The Enlightenment period ushered in a fundamental "Copernican-like" revolution in terms of the West's understanding of State authority and the inalienable rights that humans have because they are human, and this led to actual political revolutions in France and America. Power and authority were no longer to come from the top-down, but rather it is "the people" who should justify the existence of the State from the bottom-up. Here, I will focus on one particular shortcoming (to put it mildly) in the move from the ideal to the real with regard to authority, liberty, and equality within the economic realm of society. This horrific error is the placing of control of money in the hands of governments (and thus increasing centralization) instead of a decentralized approach in which economic power is held in the hands of "the people" in a more democratic manner to foster human liberty and equality. Then, I will explain why cryptocurrency may be viewed as the corrective development to fix this wrong.
A BRIEF DISCLAIMER
In honing in on the problem of control of money as a locus of power, I do not mean to ignore the other ways--socially, politically, culturally, and economically in a broader sense--in which Enlightenment ideals involving liberty and equality have not come to fruition in reality in the lives of human beings, or even in so-called democratic institutions. War, religious doctrine, the institution of slavery, rigid attachment to gender roles (and blatant sexism), and entrenched wealth severely hindered the prospects for a true victory of humanism in both Europe and America (not to mention those places that were the victims of imperialism). However, I do think that focusing on control of money/currency by nation-states as yet another hindrance does shine light on those other sources of turmoil and squelching of Enlightenment aims.
POWER UPHEAVAL FALLS SHORT
The past four centuries in the West (in particular) have seen a dramatic shift in the understanding of the importance of human liberty and equality. Despots and tyrants who always could rely on brute force, bizarre religious grounds, inherited or stolen wealth, and/or any combination of these, have generally found assumption of power far more difficult given the cultural and philosophical movements calling for the emancipation of human beings from the inhuman plights of most of history. People have created constitutions, parliaments, mass-voting, human rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, etc. in an attempt to establish dignity, liberty, and equality for themselves and others.
Such a dramatic upheaval of the "old ways" was--and continues to be--a challenge in theory and execution. The precise powers that were to be given to the new United States encompassed a wide range of degrees of authority, for instance. Certain matters were viewed as being of too much consequence for civil society to simply be left to . . . civil society, and instead roles like policing, war-making, taxation, and control of the money supply were granted to the central government.
In my view, any claim of having a "democratic system" in terms of political organization is laughable when there is barely any semblance of economic democracy (this does not mean wealth distribution or re-distribution, but actual control and decision-making power in one's productive economic life) underpinning the day-to-day existence of human beings. An economic democracy would utilize an actually free market that wasn't in reality cornered by the various economic centers of power that we have today, whether it be in agriculture, manufacturing, technology, retail, banking, etc. How markets get manipulated for the sake of further concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands is through a sometimes straight-forward and sometimes complex interplay between government policies (made by elected officials who need money to campaign for election and re-election) and entrenched corporate and banking interests. The individual players often go back and forth between government and big money in a twisted display of patting each other on the back . . . legislate today to serve the wealthy elite . . . and tomorrow one will be rewarded with a cushy job in the private sector.
Perhaps there are those reading this who are not too bothered by such a spectacle, or they feel helpless to do anything about it anyway. Perhaps it is enough to just focus on what one does have access to, and that is money to use to exchange for the more modest goods and services in order to get by, live with some level of comfort, and occupy oneself enough to be able to ignore the bankers and the corrupt politicians who do their bidding.
All of that is dependent on the very same entities rigging the system. Financial institutions and/or governments are the middlemen in charge of maintaining the movement of money and the legitimacy of transactions. And when life goes into crisis mode such as during a pandemic when the holes in the economic system are exposed in a drastically ugly fashion, those entities can just print a bunch of money to give to all the people so they can start exchanging that money for the stuff of goods and services. These entities have their own futures planned out; these uber-wealthy people do not need to worry about inflation's effects on their actual livelihood. Meanwhile, 99.999% of the population is forced to navigate with significantly increased prices of everything, with no end in sight.
It is important to note that it is fairly common for people who do not spend a lot of time thinking about these matters to stop right there with regard to what inflation means. The consumer mindset is so ingrained in people that they stop at reflecting on how the money they spend increases for the same purchase that they just made yesterday. The other side of the coin, however, is that money they earn through labor has come to be worth less in exchange value. And this is the deeper issue that is more personal when it comes to money--the uber-rich are depreciating the value of our work. The problem of centralization of money goes way beyond price tags--it invades the value of our time and energy spent to simply make a living.
While we have formalized in laws and institutions our sovereignty as the legitimator of central government authorities, we have a whole way of life that requires centralized power to permeate our means of living. That is the injury. How centralized power operates on a macro level to devalue productive life is the insult.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES PROVIDE EMPOWERMENT AS A CORRECTIVE
The Enlightenment goal of liberating human beings from authority structures rooted in superstition and deep injustice has only partially been realized. I have discussed how the perils of centralized control of money persist to this day. Choice in economic matters, freedom from corrupt middlemen, and recognition of value in transformation from work to fiat money exchange value are central to correcting how Enlightenment ideals have been realized at this fundamental level.
Cryptocurrencies are generating a solution for liberation in a number of ways:
1. Blockchain technology eliminates "middleman validation" of transactions. There is no getting lost in the bureaucracy of the financial system or governmental system.
2. Smart contracts guarantee that transactions are executed as they are supposed to be executed for all parties involved. Smart contracts at the micro level engender more confidence in the societal "social contract" at the macro level.
3. Cryptocurrencies know no borders.
4. Cryptocurrencies know no "business hours" or "business days."
5. The linking or layering of local focus and global reach appeals to the good conscience about both. Cutting out intermediaries and paying people (musicians, artists, friends, etc.) or merchants directly enhances community-building locally. At the same time, the ability to pay such people or merchants on the other side of the planet in a simple, secure, and quick way completely bypasses barriers constructed by centralized authorities.
6. The technology, development of apps, use cases, and the immense possibilities of practical applications both digitally and physically invite people to the world of entrepreneurship in ways that have never been available before. If a cryptocurrency project piques one's interest, the path to exploring creative business and work endeavors is cleared of all of those external intermediaries that currently hinder and slow down business opportunities. Getting permissions, signing countless forms, applying for financial backing, etc. are replaced with participation in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, development assistance in gaming and other apps, marketing for cryptocurrencies on one's own schedule, writing for websites, educating others about cryptocurrencies, etc. Cryptocurrencies foster a greater experience of the dual nature of freedom and responsibility. That is, in having more personal autonomy about how one's productive life takes place, one also is more directly responsible for engaging in projects meaningfully and purposefully. While cryptocurrencies may at first invoke feelings of abstraction and non-tangibility, they also create the possibility for a closer connection to what one does, what one thinks, and why one is involved in the first place.
7. While this article has focused on the experience in "the West," imagine the paradigm shift for people living in impoverished countries with explicitly corrupt and tyrannical governments controlling fiat currencies. The degrees of freedom are radically multiplied with access to cryptocurrencies (especially Bitcoin) that are not subject to the control of those governments.
8. Last--but not least--there is serious potential for wealth generated by investing and trading in cryptocurrencies, given due diligence and devotion to educating oneself.
As someone with strong anti-authoritarian Leftist ideas that are almost without fail never embodied by "liberals," and as someone who understands the broader libertarian anti-Statist views of those hoping against hope for actual free markets, I envision a future where cryptocurrencies will unite both of these outsider perspectives in practical ways beyond what big government and big money could have ever imagined. I hope this article has been informative as an introduction to what that future might entail.
