Economic models

Let us take two ideal regimes of production and consider them in terms of their conditions of possibility and their effects upon the matrix of the world that sustains them. Let us further try and characterize them initially in terms of their production of surpluses.

One regime of production is based in driving down the cost of labor by either seeking cheaper labor sources or replacing labor with mechanization. The surpluses in this regime occur through increasing the productivity of labor without paying higher costs for that labor. Its tools are fairly simple and straightforward:
*exploitation of labor in a variety of ways, the classic style we have come to know and expect from American industry. speedups, unpaid overtime, outsourcing to lower-wage areas, etc.
*regulation and regularization of labor, controlling working behavior more tightly to insure maximum labor and/or attention from a labor force
*the organization of production towards fixed, controlled commodities, and monopolization of the lifespan of those commodities. This is based, once again, in a regimentation of the labor process and its use of machines above all else.

Because this regime is based upon the regularization and exploitation of labor itself as it relates to the products and services it produces, it is equally hostile to independent production or modification by consumers as it is to independent action by its formal workforce. This is a key concept to explore and describe effectively- that the regime of corporate production is as hostile to a genuinely active consumer as it is to a genuinely active worker. The active consumer is not one who simply offers the seller enthusiasm about a product. The active consumer engages with a product by addressing it as a worker/user, a prosumer if you will, a bricoleur.

If the corporation forms the model for one ideal, the bricoleur forms a model for the other. The limit of the second regime of production is essentially the DIY model of individual or collective self-production without the intervention of commercial exchange. It generates surpluses through "self-exploitation" in Chayanov's sense, meaning the participating individuals create surpluses through their own unpaid labor. This means that the surpluses are essentially formal, useful accounting devices. The "workers" involved agree to pool some of their product for general reinvestment. Ultimately, this is the only value of surpluses. They create a pool of funding free for experimentation. This excess allows a firm to thrive and live.