your cite(s) might lead me to them.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    Unfortunately I don’t have any good citations just IRL lawyer friends. Should be easy to google the rules though. IANAL but The rule is basically that law firms can only be owned by lawyers. The idea being (i think) that lawyers have a legal responsibility to their clients and that’s be corrupted via existence of shareholders (or, shareholders without legal responsibility too). Regarding your theory, I think it’s bunk. There has been a consistent trend to centralized big companies throughout American capitalism long before the 80s. Just look at the history of GE. In fact, the growth of index funds actually indicates a shift away from big corps (or at least big corps with disparate business groups) because investors can pick and choose markets better without relying on conglomerates to do that for them. But it should be obvious that massive urban centers are not due to US laws… because we have 1k+ years of cities before that with good documentation of life and laws in those cities.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      The “general" rule here is Rule 5.4 of the ABA model rules [0], though the actual rules in a particular jurisdiction (state) may be different since the model rules are not the actual rules of any State. Note that this doesn't actually prohibit any particular structure (well, implicitly it prohibits publicly traded corporations), it just prohibits non-lawyers from being stockholders (if a corp) or partners in a law firm or (except as part of an employee compensation within a law firm) having a claim on revenue generated by lawyers through the practice of law. [0] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_5_4_professional_independence_of_a_lawyer/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...
pphysch 5y ago
Yep. For every 3D printer printing passable products at the edge, there will be some crazy advanced and inimitable machine in a factory with an elite team putting out very high quality products at scale... Both models will succeed.
GravitasFailure 5y ago
Economies of scale and large scale manufacturing certainly don't go away, but decentralization does add robustness and nimbleness that a gigafactory can't. Geographic diversification also helps if you scale beyond a level that the area your current factory permits (or any location that makes sense to move it to). Manufacturing processes are also changing thanks to automation and more general tools, like laser sintering 3D printers, that don't require extension retooling to make a completely different part. This is doubly true if savings from scale get nuked by shipping from wherever your factory is.
pas 5y ago
> economies of scale there's also diminishing returns. there's an optimal point of factory size.