4 ms·

Agreed, and with a very pure and selfless motive, in massively broadening access to works of scientific research. Elbakyan's project really is a shining beacon

Agreed, and with a very pure and selfless motive, in massively broadening access to works of scientific research. Elbakyan's project really is a shining beacon of anti-capitalist action, against our broken system where a small number of private companies control access to what should be communal resources, solely to enrich themselves.

rualca 6y ago
> Elbakyan's project really is a shining beacon of anti-capitalist action (...) The scientific journal racket is all but capitalism. It's largely rentism disseminated and fostered by entrenched state and institutional interests and status quo. These publisher's devised a scheme where they not only force highly-educated and trained specialists to produce cutting-edge work for free but also afterwards demand high fees for them to access that same work.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Yes, capitalism is a worthy ideal. But don't forget that rentism is one of its failure modes, and a very common one; I don't think it's inaccurate to describe attempts to fight rentism as anti-capitalist.
  - atdrummond 6y ago
    Rent seeking is just as endemic in purportedly socialist/communist countries.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Yes, capitalism is a worthy ideal The “ideals” of capitalism were shallow post-hoc rationalizations that came after people called out the problems resulting from the mode by which the elite mercantile class had replaced the feudal hereditary aristocracy as the class around whose particular interests the political and economic order were organized. It was an improvement over feudalism, but the subsequent improvements have occurred with the general replacement of capitalism, in its original sense, with the modern mixed economy; capitalism is now a reversal of progress, not an ideal to aspire to.
    - logicchains 6y ago
      >The “ideals” of capitalism were shallow post-hoc rationalizations that came after people called out the problems resulting from the mode by which the elite mercantile class had replaced the feudal hereditary aristocracy as the class around whose particular interests the political and economic order were organized. This is completely untrue, classical liberals like Adam Smith and John Locke were espousing those ideals well before the word "capitalism" was even coined, it just used to be called Liberalism.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Finding ways to maximize profit, as is being done here, is exactly the ideal of capitalism. Anything else is a post-hoc, just-so rationalization. More so, Elbakyan herself says that the work she is doing is motivated by anti-capitalist thought.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    The ideals of capitalism are the ideals of classical Liberalism: small government limited mainly to the protection of citizens rights under the standard of "natural law". Intellectual property isn't such a right, because unlike with real physical property, when you "steal" intellectual property from somebody you're not preventing them from using it in future. I can't imagine many of the founding fathers would be supportive of the massive state apparatus for enforcing IP.
    - bitdizzy 6y ago
      These are the ideals of capitalism in the same way that the ideals of European feudalism are those of upholding the natural order of things as mandated by God.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    Profit maximization is not capitalism, it's human behavior. Cash is simply one measure of it. </economist_hat>
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Profit is not human nature, until you abandon actually senseful definitions of profit. People selling their labour at a market price by definition cannot make profit, meaning that the vast majority of people don't make a profit, so how can it be claimed that it is human nature? Human nature is to sometimes, with a ton of exceptions, maximize resources and utility. This does not mean maximizing profit, unless you redefine profit to be a meaningless word.
  - young_unixer 6y ago
    > Finding ways to maximize profit, as is being done here, is exactly the ideal of capitalism That's just like, your opinion, man. I could also say that finding ways to maximize individual freedom is the ideal of capitalism, and that's exactly the opposite of what Elsevier et al do, so they're the anti-capitalist ones and freedom of information is a capitalist ideal. In reality, intellectual property is a controversial topic in libertarian/capitalist ideology. See: https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0 https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0
geomark 6y ago
I don't think that word, capitalism, means what you think it means.
- dennis_jeeves 6y ago
  Yeah, I wish people defined what they meant. The word capitalism has a different connotation than it used to have about 50 years back.
refurb 6y ago
Authors choose to publish in these journals. They could choose to publish purely in open source journals and this would be a non-issue. And “communal resources”? What if a private institution publishes a paper? You have a right to access that free as well? All public ally funded research is already available for free.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  They choose it as much as I choose to implement whatever my PM asks me to. I could weasel my way out of it, most likely by changing jobs, but at a significant personal monetary and career-development expense. Publishing open access in journals maintained by the cartel is expensive. Scientists can't really afford to pay this out of pocket, so they tack it onto grant costs, reducing the money they get to actually do science. And it's overall not a pleasant experience.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Yes, all of that. And it's even before we talk about how your worth as a researcher depends on which journal you publish in. There's a number of them where if you get accepted, it's like winning a small lottery and you will do it, whatever the rules are.
- fatsdomino001 6y ago
  All publicly funded research is most certainly not free, that’s a big part of the problem.
- Fomite 6y ago
  "hey could choose to publish purely in open source journals and this would be a non-issue." These journals often offload the cost of publishing onto the authors themselves, and that money is tight. An open access publication is about the same cost as keeping an undergrad employed in my lab for a semester. And that ignores, as others have noted, that career incentives put "Only publish in open access journals" as the kind of principled stand that might kill a new researcher's career.

