The Simple Economics of Open Source

[Martijn Faassen]

Juergen A. Erhard <jae at ilk.de> wrote:
>     Neel> Seriously, the rejection of altruism as a possible motive strikes me
>     Neel> as a very reasonable decision. Altruism is generally not sufficient
>     Neel> motive in other aspects of life -- [...]

> Same goes for egoism... see below.

Not as much. See below.

>     Neel> Second, economists assume that everyone is basically self interested,
>     Neel> including themselves -- it's a standard analytic assumption, not
>     Neel> snobbery.

> But it is not just a `basic analytic assumption' in most cases... most
> people in the field, as you yourself have stated above, have
> `internalized its assumptions'.  Now, you could argue that you didn't
> mean it like *that*... but my impression of people in that field of
> science[1] is that the *did* indeed internalize this... which means
> that *everything*, ever single point of data that goes into an
> analysis, into a study, is colored and filtered by this worldview.

But the assumption that people are selfish makes quite a bit of biological
sense. The whole theory of evolution, selfish genes, limited resources,
and so on. Then of course kin selection and even more importantly,
game theory, come and throw lots and lots of mud in the water. Biological
conclusion: our genetic core is selfish, but selfish behavior, especially
in social, intelligent beings like humans, may entail so much cooperation
and altruism that it's indistinguishable from the real thing (if there
*is* any more real form of cooperation than that for selfish reasons --
if you're cooperating out of altruistic reasons, i.e. you're losing by
cooperating, is that cooperation or slavery?)

And economics is a field that thinks about game theory, like theoretical
biology. Theoretical economics and theoretical biology have lots in common,
though theoretical biology does focus more on the creative aspects of the
process more than economics; economics are interested in the process of
itself, optimizing that, while biologists in the end are interested in the
outcome of the process (things like elephants, humans and trees), and
why they happened.
 
[snip]
> No, I think (and this thought just occurred to me, so it's pretty
> fresh) that there's a third thing... it's the answer to the old
> question asked of a mountaineers: "Why did you climb that mountain?".
> "Well... because it was there."  Or, in other words, "because I had
> to".[4]

That's an interesting distinction; I think that maps to what theoretical
biologists are interested in; complexity and life in the world is
driven by natural selection, but that's not the only thing. There has
to be some mathematical structure to the whole process that allows
the complexity to happen. Though perhaps that's an anthropic point
of view.

> Egoism is often equated with the profit motive these days (little
> wonder in our money-based society...[2])

> Now this is a nice explanation for many things... but not for all.
> I'm certain that the greatest thinkers, the greatest musicians,
> artists... the greatest innovators were *not* motivated by that...

But they were hardly being so interested in their field of interest
because they hated it. See my finishing note.

[why did Einstein do it?]

> Well, I think because he *had* *to*.

[snip]

> I think this can be compared to egoism and altruism like this:

>   Egoism is "I get something".

>   Altruism is "`They' get something".

>   Xyzzy (for lack of a name[3]) is "I get *rid* of something".  Or "I
>   get something of my chest".

No, xyzzy is "I am." The creative individual does this because that individual
is *defined* by what he does. "This is ME." "Hello world."

Interesting analysis.

This belongs in the field of psychology at least for a large part, though.

[snip]
> [4] I'm sure someone has found some weird explanation that makes this
> something egoistical...

They have. According to some, this expression of selfhood is the most
egoistic thing one can possibly do. Also the most valuable, as value to
the individual is measured by that individual, in the end. But of course
there is quite a bit of societal value derived from it.

The world is a complicated, messy thing, and any attempt 
at explanation is by necessity partial. So biology, economy, psychology
and so on do need to work with some basic assumptions, otherwise they'll
never get any abstractions off the ground. So let's forgive the
economists in this case. They discounted some important things a bit
easily (the shared commons that improves faster than the partitioned
one). The economics of informational products does differ significantly
from that of physical goods. But they had some interesting things to 
say, and an interesting toolkit they brought for their analysis.

An off topic thread that I can contribute lots of deep sounding stuff to! 
I didn't know enough about mathematics to contribute to that infinity of
primes one. Ah, but philosophy, ah! :)

Regards,

Martijn
-- 
History of the 20th Century: WW1, WW2, WW3?
No, WWW -- Could we be going in the right direction?