I was listening to The Servile State by Hilare Belloc this morning and pondering whether or not I possessed the means of production, as did the peasant of the Middle Ages; as did not his descendants after the oligarchs of England forced him into servitude.The means of production was the arable land that the serf was seated on, which, even though not legally his, was illegal to evict him from. So, as programmers, with the hitherto unknown supply of free tools and resources, have we reclaimed as a class of workers, unlike any others, the means of production? Given the chance, a midrange PC and a stable internet connection, could we not each of us be wholly self-sufficient and not just wage-earners?
Do programmers possess the means of production?
economics
To expand on Jeremy's answer a bit, the important distinction lies between labor and capital.  Labor is simply the blood, sweat, and tears you put into making a good or service that is sold on the market.  Capital, on the other hand, is an productive property (tools, raw resources, land, IP, etc.) and liquid assets (i.e. money) that is converted by means of labor into the aforementioned good or service.  In a modern economic relationship, a corporation (i.e. it's owners/investors) will provide the capital (or means of production) and the employees provide the labor.  While there is no formula for determining how much of the sold value a given good or service should go to those providing the capital and those providing the labor, Capitalist societies have generally favored those who own capital (no surprise here).  However, Belloc advocates a society in which most people provide both the capital and the labor for the goods and services they sell.  This is what is meant by self-sufficiency in this context.  You are self-sufficient if you own everything you need to make and sell sell a viable product on the market.  Furthermore, since ownership is what provides one with economic power, a person who owns all aspects of production has the resources to ensure they are not abused in economic interactions.  An employer will need to pay you more than you could earn with your own resources before you will work for them, and clients will honor their contracts when they know you have the resources and the will to take them to court should they refuse. One is still dependent upon the web of economic interactions that make up the market, but one's ability to participate effectively is more secure.In the context of software, this would entail something like a start-up or independent contractor.  I know people who do this, and the low barriers to entry of software development make this much easier to do than many other fields.  Even those of us who work for an employer still do fairly well, but as skilled labor in a high demand market we have a fair bit of economic leverage.  Even so, we employees don't have the same independence or power as we could.  The main reason we don't is that we are too afraid.  There are many barriers to entry to independent producers of all kinds in the forms of laws, taxes, and regulations which are often championed by big businesses and signed into law by our government.  Beyond the rational concerns, there is also the cultural image we have from the height of American capitalism.  The notion that getting a good job (perhaps after getting a degree) and working hard will provide you with all the economic stability you will ever need.  Despite the fact that the real wage has not kept pace with worker productivity for the past 40 years (forcing most families to be 2-income out of necessity, never mind women's rights) most people didn't begin to realize the sham until the recession.The fact of the matter is that our form of capitalism is one of boom and bust cycles, and we will never be secure so long as the failures of a few too-big-to-fail companies determine the livelihood of millions and billions of people.  If our economy was a sever farm I don't think it would even have better up-time that the PlayStation Network.  Frankly we need better load balancing and redundancy.