silent snowy woods | the soft side of a dark heart

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Posts tagged capitalism

Jun 28

Libertarianism - The Liberty Scam?

http://www.slate.com/id/2297019

Even though Metcalf repeatedly plays on the apparent failures of Libertarianism as a whole, it slowly starts to become clear that the main flaw, and indeed the harm that has followed the movement in the 1980s bears root exclusively in the laissez-faire, unregulated, purely capitalist economic ideal of the Libertarian Right.

Metcalf’s abuse of the notion of Liberty notwithstanding, his rather intense breakdown of the issues which follow the title of “Libertarian” is, in fact, a rather apt analysis of the nature of capitalism. With his keen mind he carves out of the economic policies of the US in the years after the World War, and during the Cold War period, the fact that capitalism allows that self-serving beast mentality of some to flourish. Leave capitalism untouched, unregulated, uncontrolled, and that process will, unquestionably, be abused.

There are many arguments for capitalism, and proponents of it will definitely unroll their long rolls of parchment filled with ways in which capitalism has, directly or less so, made improvements to the human condition. Without capitalism, they say, industry would have stagnated, innovation would have been limited, and rendered inaccessible to the bulk of society. Yet their very arguments reveal the way capitalism best benefits humanity - as a means. This is in very stark contrast to the world that the right-wingers, or conservatives, or capitalists place their hopes in; a world where, through the free market, everyone gets an equal opportunity and their place in society which they belong in, allocated almost divinely through the “Invisible hand of the market”. No, capitalism has been around, and even in its current, impaired state it has allowed and encouraged such injustice, that unlike these right-wing hopefuls, I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt to the capitalist ideal. Can you?

I suppose the scorn of being snubbed out of the conversation by someone who claims to be above political discourse can bear some pretty succulent fruit.

Jun 7

Odd

It certainly unsettles me that the unsportsmanlike nature of the IT industry remains so well hidden. It is to my understanding that creativity and creation there is so unrewarding, it seems almost undue.

In fact, I have heard too many stories about the forefront of cutting-edge technological development outside the high-capital or material-based areas, especially in enthusiast-accessible-areas like software, which begin with a dream, an idea, a novel solution to existing problems that could bridge technological gaps, or could enhance the user experience. These, more often than not, come from some excited enthusiasts in the Open Community, whom would work, after their long unpassionate day jobs, night after night to pull out a working version of that thing. Sometimes they group together, and work on separate areas of that idea, occasionally moulding it into something a little different, perhaps well-accepted throughout the group, or perhaps as a compromise.

Finally, what was an idea is then born, and a buggy, odd, yet working copy of the product is created. Without capital, however, the project never reaches the mass market, never gets slaps of colours and sliding animations, and remains in such a manner until some tech business (usually heading towards bankruptcy) comes along, either pays the original developer a meagre sum of money, or just takes the product through some Free Software License, and turns it into some exceedingly cool feature of a device with many other such “exceedingly cool features” through multi-million dollar marketing schemes, ultimately raking in heaps of profit which is then used to take other such ideas to reap in more and more billions.

Granted, I am most definitely not the best person to speak about the IT industry. And perhaps I’m spending too much time around politics these days to analyse the movement of human technology well, but it really is just a little unsporting, isn’t it?