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Comment by mattl | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see free software as anti-capitalist. When the FSF got started they sold tapes of free software, prior to that Stallman did that himself to make money. The FSF kept doing it until it was impractical but a good way for companies to make a donation and receive something practical in return. The tapes also came with printed manuals and tshirts.

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I hate the old timers who always cite GNU's cover-my-costs tape distribution, as if subsistence manifests a profit motive. The FSF hawks merch, yes, but it was never about making money so much as spreading a wrong-headed gospel.

In Stallman’s case it was “send a tape and $250” in 1983.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it isn't anti-capitalist. Free software is perfectly compatible with a free market but the ethos of free software is pretty anti capitalist.

Tangent time. I genuinely don't understand what people generally mean when they use the phrase "anti-capitalist". I doubt most are Tankies or full-on Utopian Anarchists. I suspect a fair few mean "I want a mixed economy that's (a lot) fairer than the one we've got now" (which is probably my position).

But outside of these three positions - what do people mean?

They're opposed to capitalism on some level. Though it's probably true that some are just social democrats that want heavy regulation of capitalism.

Another possible alternative is being a market socialist (wanting an economy that's basically all worker owned co-ops).

> Another possible alternative is being a market socialist

OK. I hadn't considered that option. I guess I'm interested to understand the middle ground between "centralized state ownership" and "no state but somehow it doesn't turn into hellscape of warlords and bandits".

Does this model generally allow private property but exclude "the means of production" etc?

Socialists usually try to distinguish between "personal property" (things for your own household/lifestyle) and "private property" (the means of production, or sometimes extravagant wealth in general).

In this case, it seems to refer to the concentration of capital in the hands of a few. Proprietary software is much less accessible outside of its allowed uses and especially outside of the hands of the people who have its source code. This allows its owners to keep most of the benefits for themselves.

There's definitely a Marxist flavor to this meaning, though I don't think you have to be a tankie to use it that way.

I also think it's possible to be a Marxist without being a Tankie - I'm just not clear on the specific forms that would take.

Not quite Marxist but sort of neo-Proudhon.

What makes anything intellectual property really?

(Unless it's literally personal property, such as a diary contents.) Renumeration is one thing, property another.

And most post-Marxist arguments or visions have a Marxist flavor. Which is quite expected, he was very hindsightful, and correct criticism of Marx require reading and understanding his point of view.

In the strict definition, capitalism refers to a system that is predominantly driven by ownership of private property. Wikipedia and basically every dictionary should echo this definition.

Now the other types of property are:

- Personal property: The definitions differ somewhat. In capitalist legal systems it refers to moveable or non-real property as it is more or less subsumed by private property but in general political/economic theory it refers to your personal things not used for industry. Things like your toiletries and the things the average person keeps in their house. i.e. consumer products and the like. To a lesser extent things like cars or houses. But notably not things like equipment for machining, farming, metalworking, etc.

- Public property: Things owned communally or by the government with explicit dedication to use by the public.

- Common property or collective property: Things owned by the collective that uses them. i.e. The factory and the machines being collectively owned by the workers who work the factory.

And out of the different types of properties the question is who holds which rights. The three types of rights are usus (use), fructus (derive profit/production), and abusus (to abuse, take away, damage, or destroy). In personal and private property the owner holds all three rights and the ability to provide those rights to others (however for personal property the fructus rights are pretty limited given the nature of the items). In the other types of property generally abusus rights are held either by the state or only granted by collective decision making. And some may also limit fructus rights as well.

Types of property that permit usus and fructus are called usufructs. These are things that exist publicly or collectively that you may freely use and derive profit from as long as you don't abuse them and if you damage them you repair/replace them.

So anti-capitalists dislike private property as the dominant form of ownership and instead want to place limits on how much private property any one source of capital (i.e. a capitalist) can hold.

On the less extreme end this means strong anti-trust protections and enforcing worker ownership (often via a union and voting stocks) for orgs larger than a certain size.

On the more extreme end is eliminating private property all together and requiring that any equipment that is solely intended for it's fructus rights to be considered public, common, or collective property.

And you'll note here that the market isn't mentioned at all. Many types of anti-capitalist systems are pro-regulated market or even in many cases pro-free-market.

Also just a side note but at least when discussing leftist ideas, utopian actually refers to a specific type of pre-marx socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism

Thank you. That's a stellar reply.

Stallman and friends were always very clear that they love money. Even back in the 90's he was saying that selling Free software and making lots of money is one of the most ethical things you could do. That doesn't mean anyone actually could. I think you're all using the wrong mental framework to think about these things. Just because the Free software movement has used similar strategies to another famous group of historical people, doesn't mean they're the same group of people. Anti-capitalists love the Free software movement, because they can see what they're actually doing with their actions, and that it speaks to some kind of deeper value. I like to call that "moving leverage to the edge". If you do things like empower everyday people with access to knowledge and privileges they wouldn't have had otherwise, then they'll like you. It matters not what ideology you profess to have. People are simply attracted to alpha, and open source has always had lots of it.

> Stallman and friends were always very clear that they love money. Even back in the 90's he was saying that selling Free software and making lots of money is one of the most ethical things you could do.

I mean I'm a socialist and I agree. If you have the ability to sell your software you 100% should and you should reap the rewards for the labor you put in. Point being that just because someone is pro-market doesn't mean they aren't also anti-capitalist.

Selling things isn't capitalism.

Capitalism would mean investors putting in money early and getting an ownership stake and payouts later.

Not arguing on whether free software is or not anti-capitalist, but want to point out that the act of monetizing goods and services isn't incompatible with anti-capitalism.

I'd say it depends upon how you define "capitalism" because most advocates of "capitalism" define it as an economy of free and voluntary exchanges while most of its detractors define it as an economy of giant corporations that oppress their workers and buy politicians to protect themselves from competition. The staunchest advocates of "capitalism" and its staunchest critics ironically tend to share the same hatred of corporate welfare and monopoly. Both are usually all for the little guy selling goods and services.

Just like with "socialism", most discussions about "capitalism" are actually people with different definitions talking past each other. I'd say the important issue in economics is monopoly vs anti-monopoly not "capitalism" vs "socialism" and free software is definitely on the side of anti-monopoly.

Capitalism is a production system where ressources allocation is decided by capital owners. It doesn't really oppose socialism (after all, if we're all capital owners we can all decide what to produce collectively!) , it's more opposed to dirigism (it has another name but I cannot remember). Successful example of dirigism are stuff like Apollo, Airbus or the Messmer Plan, often requires high centralization, which makes it highly undesirable to people (like me).

Anyway, mixed economy all the way imho. Capitalism for small stuff, dirigism in natural monopolies.

I hate people who orthogonalize monetization and open-source. Getting customers to cough up cash has always about knowing something they don't, a leverage you give up by releasing source code.

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