Given those two conditions, restoring the prestige of intellectual endeavor seems as vain a project as restoring the privileges of the old craft guilds. All that is solid melts into air. After the era of cheap things comes the era of cheap information.
That seems to me to shift attention to securing the conditions of life directly rather than indirectly as a reward for labor. Any particular labor for any particular firm or industry is always vulnerable, not least to competition now from the developing world. So why not struggle instead for securing life? We will consent to labor if we have to, or if we feel like it, but demand the right to live, to love, to create, to play, to struggle—to make the best of everyday life. We demand a living wage for all. We demand free education for all. We demand free heath care for all. We demand universal access to the infrastructure of life in all its forms. The rest we will makefor ourselves.
Notes
Considerations on a Hacker Manifesto
75