"During the Sixties, the New Left created a new form of radical politics:
anarcho-communism. Above all, the Situationists and similar groups
believed that the tribal gift economy proved that individuals could
successfully live together without needing either the state or the market.
>From May 1968 to the late Nineties, this utopian vision of
anarcho-communism has inspired community media and DIY culture activists.
Within the universities, the gift economy already was the primary method
of socialising labour. From its earliest days, the technical structure and
social mores of the Net has ignored intellectual property. Although the
system has expanded far beyond the university, the self-interest of Net
users perpetuates this hi-tech gift economy. As an everyday activity,
users circulate free information as e-mail, on listservs, in newsgroups,
within on-line conferences and through Web sites. As shown by the Apache
and Linux programs, the hi-tech gift economy is even at the forefront of
software development. Contrary to the purist vision of the New Left,
anarcho-communism on the Net can only exist in a compromised form.
Money-commodity and gift relations are not just in conflict with each
other, but also co-exist in symbiosis. The 'New Economy' of cyberspace is
an advanced form of social democracy."
The URL for the article is:
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_12/barbrook/index.html#d1
Enjoy,
Kali Tal