Revolutionary Syndicalism of Bitcoin

Buried deep in the annals of history we find the powerful revolutionary praxis of syndicalism. Originally a radical movement for trade unions; syndicalism pulled its principles from “Reflections on Violence,” by Georges Sorel. In this revolutionary text, Sorel explores violence and how it can help humanity save itself from the barbarism it finds itself stuck within. The influence of this text helped create the largest working class movement in France and around Europe in the early 20th century.

During the October Revolution in Russia when the bolsheviks seized power, it was the anarcho-syndicalist, armed with these teaching, who valiantly fought both the corrupt communist army of the bolsheviks and the imperialist white army of the West. In the 1920s the fascist vulgarize syndicalist teachings to give themselves powerful, personalized mythos, in which they anointed themselves with divine right to rule over all as emperors. As dangerous as this praxis may be, it also may hold the key to liberation from the tyranny of our time. If we are to take the teaching of syndicalism and imbue them into cyberspace, we may develop one of the most powerful modes of organization ever conceived: The Digital Federation.

Revolutionary Syndicalism

The profound power of Syndicalism arises out of the nihilistic tradition of taking the mantel of God for oneself. Those that are of the Syndicalist’s teachings seek spiritual meaning, and a bond with one’s own God for which they fight: themselves and their communities.

This is not some imaginary, castrated god found stapled up on sticks; pathetic and defiled, to be made an example of. Not a god of religions or institutions, but the God that lives inside of us and insists that we forge a better world. The is a personal spiritual meaning that can only be found inside of ourselves; a personal knowledge that our struggle is righteous and meaningful. In many ways syndicalism is the jihad of the working class, and the General Strike is the apocalypse of the ruling class. Sorel, who has been called ‘the most powerful socialist since Marx’ is widely unknown today. This is mostly because of the spectacular conclusion in which Sorel presents his theory of The General Strike:

“Syndicalism conceived the transmission of power not in terms of the replacement of one intellectual elite by another but as a process diffusing authority down into the workers’ own organizations. Those organizations, unlike a system of political democracy replete with Rousseauian baggage, provided a pattern of genuine and effective representation. Most importantly, the violence employed by the proletariat in the course of the general strike bore no relationship to the ferocious and bloodthirsty acts of jealousy and revenge that characterized the massacres of The Reign of Terror.”

Sorel unapologetically embraced that we must understand violence as a tool that the state has monopolized for themselves to create the oppression we experience today. The Revolution can only be created through direct struggle against the illegal transgressions of the state unified with capitalism. It is only from demanding from ourselves, and our communities that we can build a true, and radical change that does not allow for the putrid slime of politicians and capitalists to keep a foothold in our systems of government.

A Breif History of Anarcho-Syndicalism

The power message of syndicalist can and is easily be vulgarized to serve national socialist, and their racist, authoritarian, ignorant perspectives. Fascism is the greatest form of government for the weakest and most sniveling cowards of democracy. This is what happened in Italy in 1924, Germany in 1932, and Spain in 1936 where the fascist seized power because of the cowardice of pathetic democratic governments that could not stand against them.

The fascist were able to come into power through this mystical perspective they carefully constructed with sinister propaganda that created the cult of the Great Leader. However, each of these seizure of power were valiantly resisted by the people on their own accords. The largest anarcho-syndicate ever created fought a long and bloody civil war with the fascist in Spain from 1936-39. The blasting cap of syndicalism finds its praxis in direct action, personal liberation, and knowledge that the revolution must be built and fought for. When Franco seized power in a coup in 1936, the CNT–the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist–rose to the occasion and heroically fought the fascist for three long and bloody years. Great citizens from around the globe answered the call of justice, and fought shoulder to shoulder with men and women of all nationalities, including 2,800 brave Americans. With the defeat of the CNT, and with the most powerful anarchist having been killed or jailed, anarchism moved underground to be forgotten for another age when the people would be ready to struggle again. That age is now upon us, and the spectre of anarchism has risen from its shallow grave to haunt the digital realm until its prophecy is realized.

The Digital Federation

The time is upon us to create the organizations that can lead a new way forward. We have the technology, and we have the will power–now we must organize. Over the coming years we will find one another in the streets, and on digital forums spread through cyberspace. We will organize from the shadows, and will strike out viciously from the night, only to abscond back into the digital sphere where we are Sovereign. Using the powerful ideology of revolutionary syndicalism we can create the digital-political organizations that shall allow for us to break the state, crush their capitalist allies, and build a new way forward. We openly declare that our ends can be attained only by the subversive overthrow of all existing social conditions through the empowerment of all people within the digital sphere. Let the ruling classes tremble at the revolutionary power of bitcoin, the personal empowerment of privacy through crypto, and the auto-didactic nature of the internet itself. There is nothing to left to lose but our chains, and there is a whole world to liberate.

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Next: The Reappropriation of Our Economic System

Antifragile Bitcoin

Thieves love bitcoin. Why wouldn’t they? Pseudo-anonymous digital cash that can easily be laundered, and taken while being personally physically secure from any sort of immedate counter-aggression. What more could a thief ask for? Not to mention that you can make off with much more than in any typical bank robbery, like the most recent bitstamp hack, where the bandits made off with around 19,000 BTC.

At first stealing bitcoin was pretty easy–here is a list of several early hacks put together on bitcointalk. But you can see that over time it has been getting harder and harder to rob exchanges. Why is the good life of a crypto-thief going extinct?

I’m sure that bitcoin thieves dress like this.

It is because crypto-thieves are putting themselves out of work–they are helping solve the security issues of bitcoin! We can see this evolution over the course of the last few years with hacks becoming more sophisticated, detailed, and sneaky as the price of bitcoin grows, and the network expands to include more people. Now altcoins, with less savvy developers, and smaller exchanges which lack the same resources as major bitcoin exchanges are being targeted more frequently. This is occurring because the security infrastructure around smaller exchanges that cater to altcoins are less developed than bitcoin, so altcoins are being targeted more like the NXT hesit from BTER last year.

As the various altcoin ecosystems develops, they will either gain enough traction to exude the same antifragile properties of bitcoin, or drown under the weight of major attacks. Either way, the whole ecosystem evolves so that with weak coins die, and powerful ones survive. The same is true for exchanges as well; with each major attack or exploit that is carried out, a ton of money is stolen, but then the hole is then almost immediately fixed, or the exchange dies. This one-time ‘security fee’ now raises the bar for all hackers; as the post-mortium analysis of what happened is generally shared with the whole ecosystem of exchanges. The more people try to exploit exchanges or the crypto-currencies themselves, the more flaws are found and fixed, making the system strong and harder to exploit in the future.

The Antifragile Nature of Bitcoin

From http://www.innoguru.nl/

Bitcoin is antifragile, meaning that the more you try to break it, the stronger it becomes. That is why the exchanges with horrible practices like Mt. Gox have died, or at least will be reanimated under much better security. This is not a fluke, but is how distributed networks function; as they are antifragile.

