The Producerist Manifesto

In The Producerist Manifesto: A Guide For the Radical Middle, B. Duncan Moench marries a nightmare vision of the property-less mass surveillance society that is currently being forced upon us by Big Tech to an alternative that Americans on the left and the right have long dismissed as a childish fantasy: devolving power back to the states. Moench points out that the ongoing disruptions of 20th century social structures by new technologies and unbridled corporate power have not simply created social chaos. They also offer a unique opportunity for remaking an America whose gross inefficiencies, soul-killing bureaucracy, and increasingly violent political warfare seem like a recipe for misery on all sides.

Moench's call for a new, more local, producer-centered America that looks more like its pre-Civil War predecessor than the lumbering, quasi-totalitarian behemoth it is fast becoming will strike a chord-not just with people who long for the past, but with futurists and technophiles who understand the potential of new technologies to allow decentralized power to operate more efficiently. The new America that Moench envisions is a place where people think and act locally, and where market incentives are structured to help people live closer to the land, make a living outside cities, form meaningful communities, raise families, and work from home-and be happier.

Part Thomas Paine, and part Whole Earth Catalog, Moench's manifesto is the first original piece of political thought to come out of the collective experience of the COVID era, and is likely to resonate with Bernie Sanders fans and MAGA supporters alike.