About ten years ago, I obtained and installed my first copy of Red Hat Fedora Linux. It was during that same time period that I officially became a libertarian. Since then, I have read many opinion pieces comparing Linux to both libertarianism and communism. In a way, I think it’s both.
First, let’s consider the origins of Linux. In the early 1980s, a longtime Unix programmer named Richard Stallman left MIT and started the GNU project and later the Free Software Foundation. He and his team began compiling (pun intended) the various software components of an operating system. The impetus behind his work was the belief that software source code should be freely available to all users so that they can make modifications to meet their specific needs. These changes would then be freely released so others could benefit and possibly further refine the system.
In the early 1990s, a Finnish graduate student named Linus Torvalds decided that he wanted to program a Unix/Minix-like operating system for his Intel-based IBM 386 PC. At that time, the aforementioned GNU project had assembled many of the necessary components, however they still lacked a functional core. Torvalds dedicated himself to this programming task. He dropped his kernel in the middle of the GNU components and voila. Linux was born.
Since then, both Stallman and Torvalds have remained active in the development community, as many, many others have joined as well. Today, we have many different distributions (ie flavors) of Linux to choose from. Distributions that run on everything from personal computers and servers, to cell phones, routers, and just about everything else. In addition to Linux, hundreds of software projects have sprung up aimed at providing applications to users that follow these same principles. FOSS, or Free & Open Source Software is the acronym used to describe this development and distribution model.
So what insights about libertarianism and communism can be gleaned from examining the Linux community?
Before we can proceed with that analysis, there is an ingrained political teaching that we must get rid of. This is the notion that the political spectrum is a straight line with reactionary fascism on the right and radical communism on the left. Using this school of thought, there should be dramatic differences between people like Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler. However, I think most people would agree that the two were essentially totalitarian dictators who tended to have more in common than not.
If the traditional left/right spectrum is flawed, what is a better representation? I think a circle is better suited to political analysis. The top of the circle is a highly decentralized government state and the bottom is a highly centralized government state.
The top of the circle is the embodiment of what people like Thomas Jefferson envisioned for the United States. Like a circus elephant balancing on top of a giant ball, this approach requires a great deal of individual effort to avoid losing your balance and falling, or in this case, sliding to the bottom. The journey to the bottom of the circle is easy. There will always be people looking to seize your rights and property in exchange for the security or service they offer. It doesn’t matter if these people are from the right or from the left or if they are communists, fascists or socialists. The end result is always the same. Residence at the bottom of the circle under a highly centralized oppressive totalitarian regime.
Now that we consider the nature of Linux, I think it’s pretty easy to see that it’s a highly decentralized approach to a common goal. But how can you have communist tendencies at the same time? I found the answer in a statement made by Walter Block of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Dr. Block recalled meeting a young woman who proudly announced to him that she was a socialist. He responded to his statement with a simple question. “Are you a coercive or voluntary socialist?”
In that answer lies the explanation of the communist roots of Linux. All of the various software projects that are being developed within the FOSS movement are being done in voluntary communities. Think of the old notion of Northern California hippie communes as opposed to traditional Soviet-style coercive rule. Any developer of a given (common) application is not only free to leave a project, but also free to “fork” a project. This is where they use the same code that the first project is developing to form their own second project and take it in another direction. Each person has the freedom to move from one commune to another, or even start their own, since no one person or group owns the source code.
This is what we should be pursuing as a political philosophy in the United States. Instead of putting all our eggs in the single basket of the federal government and hoping it has the smartest people in the world who are capable of running entire economies; we should put our hopes in the American people scattered across the nation. Let state and local governments experiment with what works best for them in their specific circumstances. I can guarantee that what works best in Manhattan, NY, will not work best in Manhattan, MT.
Eric Raymond is an open source developer who wrote an essay in the late 1990s titled “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.” In that treatise he coined what he calls “Linus’ Law.” He states: “Given enough eyes, all errors are superficial.” This is the real power behind Linux and FOSS. But in government today we have a mother of 600 representatives cloistered in the “closed” cathedrals of Washington writing and interpreting wordy, unintelligible laws that are rife with unintended consequences and corruption. Our only hope is to open up the system and decentralize the solutions.
Richard Stallman is famous for describing free software as “free as in freedom, not free as in beer.” At a time when our government is fiscally bankrupt and rapidly centralizing, we could all use a little more freedom and a little less freedom in the form of handouts, bailouts, and benefits.
You can find more pieces like this on Trybuntu.com.
