Why hackers are often libertarians
04 Aug 2009 
in the early morning 
Matt Winckler
Code Free or Die() is an interesting short essay that attempts to explain why hackers are very often also libertarians. It is worth reading even if only to admire the author’s correct usage of the phrase “begs the question”, which occurrence is a rare thing of beauty indeed in today’s illiterate society. A few choice excerpts from the essay follow.
All the economic theory that goes along with libertarianism is a side show. Libertarianism isn’t about what makes us rich; it’s about what’s right. “We hold these truths to be self-evident” and all that. Libertarians don’t oppose big government because it’s clumsy or wasteful. They oppose it because it’s evil.
[...] I propose that we’ve been looking at the problem from the wrong angle. It isn’t that hackers tend to adopt libertarian politics, nor is there any third factor that influences both. Rather, people with a naturally anti-authoritarian attitude tend to become attracted to programming.
[...] People who have no interest in understanding computers are entirely accustomed to getting bossed around by them; it just seems like a fact of life. [...] But to those of libertarian temperament, this is an unacceptable state of affairs. Getting bossed around by government is bad enough. But getting bossed around by an inanimate object? Simply intolerable.