Cottage or Chaos

Japan has retained their cottage industries. There are still farmers with small plots who return from the fields each night to use a lathe to build a small component for a multinational company.
UK has lead the western culture in moving to mass production and then sending the technology (and even the equipment) overseas, leaving no means of production.

Returning to a sustainable economy (albeit substance), including Backyard Farming, Working from Home (e.g. eBay, Telemarketing, Craft, etc), may no longer be viable.
We have substantially destroyed our worth to the world –
 Primary Production
 Farming (good luck finding an Australian garlic).
 Resources – every thing from mobile phones to giant generators are based on Rare Earths. We pioneered them. Now the Chinese have a monopoly on the source and manufacture and have started forcing the prices up.
 Secondary Industry – we used to make guns in Lithgow. Now we even import the bullets, plus the Styrofoam to have the coffee while we wait for the overseas built boat to dock on our overseas financed dock.
 Tertiary Industry – The Western World has moved up to the Service Industries (the brain jobs) – accounting, computer programming, finances (especially London),… But wait – there is a problem – a high proportion of our population are not suited to brain work and worse, there are a lot more in Asia who are. So the Service Industries are rapidly being exported overseas (watch India skyrocket).
Ah, no problem, we still have the other option - chaos.