In part what you say is true - The constructive difference between Conservatism and raw Libertarianism comes to mind - I cannot subscribe completely to the anarchical end that my programmer friends preach with a fervor close in kind to the acolyte... But I agree with them in large part, with something akin to the recognition of a needful civil-libertarianism in a Conservative conscience.
Careful here, because where the Open Source programmers want to take it is quite comparable to American Republicanism v. Monarchy or Tyranny. To the degree that power can be distributed, it should be distributed... To the degree that power can remain in local control, it should be in local control. To the degree that routing can remain anonymous and ubiquitous, so it should remain... Therein freedom is always preserved. One can argue that a benevolent monarch is more efficient (which is true), and that the preservation of freedom is necessarily disorderly (a messy business to be sure), but one is never guaranteed a benevolent monarch (history attests the opposite), and the end result - freedom - is a pearl of inestimable price, and is the thing to be preserved.
While Open Source geeks tend to be big L Libertarian, with a huge socialist bend socially (don't blame them, they have always been socially awkward : D ), when it comes to what they DO and understand, their thinking runs strongly toward rugged individualism and the precepts of liberty (a dichotomy which is an amazement to me).
Now that is something I heartily agree with. It’s just that I know to many liberal open source programmers who do nothing but calculate how to work for maximum money while constantly declaring they reject capitalism because they work for nonprofits and reject IP rights. Mind you these are people who earn their keep by selling their ability to think logically. It’s maddening to listen to their hypocrisy.
Especially since I’m not 20 anymore - and neither are they.
Thanks for you very cogent reply.
Humans to date have always existed in conditions of scarcity for most goods. Notably power and “stuff.” Power has always, and largely still is, a zero sum game. If you have more, by definition I have less.
“Stuff,” for most of history was the same way. The “normal” way to get rich in the ancient and medieval world was to rise to political power, invade the neighboring land, take their stuff and sell the inhabitants into slavery. That was of course what Alexander the Great and J. Caesar did.
When an economy has very low margins, the only way for a landlord to get more stuff is to grind the mouths of the poor tenants on his land.
What the free market has demonstrated over the last few centuries is that as the margins increase, this changes. I don’t have to push others down in order to climb up myself.
At some point, stuff becomes free. As, largely, entertainment and information have.
What else will become free, or close enough to not make a difference?