Socialism

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Beehaw's community for socialists, communists, anarchists, and non-authoritarian leftists (this means anti-capitalists) of all stripes. A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you're nice about it.

Non-socialists are welcome to come to learn, though it's hard to get to in-depth discussions if the community is constantly fighting over the basics. We ask that non-socialists please be respectful and try not to turn this into a "left vs right" debate forum by asking leading questions or by trying to draw others into a fight.

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On owning your labor in perpetuity (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have a question about prevailing ideas on socialism. I am a software developer. Say I start a company and I am the sole employee and I write some code that is profitable. Then I decide to leave, I transfer the business to someone else or a group of people. The buisnesses is still running, under other workers, but I still have productive code in the pipelines. Do I get to “own” a share of this business for the rest of my life like a capitalist?

Similarly, let’s say I’m an artist who wrote a book. I write the book and want to distribute it. Do I get to own a permanent share in the distribution profit, even if my work is complete, in perpetuity?

I guess both are examples of intellectual property, which I’m usually against, but assume a libertarian socialist society not a society where markets are eliminated or welfare is plentiful, just one where capitalists no longer own the means of production.

I suppose the ethical anti capitalist solution is to sell your rights to the production workers. Or maybe to cap potential profits off a work (but that would require government intervention id assume?)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not an expert either and maybe not the ideal socialist to answer your question, but I think people will need to ask themselves, do I need to benefit/profit from this perpetually, or will it be more beneficial to have my work be part of the common good? I think individuals of sound mind will be fine with allowing their work to go to charitable use, just as old furniture and items often are donated for good causes after a long time. The fact that they get something from your work doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing for you, but sometimes capitalistic tendencies want to profit from your benefit while harming others, such as an artist's estate starting frivolous lawsuits when the artist would never think to do such a thing.

In the copyleft sphere as it exist in today's society, almost all licenses say that creators should assert their intellectual property right in order to allow for free and libre development/improvement, and discourage and dispel corporate fuckery.