[lbo-talk] Comments on Cybermarx?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Andy F wrote:
>
> >On 1/27/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >>  >Also, plenty gets written under scientific and research grants  
> and
> >>  >such.  I paid the rent for a couple years under such an  
> arrangement.
> >>  >I'm pretty sure that's how the original internet software got  
> written.
> >>
> >>  In other words, it's not a model for running a real economy,  
> but for
> >>  free-riding off a money economy financed by others?
> >
> >Um, sure.  Like non-toll roads?  Single-payer healthcare?
> >
> >I'm presuming you didn't just go all neo-lib on us, so could you
> >explain the difference between government funded software and
> >government funded anything?
>
> Not government-funded - just externally funded. I.e., for free  
> software to exist, programmers have to have jobs in the money  
> economy, and use hardware that someone else paid for. It's not a  
> model for organizing the broad economy, because, to use the jargon,  
> the real economy runs mainly on rival goods, and software is a  
> nonrival good (e.g., I can copy Windows perfectly, endlessly, and  
> costlessly, but I can't do that with food, clothing, and shelter).
>
> Doug

Well, of course, we can't run a whole _capitalist_ economy on the  
model of a free software movement, but can we run a whole socialist  
or anarchist or whatever non-capitalist economy based on the model of  
work processes -- decentralized cooperation of free producers --  
cherished by free software movement visionaries?  No formerly or  
currently existing socialist economy has ever tried it -- generally,  
formerly or currently existing socialist economy is based on work  
processes that differ little from those in capitalist economy.  But  
that doesn't mean that it is impossible to change that.  Can we if we  
try and democratize work?  That's one question worth thinking about.   
Another is whether Internet tools -- like Google -- can provide  
better means of discovering what people want than markets.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>