In fact, the only reason that bitcoin has even evolved to where it is today is because of its antifragle properties. No matter what has happened–the demise of the Silk Road, Mt. Gox, and almost 1/2 of major exchanges have failed–bitcoin is still here. Furthermore, bitcoin has not just remained, but security has improved dramatically both on the side of consumers, and exchanges in response to these catastrophes. Even the core protocal is getting more secure as more time and energy is spent developing bitcoin, with features like multisig not even being introduced until 2011. I am sure after the most recent bitstamp heist there will be a post-mortem amongst the major exchanges to ensure a theift like this does not happen again.

This antifragility goes beyond just learning from mistakes, as the whole bitcoin ecosystem works offensively in response to such events. Major exchanges are not sitting around waiting to respond to a heist, they are innovating and developing to make themselves more secure and more difficult to steal bitcoins with each passing day. Coinbase’s vault is a great example of this. When people started to complain that Coinbase could go the way of Gox, Coinbase responded with multisig vault, which means they couldn’t even steal bitcoins stored there if they wanted to! I’m not one for keeping coins with any service, but it’s good to know that such features are available for those who may not want to secure their own coins, or spend the extra bits on something like Trezor.

This kind of development in turn makes it easier for the average consumer or business to have confidence in bitcoin. This paired with already low economic barriers to entry to use bitcoin creates a payment system that is both more secure, and cheaper to use that any other payment system that has ever existed. Anyone with a computer can setup an webpage and sell something to people directly for bitcoin with much more ease, and less expense than any other payment system. This lower barrier to entry is also creates a greater degree of resiliency within the network, as it distributes the risk for the ecosystem among many actors, unlike centralized payment entities.

The price of bitcoin, which has taken a major hit in recent days, also works in an antifragile nature. Having made absurd gains over the last two years (for good reason), the market was overheated, and so a large sell-off started. Although this became a vomit-inducing ride for some noobs to the game, this was actually a good thing! Such an adjustment in price not only shook out speculators and capitalist of all kinds, but it allows for the price per bitcoin to become ‘reasonable’ to people who were looking to invest, but thought bitcoin was overvalued. This drop in price allowed for a whole new wave of folks to invest, which in turn distributed the network even more. As the price rises and falls, we will see this process happen over, and over again.

The Evolution of the Bitcoin Ecosystem

The advent of colored coins, multisig wallets, and properties contracts all seem like they will come to fruition in 2015, and are all going to bring forward a new boom in the bitcoin ecosystem. Again, it will be through a string of thefts, hacks, and exploits which will allow for service providers to improve themselves and allow for the network to get stronger. It is this process of creative destruction that allows for the demise of smaller weaker parts of the network which will allow for more evolved ones to take there place. I am confident that as we move into the coming years that service, security, and creative thefts will only get better, along with the security response to each event as well.

So this one is for the thieves, criminals and neer-do-wellers! Keep doing what you do best, it improves the security of the bitcoin network and ecosystem, and reward those for their unsolicited pen-testing services.

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Next: What is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?

Bitcoin’s People Problem

“I insist that it is not the handful of parasites [of capitalism and the state], but the mass itself is responsible for this horrible state of affairs. It clings to its masters, loves the whip, and is the first to cry Crucify! the moment a protesting voice is raised against the sacredness of capitalistic authority or any other decayed institution. Yet how long would authority and private property exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen. The Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of life means the perpetuation of power. And how could the latter be acquired without numbers? Yes, power, authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom, never the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society.” –Emma Goldman

Bitcoin’s People Problem

Bitcoin has a very serious problem, and it has nothing to do with the technology of bitcoin–it has to do with the stupidity and ignorance of the common people. Everyday I hear from the common man the same damn foolish straw-man arguments for why bitcoin cannot work. Again, and again I hear:

“But how does it work?”

“Who controls it?”

“What if it fails, or the governments stop it?”

“There’s nothing backing it–it’s not even real money!”

And my personal favorite, “Bitcoin is dead”

Stupidity is a poor excuse for failing to understand how technology and money works, but alas, we are in a world ran by a union of morons, commanded by sociopathic capitalists and politicians. Those who believe in the demise of digital currencies are the same sniveling cowards who cannot see past their own avarice and callowness to ever accomplish something great–they simply want to punch the clown each day, satisfied at the safety of being commanded by another. They are cowards happy to obey governments and laws that can only be defined as illegal and tyrannical.

These are the fools who would pled that the bitcoin’s cause can never succeed. They do not understanding the purpose of bitcoin is the struggle against the system as it is. The fools bitch of being ripped off by banks, and then offer hollow stares when told of what bitcoin can do. They demand to be told how bitcoin works, without a damn clue how fiat works. The only problem that bitcoin has is that stupid people do not want to be free and independent–they demand to be ruled and governed, and to drag us all down with their sad need to be controlled.

These clowns tell me of how pleasurable life is on their knees, and how they are allowed so many of the scraps from the table of Empire! That a life of looking towards the ground is not only a great pleasure, but one of deep honor! These people love their duty to their God of the state, and their masters of capitalism. They will offer any excuse to justify the needs of their master, any reason to qualify the barbarism they execute daily. There is nothing that the state can do that the slaves cannot create a justification for. If these are the very idiots that we must rely upon to help us create our change, I must animate the seriousness of the dilemma in which we have been caught. We shall never succeed if we believe these people will welcome the liberation from Plato’s Cave.

A Confederacy of Dunces

There is a whole union of morons parading about the world as the false champions of justice, dragging innocent dead bodies behind them. How they scream their idiocy from the tops of their lungs:

“War is Peace!

Freedom is Slavery!

Ignorance is Strength!”

See their foolishness for exactly what it is, and let the crimes and injustices which they have taken part in speak directly to what they are. Understand with every fiber of your being that the enemy is not some nameless, faceless army of destruction; but the people in your community that tell you, “This is just the way things must be.”

These are the people that are gleefully celebrate the manufactured democracy of two-party totalitarianism. They are slaves to all of the trinkets they have collected through debt, they militantly pay taxes which are used to create illegal wars, and they demand that the law be respected at all cost–beyond that of even the law itself. They thinking nothing of the meaning of the law; only to obey.

If we are to build a new world, one that is free from the constant transgressions of corrupt states and their allies, we must insist on labeling the slaves for what they are: stupid, weak-willed cowards who would rather have temporary safety, than true liberty.

Forget them and press forward!

Let them stay at their bullshit jobs, where they can ever so happily be paid pennies for their own voluntary enslavement. Let the fools believe their masters of capitalism and the state would ever-so-kindly give them justice; and let them cry tears of shame when they realize the shall never receive it. We have no need for those kind of people to help us build a new and better world.

To Fight the Fascists

Our republic die a sad and quiet death long ago; swept under the rug and ignored by the media and public like all of crimes of the state. We are little more than the aftermath of total liquidation of democracy; the world manifested after the crushing of constitutional rule by weighty corporate hands. From the coast of the Mediterranean, the to the tip of the Arctic circle, and back to the peaks of Patagonia; every nation across the globe has been crippled under the weight of international fascism–the true face of transglobal capitalism. This happened before our generation, are we are the ones that have been left to clean up the travesty of the 20th century, and the bold-faced lies the inept generation before us insist upon being the truth.

