[OS:N:] Social Scence perspective

[<charles macdonald hrdc-drhc gc ca>]

"Rafael Sanchez" <rsanchez metilinx com> sez:
<< Basically in communist countries you are not the owner of the computers or 
the software used to develop, actually it is the goverment.>>

Old Social Scence Guy just has to point out that there has never been a true 
communist country.  The idea as Marx saw it would be in a pure communist 
society, their would be no need for the state, and so it would "wither away".

As I say it is an interesting tool to compare with "real" Societies.  In the 
ideal, enlightend self interest combined with the lack of scarcity provided 
by the bounty created by the industrial methods of production would result in 
almost total cooperation between individuals.

Brendan Scott [mailto:bscott gtlaw com au] sez:
<<By attempting to neutralise the 
anti-competitive elements of copyright you can characterise the community as 
opposing government intervention in the 
content/software industries. On this analysis they're not communist, they're 
capitalist - and extremely so. Effectively 
  open source/free software says that competition in the software industry 
ought to be services based competition >>

Taken to the end point, Both groups may end up with the same outlook!

Communist theory says that the workers should own the means of production 
(their own tools) and that the "factory owners" should not have a claim to 
extracting the difference between the cost of production and the value of teh 
goods (marx was looking at the industrization where goods that had been 
produced as cottage indusry were instead produced in factories owned by a 
non-worker (or a multitude of non-workers)  who collected a profit by selling 
the goods for more than they cost to produce.  Marx figured that the workers 
should collectivly own the factories and share the "retail" price of the 
goods.. in other words extreme capitalism.)

I supose in the ideal world, the workers whould be charging for the "service 
of producing a wool blanket" rather than the blanket itself.  (that cost 
would include the cost of the service of raising and sheering sheep)

Since The Governement intervention we are talking about is granting rights to 
charge/control the use of "so called intelectual property" and the free 
software movement prefers that the software base be owned by all, then yes we 
are talking about changing from the system of monopoly rents to use 
"content".  Since the copyright framework exists however, the GPL attempts to 
use it to futher the sharing of GPL software.

Anyway, that is the Social Scientist in me talking - absoutly my own opinions 
and all standard disclamers apply.

Charles MacDonald - Labour Information Management
< My own Opinion unless Otherwise Credited >