Ray Saintonge wrote:
luke brandt wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
The first clause in the quotation is remarkable for its ambiguity. My first inclination was to read this as indicating that property is essential to the definition of culture, or that a society that does not believe in capital does not have a culture. A more acceptable interpretation is that a culture does not exclude the existence of property. In other words
A free culture is not a culture - without property
A free culture is not - a culture without property
Having artists be paid is acceptable in both circumstances. In accounting terms, property is an asset on the balance sheet; getting paid belongs in the revenue portion of the financial statements.
Hi, and thanks for your thoughts. In clarifying the quote how do you think you should take into account the second sentence - seemingly the counterpoint and twin of the first in the quotation, which is in essence: "A culture without property ... is anarchy, not freedom." - luke
One really needs to look at that second sentence in its entirety: "A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid is anarchy, not freedom. ..."
Does payment imply property? Is that second premise an explanation or an alternative. If I really wanted to emphasize grammatically fine points I would suggest that in order to be an explanation a comma would be required after "paid". I hesitate to cast this into the areana of capitalist (property) versus Marxist (payment) dialectic. There is a certain idealist thread in Marxism that forsees an anarchic workers' paradise; some doctrinnaire views of libertarianism might get us there too. That aside, I can see neither the capitalists nor the Marxists promoting anarchy. Wikinomics is in its infancy, and in that context it is perfectly understandable that Lessig would use the jargon of the society around him.
There are a lot of grammatically negative words in the Lessig quote, and I wonder if he would have done better to express things in more positive terms. Even "free" has a basis in an absence.
One of the consequences of living in a paradigm shift is the destruction of presumptions. That curse of interesting times escapes its box, and makes itself felt where it was not expected.
The fact is that there are a lot of people providing a lot of intellectual effort for nothing other than the personal satisfaction of doing a good job. They need to put food on the table as much as anybody else. There is a profound disconnect between work and compensation for that work. The marketting and manufacturing structures that supported the enterprises that have heretofore been highly profitable are no longer needed, casting aside an army of Willy Lomans.
Most of us who have an interest in Wikipedia and this mailing list also have an interest in free access to knowledge. We are highly critical of the notion of intellectual property, particularly copyright. Property, as we traditionally define, it generates revenue solely on the basis of its own existence. Is that the kind of property that Lessig considers to be the antidote to anarchy. In summary I agree with him in relation to creators being paid, but have serious reservations in relation to property.
Ec
Once again, thanks. For myself, I don't see the absence of that comma being significant except stylistically. Lessig seems to have quite deliberately positioned himself four-square in the 'Adam Smith camp' if it may so be described. Doing so entails consequences for the particular 'freedom' paradigm that the movement espouses, doesn't it? - eg perhaps our attitude on NC ... that's just one small reason why Lessig's axioms need examining carefully, in my thinking on this, just as you did :) Maybe there are other views. Take care - luke