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Theory Redux (Polity)
Cryptocommunism
Cryptocurrencies are often associated with right-wing political movements, or even with the alt-right. They are the preserve of libertarians and fans of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek. With their promotion of anonymity and individualism, there’s no doubt that they seamlessly slot into the prevailing anti-State ideology. But in this book Mark Alizart argues that the significance of cryptocurrencies goes well beyond cryptoanarchism. In so far as they allow us ‘to appropriate collectively the means of monetary production’, to paraphrase Marx, and to replace ‘the government of persons by the administration of things’, as Engels advocated, they form the basis for a political regime that begins to look like a communism which has at last come to fruition – a cryptocommunism.
135 pages, Hardcover
Published October 5, 2020
12 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 25, 2021
"The Left has not yet really grasped the importance of the blockhain, let alone Bitcoin. There are many reasons for this...a political culture that discourages any curiosity about money, and financial innovation in general, a complicated relationship with computers and information, which privileges a relationship with energy instead; the failure of 1970s cypercommunalism, and finally, Satoshi Nakamoto's personal libertarian penchant, which for some situates Bitcoin de facto on the right."
(80)
The title is blunt and I found it fascinating that somebody had taken this published position. 2021 for me has been an introduction to web3 and Bitcoin in a truly investigative and financially committed way. When I first looked at it I was ignorant of the ideology and technology. I didn't know about the libertarian blogs and leftists slams on energy use. I think most are still oblivious to anything regarding the debate which is both exciting and frightening. I was fascinated - as someone who's lived in five countries over 10 years - by the tech itself and how cryptography allows storage and movement of funds across borders at speeds which it should have been able to do decades ago.
Whatever side of the political spectrum you fall on, a truly decentralized money that is secured by millions of normal people running network nodes around the world with no (zero) single point of failure is not only infinitely valuable economically but could also be more important than we realize to maintaining some sort of control over our lives in an increasingly digital future. Truly digital money is on the way. We don't have it in our everyday lives quite yet but we will. There's no doubt some good use for digital money (crypto) from the government which is now in beta usage in China and is being developed in the EU and US. For example, Universal Basic Income (not to mention tax refunds, but also financial confiscation) would be very easy to implement with true digital currency transferred directly to your digital wallet (not a bank account) on whatever device you choose. However we're getting into areas of direct control and monitoring that we don't have currently as our money, while often transacted online, is not "digital" yet in the sense we're referring to here. But like it or not this is the logical direction we're heading. In one form or another whether it's government issued or a decentralized grassroots currency such as Bitcoin, this is how we will transact. Paper money will effectively disappear. With that kind of a future in mind, I think all of us can see a potential use for a form of value storage, money, asset, commodity, whatever that does not have third party control. This will be critical to new ideas of freedom in a digitized world.
Yes Bitcoin's energy usage is intense. Yes energy usage is necessary to secure a computer network effectively and without a single point of control. What is interesting though is the monetary incentive behind the whole thing. I know this is dangerous ground for someone who generally finds more common ground with the left but what is happening (perversely) is the high energy demand of the protocol is compelling miners to invest millions in more efficient energy sources. Development and investment in solar, wind and renewable sources of energy has skyrocketed within the industry and might be the needed financial spark to investigation and implementation of these energy sources on a truly global scale. The nature of growth in tech implies that this growth in renewable sources will continue to increase exponentially as the monetary incentives (and therefore competitive mining advantage) increases through saved energy costs. Like it or not monetary incentives are rather powerful.
I'm just confused that past that issue the left continue to be so opposed to blockchain. You're ceding your control of your digital future to Big Tech and government then. I'm confused as to what's progressive about either option. This book begins to explore some of these issues from a leftist perspective. It's extreme in this case but his thesis of the nodes being the "community" of the future is the kind of narrative shift we need. Our paradigms are about to morph this century in ways I think few of us can grasp. We need to have new ways of looking at the tech that is on the way or we will soon find we have zero actual control or ownership of our lives in what will be a fully digital world.
The title is blunt and I found it fascinating that somebody had taken this published position. 2021 for me has been an introduction to web3 and Bitcoin in a truly investigative and financially committed way. When I first looked at it I was ignorant of the ideology and technology. I didn't know about the libertarian blogs and leftists slams on energy use. I think most are still oblivious to anything regarding the debate which is both exciting and frightening. I was fascinated - as someone who's lived in five countries over 10 years - by the tech itself and how cryptography allows storage and movement of funds across borders at speeds which it should have been able to do decades ago.
Whatever side of the political spectrum you fall on, a truly decentralized money that is secured by millions of normal people running network nodes around the world with no (zero) single point of failure is not only infinitely valuable economically but could also be more important than we realize to maintaining some sort of control over our lives in an increasingly digital future. Truly digital money is on the way. We don't have it in our everyday lives quite yet but we will. There's no doubt some good use for digital money (crypto) from the government which is now in beta usage in China and is being developed in the EU and US. For example, Universal Basic Income (not to mention tax refunds, but also financial confiscation) would be very easy to implement with true digital currency transferred directly to your digital wallet (not a bank account) on whatever device you choose. However we're getting into areas of direct control and monitoring that we don't have currently as our money, while often transacted online, is not "digital" yet in the sense we're referring to here. But like it or not this is the logical direction we're heading. In one form or another whether it's government issued or a decentralized grassroots currency such as Bitcoin, this is how we will transact. Paper money will effectively disappear. With that kind of a future in mind, I think all of us can see a potential use for a form of value storage, money, asset, commodity, whatever that does not have third party control. This will be critical to new ideas of freedom in a digitized world.
