RE: [ox-en] word social forum/stallman/patents
- From: "Kermit Snelson" <ksnelson subjectivity.com>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 20:57:32 -0800
Graham Seaman:
Is this something new, with elements from free software, anti-patent
campaigns, anti-globalization and the old 'new left' (Chomsky, Saramago,
Wallenstein) coming together, or has it been going on for a while and I
just missed it?
I discovered this convergence only recently myself, and I've been trying to
figure out the ideological reason (if any) for it.
The people who attend the World Social Forum have many conflicting opinions.
But the common idea seems to be that information (the bit) is ontologically
distinct from matter (the atom), and that the increasingly
information-driven character of modern economies will consequently lead to
the overthrow of today's atom-based social norms.
Of course, this means that the World Social Forum essentially shares the
metaphysical world-view of its Davos-bred opponents. The difference is that
whereas the Davos crowd wants to enable an exchange-based economy for
"information products," the WSF generally wants to prevent one. To
accomplish this, Davos advocates stronger legal restrictions on the
transmission or use of information, whereas the WSF generally advocates
weaker ones. Davos, in other words, believes that information should be
bought and sold and that artificial scarcities should be introduced by law
in order to make such markets possible. Porto Alegre, on the other hand,
believes that information, which naturally lacks the scarcities inherent in
atom-based markets, should remain completely unrestricted and thus remain
res extra commercium.
That's my latest theory, anyway. In any case, it may indicate at least one
way in which Negri, Stallman and Raymond might ideologically overlap.
Kermit
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