Re: Cybercommunist Manifesto

GBurch1@aol.com
Sat, 11 Sep 1999 17:58:30 EDT

In a message dated 99-09-10 16:03:20 EDT, bradbury@www.aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) wrote:

> Slashdot.org has a story pointing to the Salon discussion of
> Richard Barbrook's Cybercommunist Manifesto.
>
> URLs:
> http://www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/09/10/cybercommunism/index.html
> http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/199909/msg00046.html
> http://slashdot.org/articles/99/09/10/157243.shtml
>
> This is relevant for people to look at because it considers
> the possibility that open-source "gift" economy may transcend
> capitalism. Even if it isn't accurate now, it may have the
> right idea when the NanoSantas arrive.

I'm no economist (and I'm certainly no communist), but this IS interesting. Of course, this is by the same guy who seemed to pretty seriously misapprehend the nature of extropians in his book, "The California Ideology", and his whole approach is hopelessly mired in hide-bound marxist theory.

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 . . . . 

     Greg Burch     <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
     Attorney  :::  Vice President, Extropy Institute  :::  Wilderness Guide
      http://users.aol.com/gburch1   -or-   http://members.aol.com/gburch1
                         "Civilization is protest against nature; 
                  progress requires us to take control of evolution."
                                      -- Thomas Huxley