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Let's keep our focus on the argument and the logic of the situation. Trying to infer my political biases and then tearing down that strawman doesn't do much to

by panarky 13y ago

Let's keep our focus on the argument and the logic of the situation. Trying to infer my political biases and then tearing down that strawman doesn't do much to advance our understanding. For the record, my politics are pretty far from the libertarian image you might have. My argument is that, contrary to Shiller's assertion, cryptocurrencies really do solve a "sensible economic problem". That problem is very similar to the information problem that the internet itself solved. Just as governments and corporations tried to put the internet genie back in the bottle, so they're trying to bottle up cryptocurrencies. As with the internet and information, we'll see greater access to money and financial instruments that aren't controlled by the existing power structure. We can see now that ARPANET, despite its flaws, had value since it was a precursor to the internet. Similarly, today's nacent cryptocurrencies have value despite their flaws.

pron 13y ago
But what you're describing isn't an economic problem but a political one. Dissemination of information is also a political issue, but I don't recall governments, at least in the West, fighting the internet as such. What you call "bottling up", others might call "protecting the innocent". There is no economic need for regulation-free currencies, unless you claim that regulation hinders the economy, which, again, is a political stance because the definition of what the economy is and what's good for it is subject to personal values. Let's imagine that some cryptocurrency becomes so prevalent that it replaces the national currency. The government just lost a very powerful tool in directing the economy towards desirable political goals. Suppose the citizens of a country decide that they'd rather have more equality than a higher average standard of living. That's a very reasonable wish, I think. With a government-controlled currency, the government might decide to devalue the currency to reduce imports. With an unregulated currency, the government loses one of the most powerful tools of achieving its goals. In the US, government is treated with levels of suspicion uncommon in the rest of the Western world. That's not necessarily bad, but it is a peculiarly American trait. In many countries, reducing the power of government can be seen as reducing the power of the population to make collective decisions for the benefit of the people. It puts the fate of the economy in the hands of an indifferent "market". I'm just trying to show that just as you see a need for cryptocurrencies, someone else could claim that there is a very strong need for cryptocurrencies to disappear, or, at least, become regulated. Of course, there might well be a strong desire for regulation-free currencies, just as there's a strong desire for drugs and prostitution. But that doesn't mean there's a need for them (maybe there is, but it requires evidence).

by panarky 13y ago

pron 13y ago

But what you're describing isn't an economic problem but a political one. Dissemination of information is also a political issue, but I don't recall governments, at least in the West, fighting the internet as such. What you call "bottling up", others might call "protecting the innocent". There is no economic need for regulation-free currencies, unless you claim that regulation hinders the economy, which, again, is a political stance because the definition of what the economy is and what's good for it is subject to personal values. Let's imagine that some cryptocurrency becomes so prevalent that it replaces the national currency. The government just lost a very powerful tool in directing the economy towards desirable political goals. Suppose the citizens of a country decide that they'd rather have more equality than a higher average standard of living. That's a very reasonable wish, I think. With a government-controlled currency, the government might decide to devalue the currency to reduce imports. With an unregulated currency, the government loses one of the most powerful tools of achieving its goals. In the US, government is treated with levels of suspicion uncommon in the rest of the Western world. That's not necessarily bad, but it is a peculiarly American trait. In many countries, reducing the power of government can be seen as reducing the power of the population to make collective decisions for the benefit of the people. It puts the fate of the economy in the hands of an indifferent "market". I'm just trying to show that just as you see a need for cryptocurrencies, someone else could claim that there is a very strong need for cryptocurrencies to disappear, or, at least, become regulated. Of course, there might well be a strong desire for regulation-free currencies, just as there's a strong desire for drugs and prostitution. But that doesn't mean there's a need for them (maybe there is, but it requires evidence).