Re: [ox-en] Re: Business opportuities based on Free Software
- From: Michael Bouwens <michelsub2003 yahoo.com>
- Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 19:50:50 -0700 (PDT)
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Please correct me if I'm wrong: When capital emerged, I do not think it was in any way 'anti-feudal'. It was a section of the feudal class, together with some new segments from the cities, that invented the new mode of production. It is only when the political system was too much of a blockage, that conflicts and 'bourgeois revolutions' occured. It was only the worker's movement which had an explicitely political goal, and perhaps for this reason, it failed, as it could not offer a superior mode of production.
Toda'ys postcapitalist mode of production similarly does not appear as an explicitely anti-capitalist project, and as Christophe points out, it emerges many times out of sections of the business community, but that does not change it's essential characteristics. The key important conflict is perhaps not between the post-capitalist mode and the capitalist mode, but within the postcapitalist mode itself. As for example, the efforts to develop the IANG License as a clearer community alternative to the General Public License, and other similar efforts.
I think that calling Jimmy Wales an arch-capitalist is an exagerration. For example, I believe I saw a calculation that if Wikipedia accepted Google Adsense, it would make over $300m, but they've always refused, relying instead on donations of the community. An arch-capitalist would have taken the money and ran. (Firefox makes $72m through google). People like Wales, are former, and perhaps present and future entrepreneurs, but they also have ethical ideas, some of which are postcapitalist in nature. Starting Wikipedia was a huge gamble, that had no certainty of succeeding, and in fact for a number of years failed to advance, but his ideal, and not his need for money, kept his engagement going. For a number of people, once you have a measure of monetary security, what in fact emerges are post-material ideals and ethics. In fact, many social advances are the result of the existence of such a rentier class (F. Engels as one of them). The whole emergence of
peer production, is in fact dependent on this abundance (of intellect, of time, of creativity, of excess computing power, etc..), which emerges from within capitalism.
The ideological stance of the actors doesn't really matter. Some of those advancing peer production will be liberals and libertarians, other will have a more left orientation. Instead of complaining of the former, in general, it is more fruitful to preserve the community ethics, whenever they are concretely in danger, and advance solutions that foster and strengthen it. For example, whenever a corporation enables participatory platforms, they will have a double identity and interest, part dolphin, relying on the commons produced by the community, part shark, pushed by its shareholders to betray it in exchange for short term profit. As it does with Amazon, the community has to be awake to such dangers, and react in due time.
josx <josx interorganic.com.ar> wrote: El Miércoles 17 Mayo 2006 20:06, Christoph Reuss escribió:
You can still dream of your "seedling form" developing entirely out of
its own potential and power, in reality it is an interaction between the
forces of the old and the new. Without Jimmy Wales there would be no
Wikipedia and thus no free content flagship project
I think this is a wrong conclusion. Rather, Wales _prevents_ a genuine
anti-capitalist Free encyclopedia. An old rule of war, expressed by
Sun Tzu, is that the best way of sabotaging a movement is to occupy
its leading positions with your own men (moles). It is a way of hijacking.
This can be observed in various places, such as WWF or the German railways.
How would be a genuine anti-capitalis free encyclopedia?
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