Decentralism
We are all very familiar with the term Decentralization.
Is Decentralism any different from Decentralization?
Do we need Decentralism if we already practice Decentralization?
The fundamental difference starts with the scope of these terminologies.
While Decentralization has relevance to organization and reporting structure, Decentralism is an all encompassing paradigm.
In that, it is an idealogical shift from large centres of production set up to derive economies of scale as well as all the lifestyle and ecological implications that arise from it.
EXTENSIVE MANUFACTURE VS INTENSIVE MANUFACTURE
Decentralism is the philosophy of Extensive Manufacturing by scattering production units across the land to minimize ecological footprints. This is as opposed to the philosophy of Intensive Manufacturing by centralizing operations at certain fewer locations, for certain huge resource advantages and exploiting those resources those locations, without weighing the resource advantages and cost comprehensively by factoring in the socio-ecological impacts.
AGGREGATION FOR TRADE VS AGGREGATION FOR PRODUCTION
Decentralism is the principle of “Aggregating produce from across the hinterland for trade” versus “Aggregating raw materials from across the land for manufacture”.
It is focussed more on aggregating smaller quantities for trade in large volumes than on aggregating all possible resources in any one place for production in large volumes.
It is the philosophy of letting smaller units produce goods wherever they can be, with utmost quality, to the best they can, with least stress to themselves, family, society and environment.
It is about many traders, collecting such produce, at trading centres closest to them, to trade across the globe, collectively in large volumes.
LOCAL END TO END PRODUCTION VS GLOBAL LINEAR ASSEMBLY
Decentralism is the practice of industry wherein the process leads to a finished consumer good as opposed to producing just one of the components of a consumer good.
It is the practice of building end to end skills than building stamina for repeating intermediate steps alone.
It is the practice of adding all value at one location than that of forwarding smaller components for value addition as it moves along for assembly elsewhere – a practice known as Linear Value Addition,
HORIZONTAL RANGE VS VERTICAL SCALE
Decentralism is to do with forethought of thinking through the entire product manufacturing process and producing complete, ready to use, consumer products in lower quantities with minimal wastage and maximum reuse and cross application.
This is as opposed to implementing a limited process for just a component alone, ignoring reuse, cross application possibilities and waste and wastage implications to produce niche parts in large volumes.
It is to do with scaling one’s production unit horizontally to build range of skills and give higher value addition even if it is in low volumes, as opposed to scaling one’s production facility vertically to deepen expertise in producing niche parts in large volumes quickly and economically.
Decentralism is a paradigm that inherently nurtures innovation in process and design, over standardization of process and parts to enable an assembly line approach.
MITIGATING RISK TO INDUSTRY
Decentralism is a conservative approach of conserving not just Nature but also the technology to produce.
Since the end to end skills lay with each manufacturing unit / team, the risk to the industry as a whole, from geological, climatic, human and social causes is spread thin. It gets mitigated by the the widely spread knowledge of manufacturing which can keep the flow of produce going from one corner or the other.
In contrast, the development of niche technologies, all in one place, puts the entire industry and final product too at risk from all elements of Nature and mankind.
The practice of securing Intellectual rights, further increases the risk of the entire product vanishing, in case of destruction of the facility and its knowledge to produce even the smallest part in the chain of product assembly.
Decentralism is the psyche of according priority to ECOLOGY over ECONOMY.
LINGARAJ PANDA,BARIPADA
