Re: [ox-en] Brave GNU World
- From: "I. Claude Harper" <tekell swbell.net>
- Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 02:02:43 -0600
What are all these "principles" exactly?
Are they not simply a particular manifestation of something which came
before? Such as anarchist morality - Free Association, Mutial Aid, etc.
These are basically the same questions I've had regarding what is still a
very laudable attempt IMO to extend marxist theory into the 'Information
Age'.
Tell me how you think this is extension of a Marxist theory. Of course,
Marxism means different things to different people, so you'd best start by
clarifiy that a bit. I think this is free of some of authoritarian baggage
that plagued the "visible" offshoots of Marxism, that is National Socialism.
However, Liberation Software is quite interesting in how it handles the
problem of private property.
extent that commodities are produced *without* human intervention, the
_old_
'rules of the game' are being subverted (dialectically, of course) -- and
the capitalist machine comes that more 'off the rails' (immiserating
effects
on real people aside...)
How do you see the old 'rules of the game' as being subverted?
And "Dialectically", what are you, a philosophy major? :)
This also begs the question of the likely _impossibility_ of changing the
present system 'peacefully', by increment -- which is alluded-to above as
an expression of the _present_ state of the phenomenon.
;>
I lost you on that one. I am not sure what is begging the question and what
was alluding to what. Even before I snipped some text out. :) If by
peacefully you don't mean that it can't happen without war, I would
disagree. If however, you mean it can't be a pleasant, good-time for all
along the way, then I agree.
AFAIC there is not much of a future to this GPL movement without its being
tied to the general 'old-fashioned' need to transform society *at its
base*
-- and all recent attempts to decouple these have IMO revealed the
anarchistic/libertarian/idealist base of this mode of thinking/ideology...
I think we are on the same page, but I need to get my translator tuned for
that last line.
I guess I don't follow your use of the terms.
I associate Anarchism with revolutionary transformation of society at its
base, or including it's base, the whole she-bang. As I think of it, the
anarchists separated themselves from Marxism not in a disagreement over the
Marxists critique of capitalism or need for revolutionary change, but in
Marxism methods for revolution which involved a new authority, not
liberation or self-enfolding, to manage and control things. But no one owns
the term "anarchy". And there are bourgeoise-idealists posing as
anarchists. Here's a paper which makes a case against idealogical anarchism
http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/practice/sp001689.html
Libertarian seems to have become a somewhat weird term. Here in the U.S.,
we have a Libertarian party. This party is not anti-government or
anti-capitalist or revolutionary, they are mostly just Laissez-Faire
capitalists who also want to get the governement out of one's personal or
moral lives. I think in Europe, Libertarian is usually followed by something
like Libertarian Socialist or Libertarian Communists. Which is sometimes
synonomous with anarchism, usually anarcho-syndicalism.
Libertarians (U.S.) see nothing wrong with capitalism and seem to think that
the right to bare arms is one of the most important topics of political
discussion. This makes them useless to me and anyone interested in
Liberation.
So by "anarchistic/libertarian/idealist" would you only include Libertarian
using my definitions? Or would you include anarchists,
anarcho-syndicalists, libertarian communists, etc.
These don't even make sense to me logically -- you might as well talk
about
decoupling the phenomenon of entropy from the energy flows of the
universe.
It would remain nothing more than an interesting experiment (which the
venture capitalists, of course, have tried to hijack for immediate gain)
in
this case.
I would agree that Liberation Software shouldn't be decoupled from the
bigger social liberation. Although, it's not as obviously tied as entropy
and energy flows. I hope that it is. How would YOU support that claim that
it is?
What I haven't seen addressed are the fundamental differences between
info-things like software, musical recordings, and physical-things like
food. A software program can be copied indefinitely to an unlimited number
of people, with neglible cost. It's benefits are unlimited. This is
radically different than say an Apple. Any harvest is finite. Thereby
giving one the ability to gain power over others by owning all the land or
hoarding up all the harvest.
Also, the virtual-land from which software is grown is unlimited and you
can create more at anytime, and for libresoftware, it's public. There is
not a way to create land like this in physical world. And there's little
truly public land. In the U.S. "public" lands are really State lands, since
the state controls harvest and profit made from the land. Furthermore, as
long as capitalism is in charge, large corporations have an insane amount of
control. (trivia, the largest farmer in the state of Texas is Tenneco, an
oil company). Look what happened to Mexico after the free trade agreement.
Their economony was flooded by cheap corn from the U.S., destroying the
value of the local farmers crops and sending the entire economy into death
spiral that required the largest bailout in history, thus putting Mexico
further under U.S. corporate control. One sad such example of this control
was Chase Manhatten Bank telling the Mexican Gov't to put down the
Zappatista uprising. Let's not forget, that they revolted the day the free
trade agreement went into effect, because in order to make things more
corporate friendly, Mexico removed what little rights they had to land.
How does all this help them?
Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against extending revolution into
physical world. And I can see how Liberation Software plays a key (seed)
role in this transformation. However, I am unable to resolve these
fundamental differences, in a way to say that their basis will be the same.
They will however share a great deal of principles.
Along those lines, I am not sure about this fully automated, techtopia
thing.
Wouldn't the self-enfolding of food be permaculture instead of
robot-farming?
...getting back to the point that the decoupling of this phenomenon from
the
*physical reality* of human society and life is a manifestation of
'bourgeois-idealist' (i.e. libertarian) trends which still permeate much
of
the 'progressive' and 'Open Source' movements. It is _not_ based on the
facts of the entire real situation, which are quite material -- and always
will be.
And it's why I myself don't give more than a moment's thought to any
possibility of transforming society without forcibly removing these vested
interests -- because they simply ain't gonna go away on their own.
ok, but how?
_______________________
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