This @rhipod episode is probably the best podcast about money I have yet listened to. But @drumm_colin I think you're missing the role that Bitcoin and blockchains play in your story. A thread π§΅:
https://twitter.com/drumm_colin/status/1499050472878923777
Your story seems to be one about power over real resources. About the king issuing an option for rebellion in the metallic content of money, and about the settlement between the king and the lords playing out in the spreads between the nominal and commodity values of coins.
In effect, the chartalism of the king had to sacrifice at the altar of the metalist, for metal was the ultimate store of value in the international bid for real resources.
I think this is absolutely true, and #MMT would do well to take it seriously
ebuchman.github.io/posts/mmt/
I think this is absolutely true, and #MMT would do well to take it seriously
ebuchman.github.io/posts/mmt/
One way to put my own view is that the fundamental basis of economics lies in thermodynamics and in history. Thermo is where we find the principles of real resources, and history is where we find the power struggle. Modern economics is doubly fraudulent in its dismissal of both
But I think your story is missing the thermodynamics, specifically the thermodynamics of sustainability and information. I think what you have discovered in the history of the coins, aligns with what the thermodynamics of sustainability suggest
But I think they suggest a different politics, and paint Bitcoin/blockchains in a new light.
The story I tell is one about representation of stakeholders in the state machine of society. See this talk in particular:
The story I tell is one about representation of stakeholders in the state machine of society. See this talk in particular:
Stakeholders include the various classes in society, but also the planet. The state machine is the rules of society that bind us. With the coming of capitalism, state machines which were previously dominated by religion and kinship came to be dominated by markets and corporations
The representation of stakeholders in a statemachine is an information theoretic problem. But it's also the basic problem of sustainability
ebuchman.github.io/posts/2019-01-β¦
ebuchman.github.io/posts/2019-01-β¦
The essence of the organism is its ability to represent its environment - the struggle over classes of real resources necessary to keep it alive - internally in its structure
There is a direct relationship between a system's ability to encode its environment in its structure, and its ability to sustain itself in that environment
Modern markets and corporations do a terrible job at this representation problem.
For instance, corporations systematically exclude large groups of stakeholders in their structure, and markets represent real resources from the Earth as flows (income) instead of stocks (assets).
For instance, corporations systematically exclude large groups of stakeholders in their structure, and markets represent real resources from the Earth as flows (income) instead of stocks (assets).
This is what we have to correct if we're going to solve for sustainability. I call this thermodynamic perspective
Sustainability Existentialism. But it inspires for me a political philosophy that I'm calling Monetary Localism.
Sustainability Existentialism. But it inspires for me a political philosophy that I'm calling Monetary Localism.
One way to think about history from this perspective is that it's a progressive struggle for representation of more and more of the social body within the institutional structure. A struggle over the terms of sovereignty
We go from ancient towns and villages, to empires, to the nation states of today, to the web of city states of tomorrow.
But a similar progression, a battle for sovereignty, is happening in our digital networks!
We went from personal computer villages, to cloud empires, to sovereign "decentralized" networks (blockchains), to tmrws web of sovereign interoperable community computers (@cosmos).
We went from personal computer villages, to cloud empires, to sovereign "decentralized" networks (blockchains), to tmrws web of sovereign interoperable community computers (@cosmos).
In the language of your story, I would suggest that Bitcoin is the new option on rebellion (see current role in geopolitics in canada, ukraine, etc) and blockchains are a more expressive means for representing more stakeholders in the settlement that is the monetary institution
Like gold, Bitcoin has a thermo basis. But where the thermo basis of gold is that of the material world, the thermodynamics of bitcoin is that of the digital world. What gold represents in matter, Bitcoin represents in bits.
ebuchman.github.io/posts/orange-iβ¦
ebuchman.github.io/posts/filling-β¦
ebuchman.github.io/posts/orange-iβ¦
ebuchman.github.io/posts/filling-β¦
Yes there is bias to creditor class in BTC, as in gold. But this is downstream of basic real resource constraints of the world. Its manifestation in the form of systemic extraction from poor to the rich is a function of the institutional structure we set up around it.
The current "sound money" & "to the moon" institutions set up around BTC/crypto are incredibly immature. But we're in earliest stages of bootstrapping an entirely new monetary tech with more powerful ways to express settlement between stakeholders constituting a monetary system
This is a multi scale effort. We need to represent different parts of the world at different scales. Bitcoin represents global availability of energy and basic computing power. We now step from the objective/global towards more subjective/local
We go from Bitcoin's Proof of Work, to Proof of Stake, to Proof of Bandwidth, to Proof of Plant / Care. Ultimately pushing monetary sovereignty to smaller units that better reflect bioregional and local community reality.
And we need the people that understand money to help us, to engage with the tech to direct these institutions to fulfill their purpose in the drive for sustainability - to better reflect the stakeholders in the statemachines.
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