As my C4SS comrade Charles Johnson has pointed out, circumventing state authority and capitalist monopoly is far more cost-effective than lobbying and organizing to reform the law. This is confirmed, once again, by news of open-source hardware projects that offer much cheaper versions of two outrageously expensive medical devices: the EpiPen and the MRI machine.

The Open Source Imaging Initiative aims to “to develop an MR scanner that is affordable to build, operate, maintain and repair by providing full, freely available technical documentation that follows the standards of open-source hardware.”

At Activist Post, Brian Berletic (“EpiPen goes from $300 to $30 to $3 with Opensource and 3D Printing,” Oct. 11) notes that, compared to the superficial political outrage and posturing over the EpiPen, “perhaps more effective was a DIY biohacking group’s demonstration of turning an ordinary store-bought autoinjector into a functioning EpiPen, called an “EpiPencil.” This prototype costs $30-40 to make; but replacing the store-bought plastic parts with 3D-printed ones could lower the cost to $3. The design is not yet shelf-stable for extended and requires further development, but offers exciting possibilities.

Berletic notes that such open hardware projects “represent the surest means of holding corporations and governments accountable, not by begging them to do what they should already be doing, but forcing them change their behavior or face being displaced from markets by cheaper, opensource alternatives and eventually, an entirely alternative paradigm.” While activism may mean participating in projects, people also engage in activism when they “roll up their sleeves and create with their own two hands the change they want to see in the world.”

Johnson (“Counter-Economic Optimism,” Rad Geek People’s Daily, Feb. 7, 2009) stated the same principle back in 2008 in regard to copyright law. While copyright laws written by the proprietary content and software industries might be more draconian than ever, he said, the situation on the ground was more favorable than ever to people who wanted to ignore the laws and copy protected content.

If you direct your hopes and efforts into legal reform, “you will find yourself outmaneuvered at every turn by those who have the deepest pockets and the best media access and the tightest connections.” This is only to be expected “because, after all, the system was made for them and the system was made by them.” Lobbying and legal reform efforts have a huge effort-to-payoff ratio.

The cost-benefit calculus is much better for circumvention. “A law that cannot be enforced is as good as a a law that has been repealed, and that is where we’re headed, faster and faster every day, when it comes to the intellectual monopolists and their jealously guarded legal privileges.”

Imagine federations of neighborhood cooperative clinics sharing open-source MRI machines and other devices, using open-source versions of EpiPen, O2 cannulas, IV tubing, etc., printed in neighborhood cooperative machine shops, and pirated versions of drugs under patent printed in DIY Bio labs — all for a tiny fraction of the present cost of healthcare inside the corporate-state monopoly framework, and funded by the kinds of working class mutuals that flourished in the 19th and early 20th century.

When the state does fund healthcare, as with Medicare Part D and Affordable Health Act subsidies, its approach is to leave all the state-enforced capitalist monopolies (patents, practitioner licensing cartels, entry barriers and restraints on competition among giant bureaucratic hospitals) and simply help the poorest to purchase healthcare at the enormously inflated monopoly price. But it’s the monopoly price of healthcare itself — embedded rents on “intellectual property,” licensing, and bureaucratic overhead — that’s the problem in the first place. And the state will never do anything about this problem because enforcing the artificial property rights the propertied classes extract rents from is the main thing states do. Plus the managerial bureaucracies of state regulatory agencies and giant corporations are basically run by the same people, shuffling from one institution to another and back.

Governments, corporations and other large institutions will never truly represent us or be accountable to us. We need to create horizontal, cooperative institutions of our own that serve us, instead of bleeding us dry.Photo by Niels Heidenreich

1 Comment Open Source Revolution Circumvents Capitalist Monopoly

  1. AvatarFinanceBuzz

    I was on board to a degree until it became clear that you do not respect the work of others and seem to feel an entitlement to the benefits of that work. If open source participants want to work together to develop and produce a more cost effective alternative to various products, that is actually capitalism at work. Of course, that implies that those participating are willing to forego profit for their labors. Whether they want to do this and whether that is economically sustainable in the reality of day-to-day life and human nature is a different discussion.

    Where I take issue is the disrespect shown to fundamental property rights. Perhaps you don’t think there should be laws regarding such things but the simple reality is that there are. Property rights are a fundamental component of our Constitution, the very structure that permits you to the freedom to work with others to offer alternative products, services and solutions. As I noted, those who participate are free to forego compensation for their work. However, what they are not free to do is to impose this on the work product of others. Perhaps you want to realize all of what you write and do into the public domain. That is your free choice. However, perhaps I do not want to do so and I expect compensation for the use of what I created, intellectually or otherwise. That too is my right. If you want to try to make my contribution superfluous in the market that takes us back to the initial point of working in the capitalist system to offer an alternative. But to ignore my property rights and take or benefit from my work is, quite simply, theft. And protecting my rights from being subverted by others is a valid and proper function of a LIMITED government.

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