Here the manifest becomes an accounting of injuries. I think this provides a better model for unraveling the global supply chain than transparency. Rather than allow transparency to remain as a form of corporate responsibility, with “mapping the supply chain” an exercise in corporate power, “making out its manifest” might now attempt to account for our value, and our injuries. It records the places where labor has been exploited, where the earth has been plundered, where waste overruns into rivers, and poison bleeds into the air. It is not a proclamation from on high, but an admonition from below. Not an attempt at supply chain resilience, but an opportunity for supply chain reconciliation.
Tag: supply chain
The history of a product is told by the marks of its making. The stamps and seals of an object once encoded an originary identity connected to an individual craft hall and craftsperson, promising that an object had been “made in” Sheffield, for example, or Solingen. But beyond these obvious indications was the language of assembly itself: The unfinished sides, unraveled threads, and slips of hammer and chisel that until recently marked our manufacture. Heavily accented and regional, this was a kind of communication visible to all but comprehensible only to craftspeople. These were the human signs of production.
Or at least, Assembly Line: The Game… with aliens. Factorio is “a game in which you build and maintain factories.” As the developer puts it: You will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, apply management skills […]