Henry George and the Intellectual Foundations of the Open Source Movement

Introduction Much of the success of the open source movement depends on the creation and nurturing of a community of developers, testers, and users in order to create a set of symbiotic relationships that ensure the contributions of one group are tried, tested, and improved by another within the community. Where community membership is open to all who have something to offer and can abide by the terms of the public license that governs how property fights will be assigned, an environment is created where the division of labor, no longer fettered by the strictures required by a publicly-traded corporate entity, can expand to the point where all of the gains associated with specialization can be appropriated by the community as a whole) The notion that communities have the ability to serve as the foundation for an expanded division of labor can be traced back to the work of Henry George. Using land as a proxy for what we would now call developer communities, George recognized that in order for the division of labor to take place and in fact flourish, individuals need to be brought together in a central location so that their skills and talents can be organized in a way that creates additional value. Such a connection between the work of Henry George and the modern open source movement can be made through the simple realization that the concept of location as an organizing principle can be expanded beyond physical space and time. (2) In the modern technological environment, location may not represent physical proximity, but rather a common platform that fosters working together by ensuring free and easy access to some structure where ideas are shared and tasks can be sub-divided in an efficient manner. This essay begins by describing George's concept of community and why he believed they should be entitled to the subsequent gains that are created. Next, a more comprehensive discussion of the open source development model and its reliance on the concept of community will take place. Finally, connections will be drawn back to George's work in order to highlight the important role played by community development models in fostering economic progress. The end conclusion will call into question the widely held belief that the monopolization of intellectual property rights is an important prerequisite for achieving technological change. The Economic Power of Communities The economics of Henry George is based on his ethical belief that individuals are entitled to the fruits of their own labor, but when it comes to gifts from nature such as the natural resources embodied in a particular tract of land, what is given to the community as a whole should reside within the collective body. Hence he is critical of the rents appropriated by individuals from a particular plot of land because they give to the individual what belongs to the collective whole. Thus George contends that "Rent, in short, is the price of monopoly, arising from the reduction to individual ownership of natural elements which human exertion can neither produce nor increase" (1948: 167). When it comes to the creation of such rents, George focuses on the contribution that a particular tract of land makes to the division of labor rather than its resource value (Niman 2009). Thus he contends that "the most valuable lands on the globe, the lands which yield the highest rent, are not lands of surpassing natural fertility, but lands to which a surpassing utility has been given by the increase of population" (1948: 242). In order to illustrate the point that it is increases in population rather than some inherent quality in the land that creates value, George tells the story of the settler, who, upon being first to a new location, chooses the best land to construct a homestead. The settler and his family are able to enjoy whatever advantages are associated with owning the best piece of land, but it is still a struggle to create a comfortable life. …