The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers

6Democratization of Tools and Information

TOOLS

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution until fairly recently, the most powerful tools of production were centralized. With the advent of capitalism and the need to control large sums of money to leverage industrialization, many segments of the economy that previously had been serviced by individuals began to give way to industrial capitalists. This is not a bad thing; huge improvements in lifespan, living conditions, workweeks, and lifestyles have resulted from industrialization and mechanization. Bad things happened, too, though most of us would not trade our era for that of 1850, in which we would likely be farmers with a life expectancy of 36.9 years and work 12-hour days in a six-or ...