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Exchange as the dominant medium of economic interaction and on a mass scale is only possible if parties in general are limited to the realm of exchange and cannot simply take what they need and want. The libertarians behind Bitcoin might detest state intervention, but a market economy presupposes it.
Yes, the only way to prevent people from "simply tak[ing] what they need and want" is to create a state and give it a monopoly on violence, thereby empowering it to simply take what it needs and wants. Quote
The fact that ‘unbreakable’ digital signatures—or law enforced by the police—are needed to secure such simple transactions as goods being transferred from the producer to the consumer implies a fundamental enmity of interest of the involved parties. If the libertarian picture of the free market as a harmonic cooperation for the mutual benefit of all was true, they would not need these signatures to secure it. The Bitcoin construction—their own construction—shows their theory to be wrong.
Huh? Exactly which theory would that be? The one that says that all men are angels and engage in trade for the purpose of benefiting others? Because I'm not familiar with that one. But I am familiar with Adam Smith's "invisible hand." The entire point of that analogy is that people who engage in voluntary trade are generally acting "selfishly" (i.e. pursuing their own interests) and yet the net effect is to promote the interests of all. So yes, some people will steal if given the chance. (See, e.g., the government.) But the market will provide solutions. (See, e.g., Bitcoin.) Quote
The Bitcoin forum is—among other things—a remarkable source of ignorant and brutal statements about the free market, such as this: “If you want to live then you have to work. That’s nature’s fault (or God’s fault if you’re a Christian). Either way, you have to work to survive. Nobody is obligated to keep you alive. You have the right not to be murdered, you don’t have the right to live. So, if I offer you a job, that’s still a voluntary trade, my resources for your labor. If you don’t like the trade then you can reject it and go survive through your own means or simply lay down and die. It’s harsh but fair. Otherwise, I’d have to take care of myself and everyone else which is unfair. requiring me to provide you a living is actual slavery, much worse than nonexistent wage slavery.”
Weird. I find the opposite view to be "ignorant and brutal," i.e. the one that supports "positive rights" (and the violence that necessarily accompanies them).Quote
Libertarian Bitcoin adherents and developers claim that by ‘printing money’ states—via their central banks—devalue currencies and hence deprive their subjects of their assets. They claim that the state’s (and sometimes the banks’) ability of creating money ‘out of thin air’ would violate the principles of free market because they are based on monopoly instead of competition. Inspired by natural resources such as gold, Satoshi Nakamoto chose to fix a ceiling for the total amount of Bitcoin to some fixed magnitude. From this fact most pundits quickly make the transition to the ‘deflationary spiral’ and whether it is going to happen or not; i.e., whether this choice means doom for the currency by exponentially fast deflation—the value of the currency rising compared to all commodities—or not. Indeed, for these pundits the question why modern currencies are credit money hardly deserves attention. They do not ask why modern currencies do not have a limit built in, how credit money came about, if and how it is adequate for the capitalist economy and why the gold standard was departed from in the first place. They are not interested in explaining why the world is set the way it is but instead to confront it with their ideal version. Consequently, they miss what would likely happen if Bitcoin or something like it were to become successful: a new credit system would develop.
Project much? I have seen a TREMENDOUS amount of interest in understanding these subjects within Bitcoin circles. Hell, the Bitcoin forum was the first place I discovered ANY interest in them. Quote
Now, the value of modern credit money is backed by its ability to bring about capitalist growth.
Oh, so that's what it's backed by? Quote
Hence, all money in society comes into being not only with the purpose of stimulating growth but also with the explicit necessity: it is borrowed from the central bank which has to be paid back with interest. While clearly a state intervention, the central banks’ issuing of money is hardly a perversion of capitalism’s first purpose: growth. On the contrary, it is a contribution to it.
Wow.Quote
Systematic enmity of interests, exclusion from social wealth, subjection of everything to capitalist growth—that is what an economy looks like where exchange, money and private property determine production and consumption. This also does not change if the substance
of money is gold or Bitcoin. This society produces poverty not because there is credit money but because this society is based on exchange, money and economic growth.
Yes, if we could only find a way to get rid of "exchange, money and economic growth," there would be no poverty. of money is gold or Bitcoin. This society produces poverty not because there is credit money but because this society is based on exchange, money and economic growth.
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The libertarians might not mind this poverty, but those on the left who discovered Bitcoin as a new alternative to the status quo perhaps should.
Thanks for not assuming bad faith on the part of people with whom you happen to disagree politically. But yes, we libertarians love poverty (really, all forms of human suffering).