Resistance would be nearly-impossible if it were not for the internet, crypto, and bitcoin. Despite the international terrorism that has presented itself under the banner of ‘freedom and democracy for all’ we know the truth for what it is. We need little more than to watch the videos of the aftermath of their drone bombings, extrajudicial killings by police, and politicians who voice their contempt for the very laws that create the throne they sit upon. Their world is slowly and surely slipping away from their grasp of power with each new piece of technology we have. They no longer control our media, communications, or economy–we will move away from them as we build our better world here, preparing to chop off their fat-fingered hands for when they interlope into the land of digital sovereign.

The battle of bitcoin is not for the hearts and minds of the people of the world today, but of the generations of tomorrow. Everyday more of the older generation who are suspicious of the internet are dying off and dwindling in numbers, while droves of brilliant young people from all around the globe find refuge in the internet, away from the tyranny of life as slaves under state capitalism. Great ideas take time to build, as if great rumblings of thunder before the lightning strike of revolution.

The Truth About Bitcoin

The simple matter of the facts is that bitcoin is a both a better payment system, a superior form of money, and the most powerful mode of economic resistance that world has ever seen. Lies, fear-mongering, and doubt all sort themselves out with enough time–and time is on our side. Bitcoin is barely 6 years old, and really only 4 years of that has it had any commercial application. Over the next 4 years the myth of fiat money will show itself for exactly what it is: a myth.

People are pissed off about the general illegalism, corruption, and graft that is the norm for banking and government cultures alike, and frankly there is little that can be done about it. Institutions of justice time and time again have proven themselves to be corrupt to the core, with no interest in defending the rights of the common people, or respect the laws as they stand. Due to the cozy relationships banksters have developed with governments from greasing the palms of politicians, they are given special treatment so they may operate outside of the law with impunity. If we are ever to reestablish the rule of constitutional law over our governments we must demand that people understand that our republic was lost to the very people who take oaths to protect it.

The considerable amount of lies, stupidity, and idiocy spouted by the trolls and detractors will come to bear the truth of their nature over time. Their lies about bitcoin, governments, and the ‘dangers’ of independent money are out in public for everyone to see, and to act as a testament against them in the coming years. Their words will be as bankrupt and hollow as their money; and people will seek for themselves the truth of what bitcoin and digital currencies can do. If people want to discover how to liberate themselves from an economy ran by gangsters in banksuits, and fascist masquerading as politicians, and it is simply a matter of time before they discover that for themselves. As for everyone else; they can keep their chains and I’ll take my liberty.

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Next: Class Consciousness of The Digital Age

The Revolution of Bitcoin Banking

One of the dirty secrets of the bitcoin world is that we are still in the 11th century of online exchange. Today bitcoiners are dealing with the classic issue that plagued humanity since at least the 7th century BC when the first piece of coinage were found. Coins, as all physical objects, are subject to physical theft, confiscation, swindling, fraud, and debauchment; but most of all, outright violence to seize it. These issues continue to this day; however there are apparatuses that as groups of people we can use to defend against such issues: Banks.

The Evolution of Banking

The remains of the London Mithraeum

Banks from their earliest origins have functioned quite autonomously of the state. Developing out of the rise of italian merchant class in Italy during the 11th century, banking evolved far beyond the meager protection of precious metals into financialization. I highly recommend reading Nick Szabo’s two essays, “Origins of the Joint-Stock Company” and “The Birth of Insurance” for an in-depth look how this process occurred.

At this time, lending and banking was not a concern of the Sovereign–He had the power of taxation, and war–this was how he would raise funds if need be. However, war economies don’t work if you are on the losing side, and this is where the english crown found itself at the conclusion of the Nine Year’s War. England had been crippeled by france at the Battle of Beachy Head where the Royal Navy was decimated. William the III could not raise the funds at the time, and so he developed something very, very sneaky: The Bank of England. Of intersting note, this bank was built physically on top of a Roman temple of Mithras–how fitting.

As a private corporation, the BOE was given the sole power to issue bank notes in england on behalf of the crown. This allowed for lenders to give cash bullion to the bank, who could then give a loan based upon a promise of repayment from the Crown in the future. The Crown essentially invented war bonds to raise funds for the transformation of england into the naval superpower it would later become. And this was all thanks to the seditious revolution of banking.

Moving from a coinbased economy as the main mode of exchange, to a reserved-based note system, is what allowed for substantial economic development to occur in England in the generations after. This was specifically due to the technological development of new kinds of financialization which were never used before, which gave england a substantial economic advantage over other states.

Slowly and insidiously this version of banking took over the whole world! Using this system states could create money that did not exist yet; one could spend tomorrow’s promise of repayment today! A revolutionary development, but as we see today, when stretched beyond the limits of the markets, it can, and will create havoc.

Transitioning From a Coinbase Economy

Today in the bitcoin world, were are shuffling about our bitgold forged into coins from the process of bitcoin mining. You can read more about the production process of forging bitcoin in my previous post bitcoin as commodity money for a more detailed explanation of this process. While this does have many, many benefits over contemporary banking, fiat money, and governmental interference in economics; it also has substantial problems–mainly incompetence. From the Gox fiasco, to the most recent Bitstamp compromise, it is the golden age of digital highway robbery, with the Black Barts of the digital age having the time of their lives.

Attempting to move from a coinbase economy to a fractional reserve one does have some appeal, but we all know how problematic, and antithetical this is to bitcoin. However, with the developments going on over at Blockstream, I think there is real hope to create something that will straddle the lines between a coinbased economy, and a fiat economy: transparent reserve banking.

Sidechains and Collateralization

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/sidechains-bitcoin-2-0-revolution-highlights-reddit-ama/

The team over at Blockstream has assembled a ‘Manhattan Project’ scale of crypto experts to develop sidechains. The sidechain project is one to essentially be able to create a two-way peg between coins deposited, and the creation of new assets. There are two reason I believe this is such a critical development:

1) Using bitcoins deposited via sidechains a new assets can be created which would be more difficult to steal, and would allow some process of restitution in the case of theft, similar to what banks provide today.

2) Bitcoins can be used as collateral for a unique model of debt-financing as follows:

Bob deposits 10 BTC today with Alice Bank via sidechains. This creates a loan that is a fractional value of the bitcoin he deposited.

Today those 10 BTC are worth around $2700, and once deposited with Alice bank, this will make a loan that is leveraged 1:10. Alice Bank will now give Bob a lump sum of $27,000 to be repaid in the future. In order for bob to recover his 10 BTC, he will need to make payment of $275 each month for 100 months. Bob is free to pay back the the loan + the fixed interest early if he chooses to do so. Once the total of $27,500 is fully repaid Bob will ‘unlock’ his bitcoin from the sidechain. Bob now has his 10 BTC back.

