Bitcoin Forum

In my opinion crypto maximalism (which implies libertarianism, freedom from state's control of our money) is not compatible with being a communist or even a socialist, as the implementation of these systems requires always some kind of force being applied by the state to "redistribute" wealth, but maybe someone can prove me wrong.

Ideological beliefs and earnings in the crypto-currency market of nick are not correlated, if it concerns not the state, as such, but the individual. Everyone, regardless of their political preferences, wants to be rich. And in what way a person will increase their wealth, it is a personal matter. Communists in this sense are no different from democrats or liberals.

Communism is pretty much the same as libertarianism. On the page they're both appealing ideas in different ways. It's human beings attempting to actually implement them than turns them to shit.

There's never been a communist country. At best there've been attempts at state capitalism. Thankfully there's never been a libertarian country either. That would truly be a living nightmare.

Dude, if you think about such things, then you have a lot of free time. In this regard, I can only envy you. I think that Marx’s communism and the communism that they tried to implement in the USSR and other countries are different things. I did not go deep into the study of the works of Marx, but I can definitely say that he did not assume complete government control over people. Capitalism in this regard is not much different from communism now. Especially in countries such as the United States where the state is closely watching your citizens, but unlike communism, it is much more liberal about people’s freedoms.

Communism is a political system. It has little with economy and money.  Bitcoin will part state and money. Same as in past they parted religion with state. Communism were totally fine with that. :)

In 200 years when you will tell someone that money and state were connected they will think you are mad. Same as you would say to someone that would claim religion and state are connected. And that our political leaders are representative of God on Earth.

Yes, ironically Marxists want to end the State with a giant State, and replace the free market with a State "controlled" command economy. It always ends in a police state that destroys itself from within.

Anarchists claim they are the true communists. Within that group, i think Bitcoin makes more sense, but not Marxists.

On paper, libertarianism and communism are political ideologies that I think is best for a societal setup, far more superior than democracy which only led us to the likes of Trump and other bad world leaders that we have right now. Though they are good ideologies with good principles at hand, I don't think they'd ever be compatible with crypto knowing that the latter acts on its own, completely free from controls of anything other than the market and the miners which builds the whole economy. Perhaps one can say that anarchy fits the bill more properly than communism or libertarianism when we're talking about bitcoin, though it's wrong to assume that since there are some parts of bitcoin which does not follow anarchy since it's slowly being engulfed by regulations on most parts of the world.

In communism, according to marxism, there would be no money, and no need for money, so crypto would just be useless, just bits on a hard drive. But no one came even close to achieving communism, and most likely no one ever will. All the previous attempts were trying to go through socialism first, with insane amounts of centralization, they literally had centrally planned economy, and that's the kind of things crypto was created to fight.

But if someone tries to make a libertarian left-wing system, then Bitcoin might work, check out the articles about Bitcoin in Syria, how Kurds are bulding libertarian socialism and using Bitcoin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Federation_of_Northern_Syria

But crypto is private property and you should have them under a pure communist society right? Granted I have little knowledge of economics but I don't think it would be allowed in such a society.

We can see it with just bitcoins, it's decentralized whereas communist and socialist states would have had a centralized economy. I just can't see these mixing.

Communism is a heavily centralized paradigm. In theory a single, central, entity wields an overwhelming majority of power and influence for the "good of all". A centralized crypto currency with parallels to communism could be developed. The question is, would it better or worse in comparison to crypto built upon a decentralized format. Observations and conclusions derived from the centralization versus decentralization debate in cryptosphere could apply to discussions regarding communism as a political system.

Implications relating to intrinsic structural conditions could share parallels between the two.

In practice, we've witnessed communist societies ban science fiction and proactively strive to stunt the development of new ideas. When it comes to new ideas and breakthroughs communist nations tend to rank poorly in these areas perhaps as a result of heavy censorship and promotion of industry wide mediocrity. We've witnessed this trend under stalinist russia and in recent communist states.

Crypto being a relatively new idea and breakthrough within the grand scheme of things, it may be more likely to be embraced by demographics which are more acclimated to the flow of new ideas and innovations. A communist society like china's where ideas are repressed in the form of science fiction may not cope well with change nor the implications presented by new technologies.

Communism is a political ideology whereas humans have always seek self governance, with these regardless of any political structure operational in any nation, man prefers to be financially secured than having a mutual collaboration, what if the system fails tomorrow? Man starts from ground zero! The original man loves control over his fiance and ould imbibe the bitcoin philosophy.

actually blockchain system and decentralized ecosystem is financially can support communist system. because both of them are against the traditional financial systems. they both try to find an alternative solution for the people.

