Söderberg - Hacking capitalism: the free and open source software movement

In this chapter the hacker movement is taken as a showcase of the concept of play struggle. Previously in the book it has been argued that play stands on equal terms with work. Both activities are enrolled by capital as sources of surplus value and are therefore contested points of struggle. Needless to say, the conflicts surrounding play activities diverge greatly from the conflicts centred on the workplace. The axis of labour struggle is the wage relation, and clashes erupt on pay levels, working hours, and the like. Play struggle pivots around the same axis, with the difference that its chosen strategy is to withdraw from the wage relation. In collaborative and institutionalised forms of play, such as in FOSS projects, the labour market is no longer the chief principle for organising labour power. Needs are produced and satisfied in ways not directly submitted to the commodity form. The motor of this development is a gut reaction against alienated labour. Karl Marxs critique of alienation is the beginning and end of an understanding of the hacker movement. Of course, with few exceptions, the propagators of play struggle do not frame their activity in such terms. Their engagement is spontaneous and they are largely unaware of the forces that confront them. A major problematic of the chapter is how the hacker movement can constitute itself as a political subject in spite of a general lack of class consciousness. It is proposed that a radicalisation of the hacker movement will be inspired by two factors. Firstly, the play-activity is in itself a source of knowledge. Collective forms of play strengthen solidarity among players and foster viewpoints that are at odds with dominant ideology. Secondly, for the very reason that play is destabilising to the status quo , it becomes a target of repression. At the same time as municipalities and firms are enlisting FOSS developers, a legal and technical infrastructure is advanced by state and capital that threatens to destroy the hacker community. Hackers are forced to mobilise politically in order to defend the foundations of their way of life. It is in these unfamiliar terms that the politics of play struggle is acted out. The principal goals of the hacker movement, free access to information and an open computer architecture, are not primarily desired out of ideological conviction. These aims are prerequisites for the community to continue to flourish. Their approach to politics set play struggles apart from, and, occasionally in conflict with, the priorities of traditional, leftist movements. While an activist might be tempted to describe the bias of hackers as a lack of political awareness, there is also a merit to the hackers brand of politics. Like most New Left movements emerging after 1968, the hacker movement exists to the side of the workplace and debates issues not overtly concerned with work. Unlike most of its political siblings, however, the question about work is at the heart of hacking. It relates to wage labour as a negation. Thus, just like the labour movement before, hackers challenge the forms of creation and production in society. It is for this reason that the hacker movement both actualises Marxism and causes interesting problems to Marxist theory.

A central theme running through Karl Marxs oeuvre is his critique of alienated labour. We will give a thorough account on this matter since it provides a key piece of the puzzle to our further discussion on hackers. Readers that feel they are familiar with Marxs theory of alienation might choose to jump ahead to the next paragraph. It was in his earlier writings that Marx referred directly to the concept of alienation. Most of his thoughts on alienation can be found in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 . Nonetheless, the same concerns and viewpoints informed the economic-political studies that he conducted later in life. The term alienation originates from the history of philosophy. Marx borrowed the idea from Hegel and the young Hegelians, most notable of them Ludwig Feuerbach. The latter used the concept to describe how man weakens himself by projecting his virtues on an imaginary God. The divinity becomes an alien force not recognisable to man as his creation. Marx continued the atheist critique in his own inquiry into alienation. He drew parallels between the religious belief system and the ideological mirror world that bourgeoisie society veils itself in. The touching stone of Marxs alienation theory was the capitalist labour process. Under capitalism the worker is forced to sell herself as a commodity on the labour market. The products that she produces are subsequently claimed by her employer. Only as commodities can the worker take possession again of some of her objectified labour. Just as with God, the worker doesnt recognise the object as her own creation. The object gains an existence independent of its creator. And since the worker depends on the item for satisfying her vital needs, the object becomes an alien power confronting her. Hence, because of the abstraction of commodity exchange, power relations between humans take the appearance of relations between things. The worker, who is alienated from the result of her labour, is by the same token alienated during the labour process. When work is subdued under capitalist relations, the sole purpose of her endeavours is to produce commodities for the market. The imperative of market competition comes to define every moment of her operations. Even if the labourer is more privileged than the coal miners of Marxs days or the maquiladora workers of our time, even if some concessions have been made for her comfort, she is alienated by the very principle for which she is set to work, namely: the expansion of capital. Alienation is present because she does not experience her work as a need in itself, but merely as a means to satisfy needs external to her work. And, Marx inserted, that which applies to a persons relation to her work also applies to her relation to other people. The other human being is not any longer an end, but, just like work, a means for something else. The outcome can be witnessed in the strife and fragmentation of bourgeoisie society. Possessive individualism is the trait of an era dominated by alienated labour, and, subsequently, private property. The ramifications of the injustice of alienation become clear when we consider the role that Marx assigned to work. It is in labour that humans stand apart from other animals. Of interest to our later discussion is that among the short list of criteria that distinguishes humans from animals, Marx added that humans form objects in accordance with the laws of beauty. When those objects are taken away from her, she is not merely robbed in a narrow, economical sense. She is denied her very existence as a human species being.