Small Technology and Small Economics
2026-03-09
---
I started reading Wendell Berry's excellent book "The Unsettling of America" some time ago, but I never finished it, so I recently started again. The entire book is filled with quotable passages, but one in particular caught my eye today.
[Industrialized agriculture] has divided all land into two kinds--that which permits the use of large equipment and that which does not. And it has divided all farmers into two kinds--those who have sufficient "business sense" and managerial ability to handle the large acreages necessary to finance large machines and those who do not. Those lands that are too steep or stony or small-featured to be farmed with big equipment are increasingly not farmed at all, but are abandoned to weeds and bushes, often with the gullies of previous bad use unrepaired. That these lands can often be made highly productive with kindly use is simply of no interest; we now have neither the small technology nor the small economics nor the available work force necessary to make use of them.
Two terms jumped out at me: "small technology" and "small economics." Berry noticed that these two ideas were already on the wane in the mid-1970s, but now in 2026, they're almost completely gone from the developed world.
What do "small technology" and "small economics" mean? In the book, these terms denote agricultural tools and financial plans that are sensible on the scale of a single family owning, at most, a few acres of land. They involve more work and less profit than a corporation's operations, but that's not the point: the point is to develop intimate knowledge and sustainable practices regarding a specific piece of land. The decisions involved directly affect the livelihoods of the family and, just as importantly, the long-term health of the land. However, while Berry focuses particularly on the collapse of small- and medium-scale agriculture in America, the fundamental concepts of small technology and small economics appear in many other contexts.
I first became interested in Gemini because of a desire to escape a global and deeply impersonal modern Internet. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021, while local governments still banned large gatherings and I was forbidden from working in my company's office, my communications moved almost entirely to digital spaces--which, in practice, meant the big social media sites. I hated Twitter's algorithms even before the days of Elon Musk; Facebook was full political slapfights; Discord had nothing but NSFW memes. I hated that government safety protocols were forcing me to sign away my private information to every big tech corporation in the country. I wanted not only an escape: I wanted to find a small refuge, a hovel in the mad rush of the Internet where real, similarly-minded people could commiserate and, perhaps, find some comradery. I wanted a small community powered by small technology. Thus was born the introductory text that remains on my capsule to this day: "one more little craft in the chaotic spacelanes of the Internet."
One might argue, in fact, that the Internet's current lack of small technology is what's driving many small movements we see today. For example, Neocities isn't just a place where people have the ability host retro-themed Web pages; one can do that using any old HTTP server. Instead, Neocities is a place where the community defines the platform just as much as the platform defines the community. The ways individual people use their Web sites has a direct influence on how other people use their own sites, which then influences back to the original creator--often in tangible, traceable ways. There is a strong culture of building pages by hand, crafting exactly the look one wants. Any level of skill or effort is acceptable.
Perhaps more damaging to the real world, however, is the death of small economics. The financial health of America is entirely determined by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and multi-billion dollar deals cut by multi-billionaires. The economic whims of big business drive the fortunes of families all across the country--and, oddly enough, the wealth often seems to move in only one direction. Independent grocery stores, mom-and-pop repair shops, small electronics supply stores, corner cinemas, locally-owned banks: all have nearly vanished. In the last hundred years, the majority of small businesses have either been bought by larger competitors or driven to close permanently. And with that dearth comes a decline in quality, lack of adaptability to current events, total evaporation of community awareness, loss of local jobs, and subjugation of local resources to far-off business interests. Small economics--the practice of individuals in small communities creating and trading goods and services directly to other individuals within their communities--is gone.
In fact, these activities are often maligned in major media outlets. Of course they would be: they threaten the social and cultural monopolies held by big business and government institutions. We're told that local trade is often used to avoid paying taxes and is therefore harmful to the nation as a collective. The desire to live on homesteads in small, trusted communities is smeared as dangerous far-right lunacy, or dangerous far-left lunacy, depending on who occupies the White House. Corporate-owned news outlets bemoan any loss of profit on the part of their masters by saying it'll hurt the little guy, completely neglecting to mention the alternative prospect of simply not engaging as heavily in the globalized super-economy. If tomato prices are skyrocketing, is it really such an outlandish idea to grow tomatoes in a pot on the balcony? If meat is getting more expensive, to the point that one saves no money by going to Walmart, why not start shopping at the local butcher? And if the job market is in the toilet, is it unfathomable to find work at a farm or ranch just outside one's city?
With each passing year, the Western world pushes harder and faster for total globalization of all technologies and economies. Every part of the world will specialize in its one industry of value, and all other needs will ostensibly be met by the highly-specialized industries from everywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, all technology will become indistinguishable from every other kind of technology, virtual and physical. Not only does that kind of system rely on countries all maintaining amicable relations with each other (an increasingly-precarious scenario in 2026), but it assumes no major external shocks will sufficiently disrupt the world order. The fallout of COVID-19 should have been proof enough that such a system cannot be trusted. Global-scale technologies and economics have their place, but we've completely sacrificed small technologies and small economics for their sake. That loss is slowly killing us, destroying our planet, ripping apart our communities, and erasing our cultures. We cannot let this continue.
What's the answer? If you're reading this very log post, here on the Gemini protocol, I think you've already taken a step in the right direction. We have to assert our small space and our small finances, and we have to push back against the very powerful influences that want to dictate how we spend our time and money. Don't just buy local: find which shops in your area are truly independently owned and buy from there. The prices will be higher, but see that as a motivator to consume less, not to try to earn more. Don't cave to pressures to use the latest and greatest tech, constantly upgrade, or use privacy-invasive services. Where you can replace things that already rely on big tech, try to do so--not just with smaller services, but with analog alternatives that don't need transistors. It's not always easy, and we can't do it all in one step. But every change we make adds up.
---
Up One Level
Home
[Last updated: 2026-03-11]