What makes this so revolutionary is that it solves the impossible trinity problem that all central banks face. This allows for a natural equalization of the USD value of bitcoin to occur through debt-financing via bitcoin, fixed in dollars. If the value of bitcoin substantially increases beyond the initial $270 that Bob’s bitcoin is financed at over the next 100 months, he will have all the more motive to repay quicker to get his bitcoin back. If bob defaults, Alice Bank will be able to keep the 10 BTC for itself.

By treating bitcoin as property, a sidechain bank could use a fixed amount of bitcoin as collateral just like a how a home is used as the collateral in banking today.

The Next Generation of Bitcoin

If bitcoin is to advance itself beyond the wild west of digital finance, while remaining true to its core tenets we will need sidechains. This will allow for a revolution that will be similar to the scale and scope of the one William the III ushered in when he created the BOE. This will help bitcoiners resolve some of the security issues that have plagued the coin-based bitcoin economy, but more importantly, it will help financialize the bitcoin economy. By using bitcoin as an assest for debt-financing in fiat values, bitcoin banks will be able to create loans for people, while still remaining free from the hands of the state–if they choose to do so.

As dangerous as this is to flirt with debt financing, I believe that sidechains offer a revolutionary way to financialize the bitcoin economy in a way that allows for those in the bitcoin economy to have their cake and eat it too.

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Next: Bitcoin is Political

Entrepreneurs and Capitalists in the Arena of the Market

I frequently diatribe against capitalism in this blog, and in the following homily I would like to offer my perspective on the difference between capitalist and entrepreneurs:

Entrepreneurs and capitalists are two fundamentally different sides of the process of creative destruction that is found in capitalism. On one side there is the ubermensch of entrepreneurship; the heroic and controversial figures who indelibly advances technology through destroying the old ways. On the opposite side are the reactionary capitalist; fearful men of wealth and old ways, who demand a guaranteed return on investment from the state, at the cost of progress for all. It is in the arena of the market the these forces of old and new meet; clashing to see who will be the victor for that day and time. The stadium they meet in is filled with the people of the market; the masses and workers of all type; who are there for the spectacle of the competition, but who also affect the outcome through whom they choose to support in this clash between old and new.

Ubermensch Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are the heros of the incessant revolution that we call progress. They are the champions that take on behemoth risks, and are the ones that put their livelihood at stake in order to see progress in their field of choice. These are the men who choose to be Atlas in our time, and lift the world upon their shoulders to carry us all towards their new vision of the world–even if we do not like it. These are the people who engage in the creative destruction of capitalism, not for the sake of profits, but to create progress.

Entrepreneurs are motivated to change the old order and to recreate that which they seek to destroy in a more productive, profitable, and technologically advanced way. Entrepreneurs are the captains of the ships, the composer of the shows, and the powerful leaders who must motivate and rally the support in order to manifest their vision that shall shift the globe on its axis. They are the ones who insist that the world shall change; and they shall be the ones who demand it. They shall not be relegated to perpetuate old, anachronistic ways of doing things for the profits of another; they choose to create for themselves, or to die trying. It is from the impassioned zeal of the entrepreneur that they are able to recruit loyal followers who will commit to the struggle towards the entrepreneur’s vision of the world.

The Man in the Arena

As the single naked man steps into the arena, in front of the whole world to display his prowls of economy combat, he is insignificant; pathetic and inept looking in front of the Goliath of the state; their reigning champion of the market. Here, in the silence before the fight, the entrepreneur takes a deep breath, armed with his superior product and technology; smugly grinning to himself, for he knowns the greatness that shall come in the following clash:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

–Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship in the Republic

Workers and the Masses of the Crowd

Torn between this world of entrepreneurs and capitalist, are the workers and the masses. It is the masses for whom the entire battle is fought for; and yet they shall never enter into the arena, and many may never even see the fight. Wholly unbeknowst to them, they are the true arbitrators of who shall be the winner, and direct the outcome through whom they cheer for. It is in this spectacle of the arena that the masses make their choice of whom they shall win: The heroic underdog entrepreneur, or the current champion of the status quo.

The entrepreneurs who chooses to enters the arena must have the crowd cheering and support them. It is from them, the crowd, from which he is able to summon the strength to become the ubermensch of that time; to raise from the crowd the will to power for progress. It is from them that the entrepreneur can find the morale to fight in the arena of the market against all odd. It is from gaining their support, loyalty, and convictions that the entrepreneur can stand to fight against the Goliath. Using his wit, cunning, superior technology, and support from the people to beat back the demon of the past, it is He that shall create the opening for a future of change.

It is here in the arena that the clash against the current champion of the markets is had. The state, the corporate oligarchs, and all of their allies support the Goliath with everything they can, and will conduct a war from the stands by other means. They will use propaganda, create arena rules that serve the incumbent champions, directly sabotage matches, and outright cheating–the state and the capitalist will do everything to ensure their champions of the market remains. With nearly insurmountable odds against the entrepreneur, he steps into the arena, fully aware of the battle that is against him is despondently unfair.

Armed with his revolutionary cause to create change, to smash the very essences of which he fights against, the entrepreneur steps into the ring with the smile of a man ready to meet death. It is from this kind of leadership, passion, and geist that he inspires others break away from their cubical prisons of meaningless dullness and drab, into a free world of harder work by ones own choosing. He inspires men to toil under his yoke for the convictions for which he plows. The men who choose to join him shall not be granted a 401K, or the safety of permanence, but they shall be given his respect, and a portion of his ship for helping him build such a vision.

Reactionary Incumbent Capitalist

Capitalist are scum that do everything in their power to halt progress every step of the way. They are the cowardly parasites that hide behind that jackets of politicians like scare children; begging for their protection, and the oppression of anyone who challenges them. Their interested extends only to their families, friends, cronies, and kickbacks; at the direct expense of everyone else. Morals, ethics, and purpose are concepts that are completely foreign to capitalist–the profit motive is the only thing that matters to them. The capitalist masquerade with phony, transparent, vulgar ideology that makes little sense, but nevertheless sever as slogans and political stances that can be passed out to the masses as candy. The capitalist, like monopolist, oligopolist, and fascist, believe themselves to be entitled to whatever they may be able to forceable extract from others under the manipulated and corrupt laws of the sovereign.

Capitalist love the law, the state, and most especially the police. For it is the state who protects the capitalist scum, who defends their every move, makes excuses for their human rights abuse, and most importantly, offers an excuse for the justification for the unholy destruction of the natural world in the name of a prophet called Profit. It is the state who protects these evil men from the knives of justice, and who allows for them to exploit countless untold souls for little more than 30 pieces of silver. The capitlist love the state more than profit, for they know that it is the state who allows for them to create the world as it is–The State is the one true god of the capitalist.

