Open Source Is Essentially Socialist

I never knew such a thing existed until a few nights ago, but there's an open-source housing project called WikiHouse, described as, "Simple, beautiful, zero-carbon building, for everyone." It's not a perfect open source project, the CAD file formats are mostly commercial, online and industrial grade, although there is a FreeCAD tutorial on how to convert wikihouse cad files to the open source FreeCAD application, it's still complex and largely inaccessible to those not trained in industrial design software.

Switch house, source WikiHouse.cc

As yet, there are no PDFs for those with an electric jigsaw and a pallet load of ply sheets, a truly accessible format, but the WikiHouse is an example of the idea of open source being a way to drive a socialist economy, without a top down management system. The principle of the whole WikiHouse concept, as I see it, is that housing is a human right, not something that is to be exploited by renting out hoarded property to those who can't afford to buy because the wealthy hoard excess dwellings for this purpose. Housing is essential for safety, and renting traps the poor in poverty. If people can download modular plans and submit them for approval, they can have more affordable housing. If the land, plywood and materials can be community sourced, then housing can be a human right. Socialism! Bring it on, I say, even as one who managed to become housing secure in the capitalist system.

Because I struggled through the capitalist system, I really understand how being locked out of owning a home keeps people down. I have friends who couldn't have even afforded land to build on, because capitalism treats homes, and the land they stand on, as a commodity to be traded by the wealthy. Australia used to have government systems, at state and federal levels, house the poor and the lower working classes. (AKA the "gig economy," as capitalism today cheerfully describes being "workig poor".) Now, like most modern economies, especially outside of Europe, leave housing the poor to capitalism, and isn't that great, the rich get richer by keeping the poor in poverty, using a trap called rental housing-for-profit.

Aside from commercial, industrial grade file formats, the missing link with WikiHouse is the need for an open source land provision foundation. That WikiHouse isn't in this field is no shortcoming on their part, they're solving the problems they can - affordability of design, construction and environmental sustainability - and their solution is elegant. Modular, yet highly adaptable, plywood "lego bricks" that can be used with almost any insulation, any cladding and any roofing. It's a damned good start to socialising housing.

Capitalism, like say Microsoft, sees open source as a cheap way to outsource software development to "independent contractors." (Read piecework, with no hope of a payday for many minor contributors.) Yet, open source was initially conceived as a way to audit software, to ensure independent eyes could quality assess the code and respond rapidly with patches which, in turn, can be assessed by the code's maintainers for efficacy in solving the problem, or if indeed there was a problem. In maker communities, open source can be a way to get the software tools they need for their particular niche, even funding their community through premium app versions. Open source is pretty much the transition economy we need to move to socialism. Especially if it can be migrated to things like resource supply, raw materials and designs.

Another area where open source is creating community focus over profit is in 3D printing and hobby level CAD/CAM. Communities sharing designs, exchanging design services for print services, developing tools to reduce the waste, even making that waste recyclable at home to some extent. There is really no limit to what can be designed, managed, done and distributed through open communities, rather than closed, for-profit, private structures.

The open source breakthrough needed is how to provide infrastructure without profit. How to govern without power. Because open source communities can be founded from the grassroots, they can start with a sharing mindset. They can be essentially politically anarchic communities, run on consensus models. Open source doesn't have to be limited to "source code," it can also refer to the source of authority, creativity, structure and infrastructure, with primary motivation being to "float all members' boats" rather than accumulate profit for a few at the expense of the many. This is about as socialist as the economics of supply and production gets!

The Soviet Union was only ever socialist in name. In reality, it was as fascistic as Nazism and was ruled from the top down, by a succession of rat-bastard dictators. True socialism is grassroots, of society, of a community, local-first and equity focused. Neighbour working with neighbour to solve local problems, sharing these solutions with wider communities of communities.

The real "profit" is knowledge and advancement for all, universally accessible infrastructure, such as roads, health, housing, telecommunications and services. Expertise, hand in hand with need, and all dissent weighed fairly, yet on the strength of actually measured evidence, not from an authority born of wealth or privilege. All economies are "managed economies," not just "soviet republics." Who do you want managing your economy? Who do you want managing your economy? Stalin? Elon Musk? The only difference is where their power is derived, both are dictatorial. I'd rather see economies managed on local scales, sharing ideas and solutions outwards, not upwards.

To me, if WikiHouse can solve the problems of document complexity and land accessibility, without the need for capital, leveraging community instead, this may well be the crack in capitalism's foundations that can topple it like the dilution of power toppled the USSR. How might we open source finance? How might we decentralise governance. What's the best way to disincentivise power and/or capital?