in Seeing Like a State James Scott talks about the concept of legibility as the most important feature of any authority. An uneditable, global ledger is pretty

in Seeing Like a State James Scott talks about the concept of legibility as the most important feature of any authority. An uneditable, global ledger is pretty much the ultimate bureaucratic tool. Any historic emperor would have killed for a blockchain. It is the ultimate record keeper. Much confusion about crypto as some privacy preserving or decentralizing tool ignores the fact that increasing legibility will ultimately always enable centralization because it makes possible the creation of more sophisticated, larger structures.