You are only considering "state communist" ideologies like Marxism-Leninism which forcibly redistribute property. The umbrella of socialism is much broader than that. Some socialist schools of thought reject the use of money (whether gold or dollars or BTC) but it doesn't have anything to do with forced collectivization. Any anarchist position, especially market anarchism (also called "market socialism"), would be compatible with the usage of BTC as money.

You are right, communism and socialism are not compatible with bitcoin. Actually, they are the opposite. Bitcoin is true liberalism, against government power... Socialists love government interfering with their lives, controlling how they can spend their money, what they can read, who can they talk too, etc...

I never understood why we have so many socialists here defending the opposite of what bitcoin is...

Bitcoin is truly libertarian.

We may all have different ideologies and have different political beliefs, but the only thing that everyone agrees on and the only thing that everyone likes is money, and bitcoin gives everyone the opportunity to make some, so it does not matter whether you are a communist or a librettist, plus in our current society most of the people don't care about these kind of ideologies, for the late boomers and beyond who are the people that are shaping the future don't care about these stuff.

You are basically saying that you are  a socialist, and your interest in bitcoin is just to make easy money, and you  don´t care about bitcoin ideology or fundamentals.

It's not true that everyone likes money, the ideology of communism seeks to abolish money totally, because money is in the core of market economy, and they want to replace market economy with communism, where everything is free. People like money only because it can be exchanged for goods and services, without it it's just paper or bits on a computer, so when money become worthless, no one likes them anymore.

So, communists wouldn't refuse if you'd offer them some free Bitcoin's, because a money is a money, but their goal is to make Bitcoin useless, and to them Bitcoin is a representation of pure capitalism, because it is essentially a digital private property, so don't expect communists to be fans of Bitcoin.

I have limited knowledge on communism but I am sure that it is just another idea that failed to work when implemented in the field all because as humans we are dealing with the weaknesses of the human nature. Bitcoin is partly about returning the power to the hands of the people and minimize the role of the government in the financial system (though this has not fully happened yet). Right now, I don't know of any country that can claim to be under true communism as countries like China and Russia have already adopted many capitalistic ideas and concepts and are now playing and competing in the global market.

So the question is if bitcoin can be compatible with communists? Well, to me, as long as they are still using money then maybe there will be no problem unless of course if the government they are under made a strong stand against the use and trade of bitcoin probably not because they are communists but because they are afraid to lose the supposed control on their economy and the people.

True. But the question itself was a great surprise for me. I never thought that political views can affect such things as the choice of the form of investments, for instance. I am sure, some communists here earn on crypto.

Inherently, communism wouldn't have a need for money at the basic level because (notionally) everyone would be able to have whatever products they need for free. Of course, that's rarely how it works out and there is no way that communism would ever actually be established. Human nature wouldn't allow for it to ever exist the way it "should". Plus, considering the complexity of today's goods and services, it's impossible to supply what would be "needed" to everyone. We'd also have considerably less innovation. China and Russia had some of their greatest technological leaps where their markets were freest.

As for OP's question about whether there are communists on this forum, I'd say probably but they're far more uncommon than they would be in the general population. Bitcoin caters more to a capitalist ideology than a communist (or socialist) mindset.

In our country the members of the communist party who are low ranks have been unknown. only the authorities knew some, they are in secret, because they would be put in jail if they are caught. Since this is international, I think there could be people who supports the communists, and if somehow they are well verse in cryptography I think they could come up with something that maybe could support their cause and align with their beliefs, they should be flexible and ready to adopt if they really want blockchain tech be inputted in their system.

It all doesn't matter. Everyone wants to make money and that's the only thing that matters lol. So no matter who they are, as long as they see the opportunity for them to make money in cryptocurrency they are going to grab that opportunity. No one says no to a free money, uhhmm…. Except maybe they are stinking rich. But one thing I do know is that even Jeff Bezos is not going to say no to a free money as long as there are no strings attached to it and as it's genuine lol. So any one can make use of cryptocurrency as long as there is the possibility for them to make use of it.

it could be that they are here, this can be one of their ways to enlarge their community, crypto globally cannot be controlled by anyone, this is in line with those who have never wanted to be regulated by anyone.

I think it depends on why someone calls themselves a communist/socialist. Many left-leaning people aren't really in favour of government control of everything, really to many it's just an oppositional position under the umbrella of "opposed to market capitalism". I think for people who don't like the current system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, they just want something fairer in place, the actual apparatus and mechanism of this alternative being less important. If the cost is government control then so be it. So I think in this way communism/socialism and bitcoin are compatible - they are both different oppositional approaches to replace the current prevailing ideology.