The Capitalist never sully their hands with the hard work of battle that the entrepreneur faces in the arena. They may have risen though the ranks of the arena, but once they join the upper echelons of society, there is no need for such, ‘theatrics’ as fighting in the arena. Their battle was won long ago by other means, and now they believe they are entitled to the pedestal upon which they have mounted themselves. From here there is no need to work or fight–the work is for the proles, and the fighting is for the mercenaries–no need to life a fat finger when one has the power of capital.

This is where we can see the quintessential difference between the capitalist, and the entrepreneur. The capitalist is part of the system as it is now, and they would like to see it frozen in time. The monopolies and oligopolies that the capitalist have acquired for themselves are like the false champions whom they have helped stand in the arena: bought with dirty money, and made the victor not by strength or wit, but guile, and deception. The capitalist care not how the money is made, their only interest is in creating a return for themselves. They have no interest in the progress of man, and prefer a guaranteed return on investments–even if immoral–than to take on an abnormal risk to creating something profound. One would suspect that the profit motive would be their first motivational force, however, it cannot be. Prophets–profits of the capitalist kind–can only exist within the theology of the current economic, political and legal systems. One must offer their tithing of dollar and sense to the God of the State, along with the delirious conviction that the State commands all.

Everything and everyone can be bought and sold; including the laws themselves. This is how the battle for supremacy within the market has always been fought: on unfair terms, with unfair rules, created by an unfair system.

Weltgeist and The Will to Power

“I saw the Emperor – this weltgeist – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it . . . this extraordinary man, whom it is impossible not to admire” –Georg Hegel

There is another type of man who cannot be shoved into the role of the capitalist or the entrepreneur of the arena. It is he who is the true champion; someone who is not known by the title of what they do, but rather, it is their being, their geist which can only be represented by their name. These are men like Ford, Carnegie, Tesla, Jobs, and many more; men who through their own personal zeal and drive to build something bigger, something different which could not be contained in the small confines of the arena. These are the men whom the venture capitalist (the entrepreneur of the world of capitalism) gather behind. The VCs have cashed out of the capitalism game and see the vision of the true lords of the market and arena: the men who forge progress.

These are the men who like Spartacus could not be relegated to be anything other than themselves. Men who propelled themselves to greatness not because of their role given to them; but because of the force that resided inside of them that demands greatness. It is here that the men who have chosen to become Gods smash out of the confines of any role given to them, and passionately build their own.

This is not from their arrogance, or haughtiness of their strength; but from the true power which commands them. These are the men who are driven to create a better world for all, and have the personal ability to manifest it because they are anointed with the power of the Weltgeist. These are the men who battle valiantly in the arena, not for the spectacle of the sport or to stand over the body of another; but so they may stand in that arena and point their sword towards the royal box, silently warning them of what is to come. These are men who fight not for the thrill of battle, but for their personal drive to create change. These are men who are willing to gamble it all, throwing caution into the wind so that they may stab towards destiny.

The entrepreneur is the ubermensch of economics; he is the one that rises to the occasion and seizes the moment for himself not to make money, but to make progress. He is not a man of cool and calculated numbers, but of impassioned bold moves, striving towards the change that he demands to manifest in the world, or to fail spectacularly in his attempt. The entrepreneur is the radical that insists the old, ineffective, static version of what is now be destroyed in the name of something better. He is not doing this to become rich–any man can become rich with petty material things. He does this to become Great, to be the Ubermensch of our time.

Principles of Syndicalism

The Principles of Syndicalism offer us an outline for how we can reorganize our communities digitally in the form of digital syndicates. I encourage you to skim through this to gain a deeper understand of how we would reorganize our society once the state is defeated.

Author: Tom Brown | File size: 321 KB

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Written by the well-known activist and propagandist Tom Brown, this text explains clearly the principles according to which syndicalist unions organise, and the new society they aim to create “within the shell of the old”.

This simple introduction to syndicalism, workers control and libertarian communism originally appeared as a series of articles in War Commentary for Anarchism in 1943. Excerpted from Tom Brown’s Syndicalism, Phoenix Press, London, July 1990.
This text from:Anarcho-Syndicalism 101

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Bitcoin is Not About Money

It’s about power

Bitcoiners are part of a new political, economic, and social class. At the core of our tenets is the recognition that bitcoin and digital currencies are powers in themselves, and that they cannot be restricted by the despotic tyranny of States, or their capitalist allies in banking. We are not united by our creed, nationality, or gender, but by our economic objectives and the advancement of our technology. We are the ones that shall force the fiat banks towards their death, and we are the ones that shall make the State capitulate on its monopoly on legal tender and the mode of exchange. It is time for the youth of this world to rise and take their rightful place in history by striking down the awful corrupt governments of the past that have sold us out. No longer do we need to remain subservient to this system of exploitation and alienation.

The Digital Vanguard

There is nothing that ties any of us together–no names, no identities, no bodies–just Bits of data being sent across the Great Commons of the Internet. Together we have created a multi-billion dollar economy from nothing just five years ago. Those who hodl bitcoin are far past the point of doubting the success of bitcoin–we know bitcoin will be successful. We see its power, we see its efficiency, and we see the world that we are to create with it–and governments of the world and their corrupt allies are not part of it.

We are the Vanguard of bitcoin. We are the ones who shall fight the Goliath of Finance and the Leviathan of the State and watch them fall from the pedestal of human they mounted themselves upon. We shall watch them fall, we shall watch them burn, and we will do nothing but stoke the flames. We will do simply laugh and walk away, disengaging them and continuing to build the new economy that is based upon the values and virtues that has been put into the code.

Over the last few years we have poured our hearts, minds, souls, and fortunes into this project. We have made the market, built the applications, and connected the nodes, and militantly worked on security to ensure our success.

Indeed, detractors will do everything they can to discourage us. Even in that very word, we can see their cowardice; to dis-courage. They lack courage; and are spineless, sniveling, fear-dominated people who couldn’t fight anyways. They only see a world of 9-to-5 enslavement as a favor that we should be grateful for. These people cowtow under the unjust laws of their masters; for anything their masters choose, for them becomes law and justice. We refuse to bend our necks to these men: we know the crime against humanity they have purported, and we shall resist them.

Together, united in the cause of building a better money, we shall also build a better world. We have made ourselves nearly invulnerable to the malice of the state, and rage of the banks though ensuring our Privacy. We know from the code that Privacy is our immutable Law; for privacy is what assures us not only our safety, but our equality in dialog as well. We know nothing of the other parties that participate with us, except for the Solidarity we have with one another. Together we are building an economy that is based upon fairness, equality, and individual sovereignty–and we are not asking for permission to do this.

To Build a Free World

We are the ones that have ensured the success of bitcoin, and we have been and shall continue to be rewarded kindly for such loyalty. No one came to us and said, “You need to invest and support this,” In fact, many of us were mocked and called fools for ever believe in it. But onward and upwards we went, making the long journey from the obscure origins of bitcoin to the multi-billion dollar economy it is today. No one told us we would make 5, 10, or 20 times what we originally invested–we did that.

