Re: [Marxism] trouble with Thunderbird

[Michael Sims <mjsbpmagen-mxmail@xxxxxxxx>]

Carrol Cox wrote:
 We will just lie down and die in our socialist
> purity.

We are not talking about any puritan excess. We are not talking about
people having to go without or being out of pocket.

Unix/Linux is one of the most reliable and well tried systems available.

It is FREE.

It is an example of a non-profit product being better than a product
 which is produced by capitalists.

> Nothing, nothing, makes me angrier than this kind of fucking
> individualist anti-communist bullshit.

Individualist ? Linux is a COMMUNITY product. It's real and it exists.
(get your dialectical choppers around that!)

> We are building a political movement, not a fucking isolated
> cooperative.

WE are indeed - and it doesn't help socialist movement when comrades
come out with "individualist anti-communist bullshit" as you have - all
you are arguing for is your liberal bourgoise freedom to BUY what you want
 - without any thoughts in the direction of solidarity.

BTW - cooperatives are enterprises where the individuals which make it
up are part owners. Linux does not belong to individuals.

> About 10 years ago Cockburn in Counterpunch wrote a clever article on
> which oil company one should buy one's gas from on one's summer
> vacation. They were all equally poisonous, so the only basis for making
> the selection was personal convenience. The same goes for all other
> commodities  unless there is an organized boycott going on.

That has nothing to do with Linux, GNU, opensoftwae etc.

They attack the ideas of private property by using intellectual
property rights to protect products AGAINST private ownership.

This is revolutionary action - just as valid in its way as forming
workers' comittees at the place of work.

I would say that the Linux is a something socialist, without it falling
into the class, whether as a misnomer or not, of state-capitalism.

It is the result of a process which proves the point that capitalism has
ceased to serve a useful purpose in society.

The history of software development is essentially non-capitalist.

Understanding the origins of Unix, the spread of Linux and other
opensoftware is important to planning a marxist ecomomy of the 21stC.

Or do you really believe that in a socialist society there would be no
place for such a process of production?

If so, you are still thinking in the material parameters of the 1930's.

But please don't let my remarks distract you from working on your 1930's
production line.

Michael

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