Share and share alike

Owning the means of production: so overrated. And it's not just because I'm writing this from my position under the jaunty red flag of China that I say that. I'm not so sure that owning a ladder, a sewing machine and a drill really makes sense given that our household will make use of these things pretty infrequently. Owning stuff like that takes up money, takes up room in the flat and ultimately takes up room in the landfill. uShare proposes to save money and space for everyone through a concept you may have learned about on the playground: sharing. You list things you need, you list things you have, you borrow, you lend, you climb, you sew, you drill.

Along the topic of means of production, here's a picture of Factory 798 in the Dashanzi factory complex, which started life as part of the Socialist Unification Plan of military-industrial cooperation between the Soviet Union and China. The East Germans designed Factory 798 and ground was broken in 1954. Today the whole Dashanzi area is full of old Bauhaus factories converted into studios and galleries.