[consulting] Unionizing Drupal

[Alex Rollin]

http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-worker-cooperative

A

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Victor Kane <victorkane at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is a pleasure to debate with you Sami, and to discover and agreements and
> also huge differences. Just a pity that you would play the "totalitarian"
> card against anyone attacking your beloved capitalism. It is amazing how
> when one asserts the need for workers control (instead of parasites'
> control, that is control by those who work for a living over what they are
> producing and what happens where they live) there is a reflex, which needs
> to be broken to arrive at a fair discussion, that this is some kind
> of tyranny, de Toqueville's "tyranny of the majority" perhaps.
> My bottom line on this list is: Drupal must not be gutted by the
> corporations, as so many open source projects have been in a pattern clear
> enough to call a cycle, and Drupal workers (those making the code and
> consultants testing and using it) must not be co-opted and enslaved.
> Obviously one's cosmovision is going to impinge on how we see solutions. I
> guess everyone has pretty much stated their opinions.
> Victor Kane
> http://awebfactory.com.ar
> On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Sami Khan <sami at etopian.net> wrote:
>>
>> > I don't think wars, famine, disease, the ruination of the environment,
>> loss
>> > of freedom, loss of a neutral internet and the clarity that capitalism
>> is
>> > utterly incapable of solving any of the problems facing mankind right
>> now
>> > is a context in which you can flippantly throw around quotes like this.
>>
>> Victor I think you are a bit too dogmatic about the subject... we need
>> more nuanced approach rather than pointing the finger and saying down with
>> X ideology. Every time we have tried that in the past, we have ended up
>> with the new boss, worse than the old boss. i.e. the Soviets and the
>> Nazis.
>>
>> Wars: yes, wars for oil; but common anywhere where there is a power
>> disparity and a willingness to use force.
>> Famine: there is an Indian economist who has shown that democracies don't
>> suffer famine related food shortages. Capitalism is more efficient at
>> routing resources, even if it from the poor to the rich.
>> Ruination of the environment: Industrialism and consumerism in general;
>> failure to develop sustainable systems in equilibrium, not just
>> capitalism.
>> Loss of freedom: Complex political problem.
>> Neutral internet: I blame capitalism.
>>
>> > It is Capitalism which is attempting to thrive in its death throes with
>> other
>> > peoples lives, children, money, everything, and needs to be replaced.
>>
>> A bit of ideological totalitarianism there too... we have ways of
>> regulating capitalism as well. Complex political realities can't be
>> simplified into ideological terms.
>>
>>
>> > Yes, we need to be thinking about socialism, the simple idea that
>> workers
>> > (not a Stalinist bureaucracy) internationally control democratically the
>> > plan of production on the basis of people's real needs, and the
>> > distribution
>> > of what is produced, with the aim of creating an excess capable of
>> filling
>> > everyone's needs.
>>
>> This is not possible. Consumer's needs can't be predicted or planned, the
>> market is in flux... The system is too complex. Needs and wants change
>> continuously and so the developers must be flexible to meet those needs.
>> Introducing any systems which reduce flexibility and guarantee anything,
>> put a burden on the organization trying to provide the work that causes it
>> to collapse. All sorts of politics goes on in any human social structure.
>>
>> I will end there, there is room for discourse... but no room for
>> totalitarian discourse and populism.
>>
>>
>> > So as developers of open source software we need to think of how we can
>> > emancipate our project and make sure it continues to fulfill the needs
>> of
>> > individuals, communities, organizations, small businesses, and we need
>> to
>> > think how to defend our income from the current attack on those working
>> for
>> > a living, as the crisis hits deep into the US for the first time since
>> the
>> > 1930s.
>> >
>> >
>> >> Unions serve their purpose, which is primarily to protect workers of
>> >> rote. Unions have never been a force in fostering outwardly-facing
>> >> innovation. Most Drupal developers, and most freelancers in general,
>> are
>> >> innovators, not rote programmers.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Workers create everything you see around you, and solve an innumerable
>> > number of creative problems in the process of production in every
>> factory,
>> > in every shop, in every place goods are created and services are
>> offered.
>> > It
>> > is the bosses who spread the racist (class hatred) lie that workers are
>> > rote, in order to justify lowering salaries and wages and in order to
>> > justify their own parasitical existence. And don't kid yourself, we as
>> > developers, even if we slave away in our homes feeling that sense of
>> > freedom
>> > from the office, are workers too. We don't accumulate capital and we
>> don't
>> > extract surplus value from the work of others. We have nothing but our
>> > hours
>> > of socially useful work to bank on. And we are at the mercy of huge
>> forces
>> > at work.
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Odesk seeks to treat programming as a commodity, an hourly wage for an
>> >> activity no longer differentiated by talent or innovation, so ensured
>> by
>> >> keeping framed diaries of activity that must fit into the
>> single-tasking
>> >> mold rather than a value-priced product. The Odesk model applied
>> >> elsewhere would have us pay for a meal based solely on the time spent
>> >> preparing it.
>> >>
>> >
>> > We should be paying for a meal based on the effort put into it and
>> nothing
>> > else. And our work is a commodity otherwise it would not have a price.
>> But
>> > the commodotizing that oDesk does is not that, it is programmed to lower
>> > wages and place all the advantages at the doorstep of the employer, and
>> > none
>> > at the door of the worker.
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I am an artist, not a manufacturing line worker or a plumber.
>> >
>> >
>> > My plumber Joe is Picasso. Viva Joe the plumber (in the best sense of
>> the
>> > word). Have you ever looked over a broken bathroom, taken the
>> requirements
>> > of the end users, decided upon the architecture (which artifacts, which
>> > kind
>> > of piping, etc) and then implemented that, making changes as you go
>> along
>> > based on input? Christ yes we are plumbers. We are exactly plumbers. In
>> a
>> > context in which the biggest corporate plumbers (BP) are showing their
>> > inherent ineptitude of their model.
>> >
>> > "You're still fucking peasants as far as I can see" -- John Lennon
>> >
>> >
>> >> Like
>> >> painters, sculptors, writers and architects, my rate is based on the
>> >> final product, the innovation, quality and skill I bring to its
>> >> creation, not how many lines of code I generate per hour, and that's
>> >> what clients here prefer.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Same as every worker, mate. Please don't feel insulted. I am proud of
>> the
>> > name I chose for my Drupal blog.
>> >
>> > Victor Kane
>> > awebfactory.com.ar
>> >
>> >
>> >
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