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> Cryptocurrencies is about divorcing money and state. Seems pretty clear to me. No, they don't. There is no technological or cryptographic answer to the state
by hkt 8y ago
> Cryptocurrencies is about divorcing money and state. Seems pretty clear to me.
No, they don't. There is no technological or cryptographic answer to the state's monopoly on legitimate force, its duty to execute the law, or any of its other functions that create and maintain the business environment.
It occurs to me that much of what crypto-lovers want is actually radically undemocratic. Vestigial states that can't do the bidding of the electorate because they're unable to hold companies to account and so on. People of this inclination are the death throes of the globalist dream: it is a fine thing indeed that the nation state looks to be reasserting itself in the face of one of California's more embarrassing wet dreams.
- sunshinerag 8y ago>> There is no technological or cryptographic answer to the state's monopoly on legitimate force, its duty to execute the law, or any of its other functions that create and maintain the business environment. Where are you stating besides the role of force and law, that state is also responsible for money. The state can continue to have monopoly of force and law minus the creation and management of money.
- WalterSear 8y ago>It occurs to me that much of what crypto-lovers want is actually radically undemocratic. It's just the latest iteration of the libertarian fallacy, embodied in code - that a market can exist without a governing body to make sure it doesn't get sold.
- bduerst 8y agoBasically whenever you create a vacuum of power, it gets filled eventually by a few individual actors - i.e. Bitcoin miners being predominantly Chinese at this point.
- ric2b 8y agoAnd what exactly are they able to do? People love to talk about how many miners are in China without mentioning that they really can't do much, even if they get over 51%.
- wpietri 8y agoExactly. I used to work for financial traders, so I got to see some highly effective markets up close. Those markets were heavily regulated. Not just by governments, who were from my perspective almost irrelevant, but by the exchanges themselves. I think markets are amazing, and have a lot of sympathy for the more thoughtful sort of libertarian and their concerns about state power. But there's what I think of as fundamentalist libertarians, who seem to worship an abstract idea of "market" that has very little to do with my real-life experience of markets, financial or otherwise.
- mshron 8y agoFor anyone interested in this extremely important point (that markets need a lot more than just enforcing contracts to work), two book recommendations: * Rob Reich, _Saving Capitalism_ [1] * Steven K Vogel, _Marketcraft_ [2] What kinds of contracts can be enforced? How much personal liability people should have? Is bankruptcy allowed? and so on. All trade-offs between different groups, and there’s no one “free market” answer to any of them. [1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227780/saving-capitalism-by-robert-b-reich/9780345806222/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227780/saving-capit... [2] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marketcraft-9780190699857 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marketcraft-97801906...
- Proven 8y ago> It occurs to me that much of what crypto-lovers want is actually radically undemocratic. What's wrong about being against democracy? It's failed miserably. > Vestigial states that can't do the bidding of the electorate because they're unable to hold companies to account and so on How can you assume the bidding of the electorate is just, and free of corruption or injustice. Or that governments of democratic states actually work for the electorate, which would be a hilarious assertion.
- koheripbal 8y agoIf you rob the state of its monopoly over money, it's ability to exert force is greatly diminished.
- hkt 8y agoExcept the state can exert force to protect its monopoly over money.