From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Mon Sep 13 1999 - 11:34:18 MDT
> I'll confess that the whole "free software movement" has sometimes given me
> the willies, but of course, that's probably just my "class consciousness"
> talking. On the other hand, I don't see anything at all inconsistent with
> the basic workings of an anarcho-capitalist net economy in the creation of
> "surplus value" that gets "given away". The image of "NanoSantas" is
> probably intended to be a little absurd, because, ultimately there has to be
> some incentive to create new value. But I DO see a lot of "free" value being
> created on the net . . . .
The idea that free software is being "given away" only makes sense
coming from the initial point of view that it was ownable/owned in the
first place. That point of view is not at all fundamental to
capitalism. In fact I believe that copyrights and patents are based
on the mistaken Marxist labor theory of value.
In a post-nano world, it is true that much of what is valuable will
be information: designs, software, art. But that doesn't mean the
economy will resemble the "information economy" we have now, which
is in large part due to the ownability of information. Technology
will make copyrights and patents irrelevant even if the laws stay
as they are, so industries that rely on that model are doomed. The
future economy--even one mostly of information goods--will be more
like a service economy. Information itself has minimal value, and
will not be sold directly: what will be most valuable are services
that find, select, condense, adapt, and deliver the information in
useful ways; services that create custom and timely information;
craftsmen that can perfect raw designs; critics that sell the value
of human judgment; and of course all manner of personal services.
A robust economy with sufficient freedom to create and adapt to new
techonologies is in no danger at all from the social "movement" of
free software, even if many of its current believers are socialists.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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