3 KiB
Anticompany
Anticompany is an LRS concept of a group of people selflessly working together towards improving society by creating and providing free art, goods and services, and by this displacing harmful capitalist companies. Anticomapny is NOT a non-profit, a formal charity organization or a "not-for-profit" company, it is a group dissociated with the current societal system, a group which by its nature rejects the current societal mechanisms such as law, trade, capitalism, brands, marketing, self-interest, consumerism, societal hierarchy and so forth. Of course this concept may be implemented by lone individuals too, craftsmen who simply decide to altruistically help others.
Anticompanies exploit the capitalist's assumption of absolute greed that is to drive everyone without exception to competing -- if let's say 10 companies compete in making the best painting program for an affordable price, they may all be singlehandedly destroyed by a single anticompany that creates a completely free, public domain painting program and just gives it away for for free. Anticompanies may also (at least still today) have many advantageous features -- to name a few they are for example spared of legal bullshit and formalities such as accounting, taxes, contracts, workplace regulations etc. There are no deadlines, stressful situations, unions, bosses and managers, only people helping as much as they can and are willing to.
How can an anticompany sustain itself financially though? Well, it shouldn't have to, all should be done voluntarily and with zero costs, so no costs need to be covered. This is fairly easy to do with software, digital art and some services, but may prove more challenging in cases of providing physical goods for example. Still it may be possible -- if a community can for example grow more food than it needs, it may simply give it away. And then there is the "rich guy turned altruist" scenario in which someone with enormous wealth simply decides to start selflessly giving away. For some reason this is almost unheard of (any billionaire doing "charity" is always a PR stunt or tax hack), however it would only take a few such men to bring an enormous change in society this way.
Do any anticompanies exist? Some free software communities come close, but most are in fact still just a different kind of "competitior" and participant in the capitalist game. An anticompany mustn't for example practice copyleft, it mustn't be a non-profit, it mustn't be a brand (have mascots, member pride, ...), it mustn't have any sponsors (who demand anything in return) and so on. The goal must be only selfless altruism.