> But we can break this pattern; we can find our own answers to those questions, and if it’s up to us, the answer does not need to be that answer we’ve been taught, capital.
Can we, without changing the environment we are embedded in, without changing capitalism?
Under capitalism, all economic activity is increasingly subsumed by quest for increasing capital -- and under neo-liberal capitalism, all activity is increasingly economic activity, to better serve the quest for increasing capital (to open up more places for investing capital).
I think we can and should resist it, that's fine. I think it's good to recognize and point out what we're losing, and to urge resistance, as OP does, I'm not critisizing OP at all.
It's just to have any chance of success, we probably have to talk about the system we are embedded within and how to change that too, not just limit ourselves to software production as an imaginary closed system.
A different tack: I suppose for software production to escape becoming nothing more than capital intended to benefit people who own capital while reproducing capital -- software production would have to try not to be an economic activity, since all economic activity in our system ends up the former. Software production that was not economic activity was the original fantasy of many involved in original open source software production, I think literally exactly that. That... is now how it's gone. Why not? Would be a starting point for extending the locus of focus from software production on it's own to the social-political-cultural system of capitalism it is embedded in.
Can we, without changing the environment we are embedded in, without changing capitalism?
Under capitalism, all economic activity is increasingly subsumed by quest for increasing capital -- and under neo-liberal capitalism, all activity is increasingly economic activity, to better serve the quest for increasing capital (to open up more places for investing capital).
I think we can and should resist it, that's fine. I think it's good to recognize and point out what we're losing, and to urge resistance, as OP does, I'm not critisizing OP at all.
It's just to have any chance of success, we probably have to talk about the system we are embedded within and how to change that too, not just limit ourselves to software production as an imaginary closed system.
A different tack: I suppose for software production to escape becoming nothing more than capital intended to benefit people who own capital while reproducing capital -- software production would have to try not to be an economic activity, since all economic activity in our system ends up the former. Software production that was not economic activity was the original fantasy of many involved in original open source software production, I think literally exactly that. That... is now how it's gone. Why not? Would be a starting point for extending the locus of focus from software production on it's own to the social-political-cultural system of capitalism it is embedded in.