I am not a communist because it is a very radical approach but many of my ideas are communist ideas as well, I just have couple of democratic ideas as well so I am neither 100% communist but not 100% noncommunist, I just have ideas parallel to them. That being said I love crypto and loved it since day one of me learning about it, banks are what makes capitalist world continue and don't get me wrong in communist regimes like china and Russia there are government backed banks that are even more evil than capitalist ones so banks in every single ruling regime is horrible and the worst sector in all of humanity.

I personally believe the biggest criminal of our history is bankers, not Hitler, not Stalin, not historical evil people, bankers! That is why I always supported crypto and only cashed out when I absolutely had to.

You are right in that Marx's ideology and what it later became are two different things. But it happens with every doctrine, there is a (utopic) theory and then there is an implementation in the real world. Any collective ideology requires some sort of coertion by the government, because the moment that someone wants to "opt out" and can't be convinced in a friendly way to stay he will need to be forced somehow or otherwise the whole idea collapses.

The current totalitarian government control in the US and Europe (which unfortunately is also quickly eroding personal freedom for the sake of "political correctness") has nothing to do with capitalism though, it's more about an ever-growing state apparatus that feeds on taxpayers and needs to suck out all of their blood to survive, which requires full control of all financial movements.

Crypto doesn't always implies libertarianism, freedom from state's control of our money, if a communist country decided to create a cryptocurrency they can make few adjustment to the system to accommodate they're own ideology. the only crypto isn't compatible with the communism is the one we are using right now.


you know the funny thing is the meaning of Crypto (which in this forum has another meaning) is some one who has a "secret allegiance to a political creed, especially communism."  :D :D

I do not agree with your statement, I feel more like cryptocurrency can be used for many people and all humans can use cryptocurrency for transactions wherever you want.

I can't imagine a way of implementing a "fairer" (which is of course a very subjective concept) world without taking money from some people and giving it to others, and of course all this passing through the hands of a designated and trusted third party (the government). Since crypto can't be confiscated I see a huge conflict of interests in place.

While you may be right about the incompatibility of communism with bitcoin, such ideological contradictions have never prevented high-ranking communists from living in luxury or accumulating wealth. I suspect there are people all throughout the political spectrum interested in cryptocurrencies, and that those holding seemingly conflicting ideas will somehow rationalize owning bitcoin.

Given that bitcoin is not an end but rather a means to an end, perhaps it is compatible with very different ideologies. In theory, a communist country could hold it as a reserve to boost its currency or to distribute evenly, perhaps.

Of course, the elites have never applied the same rules to themselves that they applied to the masses. But I was talking here about supporters of a communist system from the bottom up, not about the actual leaders who implement the dogma (who as you said are only interested in power and don't really care if they need to apply communism or any other economical doctrine).

I find interesting what you say about holding it as a reserve though, but the moment you plan to distribute evenly it will lose all anonymity and all transactions will be traceable back to the individual, and the whole point of using a cryptocurrency will be lost.

I'm not quite sure rank-and-file communists are any less corruptible than those in power. So I imagine people of all ideologies holding bitcoin and rationalizing it.

As for a communist state using bitcoin as a reserve or to distribute evenly, the loss of anonymity would presumably be seen as a benefit to such a regime, since such regimes love to micromanage everything.

Why not compatile,Coomunism says about wealth distribution which might be possible with decentralized money so it is going to be perfect suit fo the communists I guess.But money is something that everyone needs so if crypto made to be a payment method the communists or athist or any other group of people will be enforced to use it.

Yeah, I think all the conventional silo'ed definitions of types of governments (which anyway hardly ever reflects the professed ideology for social organisation) don't fit anymore.

I mean, I can't tell left from right these days. Can't even call socialist countries (Vietnam and China closest to me) as where I'd find actual communists, since the guys I know from there would put capitalist America to shame.

Then we'd also need to clarify our definitions of crypto. I'm of the cloth that feels the majority of alts are very, very far removed from Bitcoin in every respect other than basic architecture. Bitcoin might not be compatible, but the rest of crypto, well. They're supremely flexible to be compatible with any ideology. We've got BNB, XRP, BCH, and now GlobalCoin to prove that.

I guess that you don't know what you are talking about, if the government has no control on where the cryptocurrency from their citizens' wallets are going then having cryptocurrencies in their country is a bad idea. That's the point of what a decentralized currency means without any kind of regulation then communist governments literally don't have any control on their citizen's money and their government system would fail. It will be the direct opposite for what that government wants to happen.

There might be some miscommunications between the crypto users about the implactions of what crypto brings into the world and that is why we have people are who totally opposite of each others in this space. For example people who are communist or at least lets say leftist that believe most of the country should be working to bring in people together and make things free and cheap and livable while some people believe countries should work towards making as much money as possible while trying to be better than other countries.

