Austin as Industrial District

From reading a book on the massive cooperative federation of Italy, La Lega, I've been thinking about a few factors that allow such an organization to develop, such a large network of cooperatives, and wondering what they might mean in America.

Two factors I've been considering are the presence of a major working class movement created by radical consciousness that encourages support for radical organizations; and loyalty to a an artisanly tradition more easily grafted into a cooperative model than, say, a mass production tradition.

This presents a dilemma. America lacks a strong radical working class consciousness, and has since McCarthyism really. We also destroy craft traditions regularly in favor of mass production tied to global supply chains.

I wonder if anything in central Texas might correspond to these cultural factors, how necessary they might be. Austin has an identity based on transgression of established authority, which authors have connected to the populist undercurrent of Texas culture. This populism is very shaky, very strong but very ambiguous, and generally bulldozed over. However, it might be possible to build upon it, especially through institutions as innocuous as cooperatives (which make sense in both conservative and liberal cultural frameworks). After all, cooperatives weren't created after radical consciousness in Italy, but alongside it, reciprocally. The institutions gave partisans practical experience that proved the viability of alternative models in the day-to-day.

In terms of an artisanly tradition, the closest we've got are a mix of respect for the arts in general and ideological support of independent business. This doesn't necessarily create the levels of skill necessary to do this, but it's possible. We do have a computer sector that's stable and growing, and it might be possible to develop it into a cooperative sector, tied to larger production units. We also have a growing sustainable tech business, and this too offers possibilities, very good possibilities in fact.

All in all though, it's difficult thing to consider, especially if we reject the role of American industry as primarily the coordination of global supply chains and consumption of their products.