Oddbean

Jeff Booth is not a Communist. Neither am I. And I do not see a decline in capitalism in the coming years. That's not the effect that Bitcoin or other technological innovations will have on the global economy, according to me. I want to establish two things first. 1. Scarcity exists. Land is scarce. Our time is scarce because we are mortal. Our energy is scarce because of our physical limitations. The resources available to us are scarce. 2. We are not aimless, meaningless creatures. All of us have aims, needs and goals in life. I certainly do. Nobody wants to suffer voluntarily. But because scarcity exists, all of us cannot do everything we want to all at once. We need to prioritise the things each of us will do in order to achieve our aims, needs and goals in life. We need to 'value' certain things more than others, i.e. prices. To acquire the means to achieve our aims, needs and goals in life, we need to produce things that others will value. Our time, resources and land will always be factors of this production process, even if our energy in the form of labour becomes less so because of technological progress. Which means we need an effective way to value them and deploy them i.e. money. The form of money we use is up to our own individual calculations and judgements about the one that will do it the most effectively. For me, it is Bitcoin. For others, it might be different and that's okay. In order to effectively deploy these factors of production, we need to be able to make decisions about how to deploy them and exchange them according to our value judgements and calculations. We need ownership of these things. We need to own our time, energy, land and resources. But not everyone can own everything because every single individual has different aims, goals and needs in life. They are also born under different circumstances which means they will value things differently. If everyone owns everything and everything is scarce, there will inevitably emerge an entity that people outsource the problem of appropriation and distribution to. But this entity can never have complete knowledge of the aims, goals and needs in life and the circumstances and valuations of everyone. As a result, the decisions this entity takes will always end up with a situation where the aims, goals and needs in life of a large number of people will go unfulfilled, causing conflict, misery and suffering. Circumstances are not empathised with and valuations become distorted. This is why private ownership of the factors of production is more effective i.e. private property. Abundance in production, technological deflation and prices of produce going down will not mean people stop working for profits, incomes, their aims, goals and needs in life. It will not mean that the need for private property will go away. It will just mean the means to acquire private property will become cheaper. It means more people will be prosperous and well off. Their pursuit of aims, goals and needs in life becomes a lot easier. Money, prices and private property are three of the many things that are integral to the capitalist system. They are not going away, because they are effective. So Capitalism is not going away. If one wants to be communist, they are free to be a communist. They are free to acquire a huge plot of land through voluntary exchange and peaceful cooperation, invite their fellow comrades and live in that area as if its their own and engage in pursuits that satisfy their aims, goals and needs in life. That doesn't mean I will accept people coercing and aggressing on my natural rights. I won't give up my time, energy, resources and property unless it satisfies my needs, goals and aims in life. Regarding Bitcoin being harbinger of a communist world: Bitcoin merely makes one thing better among money, prices and private property in my view and is only a part of the solution. Because even on a Bitcoin standard and an age of technological abundance, there will be forces that distort price signals, violate property rights, exercise coercion and violently aggress on people's lives and liberties. A social, political and legal order in which voluntary exchange, peaceful cooperation, a mutual respect of the natural rights to life, liberty and property of fellow men and women is the norm will be more accommodative to keep these forces in check. In theory, the social, political and legal order that exists in most liberal democracies in the world right now can accommodate this. It emerged from the ideas of classical liberal thinkers during the age of enlightenment. If anything, what I believe is coming and hope will come is a second age of enlightenment.