I respectfully disagree in part with the unqualified conclusion that anarchism would produce better functional goods—across the board—than capitalist produced proprietary goods supported by intellectual property rights.

Both the conclusion that anarchism produces better functional goods and the conclusion that anarchism produces a better distribution system for non-functional goods seem to rely on the premise that people will share without monetary rewards for such sharing and in the context of functional goods this sharing and contribution to the function of the product results in a better product. Because I am not convinced that people will share without monetary incentive with respect to all types of functional goods, however, I also must respectfully disagree with the conclusion that human motivation to share is irrelevant to the analysis.

Let me first start with the part with which I agree (or at least do not disagree for purposes of this post). Contrary to my belief a couple of months ago, through the assigned readings and class discussion I may be able to accept that anarchism may produce better functional goods in some subject areas—essentially areas that people enjoy working on and receive intrinsic rewards from doing so. For example, while I have no experience with Linux I can readily accept that Linux is a better operating system than Windows. I was persuaded by the logic that thousands of contributors to an open source code product are necessarily going to produce a better product than a limited number of contributors for a closed proprietary software product.

Software, however, is a form of expression and many people apparently take satisfaction from developing and improving upon such—they simply enjoy working on software. Therefore, the motivation to share is relevant to the analysis because with regard to software sharing is driven at least in part by self fulfillment and intrinsic non-monetary regards—making monetary rewards unnecessary to produce the sharing and in turn better product.

As a footnote, I also think that it is worth observing that in an anarchist system the motivation to share, even with respect to software, may decline. It seems that a large part of the intrinsic motivation to share software comes as a form of rebellion—the desire to figuratively poke Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the eye with a sharp stick. If there was no proprietary software and nothing to compete with I believe that the sharing and development of free software may decrease.

Regardless, in areas other than software there is likely less intrinsic motivation to share—leaving monetary gain as the primary motivating factor and absent monetary incentive, innovation would probably decrease.

-- BrettJohnson - 24 Oct 2009