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Kropotkin
1899
The anarchist's blueprint for a decentralized, self-sufficient economy — argued in statistics, not slogans.
Fields, Factories and Workshops
Peter Kropotkin · 1899
Kropotkin spent decades revising this book, and it shows: chapter after chapter marshals census figures, factory-inspector reports, and yield data from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and beyond to argue that the centralized factory system and extensive, large-scale farming are neither inevitable nor efficient. His alternative — nations and regions that combine industry with agriculture, and brain work with manual work — was a practical companion to the anarchist-communist politics he argued for elsewhere. A century of hindsight lets you test his forecasts against what actually happened, which is part of what makes this an unusually falsifiable utopian text.
12 chapters · 96,614 words · ~7.3 hr read
Contents
Prefaces
Kropotkin's 1912 preface, revising the book for a third time with fourteen more years of statistics — and his 1898 preface to the first edition.
The Decentralisation of Industries
Why manufacturing keeps spreading to new nations instead of staying concentrated where it started — Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, and the United States, in turn.
The Possibilities of Agriculture
Three chapters against the Malthusian assumption that the land can't feed everyone: market-gardening, intensive culture, irrigation, and glasshouse yields from Britain, France, Belgium, Denmark, and the Channel Islands.
Small Industries and Industrial Villages
Petty trades surviving and growing beside the giant factory — Sheffield, Birmingham, the Lake District, Lyons, Paris, and the small-industry censuses of Germany and Russia.
Brain Work and Manual Work
The case for fusing scientific education with manual training, and what science itself gains from the workshop.
Conclusion
Kropotkin's closing summation of the book's case for a decentralized, integrated economy.
Appendix
Kropotkin's own statistical appendix — British investments abroad, French and German industrial censuses, cotton and iron industries, market-gardening and glasshouse-culture data across a dozen countries.