As the democrats are jumping on the bitcoin train, let's look at the relationship between AML and social justice. 

Power asymmetries emerge more easily where consent is easiest to coerce. As long as we can manufacture opinion to an extent that serves our needs – such as the widely held belief that dragnet financial surveillance is necessary to maintain liberal democracy – dominance is imminent, particularly when it goes unnoticed. 

This ignorance is AML’s superpower - so much so that a party vowing to end inequality can reconcile its commitments to policies that exacerbate the divide it allegedly aims to overcome.

AML is the systematic rounding up of entire groups of people for collective punishment for the doings of a few; in political philosophy, we call this fascism. AML is the opposite of social – and it definitely isn’t just. 

84% of people view homelessness a very or fairly serious problem - but if you don’t have a home, you can’t get a bank account, and if you can’t get a bank account, you can’t get a home. Yet democrats continue to rally behind increasing AML/CFT regulations.

Last year, US financial institutions reported compliance costs of $85 Billion. Eight in ten democrats believe that efforts to ensure racial equality have not gone far enough, but the reason for racial inequality in banking – and therefore much of the rest of life – are increasingly exorbitant compliance costs raising minimum account requirements, keeping millions of households unbanked.

Politicians talking about Bitcoin may excite you, but we shouldn’t lose track of why we’re excited about Bitcoin. 

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