As the first bricks hit the ground on November 9th 1989 the structure known as The Berlin Wall ceased to exist and thousands of people trapped in the grip of communism were finally freed to embrace the joys of Western Society. But the philosophy did not die, it lay dormant for almost a decade until it found the perfect host….the Internet.
The rise of open-source software such as Google aps, Linux or the ever-popular Wikipedia has brought Karl Marx’s dream to life in a way that he could never have imagined.
The classless society thrives in chatrooms and forums where users have complete anonymity and, with the exception of supremacist websites, there is no segregation based on skin colour, gender or annual wage.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ordinary people who create and develop applications and post them free on the internet simply for the benefit of other people. This practice has never been seen en mass in the history of the world.
Marxism is a failed philosophy. The 80 year experiment from 1918 to 1991 destroyed modern Russia, depleted it of her natural resources and annihilated the economy but it has found its perfect petri dish.
Marx’s motto “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” paraphrases the rapidly growing ‘open source movement’. As the internet has no natural resources it will not be constricted by the economic problems that devastated Russia. It's quite certain that the internet will be everlasting and so it seems that Marx's dream for communism will be realised 124 years after his death.
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