this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Anarchism
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Software is something that can be freely duplicated without cost to its producers, so what applies to it cannot be applied to all capital. Open source is largely developed by a few dedicated contributors or employees of large corporations. Regardless, there needs to be an incentive for people to work on socially valuable projects even in open source rather than on their pet projects.
What could this process look like in a sector such that it wouldn't be basically prices?
It doesn't really matter that software can be freely replicated when talking about means of production that already exist. Withholding them from other people when you are not actually using them with the purpose of extracting some sort of personal benefit is a net negative to society.
Ultimately, money isn't a particularly good motivator (beyond preventing starvation and homelessness) for people to work on valuable projects for society. I think once you realize that and stop thinking about everything in terms of prices, it is easy to see how such a process could look like. But you need to take that first step to get rid of that capitalist brainworm yourself.
More money means you can use more resources in production. The point wasn't just about personal benefit. If people value the good, it would be worthwhile to allocate resources to it. Prices signal that people do.
A good's value is the discounted present value of the future rentals. There is no moral contrast between renting and owning capital
Without prices, how do you decide which project to allocate resources to?
Prices are not capitalism. There have been prices-favoring anti-capitalists