Oekonux and (non)developing countries (was: [ox-en] inside wsis)
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:33:56 +0100
Hi Graham, ThomasB and all!
Graham: After on [pox] you asked me to not use III. world any more -
which is perfectly ok with me - I'm not trying to use "(non)developing
countries". May be this is the best compromise because it reflects
common language ("developing") and is not a simple lie ("(non)").
Last month (44 days ago) Graham Seaman wrote:
Alternatively, why is the role of free software in developing countries
not part of oekonux theories, which concentrate entirely on the developed?
I'd say what I know of Oekonux theory rests very much on the
development of the productive forces. In particular I'd say that the
revolvment of society in some fundamental way (to avoid the somewhat
loaded meaning of revolution) will take place where the productive
forces are developed to the point where - in this case - the
principles of production of Free Software burst the current mode of
production. Yes, this rests very much on Marx' theory - and not the
Marxists which probably never understood that bit.
This might be the reason why to you it looks like Oekonux theory
concentrates on the developed countries. However, I'm not so sure
about this. At the moment I'd say this is too much of a prediction of
future to be serious about.
Or is its role the same everywhere?
In the way I described it above the role is indeed the same
everywhere.
However, what we see today in (non)developing countries about Free
Software is very well explainable without any of Oekonux theory - as
people pointed out in this thread. There are simply a number of big
advantages Free Software has over proprietary software for
(non)developing countries. Some time ago I wrote up
http://www.merten-home.de/fsw_IIIwelt.html
(German only - but would be easy to translate) to name the advantages
of Free Software for (non)-developing counties which came to my mind
at this time.
Last month (43 days ago) Thomas Berker wrote:
From how I understand "Oekonux-thinking" it says that the most advanced
societies (in terms of mode of production) will bring about the
revolution.
Hmm - I'd say for the reasons above there is a chance that a major
revolvment of society will happen in more developed societies first.
From that revolution at the centres of the world economy a
sort of automatic trickle down effect is expected -
Can you tell me who does expect this?
And also: I'm so much a (Western) European that by no way I feel
qualified to say what is good for people in (non)-developing
countries. I think people in these countries are intelligent enough to
have their own say in this. Fortunately on this list they do :-) .
clearly very
orthodox Marxist thinking.
I heard "trickle-down-effects" from liberals so far. I never knew that
it is Marxist also.
But in the end what you are referring to is that on this planet
developments do not take place at the same time everywhere. Yes, this
is the way it is. Any idea what to do about it? Or even: Should it be
that way?
Much of Stefan Merten's and other's optimism
is based on that.
Well, my so-called optimism is based on the argument that Free
Software is a germ form for a new mode of production as mentioned
above. Whether this germ form will lead to a blossoming society with
less pain than the current one or the end of civilization as we know
it will come earlier I can't say. Obviously the end of civilization
means the end of the germ form as well. If you call this opinion
optimism then that's fine by me. But don't expect me to understand
that.
Critically one could ask how such a state of advancedness is defined.
By how easy it is to produce useful goods.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of technical rhetoric ("Linux is just
better than MS Windows") among developers and on the Oekonux lists. It
says that because GNU/linux is such a great thing, it's mode of
production is superior, too.
Well, I think that in history of capitalism Free Software it is the
first example of a product which in its fundaments is not based on
exchange and at the same time is able to out-compete the capitalist
products. The success of Free Software against an established market
is a clear indication of its superiority. This and that Free Software
is at the very frontier of the means of productions used to me allows
to conclude that we witness a new mode of production here.
And that is also the reason why it will
prevail at least in the long run. Nobody would doubt that some instances
of Free Software are great achievements of a radically new social
organisation of work. However, we have a long history of technological
innovation from which we know that technical aspects (ressource use,
performance, user interface...) are important when it comes to success
or failure of a technology. At least as important, however, are
non-technical aspects above all those to do with power (in its broadest
meaning).
That's why StefanMz is pointing out the technical as well as the
social aspects of the development of the means of productions. I
totally agree with him in this point and I think the Oekonux talk
about Selbstentfaltung points to a good degree to that social aspect.
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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