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When Libertarians Attack Free Software
binarybits writes 'I've got a new article analyzing the unfortunate tendency of libertarian and free-market organizations to attack free software. The latest example is a policy analyst at the Heartland Institute who attacks network neutrality regulations by arguing that advocates have 'unwittingly bought into' the 'radical agenda' of the free software movement. I argue that in reality, the free market and free software are entirely compatible, and libertarians are shooting themselves in the foot by antagonizing the free software movement.'
Where did you get the idea that these guys are libertatians?
From their about page:
Heartland has been endorsed by some of the country's leading scholars, public policy experts, and elected officials. Dr. Milton Friedman calls Heartland "a highly effective libertarian institute."
Basically they don't want to label themselves as Libertarian because that would foolishly scare away potential non-Libertarians from reading their work. Instead they rely on their publications to speak for their views instead of a label with baggage. If you're an economist, however, you recognize them for what they are: predominantly libertarian with hints of conservatism. Popular knowledge agrees.
My work here is dung.
A better op-ed on this very subject was published by libertarian think thank The Cato Institute over two years ago: http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/070622-tk.html
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Adam Smith was a proponent of a regulated free market, precisely the opposite of what you stated.
Before I can take your question seriously you have to define "Libertarian political structure".
How about, how could a limited government with the help of academia and/or independant business interests create a network? For example, take 18th century new england turnpike construction or 19th century railroad networks and accompanying telegraph networks. I choose such an early example because you have to go that far back to find a small government.
Regarding the walled-garden, it's inevitable since the worth of the network is proportional to the number of people on it. Unless there's a monopoly force at work, at some stage all networks must to interconnect.
I don't see why libertarians object to this?
Most don't. The ones who do are either confused by the occasional Marxist-sounding rhetoric used by some free software advocates, or are actually corporate shills pretending to be libertarians. The Cato Institute has some excellent papers on the topic: they support free software in general, and oppose software patents and the DMCA because they stifle innovation and competition.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
True libertarians do not believe in Adam Smith's philosophy. At most it's a baby step in the right direction.
We follow the philosophy of people like von Mises or Murray Rothbard: every individual has a right to his life, liberty, and everything derived from it (e.g. his income and property) and as long as he does not interfere with the rights of others, he should be free to act in his own self interest.
The modern corporate state is anathema to this view. We are Jeffersonians, and the ruling elite (of both major parties--which most libertarians don't consider to be any different) are Hamiltonians. We have these mega-corps, because the politicians and bureaucrats are in the pockets of big business, and no matter how campaign financing gets reformed, they always will be, as long as they have the power to write and enforce laws. The regulations in place to "protect the consumers" are designed by the big companies to eliminate the competition. Why does Wal-Mart want to increase minimum wage? Because they believe in a glorious society where everyone is wealthy? Or because they can afford it, while the mom-n-pops that they haven't yet killed off, who are barely scraping by, can't afford it?
Big, bloated, inefficient government leads to big, bloated, inefficient corps, with no real innovation or market competition.
I don't know a single true libertarian who has any issue with open source; ESR is well known as a libertarian. Many of us do have issues with RMS and his line of thinking. In addition to being an admitted socialist, he has implied, if not outright stated, that he would like to use force to make all software free as in speech. Libertarianism says that the owners of software should decide how to release it, and the market (i.e. we, the customers) should decide with our dollars whether to support them or not.
Libertarians oppose "net neutrality" because there's nothing neutral about it. It's some group forcing what it thinks is right onto others. If Commcast wants to start charging you more every time you request a page from Google, let them. Do you think people will be more loyal to Commcast and stop using Google, or more loyal to Google and ditch Commcast? If you live someplace where you're stuck with a single cable company or phone company due to a government granted monopoly (more regulation screwing the customers for the benefit of a corp) or a very rural residence, then you might get screwed. But as technology advances (and regulations disappear), we'll have dozens of choices for net access, and the marketplace will act to reduce prices, as it does in all other fields.
The other, and more insidious, downside to "net neutrality" is where it will lead. Governments never shrink willingly, they only grow. The income tax, which was never supposed to exceed 1% or affect anyone other than a few hundred super-rich, now takes a third of the average American's earnings. Interstate commerce, which at one point meant goods shipped across state lines for sale in another state, now includes customers at a restaurant (they could be from out of state, after all), ducks (the do migrate across state lines), and even marijuana grown in California and sold in California to residents of California (the sale of local grown goods reduces the need for imports, affecting interstate commerce). Does anyone honestly expect the Feds not to follow up net neutrality with a powergrab for more? Federal online sales tax anyone? Federal licensing for "broadcasting" a website or blog? Federal control of what you can say on a blog about politics? Federal regulations on encryption, requiring a backdoor, so they can monitor everything? And how about, complete government control over the entire internet? It is an "essential service" like roads, or health care, much too important to be left to the whim of the free market. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?
Most so called libertarian think tanks, like Cato, have been corrupted by the corporatists (i.e. Republi-crats) and shill for big business. Even the Libertarian Party (capital-L is the party, lowercase-l is the philosophy) has started to turn into a beltway insider group.
In a free market you'd simply have a cartel freeze out the new would-be competitors through anti-competitive actions, including pressuring common suppliers to not sell to the competitor. That's why we have regulation. It corrects problems in the market.
If you want to know what an unregulated free market looks like, you just have to look at the 19th century America, or modern China. (Spoiler Alert! It sucks for everyone except for the hyperwealthy.)
Net neutrality is needed because Comcast/Verizon/et al operate monopolies, and take away choice.
The solution is to remove the perversion of the market - revoke the exclusive licenses that state/local governments granted to Comcast/Verizon/et al. Restore the free/liberated market so people have power to choose.
BTW, per usual, the Slashdot summary is poor. If you read the frakking article it says clear as day,
The free software movement is textbook example of the libertarian thesis: its a private, voluntary community producing public goods without a dime of taxpayer support. Some leaders of the free software movement dont realize theyre walking libertarian case studies, and some have an unfortunate tendency to employ left-wing rhetoric to describe what theyre doing. But if you look at the substance of their views, and even more if you look at their actions, its hard to find anything for libertarians to object to. ..... The libertarian quarrel with socialism isnt with their egalitarianism, but with their willingness to impose that egalitarianism by force of law. Libertarians argue that free markets and robust civil society are good for the poor precisely because they are bottom-up, participatory structures that give every individual the opportunity to make the most of their own lives.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall