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Comment by hindenburg | Hacker News Reader

Please, elucidate. I'd love to hear about all the superior programming environments developed in non-capitalist economies.

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People developed these great environments like EMACS and other open source software out of passion, not because they were chasing profits. There are many instances where seeking profits, as in the corporate world, reduces innovation and creates a short term mindset. A lot of the best research comes out of state-funded labs, even the development of the transistor and the computer in the USA, the development of the internet, all funded by the state.

You're painting with broad a brushstroke. Both good and bad things emerge from the public and private sectors. Despite often falling into the "worse is better" trap, self-interest is our species' most potent innovator, modulo purgative events like WW2 when all our intellectual capital returned to the state.

To be fair, FOSS is pretty much the definition of socialism. Donations are pretty much the only way money is made directly off the software itself. Running an instance of the software, if it's a server for example, is a slightly different story. Everyone contributes of their own volition and interest.

I'm not a fan of government-enforced socialism or communism. But if you can get enough people together to willingly participate independently, I'm chill with it. And FOSS software is an example of it working out alright.

> the definition of socialism. Donations are pretty much the only way money is made

That's not the definition of socialism at all.

If you think about it, it's actually much closer to the principle of right-wing Christian charity rather than the left-wing sharing of means of production.

Christian charity is not a right-wing principle.

Many in the US tend to associate Christianity with right-wing ideology, but there's actually quite a few examples of a varied history of left-wing Christian thought and action. Sticking to US history: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Dorothy Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Day). Outside of the US, Liberation Theology in Latin America was an ideology/movement explicitly linking Christian (mostly Catholic) teachings with Marxist-inspired struggles for workers' rights (sometimes those links are easy to do, if you focus on quotes such as "blessed are the poor").

I do agree that FOS software is not socialism, and that donations aren't socialism. But it's important to note that many people who work on FOS software do so without expecting anything in return. I think that idea is in sharp contrast with typical right-wing and centrist economic theories that view human beings as mostly money-driven, self-centered individuals.

We're falling in the pitfall of ‶left and right are different depending on where you're standing″. I'm 100% sure what you say is true in your country; but in mine, being religious and eschewing the state-based, tax-backed wealth redistribution in favor of the personal, charity-based one definitely puts you as left-wing.

As a Catholic I assure you that you can't reconcile Christianity with left-wing ideology. And I fully agree that FOSS is not necessarily socialist.

Christianity is fully compatible with a society where people can make meaningful decisions over things which affect them, with democratic control their workplace and community. In fact Tolstoy came to this conclusion, that Christian ideology says we should have no bosses, and not dominate or control other people.

> As a Catholic I assure you that you can't reconcile Christianity with left-wing ideology.

Did you mean right-wing ideology? (Calling @tptacek and @patio11 ....)

I suppose there are various right-wing ideologies, and some of them may be compatible with Christianity. I cannot imagine any left-wing ideology (which is at best wrong and at worst downright evil) compatible with Christianity.

Out of curiosity: In general, how would you describe "left-wing ideology" and "Christianity"?

One has to be enforced by government to work at a large scale. The other is formed by everyone willingly participating.

Pretty sure Jesus never said anything about the forced redistribution of wealth against your will being good.

any way you decide to organize a state will have to be enforced by government to work at a large scale. That's what the law is for.

Jesus actually did have a pretty clear statement in favor of taxes, the most common form of forced redistribution of wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar

Rather than of socialism, I’d say FLOSS is a form of (digital) commons, which as GP points out, is a pre-capitalist/non-capitalist form of production and management.

thats a good point, probably people are colloquially using socialism to mean "the opposite of capitalism", but what it really is just one of many alternatives

on that usage then i think the proper wording for "the opposite of capitalism" would be something like non-capitalist (or even anti-capitalist maybe?)

(apologies for the depression)

Socialism can mean a lot of things. But originally it meant the control and management of society by workers, on a democratic basis, including the workplace.

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