Yes Bitcoin's energy usage is intense. Yes energy usage is necessary to secure a computer network effectively and without a single point of control. What is interesting though is the monetary incentive behind the whole thing. I know this is dangerous ground for someone who generally finds more common ground with the left but what is happening (perversely) is the high energy demand of the protocol is compelling miners to invest millions in more efficient energy sources. Development and investment in solar, wind and renewable sources of energy has skyrocketed within the industry and might be the needed financial spark to investigation and implementation of these energy sources on a truly global scale. The nature of growth in tech implies that this growth in renewable sources will continue to increase exponentially as the monetary incentives (and therefore competitive mining advantage) increases through saved energy costs. Like it or not monetary incentives are rather powerful.
I'm just confused that past that issue the left continue to be so opposed to blockchain. You're ceding your control of your digital future to Big Tech and government then. I'm confused as to what's progressive about either option. This book begins to explore some of these issues from a leftist perspective. It's extreme in this case but his thesis of the nodes being the "community" of the future is the kind of narrative shift we need. Our paradigms are about to morph this century in ways I think few of us can grasp. We need to have new ways of looking at the tech that is on the way or we will soon find we have zero actual control or ownership of our lives in what will be a fully digital world.
August 24, 2021
crypto is a scam, don't fall for it. Already captured.
February 18, 2021
This book is so important, it not only outlines how cryptocurrency works but how communism could work if it effectively implements a blockchain. I genuinely think everyone should read this book
April 18, 2021
Buen ensayo sobre las posibilidades de la cripto en lo social. Quizás con entendimiento un poco a medias. Recomendado de todas maneras.
December 20, 2021
What starts as an interesting (rather surface-level) text on the relationship between Marxism, finance, and technology dives headfirst into a lofty thermodynamic line of argument that doesn't really carry the weight of the author's proclamations, before descending into utter lunacy in the last four chapters. For instance:
"Evolution is a struggle for life punctuated by episodes of mass extinction. We may even wonder whether it’s worth trying to fight it. After all, if we talk about ‘creative destruction’, it is because after each destruction a better world emerges."
Yeah.
So anyway, I have an extremely low tolerance for teleology, and by the time the author is explaining that Bitcoin will lead humanity into a renewed relationship with nature, you may find your tolerance has disappeared too. Still, 2 stars for giving me another reason to believe life's "function" is best understood to be the invention of increasingly absurd forms of torture.
"Evolution is a struggle for life punctuated by episodes of mass extinction. We may even wonder whether it’s worth trying to fight it. After all, if we talk about ‘creative destruction’, it is because after each destruction a better world emerges."
Yeah.
So anyway, I have an extremely low tolerance for teleology, and by the time the author is explaining that Bitcoin will lead humanity into a renewed relationship with nature, you may find your tolerance has disappeared too. Still, 2 stars for giving me another reason to believe life's "function" is best understood to be the invention of increasingly absurd forms of torture.
January 18, 2022
Nice!
Good reading. Not the usual crypto BS but a very interesting view on modern politics, crypto networks and the ways of the future.
Good reading. Not the usual crypto BS but a very interesting view on modern politics, crypto networks and the ways of the future.
December 26, 2024
La hipótesis está siempre al borde del arrebato más delirante, pero así y todo el análisis que hace del sistema económico y del capitalismo es muy interesante e inteligente (me remitió mucho a La máquina ingobernable de Galliano el tema de la entropía y cómo Marx es el primero en introducir la termodinámica al análisis económico). Sin duda es fresco encontrar un escritor de izquierda que no le tiene miedo al mundo financiero y que cree que la solución es apropiarse de esas herramientas y no abolirlas. Es un avance, hay que profundizar.
December 5, 2020
Nada más fascinante que un libro mostrandote una perspectiva completamente distinta sobre un tema.
Es un texto complejo, pero te lo devorás al estar tan bien fundamentado y muy didácticamente escrito.
Es un texto complejo, pero te lo devorás al estar tan bien fundamentado y muy didácticamente escrito.
December 18, 2022
Though often utopian and sometimes somehow extraterrestrial, the book is a thought provoking piece giving a more philosophical flavour to the debates around crypto currency, treating it like a concrete connecting a society from inside
April 23, 2021
jajajajaja que leía porfavor
October 8, 2021
Good on cybernetics.
Bad on relationships of production.
Bad on relationships of production.
December 2, 2021
This book is so bad that it is not even wrong. Anyone who has gone through Theory of Computation 101 can spot the glaring mistakes and omissions the author bases his arguments on.
July 17, 2023
Interesante lectura.
Interesante el desarrollo del sistema capitalista como un sistema termodinámico, así como las funciones del dinero y la información inventándose en el mismo.
Interesante el desarrollo del sistema capitalista como un sistema termodinámico, así como las funciones del dinero y la información inventándose en el mismo.
May 16, 2023
An instructive echo
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews