On my mind is another of Glenn Beck’s frequently made errors. Whenever Beck sends out a free copy of his newsletter, he declares “provocatively” that “Glenn has succumbed to socialism.” Avail yourself of the product of Glenn’s momentary insanity, he will exhort (referring to himself in the third person), and sign up for this free, socialistic service. This is a good opportunity to clarify what socialism really is, for unless you understand that there can be no socialism without state coercion, why, then, you comprehend very little about the dread socialism—as little as conservatives and Republicans do.
Indeed too many people conflate the voluntary provision of a free service with socialism. Voluntary cooperation, even absent remuneration, is never socialism. Glenn Beck seems to think that anything free is socialism. Not so. A Kibbutz—Israeli communal living—is a voluntary socialistic arrangement, which, if you prize freedom, is as good as any arrangement people want to enter that is coercion free. Kibbutzim are often economically viable arrangements. Perhaps this is because people are there by choice and by belief.
Thus, an open source software project, worked on voluntarily by scores of developers across the globe, is not socialism. Although volumes have been written on the pros and cons of open source versus proprietary software, the proof is in the pudding: Although free, open source is often as good as software that costs serious money.
I do not want to veer into the copyright debate. However, I still stand by my writing on the topic. “KAZAA,” for example, was engaged in voluntary exchange; “THE COPYRIGHT CARTEL” was the fascistic attempt to infringe on this voluntary exchange—and on tangible property not its own. But let’s leave this debate right now.