Greetings Economists, On Mar 11, 2006, at 6:41 PM, Sandwichman wrote:
Under capitalism a large proportion of such investment is made with an expectation of a return on investment. Therefore the technology must incorporate some way to restrict access to itself. The restriction is not a generic feature of the technology, it is a feature specific to the historical social relations. Suppose there is an entire continent of technology that cannot be fenced in? Let's call it a "feral technology". It follows that such a feral technology poses a threat to the revenue stream of the technology that can be readily restricted. What do you suppose is going to happen institutionally?
Doyle, Sounds like a description of the conflict between IBM and Microsoft. IBM leverages Open Source semi-communal work to put pressure on Microsoft's monopoly. I suppose a feral continent or more likely a feral set of nations could take up this challenge as well. They would have to have a clearer view of what knowledge is than your anecdote reveals. What is the point of information exchange? To me a feral continent is the network properties of knowledge production. There is value creation of a type that can't be done under the gatekeeper paradigm. In a general sense the gatekeeper has a serious problem with respect to infinite regress. At the core of the gatekeeper is an impossible work process. That's the infinity. Any part of the nodes of network that comes up with an infinity would be a failure point. The network can repair itself by excluding the node but that would require that the network properties of knowledge production be attended to. thanks, Doyle
