[-empyre-] OSW: open source writing in the network

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On 12.01.2012 21:58, Rob Myers wrote:
> On 12/01/12 15:04, Dmytri Kleiner wrote:
>>
>> Second, culture work is a form of production, and as such, it must, 
>> at
>> minimum, provide the subsistence of their culture workers. As 
>> capital
>> will not finance open works, how are the creators of such works to
>> sustain themselves?
>
> The same way they do now, largely unsupported by capital.

And what of all the workers who currently are supported by capital? 
Unemployment? Pretty harsh outcome for the vast majority of employed 
cultural workers if capitalism remains, and thus unemployment is a 
gateway to destitution.

Is that what we want? Fewer people to be paid for cultural production?


> So there is no reason why free culture should be
> mostly funded by the culture industry. With large corporate clients,
> I've had more luck with the non-cultural than the cultural ones in
> getting free culture projects completed.

Here comes that scale issue again. Sure some us can do as say, most 
workers can't.

The fact remains that capital is for the most part a consumer of 
software, and a producer of capital. Thus capital will not support free 
culture on the same scale it supports free software.

Depending on the non-cultural capitalist sector to become the primary 
financer of culture implies a massive descaling. This is very different 
from software, where the non-software-licence-selling sector has always 
been the largest user of software and the largest employer of software 
developers.

There are plenty of exceptions, but in most cases, software is an input 
to capital, while culture is an output. The price of inputs reduces the 
profits of Capital, while control of the output generates the profits.

Best,






-- 
Dmytri Kleiner

http://www.trick.ca