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Introduction |
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< | In this paper I examine Eben's argument - Anarchism produces inherently superior goods when the marginal cost of production equals zero, in the case of functional goods; or in the case of non-functional goods (e.g aesthetic goods such as music) an anarchistic distribution system is superior to distribution organized by firms. I engage with Eben's arguments from a skeptical position and interrogate whether his definition of an "internet society" privileges the anarchic production methods quite as much as he suggests. |
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> | In this paper I examine Eben's argument - Anarchism produces inherently superior functional goods when the marginal cost of production equals zero. I engage with Eben's arguments from a skeptical position into to interrogate whether his definition of an "internet society" privileges the anarchic production methods quite as much as he suggests. |
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< | Specifically, I employ the arguments of Stark and Neff in "Permanently Beta," Noam's arguments in "The Economics of User Generated Content and Peer-to-Peer: The Commons as the Enabler of Commerce," since both of these suggest that their are conditions at the micro or firm level which provide additional insight into the set of conditions under which his argument works. |
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> | Specifically, I employ the arguments of Stark and Neff in "Permanently Beta," Noam's arguments in "The Economics of User Generated Content and Peer-to-Peer: The Commons as the Enabler of Commerce," since both of these suggest that there are conditions at the micro or firm level which provide additional insight into the set of conditions under which his argument works. |
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< | Anarchic production |
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> | Efficacy and Producctivity of Anarchic production |
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< | As I am most interested in functional goods I will focus on the aspect of Eben's argument which rests on the productivity(?) of the free software movement following the adoption of the General Product Licence (GPL). The evidence that production under the auspices of the GPL and other types of open source licenses generates successful free and open source projects is ever more plentiful - Samba, MediaWiki? , Apache, FireFox? - the list goes on. Few are willing to defend the proprietary model, Microsoft does yet even they have opened a open source lab (http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/) Moreover, it is generally accepted that free and open source software is better than proprietary software on a number of dimensions - feature set, usability, reliability. All of this underpinned by the fact that if it doesn't quite work the technologist has the ability to fix it themselves, and no less importantly, the technology executive can be confident that they won't be left managing proprietary tools for which support is either no longer available or become suddenly 30% more expensive. |
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> | I will focus on the aspect of Eben's argument which rests on the productivity and efficacy of the free software movement following the adoption of the General Product Licence (GPL). The evidence for productivity under the auspices of the GPL and other types of open source licenses is ever more plentiful - Samba, MediaWiki? , Apache, FireFox? - the list goes on. Few are now willing to defend the proprietary model, Microsoft does so yet even they have opened a open source lab. Moreover, it is generally accepted that free and open source software is of a higher quality and reliability than proprietary software. These advantages underpinned by the fact that if the code doesn't quite work as needed the technologist has the ability to fix it themselves, and no less importantly, the technology executive can be confident that they won't be left managing proprietary tools for which support is either no longer available or suddenly 30% more expensive. |
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< | Considering Eben's claims more closely though there is a need to focus on the GPL for several reasons |
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> | Free software is succeeding not only because the internet society, or as Yochai Benkler might write, peer production is posssible, but also because of the existence of a set of uncertainty reduction benefits users acquire independent of the production itself. |
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< | (a) Eben suggests it is the greatest achievement of Richard Stallman (Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant). This claim is notable since the development of the GNU toolset and its subsequent marriage with the Linux project was no small or inconsequential success in itself. |
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> | The General Product License (GPL) |
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< | (b) The GPL, and its derivatives, are what differentiates free software from merely open source software and though a number of projects don't use the license it is entirely reasonable that without this legal vehicle participants may not have participated in the projects in the way that they have. |
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> | Considering Eben's claims more closely though there is a need to recognize the importance of the GPL for several reasons |
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< | That said, it is curious that a relatively modest legal artifact enforced through mechanisms of the state is said to be critical to facilitating anarchic production since anarchy, as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, is "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state." for me this suggests that despite the attractiveness of this mode of production to users, and its success at a technical level it isn't clear to me that the term anarchic production is an adequate description and that it needs to be considered at a more micro level. It is occurring within loose organizational structures, which Stark might call heterarchical, and moreover it has thrived in conjunction with the firm though its success is because copyright privileges were assigned according to the GPL. |
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> | (a) Eben suggests it is the greatest achievement of Richard Stallman (Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant). This claim is notable since the development of the GNU toolset and its subsequent marriage with the Linux project was no inconsequential success in itself.
(b) The GPL, and its derivatives, are what differentiates free software from merely open source software and though a number of projects don't use the GPL license it is entirely reasonable to conclude that without this legal artifact the groundswell of participantion may not have occurred as it has.
That said, it is curious that a relatively modest legal document enforced through the norms and mechanisms of the state is thought critical to facilitating anarchic production since one might define such production as "lacking order, regularity, or definiteness" if you draw upon the Merriam-Webster definition. Moreover, since anarchy, as defined by The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics is "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state," it suggests that despite its properties this mode of production calling it "anarchic production" is quite right. The mode of production works as a result of the GPL which works as a result of the existence of state enforced mechanisms and at the micro level production occurs through loose organizational structures, which David Stark might call heterarchical, which contain some level of order and definiteness. Additionally, it coexists with profit seeking firms, seemingly fruitfully for both parties, suggesting that despite its success it is far from anarchistic. |
| | - Add Benkler and peer production |