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Re: [ox] Die Anwendbarkeit der Werttheorie in der Informatik




Hi, Graham!

On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, graham belegost.mit.edu wrote:

And why concretely does " gehen tendenziell alle proprietären Produzenten
pleite" follow from this drop in value? The company I work for
uses almost entirely gpl software; this reduces their costs,
gives a competitive advantage, and so INCREASES profits.

This is only a temporary effect. As soon as other companies start to discover 
Free software, they might become serious competitors. So the temporarily 
increased profits will drop back to normal and result in a cheaper product. 
However, companies who still have not switched to Free software will not be 
able to compete anymore. So they go bankrupt.

Agreed.
 
Now imagine a world in which any product design is copylefted. This would 
mean the maximum of imaginable competition. So the profits of each company 
would be minimalistic. "This does not mean a breakdown of capitalism, but it 
would at least make it much more value-exempt."(St.Mz.)

This is the part I don't understand. It would mean the removal of the
part of profit generated by monopolistic  control of designs (eg Intel
would not have had their huge profits, because an AMD would have been
possible immediately). In a marxist scheme, assuming that design work
IS productive labour, it would mean the removal of the part of surplus
value involved in the design. So, a decrease in profits for 
specific firms (like Intel), an increase for some (like mine), and
an overall decrease for capital as a whole. But why 'minimalistic'?  
Any increase in productivity decreases the value of individual goods;
becoming increasingly value-exempt is the normal tendency of capitalism.
But it is a tendency which affects invidual goods, not necessarily
the rate of profit, nor a company which can compensate for lack of
value of individual goods by increased value of their total mass (ie producing
larger quantities) (eg. mobile phones).
 
I personally like the idea of a value-exempt capitalism, because that would 
mean that democratic entities could take over the whole material production 
for a small amount of money and reorganize it the way the people wants it to 
be.

That assumes  that not only the individual chip loses value
( and also loses value in relation to the value of our wages), 
but that so does the chip factory, not only the car, but the car 
factory. Or not? 

{I know my argument is confused, but so am I! I am not trying to
argue a fixed position, but sort out my own ideas]

Graham


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