Comment by jadedhacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jadedhacker | Hacker News Reader

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I had a few reactions to this concept.

1) The idea of a set of reusable APIs around data ownership could actually be the foundation of a new internet. If it becomes impossible to concentrate data, the system will be more resistant.

2) The appeal of the Internet lies in the services that are available to users. A decentralized system doesn't appeal to capitalism, value is best captured through centralization and intermediation. Capitalist enterprises produce the bulk of services at the moment. This is a major adoption hurdle.

3) Dr. Berners-Lee appears to be a (digital) anarchist at heart, and it's a painfully beautiful vision.

4) He is partnering with capitalists to try to achieve an anarchist vision. This is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is about competition for the working class (i.e. users), domination and centralization.

5) It sounds like what he wants is a more egalitarian and democratic system. He might want to talk to more radical political theorists (I assume he may have already in the decades he's been kicking around).

I wish Dr. Berners-Lee the best. I hope Solid gets some adoption. I've heard some people are using Mastodon. Here's hoping it's a trend. Nonetheless, if enough people start migrating, the corporations will offer them something to come back. After all, they can afford to, tech profits in established companies are obscene.

"4) He is partnering with capitalists to try to achieve an anarchist vision. This is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is about competition for the working class (i.e. users), domination and centralization."

I disagree with you and Marx on this. Capitalism is primarily about trading. Sometimes it leads to centralisation but it can also work through innovation and effective competition for decentralisation. So Tim's efforts to set up a framework which will support the latter is not a "contradiction in terms" with capitalism.

"4) He is partnering with capitalists to try to achieve an anarchist vision. This is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is about competition for the working class (i.e. users), domination and centralization."

Or maybe the fact that he is doing so demonstrates that your terms and assumptions are incorrect.

At the same time, the fact that other capitalists are partnering with government agencies maybe shows that the Rothbard quote doesn't reflect the full picture.

Could be that capitalism and freedom are orthogonal concerns.

“Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism”

― Murray N. Rothbard

This is anarcho-capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism). There are other types of anarchism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism).

"Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful."

As private property cannot exist without violence and capitalism cannot exist without the state, some forms of anarchism are incompatible with capitalism.

I'm not an anarchist, just stating some definitions.

"Capitalist enterprises produce the bulk of services at the moment."

All. You meant all the goods AND services. Unless you count the kids living on a commune who sell berries at the farmers market.

did you forget public schools, hospitals, roads, fire services, police services, military, medicare and libraries exist for a second there?

I am generally supportive of your position, but these are actually organized as "State Capitalism". They are not subject to internal democratic controls. Hierarchy still exists though there is nominal democratic political control.

Unless those kids are giving away those berries, I'm pretty sure they are participating in a capitalist economy too.

It's not all, though it is the astounding majority. Non-profits are not capitalist though they can mimic them in internal structure and worker co-ops are a kind of market socialism as the workers own the means of production.

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