Now, the people who are leftist that believe the socialist stuff think that crypto is against banks and they give power to people so they support it, whereas rightist people support that bitcoin is a way to make money with buying low and selling high just like wall street stuff so they like it. Two VERY different type of people all loving crypto for way different reasons.

You probably won't find many self-identifying communists here, and if there are any they'll likely keep that to themselves.  Ever notice how on this forum VERY few people give out any details about themselves?  A big part of that is because of the bounty shitposters who just write generic statements that have nothing to do with them personally, but the other part is that people like to remain anonymous.

That's my guess, anyway, and I could be completely off the mark.  China is a communist country, correct?  And we know how big crypto is there.  As for myself, I'm a devout capitalist and proud of it.  Not that I have a lot of money, because I don't.  But I believe that it's the best system in existence, certainly far better than communism.  But I don't agree that cryptocurrency is incompatible with communism. 

I doubt that most people living in communist countries really love that system, and they probably can appreciate what crypto can do for them as far as keeping their financial business away from the prying eyes of their government.  That actually holds true for many capitalists, too; maybe more.

Despite what you may think very few people that own bitcoin are libertarians.  Check out the politics & society and you will see many people support socialism.  Capitalism is a ruthless system that takes advantages of individuals and destroys the environment in the process.

A president of a country has tried a communist type of cryptocurrency (called petro or something) but it seems to have failed.  Some other new projects are trying similar kind of centralized coins. We allow these ideological differences as long as they are not forced on anyone or the community.

I don't think that a compatible political ideologies are a necessary prerequisite for someone to use bitcoin at all.

One of bitcoin's essential features is that it is non-discriminant towards anyone, which is why it allows a lot of the unbanked to access global financial services in the first place. It doesn't matter whether you are left leaning or right leaning, all you need is a private key and address to start receiving and transacting on the network.

Thus, there is no such thing as "compatibility" with BTC, at least in my opinion. People in communist states can use BTC just as easily, if not providing more utility, than everyone else.

Does that even matter? No matter who you are, you can be making use of cryptocurrency and no one would know that you're using, yep trust me. You can use it without being traced. You can decide to be exchanging through local sellers and that way there wouldn't be a trace of anything related to crypto to your bank, cause whenever you sell to those local buyers every payment is made from their bank account, so the bank will see it as just a regular transaction. So anyone can make use of crypto, despite what they believe and who they are. All that doesn't even matter.

I don't think its non-discriminate, it all depends on how you use. However, if you look at the first idea of satoshi and why he created it and even look at the code itself and see the rules that is mostly a leftist idea. It is in fact leftist not because its against any conservative idea or anything or even not against capitalism since its a currency itself and revolves around financial markets and all however it was created against banks and the idea of banks scamming people legally.

It is a bit of right idea and not left because bankers are usually defended by the right leaning political parties and usually disliked by the left leaning parties. However, the coin itself and many other coins do not have a specific agenda against the political parties, its just parties having their own agenda against the coin.

Just sharing as what I have known, I guess cryptocurrency doesn't fit communism as communism is a very good example of centralization.
I won't even let them come into cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency's sense would be nothing with them. But I guess, blockchain could also support communism but I am not so much sure of that. Communism and Socialism are not compatible with cryptocurrencies. It will never be.

Of course, I'm not saying you can't use it. I'm speaking from a merely ideological point of view. I believe that a communist system requires inevitably state control of all transactions and that is something that goes against the cryptoanarchist philosophy. So a communist taking advantage of crypto is not really a communist :)

Hey

I think that not any single person here has their 100% money invested in Bitcoins. Everyone is holding up in banks too , therefore the point is the community is not entirely dependent upon Bitcoins therefore the force is already working where it can work leaving some spare money for investing in the other markets like :- share market, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins.

It is acceptable as long as it doesn't take over the whole economy.

Since I am one of many people who lived in the Soviet Union and found a little while when the state structure was communism.  I want to say that ideally, communism is not equality of people, but, on the contrary, communism presupposes the slavery of its people in the moral, psychological and physical sense.  That is why cryptocurrency and communism are like north and south.  These concepts would never intersect.

Bitcoin can actually help Communism when it is wrongly applied. The strict Bitcoin policies and KYC regulations that are being forced by governments, can be seen as a form of control and control is everything in a Communist regime. China and Russia is a good example where communism is showing it's influence on Bitcoin use and this is also applicable to Capitalist regimes. <Forced control applies to both regimes>  ::)

The illegal use of Bitcoin grants people within these restrictive regimes, to have some kind of financial freedom and some privacy. The loopholes within these regulations are being closed up now and Bitcoin use via "legal" means, would become even more restrictive and less private.  >:(  <In the near future it would be more private to use Cash, than using Crypto currencies via legal channels.>