On Sat, 2008-02-09 at 22:48 +0100, Matthias-Christian Ott wrote:
You're passing a judgement on the quality of the culture based on the mode of production. That's what I meant by 'elitist'.
I don't see why this is elitist. But essentially my critique is a critique of the mode of production.
It's elitist because you're saying art produced and not given away is worth less than art given away.
That's the fundamental economic difference between this idea and free software: free software essentially precludes a single business model from several. This gift system effectively precludes all business models. That's unjustifiable.
Well, that's your opinion. If you do everything just because of money and to get rich, we have different world views. I didn't say that gift economies work as well as scarcity economies in terms of making money. I just said it's possible with a little help from the solidarity of the people. You wont become a millionaire by accepting donations, but I could do concerts etc.
We're not arguing over whether or not it's "possible", of course gift economies are possible - they exist.
And your statement that you won't become a millionaire is also patently false. RMS' example of Radiohead - who hadn't made a penny from digital art before they effectively gave away "In Rainbows" - made millions of dollars.
The high-profile artists will make large amounts of money in virtually every type of economy other than a communist/planned economy. If your goal is to prevent people from getting rich, a gift economy isn't what you want.
Cheers,
Alex.