this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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On the other hand, I'd wager that any given person who uses Linux daily at work is far more likely to own a stake in their company than the average worker.
My Linux laptop is also literally my means of production, which I own. Karl Marx never predicted this.
He also didn't predict a class of people born with no labor to sell because so much of it has been automated away. How are they supposed to use their labor as a bargaining chip if they can't find labor to do to begin with?
Actually I think that's kind of exactly what he predicted. Technological determinism would inevitably manifest the violent downfall of capitalism.
Marx wasn't a technological determinist though. He believed that a workers revolution would bring the end of capitalism. He even thought it would happen druing his lifetime.
Marx did talk about individuals owning the means of production. For example farmers or craftsmen owning their tools before capitalism. Marx talked about the means of production being shared under communism and not owned by one specific person or capitalist. If anything Marx predicted FOSS lol.
Except this is really reductionist and ignores there is very little "open hardware" out there, and few people producing it. So while you might have access to the "means of production" through software, you absolutely do not in hardware.
Great that software tools are in the hands of the worker, but the means to fabricate the machines that code runs are definitively not owned by workers. (To say nothing of issues with getting drivers for a DIY motherboard working with Linux long-term.)
Also, not everyone is born to code, so it's a bit elitist.
You can use FOSS without knowing how to code though. I wasn't completely serious I know Marx didn't predict FOSS but I do think it's an example of how the means of production being shared could look like. It would be great if that also included open hardware as well.
Edit: I realize it means the workers doesn't actually own the means of production but it's a step in that direction and I don't think it contradicts what Marx said is my point.