Reviewer:

1) Is the subject matter relevant?

Yes, the subject matter is relevant for the journal and for the special issue at stake. In particular, the focus on the eschatological narratives on 3D printing by right-wing, conservative, groups is illuminating of the cultural forces that participate to the political debate on such technologies. I strongly encourage the author to deal with the criticisms I make because this paper is potentially a great addition to the journal and could be a milestone in the understanding of 3D printing.

2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations of bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?

In general, the concept of the paper is very well framed, the discussion of Agamben’s contribution on eschatology and the economy and of Tronti’s thoughts that brought to the concept of the social factory are extremely interesting contributions.

Unfortunately, in general the paper misses two things: a stronger connection with empirical data (see point C.); and a clear statement of the relation between the theoretical framework, the empirical analysis and the conclusions. In particular, the conclusions look particularly weak if compared to the wealth of the theoretical part and to the potential of the empirical one.

3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s mean of validating assumptions or making judgments?

First of all, the paper suffers from some lack of methodological clarity and from the absence of empirical data.

From the point of view of methodological clarity, the author says the research was ethnographic, while the data were collected “by website-based searches on the topics of ‘3D printing’, ‘3D print’, ‘3D printer’, ‘additive manufacture’, ‘Liberator’, and ‘Defence Distributed’”. It looks like the author has engaged more in an archival research, although periodically (any two weeks), and s/he has not engaged in the daily, immersive, aspect of ethnography. Some reflections on this dichotomy (ethnography/archive) in Internet research can be found in one of my previous papers (Teli, Maurizio, Francesco Pisanu, and David Hakken. “The internet as a library-of-people: For a cyberethnography of online groups.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research. Vol. 8. No. 3. 2007.) and in the literature discussed there.

Secondly, the author does not ground her/his claims in actual empirical data. That happens both when doing general comments, e.g. “all these point to the evidence that, whatever problems there may be with the technology of the gun itself, there remains little that seems to be capable of keeping the technology under the control of the state. Domestic additive manufacturing will do little to change this fact.” (p. 10). Although, through commonsense, I can agree with this claim, it is not grounded in any empirical data or previous work suggesting that this is true.

Another example is when Stormfront is defined a community in a very light way, without discussing it. I suggest the author to use another word (group, forum, etc…?) or to explicit why it can be defined a community.

Moreover, and more relevant, the author says s/he relied on an ethnographic research but there is no empirical data of any sort, not a post in the forums, not a conversation, nothing. And there is no explanation of how the data collected have been analyzed. The empirical part results in such a way quite poor, with apparently interesting interpretations, but with extremely weak ties.

My suggestion to the author is to rewrite substantially the empirical part, showing how data have been analyzed and integrating them in the narrative. On the basis of that, the author should rewrite the conclusions, that are now extremely weak, much more another theoretical piece than the connection between previous theories and the empirical part to discuss what has been learnt.

4) Is the article well written?

In general, the article is well written and it is a pleasure to read it. There are a few minor things to be noted: 1) acronyms like PLA, ABS, and STL, are introduced but they are not defined, puzzling the reader unfamiliar with them; 2) the author claim in the first sentence of the introduction that he is drawing upon “Italian social theory” – being Italian and knowing the works cited by Agamben and Tronti, I can barely see how they can be defined “Italian social theory”; probably they can be referred to as “Italian radical thought”, referring to the edited book by Michel Hardt the author cites, or the reason to refer to them as “Italian social theory” should be clarified (and I would love all Italian social theorist to draw upon them, but unfortunately it is not the case!); 3) in general, the description of the social transformations in Italy and its political counterside is difficult to follow for a person like me who knows the country and the history, I could not imagine the interpretation by somebody who doesn’t know Italian history or politics (the reference to Berlusconi looks like naif, I suggest to remove it).

5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend to be shortened, excised or expanded?

In general, I suggest expanding the empirical part and the conclusions (and probably relocating the methodological discussion closer to the empirical part). The theoretical part is well written, if needed it can be shortened but in general I do not feel an intervention is needed on it.

Reviewer:

1) Is the subject matter relevant?

The subject, the empirical material, and the theories mobilised all seem highly relevant for JoPP, but the way these individual elements connect to make up the argument (the venn diagram) is not entirely convincing. Chielfy the author needs to make a case for why this empirical material and why these theoretical resources brings new light to the topic of 3D printing, in which case it could be an outstanding contribution.

2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations of bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?