Famous vulgar philosophers, politicians, investors, economist, and journalist from all around the world have insisted that bitcoin would be nothing. They said it couldn’t be a currency, and that it was only used by drug-dealers and pedophiles. Every single step of the way they laughed at us, mocked us, and insulted us…and yet we are still here, growing, building, and pulling more and more into our sphere of influence, and away from theirs with each passing day. So quietly and seditiously, people are coming to understand the nature of money, and realizing that the banks, and the state are using that to keep them oppressed, and divided from our true political goal:

Freedom.

True, unadulterated, messy, complex, Freedom.

Freedom that cannot be suffocated because of the fears of pathetic men who need to terrorize us into compromising this most sacred of rights. Freedom that cannot be taken at the whims of the states, or the cries from banks.

Freedom–despite being so thoroughly abused, manipulated, and contorted by men of power for nefarious deeds–is a word that still has meaning. Words will always seek to give themselves means for what they are and what they represent. The word ‘freedom’ will always sound hollow coming from the mouths of oppressors to justify their despotism, which will also make present the need and demand for what ‘freedom’ truly means.

Tragically, we were birthed into a world where the fascist won long ago, and created a sophisticated oppressive apparatuses of nightmares to terrorize us into giving more and more power to the state, and their allies. This manufactured terrorism from our masters has allow for us as a people–fearful, and trembling–to sacrifice our essential liberties, bastardizing our sacred constitutional rights, proving their worthlessness without the force of men, and the will to protect it behind them.

Bitcoin is not about money

It has never been about money, it’s about freedom and what that means for our society today. As we descend into the panopticon the state is erecting at this very time, preparing the gulags in the deserts, and military control of these states, we declare that we shall not go quietly into that dark night. We declare that a government that is marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Together we are building the mode of resistance that shall cause for the empire of paper to collapse, which will free everyone from the shackles of debt, and the chains of domination.

We shall no longer be force and intimidate us into playing by the corrupt and hollow laws of the state. We see the men of government, banking, and capitalism for the criminals they are, and for the damage they have done to us. We see how they have betrayed their oath, their nation, and their honor. Their words, and their threats are meaningless to us. We are building a better world that they are not a part of, nor will they be allowed to be a part of. We no longer need them.

—

Next: Revolutionary Syndicalism of Bitcoin

On the Death of Justice

Have you heard the news of the awful man who delayed the train this evening? Such a hidious little toad–a lunatic raving between the cars: “I am looking for Justice! I am looking for Justice!”

Many who stood in the train car in their drab suits and blouses of gray snicker at the trollish man, “Oh I didn’t know it was here!” said one. “Has it lost its way from the church? Or was it the courthouse?” said another. “No it must be that it is too busy with the police to come here for you!” The perpetual silence of the train car jiggled with the foreign laugher; a joy disallowed and against the rules at this hour.

The homeless man sprang into their midst, leering deeply into them–their uncomfortable silence and sheepish gazes shift about the train car.

“Where has Justice gone?” he cried. “I will tell you. We have destroyed it — you and I. We are all the corruptors of justice, destroyers of divinity. But how have we done this? How were we able to contort the magnanimity of God? Crush the meaning of goodness? Who gave us this sponge to wipe away the blood of the past? What did we do when we unchained meaning and justice from the moment of now? Where does it go? Where are we now? Away from all meaning? Aren’t we perpetually tumbling, always pushed? Backward, downward, in all directions but forward? Is there any meaning or purpose left? Aren’t we straying as through an infinite nothing, struggling against an omnipotent everything? Do we not feel the empty space close around us? Hasn’t it become colder, and bitter, like the science of law? Does the despondence not grow skywards with each moment passed? Must not lanterns be lit every evening to quietly and humbly morn our loss?

Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying Justice? Do we not smell the putrefaction justice? Justice, too, decomposes, rots under the weight of hollow men. Justice is dead. Justice remains dead. And we watched its death, beaten under truncheons of man, saying nothing. How shall we, the indolent jury of all murderers, comfort ourselves? That which was the most sacred and divine of rights has been brutalized and bled to death under our knives — who will wipe this blood off us? With what wine could we purify ourselves? What indulgences of atonement must we buy, what sacred idols must we invent? Isn’t the greatness of this deed too difficult for us? Must we not ourselves become the sword of justice, the purveyors of divinity simply to seem worthy of it?”

He gazed outward, the holy twinkle of the zeal forward in his eyes:

“There has never been a greater deed — and whoever shall be born after us, for the sake of this deed they shall be part of a higher history than all the history that came before. To forge justice in the image of now, to give meaning to our world again.” Here the homeless man fell silent, an imperceptible stillness of glass set that moment forever as they stared at him in awe and astonishment. At last he ripped a phone from the hands of a bystander and threw it to the ground; it shattered and went out. “You people are not ready for this,” he said then; “the time hasn’t come yet. Building towards this tremendous event is still on its way, still traveling — it is still waiting for The Champion to bring lightness to the dark.

Anger and retribution need time; they must fester, infect, and rape the mind into maddened frenzy. The Champion must commit the deed that shall immortalize that moment in the past, to give meaning to justice, as has been done time and time before so the action of justice can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars — and yet we must do this ourselves.”

It has also been related that on that same day the homeless man entered various churches and there sang Ode to Joy. Led out and told to shut up, he is said to have retorted each time: “What are these churches now if they are not the tomb of justice and the palace for the most momentous occasion of God’s Death?”

–Corruption of The Gay Science, Section 125: The Madman

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Bitcoin, Economic Resistance, and Justice

“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”

-Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

I love Thoreau’s unapologetic diatribe against the state, and the banal evil of the hollow men of governments–I cannot recommend more highly to read Civil Disobedience. More than a century and a half ago, Thoreau could plainly see the preposterousness of the idea of a just government. Governments are institutions amongst men, and derive their power and justice from the magnanimity of the men within those institutions. When these institutions of government are taken over by cowards and make their objective to destroy the very constitutional rights from which their power is formed; such organizations can no longer be called legitimate. The whole world knows of the crimes of the American Empire and its axis of capitalist corruption. Now is the time to resist, and fight back before it is too late.

Direct Economic Action

I have always been one to believe that there is no revolutionary action except for direct action. Resistance is something that must be preformed at the exact time and space where injustice is occurring in order for true change to be manifested. This is deeply problematic when we live in a capitalist society that itself is the bases of injustice, exploitation, and alienation. How can one resist an entire social, political, and economic system that is based upon systematic injustice by the state working hand-in-hand with the corporate, oligarchic machinery of late capitalism? The totality, and wholeness of this vast complex of power relations finds their nexus within the legal structure of the state, seems impossible to change or resist.

That is until now.

Nation-States, from the most corrupt failed states, to the superpowers of China, Germany, and the United States; ALL maintain their power and control on their populations only and explicitly through the control of capital–if they cannot control the money, they cannot control the population.

If even 5% of the world’s population refuses to use their governments fiat currency; this would cause for a collapse of their unjust monetary system overnight. The governments, politicians, and capitalists who use our money to fund their wars cannot exist within the digital currency ecosystem. If you want to fight back directly, in a way that will true hurt these monsters; than withdraw your economic support for their corrupt money.

