Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft
- From: Casimir Purzelbaum <quasi utopix.net>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:38:44 +0100
* Ref.: »Re: [ox-en] Re: herrschaft«
* Felix Stalder (2004-01-15 18:10)
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 15:54, Graham Seaman wrote:
There is an 'invisible hand' in a free society. It doesn't work
through the medium of money, but directly through need. ...
...Applying the same logic to bread should make the non-sense
of this line of thinking so obvious that it feels embarassing
to point it out. Why do peopke starve? Because they don't
realize that they need food? No, because they are structurally
unable to gain access to it (and this in the context of a
general overabundance of food worldwide).
So, what do you think, how this will be overcome? (addition from
the record: in the middle ages society was "structurally unable"
to build planes and washing machines... and to feed as many
people as get fed today.)
Free Software is free because it serves the (self-)interests of
the knowledge elites (programmers with a reasonably secure
economic basis, large service oriented corporations like IBM)
to have it free.
I don't think that the FSF has been financed by IBM for most of
the time of it's existence (-- or, has it?)...
What is your point against "a reasonably secure economic basis"?
Does this affect the results in any negative way? Or maybe
it's part of the answer: a "free society" is absolutely
unimaginable without "a reasonably secure economic basis". On
the other hand, what would be the prerequisites for the general
availability of that reasonably secure economic basis? (Would
that be another "structure", would it be a "free society"?)
There is just no comparable (self)interest of farmers to make
grain free,
as long as they don't gain from making it free. As soon as that
would realize that making grain free is an advantagous thing to
do, they would do it, don't you think?
among others, because it's not a public good.
Software is not a public good either -- in the whole of the
Microsoft World. But there are people migrating out of that
world... Why do you think this happens?
... Also the farmer can perfer to grow organic food because
s/he likes the idea to protect the environment, rather than
following a mindless profit-maximizing strategy, but still,
this won't really help those who starve.
Why do you conclude that "it won't", just because currently "it
doesn't"?!
Regards,
Casi.
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