> i think stuff we're talking about here (music, software, newspapers, etc.)
> that you get for free is a commodity. i dont' think it's accurate to call it
> non-commodity - which is why i think that a contemporary marx needs to
> analyse it as such - to show that commodities don't have to have a price
> that can be paid for by *money*. you are paying for it with your labor.
I don’t know, I think it’s worth keeping the term ‘commodity’ to refer to things that are actually bought and sold. There are plenty of traditional examples of necessary work within capitalism that is not commodified – like housework done within the family – and it’s always been problematic that they’re not commodified because the market doesn’t spontaneously organise their reproduction.
‘Fuck you, pay me’ only works if they do in fact have to pay you to get the fruits of your labour, because of your market position. Your situation as a developer is different in this respect from musicians and writers via-a-vis their recordings and writings. There is plenty of work organised within capitalism on a wholly or partially non-commodity basis, from public health to academia to policing. (The labour-power is still a commodity of course.) The pay is then a political matter.
What we see in writing and music is a failure of an old form of commodification and attempts to find new ways of commodifying them that may be successful to some extent, but changing the kinds of writing and music work you can get paid for and the amount you can get paid for it. The public option seems a superior way of providing for infinitely reproducible ‘non-rival’ goods – as Gar says. Admittedly, hitching your fortunes to the same wagon as public healthcare and academic doesn’t seem to have the greatest of prospects at the moment either... But, again, we’re socialists right?
I’m not making an argument that the arrival of ‘free’ in itself drives us in that direction, or that getting free music and news strikes a blow for the revolution. But bitterness doesn’t get us anywhere either, unless it motivates political organisation.
Mike Beggs