rualca 6y ago

> Elbakyan's project really is a shining beacon of anti-capitalist action (...) The scientific journal racket is all but capitalism. It's largely rentism disseminated and fostered by entrenched state and institutional interests and status quo. These publisher's devised a scheme where they not only force highly-educated and trained specialists to produce cutting-edge work for free but also afterwards demand high fees for them to access that same work.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
Yes, capitalism is a worthy ideal. But don't forget that rentism is one of its failure modes, and a very common one; I don't think it's inaccurate to describe attempts to fight rentism as anti-capitalist.
- atdrummond 6y ago
  Rent seeking is just as endemic in purportedly socialist/communist countries.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Yes, capitalism is a worthy ideal The “ideals” of capitalism were shallow post-hoc rationalizations that came after people called out the problems resulting from the mode by which the elite mercantile class had replaced the feudal hereditary aristocracy as the class around whose particular interests the political and economic order were organized. It was an improvement over feudalism, but the subsequent improvements have occurred with the general replacement of capitalism, in its original sense, with the modern mixed economy; capitalism is now a reversal of progress, not an ideal to aspire to.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    >The “ideals” of capitalism were shallow post-hoc rationalizations that came after people called out the problems resulting from the mode by which the elite mercantile class had replaced the feudal hereditary aristocracy as the class around whose particular interests the political and economic order were organized. This is completely untrue, classical liberals like Adam Smith and John Locke were espousing those ideals well before the word "capitalism" was even coined, it just used to be called Liberalism.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
sudosysgen 6y ago
Finding ways to maximize profit, as is being done here, is exactly the ideal of capitalism. Anything else is a post-hoc, just-so rationalization. More so, Elbakyan herself says that the work she is doing is motivated by anti-capitalist thought.
- logicchains 6y ago
  The ideals of capitalism are the ideals of classical Liberalism: small government limited mainly to the protection of citizens rights under the standard of "natural law". Intellectual property isn't such a right, because unlike with real physical property, when you "steal" intellectual property from somebody you're not preventing them from using it in future. I can't imagine many of the founding fathers would be supportive of the massive state apparatus for enforcing IP.
  - bitdizzy 6y ago
    These are the ideals of capitalism in the same way that the ideals of European feudalism are those of upholding the natural order of things as mandated by God.
- tomrod 6y ago
  Profit maximization is not capitalism, it's human behavior. Cash is simply one measure of it. </economist_hat>
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Profit is not human nature, until you abandon actually senseful definitions of profit. People selling their labour at a market price by definition cannot make profit, meaning that the vast majority of people don't make a profit, so how can it be claimed that it is human nature? Human nature is to sometimes, with a ton of exceptions, maximize resources and utility. This does not mean maximizing profit, unless you redefine profit to be a meaningless word.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  > Finding ways to maximize profit, as is being done here, is exactly the ideal of capitalism That's just like, your opinion, man. I could also say that finding ways to maximize individual freedom is the ideal of capitalism, and that's exactly the opposite of what Elsevier et al do, so they're the anti-capitalist ones and freedom of information is a capitalist ideal. In reality, intellectual property is a controversial topic in libertarian/capitalist ideology. See: https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0 https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0

geomark 6y ago

I don't think that word, capitalism, means what you think it means.

dennis_jeeves 6y ago
Yeah, I wish people defined what they meant. The word capitalism has a different connotation than it used to have about 50 years back.

refurb 6y ago

Authors choose to publish in these journals. They could choose to publish purely in open source journals and this would be a non-issue. And “communal resources”? What if a private institution publishes a paper? You have a right to access that free as well? All public ally funded research is already available for free.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
They choose it as much as I choose to implement whatever my PM asks me to. I could weasel my way out of it, most likely by changing jobs, but at a significant personal monetary and career-development expense. Publishing open access in journals maintained by the cartel is expensive. Scientists can't really afford to pay this out of pocket, so they tack it onto grant costs, reducing the money they get to actually do science. And it's overall not a pleasant experience.
- viraptor 6y ago
  Yes, all of that. And it's even before we talk about how your worth as a researcher depends on which journal you publish in. There's a number of them where if you get accepted, it's like winning a small lottery and you will do it, whatever the rules are.
fatsdomino001 6y ago
All publicly funded research is most certainly not free, that’s a big part of the problem.
Fomite 6y ago
"hey could choose to publish purely in open source journals and this would be a non-issue." These journals often offload the cost of publishing onto the authors themselves, and that money is tight. An open access publication is about the same cost as keeping an undergrad employed in my lab for a semester. And that ignores, as others have noted, that career incentives put "Only publish in open access journals" as the kind of principled stand that might kill a new researcher's career.