Re: [ox-en] Re: List of questions

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:42 AM, Stefan Merten<[email protected]> wrote:

> I really think that if you set this dynamic of automation free in the
> rest of the world you will come to similar results.

Who do you envision owning the Means of Production at that time?

If the owners are not the very same humans that are in need of the
output, then automation will only cause massive and devastating
unemployment.

Automating production within Capitalism is very dangerous because it
concentrates wealth even further into the hands of the current owners
while leaving the bulk of the population without any means of
sustenance.

We each must have enough ownership in the Material Means of Production
required for the production of the outputs we each need, for when that
is the case, automation and unemployment (leisure) are helpful and
good.

But I get the impression there are many here and on the P2P list that
believe part of Capitalism must remain intact - in that it is proposed
or simply assumed that ownership of the MOP must be strictly limited
to those who happen to have the skills needed to operate them (and how
are those skills 'proved', by the way?  How does one get into the
'club' in a worker-owned society?).

If that were the case, then why does RMS always talk about *user*
freedom instead of *developer* freedom?  It is because the profound
dynamic of Free Software occurs when every consumer is able to "go
around" any worker that would otherwise be able to stifle competition
to get paid more than he is worth by disallowing access to the MOP
(source code) so that consumer cannot hire another or even try to
learn how to do it himself.
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