The elements for a really enticing argument are all there. To take the claims of supremacist and anti-feminist groups as a counter-point to either progressive movements or mainstream sale hype about the potential of 3D-printers is a really promissing route. What is lacking to tie the sack by showing how the theory and the empirical material initially mobilised in the article informs the main line of argument. What does this case bring to our understanding of the theory (there is a hint, when the author notes the blind spot in the Negri-tendency of Autonomous Marxism, the objection that fascism fulfils the conditions for being rhizomatic/multitude as much as progressive leftists groups do), and to the topic of 3d printers, i.e. how does the case with the supremacist give a clue about the core or mainstream, political imaginary around 3D printers? The article fails to show that discussions about 3D printing is essential to, especially, anti-feminist groups, rather it looks as something merely incidential and peripheral to their main concerns. With supremacist groups a stronger case is being made that 3d printing is important to them, due to the possibility of printing guns, that cuts to the heart of their concerns. The case could still be made stronger by connecting back from these groups to the 3d printing community and its reaction to this unwelcome friends, alternatively, by arguing a link between the supremacists and the neo-reactionary movement coming out of California (dark enlightenment, etc) that goes from libertarianism to fascism.

The literature mobilised is unexpected, and the author does not spend much time motivating his/her selection. It seems that the references to Agamben serves to make the point that regulation will be harder when manufacturing moves from the factory to the homes. It takes a long discussion of this philosopher (and the author is initiated in describing this work) to get to a point that more directly and more logically could have been made with literature on market regulation and legislation. What added insight does it give to draw on Agamben, that remains unclear to this reviewer.

Another literature one would expect to see is existing studies of the 3D developers culture and adjacent promoters directly involved in shaping the political imaginary around home manufacturing, making etc. For instance, one of the many studies by Vasilis Kostakis on desktop manufacturing, the study of the ideological role of Make magazine by Sara Tochetti in JoPP #2, and the article on the utopianism of Reprap 3D printer developers by this reviwer, published in JoPP #4.

Thirdly, there is a sub-genre in social movement studies on extreme right movements (for instance: Gods of the Blood : The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Mattias Gardell), as well as critique of the bias in this literature towards studying progressive, leftist movements but not the ”other side”, that the author could draw on. It makes sense to point to this discussion, 1) to situate 3D printing discussions in the extreme right miliue, 2) for methodological reasons, how to mark a distance while being truthful to respondents, etc., and, 3) to make a stronger case for looking at supremacist in relation to 3d printing by connecting back to existing, social movement discussions. The same can be said about the anti-feminist literature, there must be more general studies of this phenomena that can be refered to and the discussion on 3D printing be related to, although I am not familiar with it.

3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s mean of validating assumptions or making judgements?

Initially, the author writes:

“In my case, the research was difficult due to my repeated encounter with highly objectionable positions regarding the nature of ethnicity and gender. This was, obviously, to be expected, due to the topic of research, but the commitment to research nonetheless required that I refrain from commenting.”

Perhaps this is already too much of a commentary. It is understandable that the author wants to distance his/her own position from those of his/her informants, but perhaps this point could be made with less affection, or else it plants some doubts in the reader concerning the treatment of the material.

“The Italian Marxists, of which Tronti is one, deeply feared the prospect that the social relations of the industrial sector would escape the factory walls and colonise the rest of the city”

An alternative explanation is that the autonomists gave up the organisation of workplaces to their rivals, trade unions and the Italian communist party, and then had to justify their defection from the classic ground of class struggle by painting it in Marxist gloss. This ungenerous explanation is proposed by Thompson, see:

Thompson, P. (2005). ‘Foundation and Empire: A critique of Hardt and Negri’ Capital & Class 29( 86): 73-98.

4) Is the article well written?

It is well written and the author show a command over the theory mobilised. Again, what is lacking is an explanation from the outset to the reader why the different theories and the empirical material are mobilised to make this argument. For instance, the first two times that ”supremacists” are mentioned in the introduction, it jumps right at the reader, without any explanation why it is being placed next to 3D printers. What is needed is to tie together the bag.

5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend to be shortened, excised or expanded?

”When the factory society of Tronti encounters the paradigm of economic governance of Agamben, a picture emerges of a society driven by the effects of a combined subordination and contestation of the terms of economic development not towards some idea of the ‘good of the nation’, but rather the way in which the combined actions of individual households is enmeshed with drive towards particular teleologies.”

This is probably the key statement that motivates the two theories being mobilised. Up till this point, one gets the impression that Agamben and Tronti have only been selected because both are italians, as otherwise they have little in common. This point should be hinted at earlier in the article, and then it should be developed a bit further, because stated as it is above it is mere suggestive. It sounds right but what does the ”particular teleologies” mean in the cases discussed?

“Certain members of the community have drawn parallels between the one-shot plastic guns, and one-shot guns delivered to the French resistance during WW2, leading to largely predictable discussions about Zionist conspiracies and hidden political messages (‘ThracianSword’, 2013)”

Actually, this parallel was made in the name “liberator”, i.e. by Cody Wilson/Defence Distributed, not by the supremacist user groups.

“Both the white supremacist and anti-feminist groups tie into a crypto-libertarian ideology that believes in a capacity for political change through encryption devices that enable users to avoid public regulation.”

Alright, this is the one sentence where the two fringe user groups are being connected back to the core of the 3d printing community and its political imaginary. This ought to be argued at lenght, and would require some hints to that other community (crypto-anarchism, californian ideology, etc., see literature suggestions above)