Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

yanisvaroufakis.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 95 posts

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#11

Post by [deleted] »

kerkeslager wrote: post #7
ogogmad wrote: post #3

> Under the gold and silver standards, the public money supply was fixed – and could not be easily manipulated by the state (either the government or the, then non-existent, Fed). But that did not stop private bankers from leveraging public money out of thin air to create huge quantities of private money with which to fund the Robber Barons, i.e. the Jeff Bezoses, of the era. But didn't the creation of private money…

Lightning has nothing to do with holding and transporting Bitcoin. Holding Bitcoin is literally free. Transporting Bitcoin can also be free, depending on what you mean by transporting.

[deleted]

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#12

Post by AcerbicZero »

Sooooo the issue with bitcoin+socialism would be the lack of easily centralized controls by which the party/state can manipulate the currency and that people are incapable of doing altruistic good, therefore the party/state must have those controls?

Authoritarians are gross.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#13

Post by H8crilA »

sudosysgen wrote: post #10
H8crilA wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if only more people knew some history: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

This is a correlation without causation. The root cause of both fiat currency and the worker being ripped off, is globalization. Fiat currency did not cause the disconnect between productivity and wages, the same way that the disconnect between productivity and wages did not cause fiat currency. They were both caused by the shift to a complex global economy.

And you're sure of this root cause analysis because ... ?

Also, if that's the root cause then surely you can point me to some correlation between "globalisation" and some measurable ills of the world? After all - causation does mean correlation.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#14

Post by ColanR »

yalogin wrote: post #8

For me Bitcoin further exacerbates the already terrible distribution of wealth in our world. BTC is purely a play for the "rich" folks. I say "rich" because it needs not just tech access and disposable money barriers but also has the additional tech knowledge barrier to it.

That is a problem which crypto proponents are actively trying to overcome.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#15

Post by VikingCoder »

kerkeslager wrote: post #7
ogogmad wrote: post #3

> Under the gold and silver standards, the public money supply was fixed – and could not be easily manipulated by the state (either the government or the, then non-existent, Fed). But that did not stop private bankers from leveraging public money out of thin air to create huge quantities of private money with which to fund the Robber Barons, i.e. the Jeff Bezoses, of the era. But didn't the creation of private money…

Lightning has nothing to do with holding and transporting Bitcoin. Holding Bitcoin is literally free. Transporting Bitcoin can also be free, depending on what you mean by transporting.

> Holding Bitcoin is literally free.

Interesting claim.

How do you secure it, back it up, and bequeath it to people on your passing?

Don't those things cost time and actual money?

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#16

Post by sudosysgen »

joosters wrote: post #9

Normally, a big problem in crypto-currency blog posts is that an ill-informed author blathers on about supposed technical features of blockchains. But this article is remarkable in that it doesn't mention any feature or property of bitcoin at all! You could replace the word 'bitcoin' in the page with any other currency, monetary system or whatever means of accounting that you like (using shells for currency, perhaps?…

It isn't an ill-informed author, Yanis Varoufakis is a very respected and competent economist.

Of course! You could replace Bitcoin with any other fixed supply currency. This is literally the point of the article! He is arguing that Bitcoin cannot work for the common man, because it has all the issues of fixed-supply currencies that lead to fiat currency. Transitioning to Bitcoin would be akin to restoring the Bretton Woods system, and would be disastrous for everyone.

He is indeed addressing a feature and property of Bitcoin. That feature is fixed supply. That is what matters to an economist, because it has huge impacts. Varoufakis, in this essay, doesn't talk about the tech, because not only has he already done so, but because it is irrelevant to the analysis that he, as an economist, makes about the consequences of a switch to Bitcoin.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#17

Post by Dahoon »

ColanR wrote: post #14
yalogin wrote: post #8

For me Bitcoin further exacerbates the already terrible distribution of wealth in our world. BTC is purely a play for the "rich" folks. I say "rich" because it needs not just tech access and disposable money barriers but also has the additional tech knowledge barrier to it.

That is a problem which crypto proponents are actively trying to overcome.

As long as it requires work by CPUs or GPUs it is for rich people.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#18

Post by sudosysgen »

ColanR wrote: post #14
yalogin wrote: post #8

For me Bitcoin further exacerbates the already terrible distribution of wealth in our world. BTC is purely a play for the "rich" folks. I say "rich" because it needs not just tech access and disposable money barriers but also has the additional tech knowledge barrier to it.

That is a problem which crypto proponents are actively trying to overcome.

Yes, and that is exactly what the essay is about. Crypto proponents will only be able to overcome that issue, under capitalism, if they solve the issue of a fixed money supply. It is not sufficient to solve the computing issue if it leads to massive inequality and concentration of wealth, as well as other problems.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#19

Post by ascorbic »

joosters wrote: post #9

Normally, a big problem in crypto-currency blog posts is that an ill-informed author blathers on about supposed technical features of blockchains. But this article is remarkable in that it doesn't mention any feature or property of bitcoin at all! You could replace the word 'bitcoin' in the page with any other currency, monetary system or whatever means of accounting that you like (using shells for currency, perhaps?…

It doesn't talk about technical features because it's about the macroeconomic features (unsurprisingly, as Varoufakis is an economist). He criticises it because it removes the ability of central banks to sharply increase the money supply during a crisis. Whether or not you agree with his argument, it is quite specific in that respect.

Re: Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally

#20

Post by joosters »

sudosysgen wrote: post #16
joosters wrote: post #9

Normally, a big problem in crypto-currency blog posts is that an ill-informed author blathers on about supposed technical features of blockchains. But this article is remarkable in that it doesn't mention any feature or property of bitcoin at all! You could replace the word 'bitcoin' in the page with any other currency, monetary system or whatever means of accounting that you like (using shells for currency, perhaps?…

It isn't an ill-informed author, Yanis Varoufakis is a very respected and competent economist. Of course! You could replace Bitcoin with any other fixed supply currency . This is literally the point of the article! He is arguing that Bitcoin cannot work for the common man, because it has all the issues of fixed-supply currencies that lead to fiat currency. Transitioning to Bitcoin would be akin to restoring the Brett…

A 'fixed supply' is not key to his points. Point 1 is, more specifically, that you would not be able to get agreement to adjust properties of the currency (remember, bitcoin is only 'fixed' in that there's a number in the code: with enough support, all the numbers can be changed). But he goes on to say that the problem is that the rich & powerful won't have incentives to adjust the money supply, something that could be argued about any money that already exists right now.

Point 2 is just: there will be inequality, the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. Yes, true, unless you do some huge form of wealth redistribution, you won't change this. But note that this again is not related to the new currency. Jeff Bezos will still remain rich no matter what features your new currency has, because he already is rich.

So, I don't see how these points are related to bitcoin or in fact any currency.

Post reply on HN