Nice outline, but wrong conclusion. Cathedrals, pyramids and other giant projects show that industrial-scale outcomes are possible with other social models. The fallacy is to assume that it's top-down centralised micromanaged planning, or nothing - in other words that we've exhausted every possible cultural approach to managing big resource extraction and processing projects.
The fallacy is to assume that it's top-down centralised micromanaged planning, or nothing - in other words that we've exhausted every possible cultural approach to managing big resource extraction and processing projects.
That doesn't mean large structures can't evolve without markets or centralised planning. Historic non-Western cities prove that point - cities may be supported by trade, but they're not necessarily defined by it.
I think the push away from industrialisation is more complicated. It's a mixture of opportunism, social snobbery, class war and a desire to emasculate unions, and an understanding that capital is much better at making more capital when it doesn't have to deal with real things in the real world.
But there's a more basic metaphor. The only real currencies in economics are physical commodities and trust.
If you build a hyper-competitive system where no one can trust anyone else, sooner or later - completely unexpectedly - trust evaporates, and the system implodes in a spectacular display of fiscal paranoia.
If you're running out of physical commodities at the same time - that's also not a good thing.