Through this single action–the rejection of using and holding fiat money–can cause for a financial collapse of the old, antiquated, corrupt system of money, while bolstering and legitimizing the new digital economy. This is a capital strike–a refusal to invest or participate in the corrupt economic structure that has left 3.5 billion people with the same amount of wealth as 85 people. I refuse to participate in this evil system, and I refuse to let these fascist use any of my labor, wealth, or exchange to support these conditions.

My revolution is now, and it is permanent–I hope you will join me.

Digital currencies will replace fiat government systems of money–it is simple too effective as a money system. At some point, be it 5, 10, or 30 years down the line, citizens across the globe will take the power of the purse away from government hands, and returning it to the people. By using new, alternative forms of money that the state does not explicitly control, people all over the world can choose to reject their government’s money systems and the endemic and systematic corruption of power enables.

If you truly want to fight back against the state and their oligarchic allies; than the most powerful action you can take is refusal. Refusing to participate in their official economy, using their money institutions, or being a cog in their machines. By refusing to use, or hold fiat currency, one can help start the process of stripping the state, and the banks they are lapdogs to, of their economic power. This single action alone can be what can take down the capitalist empires of exploitation, and return economic power to the hands of the people, where it rightfully belongs.

Student Debt Resistance

I need not to make the argument for the injustice at the price of education, nor the way that people are made into indentured servants of the state for little more than wanting to educate themselves. There is more student debt today that what the entire budget of the United States federal government was in 1965. Private profiteers, and banksters of the most unscrupulous sort, are allowed to leech profits from this debt, participating with the state in direct exploitation of students, and former students, as equitable partners with the state for this right of mass extortion. This is debt bondage in exchange for a certificate of graduation that offers one the false promise of employment upon graduation. You were scammed, and now you must repay them.

On the poverty of student life was an influential piece of writing from 1966 that helped ignite the shortly lived revolutions of May 1968. This work speaks broadly about the hope of youth for a future that was not determined by the exploitation of capitalism and the demand to fight for that future. The underlying point is that being a student is as subservient to the capitalist structure of the world today just as much as any other corporate job. So called ‘education’ within the ridged structure of capitalist universities is not education–it’s ideology. The apparent freedom of university is the iron cage of academia where the erudite elitism of the intelligentsia is a reflection of the same narrow, manufactured dialog of politics. The education systems are not about empowerment or agency, but subservience to the current superstructure of the capitalist world today.

To strike debt; to refuse to pay or service it can and will bring the whole system to a stand still. If a debt strike can be organized for people to default on student debts, or debts of all kinds at the same time, would cause for a total collapse of the monetary and banking systems–international financial contagion would be inescapable. If executed correctly it would take less than one month to see systemic economic crisis. This is the system that has sold out our future, has allowed for the total and complete destruction of the environment and millions of species, all while leaving our posterity broke and impoverished. This can only be defined as unjust and despotic. Resistance must begin somewhere, and I see no better place then here.

To Struggle

We have been taught, ingrained in a pavlovian way, to feel powerless against what seems to be an omnipotent force of the state that is fully against our struggle. It seems easier to simply give up, to not struggle, to find a way to compromise with the system as it is. We pretend that there is not a gross psychological damage that we undertake by living in this capitalist world where everything is for sale, nothing is sacred, and the largest criminals of all go free. We are permitted to have our own little fiefdom of superfluous trinkets and toys, in exchange for our compliance and silence with the machinery of capitalism. We are told by others and ourselves that this is a fair exchange only to find ourselves sobbing inconsolably on top of our piles of trinkets; knowing the price of our estrangement from our innermost self.

Suicide now one of the leading cause of premature death in the united states, and depression is the world’s leading debilitating illness. The estrangement of meaning and purpose from everyday live; ripped away and replaced with the meaningless, soul-sucking existence of bullshit jobs, and vacuous social connections has launched us headlong into the society of the spectacle unhinging itself. The world makes visible the primacy of commodities dominating all that is lived. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its movement is identical to the estrangement of men among themselves and in relation to their global product.

It is nothing short of childish to not see the mental toil and exhaustion from living under this despotism. We must valiantly and passionately strike against this way of life that has robbed our lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose for far too long. Inside of each one of us is the drive to zealously seek for something better–the hope of building a better tomorrow is what drives us, and this force alone can change the world. The revolutionary struggle patiently awaits us; whispering to us to rise and taken our proper place in chronos of the liberation of mankind.

To Take Justice

Justice must be taken. It will not be freely given by these governments, or the political institutions that are part of them. That request was made in the streets years ago and it was met with the heavy truncheon of the state’s fascist police armies. Protesting is little more than being a lamb to the slaughter, displaying that political reform is impossible. If we are to have justice, it must be something that we make for ourselves, and refuse to compromise on.

To directly attack capital itself is to strike at the very root and essence of our struggle. Our quest is to fracture the unholy alliance between capitalists and the state through destroying the object that unites them: fiat money. This is a direct plan of attack; an offensive and purposeful mode of resistance that as it gains momentum, it can become the revolutionary force of a general capital strike. If you want justice, than go and take it!

Refuse to accept the conditions which have been impressed upon you! Fight back and struggle against those who keep you under the bootheel of poverty and totalitarianism for their own benefits. Disparage the cowardly fascists who sell your security, freedom, and rights for their own temporary safety. No one will come and tell you fight back against an entire system that seeks to exploit and alienate you from your own being and worth–you must find that inside of yourself and will-to-power the meaning to fight back and resist! The commanders of this economic and political system are cowards and fascists who care nothing for the meaning of justice, liberty, or freedom. They are scare and pathetic little men who allow for their morals and ethics to be commanded by others as thoughtless machines. Allow for the labor and wealth that you command to be a friction against the machine, and part of the great liberation of the digital economy away from the bloody and grimy hands of the state and the capitalist pigs that control them.

—

Next: Financial Insurrection

The Creative Destruction of Bitcoin

A little more than a year ago I covered bitcoin’s creative destruction, and how bitcoin is more efficient money system on several economic levels. We also explored how the near-zero transaction cost of cryptocurrencies creates a monetary system that shall always be more efficient than fiat monetary systems. It is because of this fact that we shall see bitcoin destroy the contemporary models of finance, banking, and monetary systems; while as the same time building something new, better, and more egalitarian in its place. As the bitcoin ecosystem grows, we will see a radical shift of money, finance, and banking away from huge institutions that are embedded within the capitalist structure, to a decentralized, global framework of economic exchange divorced from the state. Schumpeter described this process of creative destruction in chapter 7 of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy and how capitalism incessantly transforms the economic landscape:

“In capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not that kind of competition [oligopolistic competition] which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization (the largest-scale unit of control for instance)—competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.”

