compulsion (was: RE: [ox-en] Does the GPL imply exchange?)
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 08:10:36 -0500 (EST)
Hi Kermit/Stefan
Started a new sub-thread because I'm only replying to one little bit of
this.
On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Kermit Snelson wrote:
(kermit)
Oekonux exists, of course, because we see a lot more potential in the GPL
than simply that. In other words, we suspect that the GPL model might
provide a way to structure society so that nobody is forced to do something
they don't want to do, or that would demean them. That means the GPL will
succeed only if it can encourage millions of people, not just a few, to
offer freely the products of their diverse labor. Isn't that possibility
what's really interesting about the GPL? If not, then we really ARE talking
only about "free beer."
I think the only thing pleasure has to do with compensation is
the fact that starving to death is unpleasant, and that's
exactly what will happen to most of us unless we're compensated
in some way for a fairly significant portion of our time.
(stefan)
But why needs this to be linked? Why not asking for the right to live
a decent life completely independent of what you're doing?
(kermit)
Why not? Metabolism. The facts of biology are such that living things need
to work in order to eat. Even plants compete for water and sunlight. If
you don't work and still stay alive, that just means that somebody else has
done the necessary work for you. That's what child-rearing, pensions,
charitable institutions and foundation grants are all about. Richard
Stallman, for instance, lives on foundation grants. But somebody along the
line had to do the work to grow or slaughter whatever it is that Stallman
eats. That's why only a few of us can be privileged to live on foundation
grants.
And in anticipation of a possible response, I'll go ahead and say now that
we can't automate every aspect of sustaining life. That's just a variation
on the old, thermodynamically impossible argument for a perpetual motion
machine. Somebody will always have to work in some form or another, and
social justice requires that it be all who are capable of it.
Yes, not everything can be automated. Though the pressure to automate
everything which a) is too unpleasant for people to want to do and b)
which can potentially be automated, would be much greater in such a
society. Things which people do want to do can be done by working on
them, on the free software model. The problem for me is with your last
sentence:
'Someone will always have to work... andsocial justice requires that it be
all who are capable of it'
which for me is one huge can of worms. A closely related phrase with
more historical resonance is:
'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'.
For your version, you need someone to measure how capable you are of
work, and whether what you are doing counts as 'work'.
For the second version, you need someone to measure your ability, and
measure your work, and see how they match up. In other words, they need
both a government with powers to enforce work, and a measure of work
(which can only be some variation of money). Going by the historical
evidence, this doesn't work out too well. Even ignoring history and
talking more abstractly, suppose I decide to spend some years learning to
paint, will 'social justice' consider me as working or not? Suppose I
decide to spend a year in bed, as a conceptual art project? And who makes
the decision - is social justice embodied in courts?
So I prefer the Oekonux version, which IIRC goes something like - 'give
what you want to, take what you need'. The real underlying problem
hasn't gone away though - suppose the total of what people want to
contribute is less than the total of what people need? Then there
will be at the least social pressure (if not legal or state) pressure
on people to do more.
This is the point that I'm stuck on at the moment.
The 'selbst' in 'selbstentfaltung' is great as an emphasis on people doing
things because they choose too, linking personal with social because
the unfolding of the self is only possible in a social context. But in
a sense it seems like wishful thinking: it works perfectly for free
software, which people aren't physically dependent on. But what happens
when the things we physically depend on are produced in this way too?
I can imagine at the least a tendency for the neighbours to be commenting
"you know so-and-so in number 33? Hasn't done a stroke of productive
work in years, claims she's inventing some abstract mathematical theory
but I reckon she's just taking it easy and living off everyone else's
work. Did you ever see her on the local garbage truck?" And that kind of
thing could build up to quite an unpleasant environment where everyone is
monitoring what everyone else does and things become very conformist.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see any structural guarantee
that 'selbstentfaltung' will be maintain itself; I would like to think
that it would, but I'm afraid it might turn out to be a modern equivalent
of 'liberte, egalite, fraternite': all deeply believed in, enough to
motivate many people to support a revolution, but in the end more
ideological than factual.
Stefan? Have there been discussions on the German list around this point?
Graham
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/