Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: in-tree pristines fatally wounded (merge-fest etc)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:

    >> From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>

    >> It's funny how many folks agree with your basic principle,
    >> though: "social responsibility applies to people much richer
    >> than me, including me in the unlikely event that I get that
    >> rich some day."

    Tom> That is not my principle and I don't think I've ever met
    Tom> anyone who would agree with that principle.  As in many other
    Tom> parts of your message, you've _caricatured_, not paraphrased,
    Tom> wrapped the caricature in quote marks, and attributed it to
    Tom> me.  (I admit that it's a funny caricature.)

No.  It's not a caricature.  I say you have abdicated your social
responsibility by refusing to live and work in society, as it is, for
the improvement of that society.  You prefer to stand outside of it
and bitch, and do so in such a way that no one with the power that you
would like to direct will listen to you.  You do so in such a way that
guarantees that people like Linus will close their ears and eyes to
the contribution you could make, although they are at least marginally
disposed to be favorable to it.

I ask again: Is that really exercise of "social responsibility" on
your part?  I say "No."

    Tom> It would be closer to say: "certain social responsibilities
    Tom> apply" rather than "social responsibility applies" and to say
    Tom> "with more power" and "that powerful" rather than the less
    Tom> inclusive "more rich" and "that rich".  Other than
    Tom> Ayn-Rand-toting sophists in freshman dorm rooms, and now
    Tom> perhaps you, I don't think I've ever met anyone would would
    Tom> _disagree_ with that more careful statement.

Aside: as Phaedrus said, it's much easier to deal with dead sophists
(or those who tote them) than a live one.

The fact is that in modern democratic societies the crisis of social
responsibility is not among the powerful.[1]  It's among the _weak_, and
especially the middle classes, who use their weakness as an excuse for
turning a blind eye to the excesses of the powerful, which they could
easily curb, simply by refusing the bribes offered by the rich.  And
among the "moral left", who prefer to meaninglessly denounce the
abuses of the powerful and demand "social responsibility", while
themselves turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy of the majority.

Perhaps you are advocating a return to feudalism and "noblesse oblige"?

    Tom> As nearly as I can tell, the debate, when there is one, isn't
    Tom> about the _existence_ of those extra responsibilities, but
    Tom> about their nature and about how to respond to them wisely.

You're not looking in the right places, then.  Although originally it
was basically an Anglo-American position that in corporate governance
the management should basically consider itself the representative of
the stockholders, more recently (at least in academia) the concept
that "while management should never forget that it's part of the human
race, by and large it should should stick to legal and honorable
representation of the interests of capital" is spreading globally.  Not
because people have given up on the idea of social responsibility, but
because they have learned a lot about implementation of obligations.

While many people still seem to believe, as you seem to, that the cost
of asking business to look after the interest of all stakeholders
(often classified as stockholders, employees, customers, local
community, society at large, and management itself, but there are
other taxonomies) is small or negligible, this just doesn't seem to be
the case.  First, as you amply prove in your utterances, _ignorance_
of the rest of the world's needs quickly leads to advocating self-
serving policies, no matter how well-intentioned you may be.  The
problem is each of us naturally identifies her own needs _and the
importance she assigns to them_ with society's.  Second, in most cases
only the stockholders have simple enough interests to make supervision
of management behavior straightforward (and as Enron proves, that
doesn't make it _easy_).  In all the other cases, what happens is that
_representatives_ of the various groups meet, and they (since they are
agents, but self-interested) behave in ways very similar to management.
Ways that you would undoubtedly characterize as similarly "socially
irresponsible".  This results in extreme diffusion of both incentive
to "do the right thing" and of the knowledge of values necessary to
implement "doing the right thing."

Therefore, the most modern thinking (in terms of history of thought,
not necessarily in terms of actual value, although I happen to agree
with the "modern" train of thought) is that corporate governance is
best implemented by stockholder supervision of incentives.  This is
coupled with government regulation of observable business behavior
(including demanding that some things be observable that we would
consider extreme invasions of privacy if the object was a private
individual).  This is just the application to human social systems of
the concepts that in software systems we call by names like
"modularity" and "data-hiding".

Sure it would be "nice" if we could each live in a village of 500
people where "social responsibility" is easy to comprehend and
socially enforceable, along with receiving the benefits of a global
economy and (probably much higher in your priority list) access to the
many cultural virtues of the world's many peoples.  But to propose
achieving this balance by demanding that those labelled "management"
consider the impact of their decisions on the welfare of each of the
other 5,999,999,999 humans on the planet[2] "in appropriate
proportion" is a dope dream.


Footnotes: 
[1]  The existence of a thriving free software business sector is
ample evidence of that.  These are by and large people who have
refused the blandishments of the super-power and super-wealth they
could surely grasp by joining rapacious institutions like Microsoft or
the power scramble in traditionally socially responsible ones like
IBM[3].  They prefer to contribute to society by eschewing traditional
tools of economic power, while still being self- (and employee-)
supporting.

[2]  Not to mention the hundreds of billions to be born in "the
foreseeable future".

[3]  IBM is, of course, _the_ canonical example of a socially
responsible business in recent American history.  Chew on that one.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.