Driftwork

There was a picture in the Guardian of an attack on Nato forces suplies by the Taliban. What is particularly interesting about the image is not the act of terrorism but the containers in the background.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/afghanistan-taliban-nato-raid-pakistan

For the containers, the boxes are the physical manifestation of the network, slow physical and unmistakable they represent the network of global capital as well as anything on the more familiar networks.

In 1956 when this network began to become operational the world was full of small local manufacturers selling locally, in the early 21st C purely local markets for goods of any sort are really quite rare.

It is only now after the end of neo-liberalism that it looks possible that the issue of ‘localism’ may become important and produce a change towards local manufacturing.