From: SANFORD G THATCHER <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 01:39:17 -0500

Marxism and anarchism do share certain values and beliefs in common, but the
main point of my using Proudhon's famous quote is that if you read what
Elbakyan has said (and this comes partly from an interview Kevin Hawkins had
with her during an open-access conference at UNT a few years back), "property
is theft" pretty well sums up her view, which she herself identifies as
scientific communism. I didn't mean to brand her an anarchist so much as just
to encapsulate her basic position in a handy phrase.

Sandy Thatcher

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 07:51 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 17:51:20 -0500
>
>Hmmmmmm From Marx to Proudhon as if it were an equivalence... ??? How
>can Elbakyan be an avowed communist ideologue while her basic premise
>is "...right out of the French anarchist thinker Proudhon".
>
>Does this mean that the Philosophy of poverty is the same book as the
>Poverty of Philosophy?
>
>Amusing...
>
>Regarding Sci-Hub, it is not Open Access, it is something else. I am
>not sure how to label Sci-Hub, but, please, do not confuse Sci-Hub and
>Open Access.
>
>As for the source, The Verge, does anyone know anything about its
>reliability? It reads like a tabloid.
>
>Jean-Claude Guédon
>
>
>
>Le lundi 12 février 2018 à 20:42 -0500, LIBLICENSE a écrit :
>From: SANFORD G THATCHER <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2018 19:40:35 -0500
>
>This is a very interesting article and, as far as I can tell, accurate in its
>reporting of the facts.
>
>What surprises me is that in  acountry like the United States that has a long
>history of anti-communism so many people in academe want to play ball with an
>avowed communist ideologue like Elbakyan. Her basic premise comes right out of
>the French anarchist thinker Proudhon, who famously said "Property is theft!" I
>wonder how many of her supporters really would like to see the US turned into
>an authoritarian country like Russia, which is what Elbakyan wants to happen.
>
>Like Peter Suber, as he well knows, I have been a supporter of open access
>going back to a time when that term did not yet exist, and I agree with him
>that Sci-Hub gives open access a bad name.  While thinking she is working in
>the public interest, she has done untold damage to university press publishing
>in this country by encouraging the theft of monographs as well as journal
>articles. A lot of presses with journals programs depend on surpluses from
>those programs to internally subsidize publication of monographs, so efforts
>like hers have resulted in making it ever more difficult for junior scholars
>especially to find outlets for their monographs.  There are a few efforts to do
>open-access monograph publishing, but they are way behind where OA journal
>publishing is and meanwhile untold damage is being done to young scholars'
>
>careers and futures through the externalities of programs like Sci-Hub and
>LibGen.
>
>Ironically, publishers' efforts to combat Sci-Hub have led them to bring the
>courts into the fray and strengthen legal precedents that can be used against
>other, perhaps more
>constructive OA undertakings. Sci-Hub's legacy may be a more repressive legal
>environment overall--not that Elbakyan cares because her ultimate aim is to
>bring down capitalism itself.
>
>Sandy Thatcher