So being a fan of the now extant Programmer's Stone blog I went digging for the addenda of the original papers from 1997-1999 period of the Reciprocality group. I found the article of Leon Brooks on usefulness.
There's an interesting bit on 'prophecy':
"If your children don't have any self control by the time they're old enough to go web-surfing by themselves, use all the time you have left to instil it!"
The rest is history, many people claim the Millenials are the result of just such careless attitude to teaching/mentoring/parenting that is needed for self-control to develop.

http://reciprocality.wikia.com/wiki/MiningUsefulness

It is funny how at the time both the capitalist side reacted to open source negatively and so did the cultural critics from the left!