The bit about the state taking your taxes at gunpoint was, I thought, simply a restatement of the conventional Weberian argument: the state is the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Coming from Libertarian heaven, as a kid, I used to see a woman ride nekkid, on horseback, down main st. She was part of a Libertarian group that protested taxes. (Lady Godiva was the reference.)
But the state and gunpoint, sure. When someone in my hometown refused to pay his taxes as a form of anti-war protest (Andy Mager), he was put in jail by people carrying sidearms.
As for open source and libertarianism, isn't that a rather natural outgrowth of Adam Smith's arguments, which basically derived out of the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith argued only that the market economy was where the pursuit of rational self-interest worked best. But the logic of the market, he thought, shouldn't be pursued in other realms, such as civil society -- which is why Smith did think some government money should be spent on improving the sphere of civil society. If the DOL meant delimited work lives doing repetitive tasks, then civil society provided respite -- libraries, arts, religion, community organizations that sort of thing.
I'd love to see another open source software debate on this list, but someone else can jump in. I'm bushed. In the meanwhile, to connect to what I wrote above, the wiki page on Open Source does a better job than I can of explaining that it's because Open Source is involved in cultural and knowledge production that it's a sphere that benefits from more of a logic of civil society, rather than the market. For reasons similar as to why science operates the way it does in the academy -- at least in the ideal.
ahh. I'm bushed. Anyway, I'm not saying I agree with it, just that I don't think the embrace of libertarianism and open source is all that contradictory, just the same old, same old since Adam Smith wrote _The Wealth of Nations_,really.
At 11:25 AM 10/20/2008, Sean Andrews wrote:
> >>> Sean Andrews <cultstud76 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> To take my argument further, perhaps too far for this list:
> >>
> >> "too far"...as if...do you read this list?
>
>On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:53 AM, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> > Sandy is a long time list member ...
>
>It was more of a rhetorical question. There are plenty of anarchists
>on the list and there is generally little sympathy for the state in
>general so it is strange to see a longtime list member act like this
>kind of thought is somehow beyond the pale--or that being exposed to
>it would suddenly enlighten us.
>
> > (Sandy's a big open source software guy)
>
>I'm always intrigued by this combination: libertarian AND open source.
> Radically individial yet committed to the collective production and
>availability of value. I know there are all kinds of articulations
>which can round out the pegs for the holes, and maybe he's just being
>provocative: consider me provoked.
>
> > the funny thing is, if memory serves, Sandy used to get ridiculed for his
> > "lefty" positions on one of those lists. :)
>
>I guess this depends on what you mean by "lefty." Marcuse was sort of
>a lefty, but he was all about the libertarian standpoint, a
>combination Woj likes to remind us of often.
>
> > To my knowledge, there are about a dozen folks here, generally lurkers,
> > who aren't necessarily leftists who read the list nonetheless.
>
>I know, but shouldn't that mean that they are familiar with it? What
>was so unique about this interjection? That he talked about the
>contingent nature of the idea of rights? The coercive function of the
>state? Broke some puritanical barrier by talking about the sex trade?
>None of this seems unusual. I'd be interested to know how he would
>characterize the list, but, in any case, it was more of a rhetorical
>question/observation.
>
>s
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