I think it was either through Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn that I first heard the term "libertarian socialist." And when I first heard it, I thought it was an oxymoron. (And most people probably still do.) But perhaps what both socialists and libertarians want are one and the same. And perhaps this conclusion was ahead of its time; there wasn't a way to reveal they had the same desires: for a pure democracy.
Since I first got online, I have had an interest in understanding all of internet culture. Some of it is funny, some of it scary, but most of it is uninteresting. Then came Bitcoin, and it was as different as the internet itself. I don't mean this in the financial way, or that you should buy some, or that it will replace money. It's what Bitcoin represents, the path to decentralized democracy.
After years of reading message boards and crypto Slack groups, I realized the two main types of personalities interested in Bitcoin were libertarian and socialist ideologues. But why? At first, no one knew this thing would be a thing (or even make money)—people who got into it were believers of an ideal, of decentralized power to the people. (And those that didn't believe bailed before they could reap any benefits.)
Both libertarians and socialists acknowledged that a pure democracy could never rely on mutual trust alone. Though the two ideologies ultimately have the same aim, they disagreed on the method. The socialist answer was to leave it to a disinterested third party to administer equality, this would be the natural extension of civilization. Libertarians rightly feared that this third party would become authoritarian. The libertarian answer was to rely on competition and free markets, modeling itself after evolution. However, the socialists rightly feared that this would allow power to accumulate in the hands of a few, which would allow for the few to out compete everyone else and thus become an authoritarian regime. (One could argue that at the dawn of man we were all libertarians, and since that time, every system of order has competed for dominion in the free market of governance. The paradox has been those who call themselves "libertarian" by identity not by ideology, who don't necessarily believe in evolution, yet espouse the virtues of "survival of the fittest"—not realizing it comes from evolution.)
It took time for technology to catch up to these idealists, and with Bitcoin (blockchains), we perhaps got the technology a hundred years too early. (Just as some believe we got the idea of socialism too early, it should have come after capitalism.) We weren't ready for Bitcoin, but here it is. And whether Bitcoin lives or dies, the idea of decentralized power given to the people is now out there in the ether (pun intended).
If you're completely new to this, you might be asking, what is Bitcoin? You can think of Bitcoin as the brand name for the first successful blockchain. Blockchain existed in theory but did not become reality until a person (or a group) named Satoshi Nakamoto released it to the world. But without Satoshi Nakamoto, it might have taken the rest of the world decades, or perhaps a hundred years to come up with Bitcoin on their own. Unlike other inventions, like the telephone, there was no one else coming close. And once it was here, everyone copied the technology—as if it were a relic left behind by someone from the future.
In a closer comparison of similarities, the two groups to surge after Occupy Wall Street were the socialists and the libertarians. They were the Occupy Movement. They both hated the bailouts, they both wanted the central banks broken up, they both wanted more attention back home, and both felt all the symbolic issues were distractions from the real material problems. And right after Occupy, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. As a reaction to all the problems he (she or they) saw with our governance. With Bitcoin came consensus, general agreement not by leaders and decree but by the people, handled digitally in a trustless, transparent, open blockchain.
So what's a blockchain? A blockchain is a decentralized and distributed digital network. (Comparing this to gold minimizes its capacity.) So unlike other systems we are used to, you not only use the system, you are also the system—this is the parallel to democracy (except in this case it would be a global democracy). With blockchains there are no localities, no nations, and no centralized government or central authorities. Period. These things only exist to overcome the problem of trust. If you had a possession or property, you need a central authority to prove to everyone else that the possession is yours. (The invention of judges.) You also need a central authority to sell it. With blockchain, no central authority (nor a disinterested third party) is needed. It's all counter party verified—because we are all connected on the network. Think of the film The Matrix, where the humans supply the power to the matrix system. But unlike the movie where humans are unwitting slaves, there is no illusion with the blockchain; we become active participants in the system we are powering. Rather than slavery, it becomes a co-op, where each participant is also an owner. In theory, you don't need mutual trust as everyone is each other's keeper. (The blockchain acts as the public escrow between two distrusting parties. Everyone can see it and no one can tamper with it.) The market still dictates but everyone has power, and everyone has a say. (Imagine what this could mean for impoverished and corrupt countries? Countries who neither have stable governments or currency? Or with the coming automation, a universal basic income powered by the people themselves.) This sounds a lot like the beginning of the internet, a global singularity. There used to be no difference between a libertarian socialist and an anarchist, until now. The blockchain is that difference—a governance that doesn't rely on trust.
