I’ve recently completed and posted an essay on linguistic binds in economics. The short version is that utility, a foundational concept in economics, is problematic. And it has helped to steer economics in a direction that is primarily concerned with the maximization of production and profit–a problematic goal in a world that is going to need a lot more sustainability.

One of the things that I am trying to dig at with this essay is that neoclassical economics has done a poor job of creating a model for economies that can deal with different sets of property rights and modes of distribution—models like open source software. Appropriately enough, I found a post at a post at gapingvoid that asks the seemingly innocuous question “Where are all the open source billionaires?” I also found a post by Coding Horror that provides a thoughtful and cogent rebuttal—a rebuttal that includes the idea that a lot of open source programmers are not entirely driven by a profit motive. This “programmer altruism” has been thoroughly dissected elsewhere; although I would still argue that these analyses are missing the point. There are some economies (and markets) that don’t deal with money—believe it or not. Especially where commodities are non-scarce; an idea in economics that has really yet to take hold.