I normally wouldn't post so much as a link to a Wired.com article, but since it was posted on /., figured it would be worth posting the news item, as /. typically has some intelligent commentary.

from the wired article in question:

"Most people in the West, including myself, were indoctrinated with the notion that extending the power of individuals necessarily diminishes the power of the state, and vice versa. In practice, though, most polities socialize some resources and individualize others.

Most free-market economies have socialized education, and even extremely socialized societies allow some private property.

Rather than viewing technological socialism as one side of a zero-sum trade-off between free-market individualism and centralized authority, it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once.

The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together.

Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates."

Nevermind the concept of the third-way popping up yet again, thus rendering the old debates still entirely relevant.

Thankfully, one of the comments on the article over @ slashdot (properly titled "The Invisible Gun", sans spell-check) has managed to get enough upvotes to be read:

from user: thtrgremlin's comment

Middle ground? There is no middle ground.

What DOES exist is different questions, but not middle ground. If one tends towards a better society, than a mix of both is certain to be a failure.

The problem I see is that people (of certain political tendencies) give government certain god-like qualities, most common believing government has perfect knowledge, or that anything the government does is "free".

Government is simply a business that "we" have authorized a virtually unlimited use of force.

Beyond that they have no special super powers.

Government can help organize a military to protect against foreign invaders, police that can neutrally handle disputes over violations of social contract, courts to handle issues of contract law and establish statutes regarding the interpretation of contract language to help encourage mutually beneficial voluntary exchange of goods and service.

To say "we need the government to blah blah blah..." is to say that violence is a necessary means to an end. To paraphrase Jonathan Gullible, the penalty for all crimes against government is death / loss of life.

This is the difference between taxes and charitable donation or voluntary exchange; people will be most compelled to be charitable with a gun to their head, how could we ever expect to get so much from people on a voluntary basis?

If it is a one time thing, I would be inclined to agree, but can you really argue maximum net production through such means?

This implies that a robber could keep robbing the same home repeatedly and that their gain will be proportional to the number of times they rob the house.

Does knowing which houses are the richest change much?

The "problem" with the government trying to regulate the Internet is where do you point the gun, the governments only tool?

The government does not do work, it only consumes, with the intent and strength to intimidate by threat do do what it desires... but it is ok because it is the will of (51% of) the people, right?

Mind you, not everything he says is on spot, but one must cheer when & where one can as much as possible these days.

On an ending note, I would like to point to the following links for better coverage on what actually is communism, & how it can be viewed that communism & anarchism are by no means, the same thing, despite the quizzical tolerance of communists by some anarchist communities, like say, the anarchist sub-reddit.

Additionally, some links provide arguments that quite the contrary, the Internet is far anarchistic than communist, & even if what one would dub the "first" Internet were to be regulated into a pathetic, hyper-television existence, the very idea & concept of the social enviornment such as the Internet, & it's use as alternative & stateless-society friendly infrastructure, will most assuredly press on, in some form or another, in the grey & black markets.

Paternalistic political parasites be damned, I say.

"Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright" by Eben Moglen

"The Future of Copyright" by Rasmus Fleischer

"Anarchy & The Internet"

"What Is Communism?" by Paul Bowman

"Why Communism Failed" by Bettina Bien Greaves

"Communism, Copyright, & The Internet" by Campbell Vertesi

Labels: commentary, statism