(There is some irony, as there are some misguided nationalists who are also interested in Bitcoin. They cry online about globalists, yet do not realize with their use of the internet and Bitcoin, they are the ultimate globalists. They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Nationalism, along with religion, are the natural enemies of socialists and libertarians—not each other. To clarify, there are no borders when people of the world unite, and there are no borders when you want free trade. Furthermore, religion competes with evolution, and religion competes with the free will of the masses. But religion can add to nationalism.)
But will Bitcoin be successful in creating decentralized power? I don't know. There are already issues (with power accumulation). Will some version of blockchain technology be able to create decentralized power? I don't know. But since the focus has mostly been on Bitcoin's increase in value and how much it is worth today (this is a distraction), we miss the real point: that decentralized power is attractive to lots and lots of people and we might have a technology to get us there. (Perhaps blockchain technology is why there is no money or borders in Star Trek. Or it's the precursor to the world of Mad Max.) This is why it scares those who are already in power (and why it also emboldens those who seek it).
But here's a better question, let's say we got to a true 100% democracy through decentralization: Who is to say that would make for a better world? If utopia were possible, it would no longer be a utopia, it would be reality—and a utopia would have to be something better than reality. This is why it is unattainable.
In Democracy in America, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville writes:
“Among democratic nations, men easily attain a certain equality of condition, but they can never attain as much as they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights, they die.”
To add to Tocqueville, I would go one step further: that one's own utopia is always someone else's nightmare.
Whatever the case may be, the way politics is defined today is outdated. It is no longer just left and right, and its many variations. (And it probably never was, it's just that dualism is more attractive to the mainstream than democracy.) There is another group out there, and they want a decentralized world, and they now see the technological path to get there. (Which is why some are warning that Bitcoin is more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.) Whether we like it or not, technology evolves politics. Sometimes politics realizes too late. But technology never comes out of cypher, it is changes in society that dictates changes in technology. Technology then becomes the tool of the people to create political change. As the printing press changed religion and feudalism. It's what the people demanded.
The future of Bitcoin exists within the thing it is replacing—paper money. Just as paper money replaced gold and gold replaced payments with human slaves. We forget paper itself was a technology, a technology driven by the will of the people.
In Paper: Paging Through History, Mark Kurlansky writes:
"Studying the history of paper exposes a number of historical misconceptions, the most important of which is this technological fallacy: the idea that technology changes society. It is exactly the reverse. Society develops technology to address the changes that are taking place within it. To use a simple example, in China in 250 BCE, Meng Tian invented a paintbrush made from camel hair. His invention did not suddenly inspire the Chinese people to start writing and painting, or to develop calligraphy. Rather, Chinese society had already established a system of writing but had a growing urge for more written documents and more elaborate calligraphy. Their previous tool—a stick dipped in ink—could not meet the rising demand. Meng Tian found a device that made both writing and calligraphy faster and of a far higher quality."
Imagine a world without paper? You can't because eventually someone needed to invent it. Eventually blockchain and Bitcoin would have come to fruition even without Satoshi Nakamoto. We are already turning everything into code, from communication, money, to entertainment. Paper money can no longer meet the rising demands. So, society asked for paper money to change to meet our needs. Nakamoto is no different than Meng Tian and paper money no different than a stick dipped in ink. Look around you, Facebook has no physical properties, neither does the internet, neither does Amazon or Google—with Uber you provide the cars, with Airbnb you provide the space, Instagram you provide the photos. The phone eventually became the most important device because it allowed you to carry computer code in your pocket. You can no longer value things based solely on its physical property, otherwise everything around you has no value. The system you are reading this on has no value. Bitcoin is here because we wanted it, we have just yet to realize it.
Like the internet itself, Bitcoin is the ultimate troll. It is trolling Wall Street, governments, and bankers. It trolls greed and turns libertarians into socialists, using their wealth to raise people of Africa, South America, and poor people of Europe and Asia out of poverty while bypassing the government. It gets directly to them, like a truly universal basic income where an investment in the US increases the wealth of a field worker in Zimbabwe. It turns nationalists into globalists, their want for digital gold connects them to a global movement. It turns all hodlers (holders) into cryptocrats, building a cryptocracy.
Lastly... should you buy Bitcoin or any other digital currency? I don't know, that's a personal choice. But what you should be asking yourself isn't whether you can make a lot of money or not (otherwise with that mindset you won't be able to sleep at night). What you should be asking yourself is, do you believe the world is ripe for technological change? And do you believe the world should be more decentralized and have more of the power back in the hands of the people to be their own authorities? A world more based on consent and consensus? Based on your answers to these questions, whatever you do, you will feel much better about your decision. A purchase of anything is always a vote, whether you buy organic foods or you buy crypto. And not buying is a vote no. As consumers, we are always taking a stance.
(If you like my work, you can find more at DontFOMO.com)