From the notoriously flat structure of Valve to the support of free software to the extremely laissez faire way of running steam to the main Dota tournament being named “The International”… Is Gabe Newell a card carrying Anarchist?
From the notoriously flat structure of Valve to the support of free software to the extremely laissez faire way of running steam to the main Dota tournament being named “The International”… Is Gabe Newell a card carrying Anarchist?
Fair point, but we also live in a capitalist system. If Gabe really wanted the money he’d go public. Considering how much they’re giving Epic, Valve would instantly become gigantic. He’d become billionaire-er. He could have locked down the Steam Deck. He could have done a lot of things. I’m saying he’s had a lot of choices he made during his lifetime, and he seemed to pick oddly open ones.
Not necessarily. Going public means he would then have shareholders to answer to. Or maybe he’s betting on steam going up in value, maybe taking steam public is his retirement plan. Who knows.
Ehh, sure maybe, but there’s probably no financial benefit in doing so. He saved a lot of time and money going with Linux instead of building their own OS from scratch. And because Valve went the open source route, they’re free to re-use a ton of open source work, including code licensed under GPL.
And look at Google’s Android, much of Android is open source, surely you don’t think Larry Page and Sergey Brin are anarchists too?
And you’re ignoring the predatory nature of a lot of valve’s business. One of the most obvious examples is the CSGO skin cases. Valve is making massive amounts of money off of getting children hooked on gambling.
Andy Rubin, but I take your point. The only thing I’d disagree with is that you can make any corporate decision ipso facto to reduce costs and make profit. Yes, but companies pick these because they want to. Like there has to be a profit motive for everything because that’s how capitalism works. He didn’t need to use Linux (or could have Tivoed it like many companies do), or stick on top of BSD (like Sony), or a dozen other options. In the end you can only conclude: He supports Linux because he just likes it.
Also, I’m not going to pretend like the dude is fighting for anarchism, or is an anarchist thinker, or even really an organiser in that context. He seems to believe things personally and sticks an idea in every now and then. Or maybe he’s ancap idk.
No, corporations are machines/bureaucracies/organizations that generate profits, by design. If they don’t, they fail. They do the thing they think will generate the most profit.
Or maybe he never even made the decision. Or his employees presented the decision as the best decision. Or because Valve is a PC game company and PC shop front and they wanted to build and sell a portable PC that plays PC games. If they wanted to build a locked down console they wouldn’t be able to leverage all of their IP and overall strong position in the PC market nearly as well/easily. Linux was the right business decision for Valve.
Ok so then we agree? The dude is very clearly not an anarchist. At best he’s an ancap which isn’t anarchism anyways.
Lol if that’s the bar then even I’m not an Anarchist, because I also don’t live my life according to anarchist values. You’d practically need to live in a commune to be one. I was speaking from a personal belief perspective, not a “trying to actively make it happen” perspective.
I said nothing about a commune.
Anarchism is an anti-capitalist ideology. However, yes, capitalism is unavoidable, even if you lived on a commune you would have to engage in capitalism to some extent. But working a job so that you can survive is pretty different from owning a 10 billion dollar company. And his estimated personal net worth is 3.9 billion.
I don’t know if you’re an anarchist, I generally avoid in gatekeeping comrades and potential comrades. I don’t even know that engaging in activism or mutual aid is necessary to be an anarchist. And while working a job and making money certainly doesn’t disqualify one from being an anarchist, at the very least, being ideologically opposed to capitalism is a pre-requisuite for being an anarchist as it is a socialist ideology. And I think it would be hard to make a reasonable argument that any billionaire is an anarchist without some amount of agitation for change.
So originally I came to agree to this… but imagine you’re an Anarchist, and your goal is to (without violence and I guess coersion) allow people to live without force / violence (including advertising / propaganda / etc). In that case isn’t the best option to try and make the systems you own (necessarily, due to capitalism) somewhat compatible with anarchist principles? Like if you suddenly found yourself with 10 billion odd, and maybe you wanted to spend 7-8 billion on “cool anarchist ideas” what would you do?
Well I have to kind of reject the premise a bit, because I don’t think you can meaningfully disrupt capitalism and fascism without some violence. And owning a 10 billion dollar company goes well beyond the necessities of capitalism. And I don’t think propaganda is inherently coerisive and therefore don’t necessarily have a problem with it.
But if I woke up tomorrow morning with billions of dollars and ownership of the largest software distribution platform; I would probaby convert the company to a co-op in which my role in the company and my ability to keep my position as president is decided by a democratic vote, I would send funds to Rojava to support the only large scale implementation of anarchist ideology, I would send money to bailfunds across the United States, I would fund revolutionary worker’s unions such as the IWW, I would ensure the workers of the newly converted co-op were free to engage in mutual aid during business hours, I would implement the ADL’s suggestions for dealing with the hate and bigotry on steam: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/not-game-how-steam-harbors-extremists , I would fund and promote leftist games on the store front, remove right wing propaganda, ranging from openly fascist to Military funded, imperialist propaganda like call of duty, I would work with anarchist activist organizations fighting on the ground to make sure they have everything they need, from secure comms, to legal representation, to food and water.
There’s a lot one could do with billions of dollars and a massive software distribution company, and this long ass list is nowhere near complete.
I think Anarchists say violence against the state apparatus is OK, but not against citizenry. In any case I don’t think you directly advocate for violence, so it’s a moot point.
There are some great ideas there. Thanks Doc. And on reading the list I’ve been convinced. It’s frankly irresponsible to have this kind of money and not want to make this sort of change actively.
Yeah but he already has enough money to buy pretty much anything he wants. I think he owns motorsports teams and brain computer interface companies and stuff.
If you gave Gabe Newell a truly unlimited amount of money to buy anything he wanted (an attempt to approach this being the only real reason to sell Valve) he’d probably ultimately want to invest a large amount of it into creating a videogames business with a bunch of brilliant people who he likes working with organised around a flat structure where they make his favourite videogame and he spends most of his time just hanging out playing his favourite videogame and steering the direction of the videogame industry the way he wants it to be.
That’s Valve.
You’re talking about a man who if he had unlimited resources would use them to make and own a company like Valve because it’s what he wants to occupy his time with and reading wider significance about him into the fact that he doesn’t sell Valve to get more resources.
It’s like saying someone can’t be a capitalist because they wont sell the ham sandwich they just made for their lunch to raise the money to buy a ham sandwich for their lunch.
It’s just an incoherent action to take irrespective of your social-political ideology.