Open source embodies an ethos as fruitful and resilient as the closed capitalism Bill Gates represents: the spirit of democratic solutions to daunting problems. It’s the creed of Emerson, who preached independent initiative and advocated a “creative economy.” It’s the philosophy of William James, whose pragmatism dictated that “ideals ought to aim at the transformation of reality.” It’s the science of Frederick Taylor, who proved that distributing work could exponentially boost productivity and replace “suspicious watchfulness” with “mutual confidence.” It’s the logic of Adam Smith, whose notion of “enlightened self-interest” among workers neatly presages the primary motivation for many open source collaborators. (Goetz 2003)
Open source represents a new kind of capitalism, characterized as open (as opposed to “the closed capitalism Bill Gates represents”), democratic, conducive to individual independence and creativity, pragmatic, decentralized, collaborative, and distributive. The brilliance of open source, according to this narrative, lies neither in just being “for the people” nor in just being a new and powerful source of wealth creation for corporations; rather, its revolutionary potential lies precisely in being both—in bridging and even transcending contradictory interests. That is set in contrast to the old capitalism, which responded only to its systemic demands and neglected to respond to the lifeworld demands of freedom and creativity.
The digital discourse sees open source not as “anticommercial or anticorporate” (Goetz 2003), as some commentators suggest, but rather as a new and improved form of capitalism that is more democratic and emancipatory. As the next passage (which could easily pass as a quote from The Communist Manifesto) exclaims, open source offers a superior capitalist tool and also holds the promise of workers’ emancipation, a truly universal instrument benefiting both capitalists and workers: “While the assembly line accelerated the pace of production, it also embedded workers more deeply into the corporate manufacturing machine. Indeed, that was the big innovation of the 20th-century factory: The machines, rather than the workers, drove production. With open source, the people are back in charge. Through distributed collaboration, a multitude of workers can tackle a problem, all at once. The speed is even greater—but so is the freedom. It’s a cottage industry on Internet time” (Goetz 2003).
Network Production
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