Purpose – The article uses the Marxist base/superstructure model to frame the current dominant form of open science (OS), presenting a critical analysis drawing on policy documents, empirical examples, and mainstream and critical research. The argument focuses on how the project understands its relation to openness, society, science and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Theoretical concepts as openness ideology, cognitive and academic capitalism, and agonistic pluralism, are used for the analysis and development of an alternative OS framework.

Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual analysis and ideology critique of OS is conducted within a general Marxist framework. In a subsequent step an alternative form of OS is developed with the help of Chantal Mouffe’s theoretical concept agonistic pluralism. The article’s argument is structured by 4 propositions and 2 proposals.

Findings – The current dominant OS framework naturalises commercial enclosures in relation to applied science/open innovation and displays a socially fragmented character in relation to citizen science (CS). This aligns with the openness ideology that downplays the social effect of enclosures related to data, information and knowledge. OS’s focus on standardised applied science accommodates social sciences and humanities under natural sciences’ umbrella. The critique of which, leads to the argument for a political OS, connected to social movements. This alternative is developed around Mouffe’s concept of agonistic pluralism and could counteract the commodification of academia and reinvigorate it with diverse forms of applied research.

Originality/value – The article delivers a critical and systematic analysis founded in the Marxist base/superstructure model that frames and combines conceptual elements rarely combined in Library and Information Science’s STS-oriented literature. It problematises the conditions for scholarly research under capitalism’s current cognitive phase and identifies positive potentialities that hitherto have eluded the attention from the wider international Library and Information Science community. Through this, the article contributes to a discussion about what kind of (open) science society needs.