Hacking Capitalism

The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement demonstrates how labour can self-organise production, and, as is shown by the free operating system GNU/Linux, even compete with some of the worlds largest firms. The book examines the hopes of such thinkers as Friedrich Schiller, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Negri, in the light of the recent achievements of the hacker movement. This book is the first to examine a different kind of political activism that consists in the development of technology from below.

Johan Söderberg was educated at the Falmouth College of Arts in England and holds a degree in Science and Technology Policy from Lund University, Sweden.

Introduction 1. A Background of the Hacker Movement 2. FOSS Development in a Post-Fordist Perspective 3. Commodification of Information 4. Consumption and Needs of Information Goods 5. Production of Information 6. Markets and Gift in the Networked Economy 7. Play Struggle of Hackers