Smashing Monopolies with Advanced Technology

The superiority of bitcoin as a money system is something that will be proven in the long-run of decades. What bitcoin has accomplished in 5 years alone is astonishing. As a non-goverment money system, bitcoin is not subject to the same legal system, taxation, inflation, or political pressures that all fiat money systems must experience. Bitcoin explicitly lacks the charlatan features that all fiat money systems–this is a feature, not a bug.

Bitcoin exist outside the framework of sovereignty of the state. Bitcoin cannot derive any legitimacy from laws or enforcement, but only from its own merits as money. In doing this, bitcoin points out how corrupt our current economic and political system is, while creating a totally new form of money that is a radical alternative. Bitcoin points out the corrupt relationship between the state, institutions of money, and how that relationship creates oppression for all people.

Today, the oligopolist and monopolist have won. A small handful of companies control vast swaths of industry with the full cooperation of the state. Government pay huge subsidies to mega-corporations while child homelessness is at an all-time high. Governments use the money they control not to help those in need, but to make illegal wars both domestically and abroad. Politicians are paid off openly and without shame, while the banks readily kick hundred of thousands of people out of their homes and into the streets with the full support of the law. Police openly murder children and are readily acquitted and protected by the legal system.

This is a form of inverted totalitarianism monopolizes the structure of power through omitting any democratic process from the economy system. The monopoly of banking, the monopoly of the law, and the monopoly of the issuance of money have all been forcibly justified through extreme campaigns of fear-mongering around the ‘need for safety’. This has nothing to do with economics, efficiency, or safety–it is about corruption and using the state to create laws that protect incumbent industries and politicians.

Breaking these monopolies is the kind of creative destruction that bitcoin is engages in through applying a superior technology. The restructuring of economic power into a digital realm will not only dramatically redistribute wealth away from the old order, but it will also radically transform the size and breadth of the financial economy by several fold. The financial and banking systems will become much more accessible, the nearly 10 million american adults lacking a bank accounts today, and the 2.5 billion unbanked all over the world can now have a real opportunity at financial access in a way that has never been experience before. Those who build these new systems, and utilize the power of bitcoin to revolutionize the financial and banking industries, will be the champions of this new digital economy.

The Revolution of Accounting

The creative destruction of bitcoin strikes at the very root–the very object of exchange–of the capitalist economic structure: money. It is through the explicit destruction of the current payment systems, legal tenders, and the monopolization of those, that bitcoin will reinvent the entire economic. From destroying these old model of finance, banking, and exchange; the entire infrastructure around economic exchange will be recreated in a better, more effective model. A similar revolution happen around 800 years ago in the north of Italy with ‘discovery’ of double-entry accounting.

This novel approach to accounting allowed for merchants to have a much better understanding of their total assets and liabilities, as opposed to the old version of just keeping a daily diary of what they possessed. The real revolution that came from this accounting system was the way to measure, value, and utilize various assets and liabilities in new ways–equity was birthed into the world. This transformed non-active capital that was previously doing nothing, into doing something. Adam Smith talks at further length about this in The Wealth of Nations:

“It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country. That part of his capital which a dealer is obliged to keep by him unemployed and in ready money, for answering occasional demands, is so much dead stock, which, so long as it remains in this situation, produces nothing, either to him or to his country. The judicious operations of banking enable him to convert this dead stock into active and productive stock; into materials to work upon; into tools to work with; and into provisions and subsistence to work for; into stock which produces something both to himself and to his country.”

-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Though this seems to be the most boring possible topic to be revolutionary, it certainly was. With the development the merchant banks in Northern Italy, now there was a way in which the ‘dead stocks’ of stationary capital could be commoditized. From the ability to much more accurately understand one’s own finances through double-entry accounting, there became a whole new way to utilize, and understand money. This was the revolution that helped create finance as we know it today, and is what also propelled the advancement of capitalism to its place on the world stage it is today.

The great advancement that came from double-entry accounting was the novel approach of pooling money through banks, and then being able to utilize that capital as an active, and productive investment, rather than a dead stock. This meant that many, many more people could access capital for investments than there ever had been available before. This new market for capital and mode to utilize it, fundamentally restructured the economic fabric of life in a way that would indelibly change the future, and advance it towards one of capitalism. This was the first revolution of accounting, and now 800 years later, we are having the second revolution of accounting and measurements.

Building The New in The Shell of the Old

The creative destruction embedded within capitalism can best be understood as a dual force of creative power. It seeks to destroy and defile old ways in the quest to create something more efficient, more masterful of the task at hand. The only way that we can build a new and better world, is through first through destroying the old ways. It is only once we have cleansed ourselves of the inefficiencies of the past, that we are able to fully manifest and powerfully produce the changes we wish to see in the world.

Luca Pacioli–remembered for writing down how to do double-entry account. No one knows who that other guy is.

The revolution of bitcoin is not just in destroying these old financial industries; but building the new system that will be radically better than anything we could imagine. In this brave new world we are quickly coming into, the financial industry as we know it will be crushed in order to make way for the new system of finance. Bitcoin and other digital currencies simply have too low of a transaction cost when compared to the transaction cost of any fiat money system.

The development of the triple-entry accounting system of the blockchain has at its core the same praxis and creative destruction that double-entry account had: to destroy the old order of exchange, to make way for the new, better, and more effective system that can reach and serve many more people than the old system ever could. What is so revolutionary about this new mode of economic organization is now the arbitrator of measurements within the system of exchange (bitcoin itself) is subject to the same accounting standards as all other actors within the system–the bankers and politicians cannot cheat this system for their own benefit. The bitcoin ecosystem has no way it can just make up new bitcoins, as the state and banks can do with fiat money, or how they can debauch commodity-monies. The real revolution within bitcoin is that makes the banksters, the financiers, and the state subject to the same economic laws that govern everyone else.

Through eliminating the costly, inefficient, slow, burdensome, and corrupt contemporary system of banking, finance, and money itself; there is a whole new economy world to be created. This will exponential increase the productivity of capital, as it no longer has to be subservient to the state, their regulations, or laws that protect their cronies. Bitcoin ensures there is no longer any physical space that must be defended to protect money, so the infrastructure of this new form of capital can extend well beyond the branches of banks, or physical kiosks. Money no longer has any masters–it is free to create the world it sees fit.

What Must Be Done

We have the tools, now we must build the new system. Rome was not built in a day however, and what we are attempting to do is to fundamentally restructure the most prominent aspect of our society and world today: money and wealth. This is an ideological battle of the greatest kind. We are not just trying to address the economic issues at hand, but the mysticism and magic of how money functions. These are huge political, social, and ethical issues that many people today would rather not question or talk about–they would prefer to simply shove their head in the sand and refuse to believe that this is possible.

However the younger, technologically inclined and technology trusting generations will soon come into power against a political and economic system that has willingly and enthusiastically sold them out, disparaging them each step of the way. Spite and the demand for justice is a very powerful thing, and the true revolution is going to come when the youth from all around the globe realize that they can economic and politically organize themselves against the respective systems that have exploit them. The revolution is already in motion; what remains to be seen is how quickly people are going to be willing to seize it for themselves.

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Next: Hayek’s Promise

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