Re:Capitalism vs. Communism (Score 2)

Of course I make this stuff up. That's what having an opinion means. I'll admit my statement was overly brief. Yes, spirituality is key to Marx. Marx claimed you couldn't gain spirituality if the product of your labor was stolen by The Man. That's my point.

Take "alienation of labor" and exploitation. A Linux volunteer donates time to fix a few bugs for a device driver. Suppose the donation is small enough that she doesn't even get credit. Does she benefit economically? No. RedHat does, though. Is that exploitation? Once she's donated the code, she loses any control over it. Is that alienation of labor?

Yes, the economic structure is fundamental. That's why communism has to be a revolution. You can't have partial communism in a capitalist society. The open source gift culture is not communist; it doesn't change the underlying economics. Last time I checked, open source hasn't eliminated my rent or grocery bill. In a sense, it's just a unilateral disarmament. Can you imagine Marx advising a worker in a pin factory to donate his time, establishing a gift culture to bring about the revolution? I don't think so.

You really need to read Marx philosophical works, the early Marx, to see his brilliance. You can't just cut and paste the political advocacy of Marx in the Communist Manifesto and apply the conclusions to programmers. The preconditions don't match. Programmers aren't proletariat. In fact, we're mostly in control of the means of production!

Now, I've gotten carried away because I like Marx. I don't mean to criticise open source (I'm happily typing on a Linux box.) It's just that you can't use Marx to promote open source. All his arguments go the other way.
Scott Ferguson