Bitcoin, ECB and a Free Money Movement.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The recent ECB report amply demonstrates that from central banking quarters there will be no informed public discussion of the crucial meta-issue bitcoin raises, why there is no free competition with the supra-state's monopoly money.  For such a thorough report to omit the elephant in the room, the gross market distortions and costs born by society while not allowing the ECB monetary product to be challenged and regulated by the natural forces of the free market, is transparently self-interested and in no way serves the public interest. Amazingly, the totalitarian stance being increasingly adopted by the state money powers to hold together their wretched, creaking fiat currency monopolies has been predicted as long ago as 1976.

What we now need is a Free Money Movement comparable
to the Free Trade Movement of the 19thcentury, demonstrating
not merely the harm caused by acute inflation, which could
justifiably be argued to be avoidable even with present institutions,
but the deeper effects of producing periods of stagnation that are
indeed inherent in the present monetary arrangements.
The alarm about current inflation is, as I can observe as I
write, only too quickly dispelled whenever the rate of inflation
slows down only a little. I have not much doubt that, by the
time these lines appear in print, there will be ample cause for a
renewal of this alarm (unless, which would be even worse, the
resumed inflation is concealed by price controls). Probably even
the new inflationary boom already initiated will again have
collapsed. But it will need deeper insight into the superficially
invisible effects of inflation to produce the result required to
achieve the abolition of the harmful powers of government on the
control of money. There is thus an immense educational task ahead
before we can hope to free ourselves from the gravest threat to
social peace and continued prosperity inherent in existing monetary
institutions.

It will be necessary that the problem and the urgent need of
reform come to be widely understood. The issue is not one
which, as may at first appear to the layman, concerns a minor
technicality of the financial system 'which he has never quite
understood. It refers to the one way in which we may still
hope to stop the continuous progress of all government towards
totalitarianism which already appears to many acute observers
as inevitable. I wish I could advise that we proceed slowly. But
the time may be short. What is now urgently required is not
the construction of a new system but the prompt removal of
all the legal obstacles which have for two thousand years
blocked the way for an evolution which is bound to throw up
beneficial results which we cannot now foresee.

- F.A. Hayek - Denationalisation of Money, 1976.

http://mises.org/document/3970

Is it finally now time to try to coalesce willing partners, around bitcoin's working example, to create a Free Money Movement, as has been advocated already more than 35 years ago? How many more central bank instigated boom-bust cycles, inflations, stagflations, deflations, bouts of economic and financial instability, that benefit only a few at the expense of the majority, must we endure?

For instance, would the Bitcoin Foundation be willing to get involved, sponsor or otherwise support a Free Money Movement? Bitcoin can be exhibited as a transaction instrument to liberate people's economic welfare from the shackles of predatory banks (and states) whilst advocating for legal frameworks allowing people wide freedoms to choose any value transaction technology they prefer. Getting bogged down in moral judgements and details of bad things a minority do with money is a completely skewed perspective of reality, when balanced against the massive economic benefits stemming from efficient value transactions systems.

The more competition and innovation in such systems, as bitcoin, in this period of unprecedented increase in instantaneous inter-connectedness, is vital and the pay-offs to humanity potentially vast, particularly for the common man and less well off. The ECB report is an attempt to subjugate competitors and kill innovations, such as bitcoin, using its own blinkered vision as an "argument from authority" without any scientific, economic or moral basis, when the broader issues have never been debated. Perhaps the ECB are not even aware of them?

It is well past time for a Free Money Movement, are bitcoiners going to get on-board with this?!

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[blablahblah]

Isn't Bitcoin already a 'movement' in its own right? It sounds like you're advocating more marketing, cold-calling, and pseudo-leadership/management mumbo-jumbo wrapped up in a non-profit organisation, but want to see how many suckers will pledge donations before doing anything.

(Edit: sorry, my reply was only meant to be taken lightly, but my sarcasm levels seem to be a bit off today.)

[Akka]

Excellent Post, I really enjoyed reading this.

But more or less the same question as from blablahblah:

Isn't this at least the logical consequence of bitcoin?

Or isn't Bitcoin kind of a symptom that there already is such a movement?

But yes, if there official where something like this, count me in.

[Carlton Banks]

If you explained Bitcoin to strangers, in public, fairly often, many would walk away before the first 5 minutes

If you said what the OP said, I reckon you might stand a better chance of getting people interested in Bitcoin, say, 2-6 weeks later when they find it for themselves.

[Frequency]

If you explained Bitcoin to strangers, in public, fairly often, many would walk away before the first 5 minutes

If you said what the OP said, I reckon you might stand a better chance of getting people interested in Bitcoin, say, 2-6 weeks later when they find it for themselves.

so true, but also understandabel for new people to get the benefits BTC brings...also time will tell them and hopefully for them there money didn,t burn completly away in the system we now have.. 

[marcus_of_augustus]

Excellent Post, I really enjoyed reading this.

But more or less the same question as from blablahblah:

Isn't this at least the logical consequence of bitcoin?

Or isn't Bitcoin kind of a symptom that there already is such a movement?

But yes, if there official where something like this, count me in.

It maybe a logical consequence of bitcoin regardless of whether a Free Money Movement exists or not, because the technology is hardened against vindictive political attacks, but do we really need to go there? As I see it, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way, (the kicking, screaming locking people up, riots-in-the-streets way).

The easy way is to get the debate started already in the halls of academia, and amongst the chattering classes, spread the message as wide and far as possible that we NEED serious ground-up monetary reform now. The hope being to smooth the passage for cultural and political reform that freely allows bitcoin, and any other innovative value transfer technologies that may spring up to develop naturally and unimpeded, and that this is widely understood to be the good and right thing to do.

The ECB has already made clear that it considers bitcoin (and other "virtual currencies") as coming under its purview, this is wrong on several levels. ECB has no mandate to interfere with bitcoin in anyway, whatsoever.  The long bow they try to draw about "bitcoin possibly destabilising the system the public expects us to regulate" is a very tenuous link indeed and is a transparent fabrication to extend its lawful functions outside their mandated boundaries, with the evil intention to strangle the competition in the cradle.

If F. A. Hayek was wise and brave enough to advocate for a Free Money Movement in 1976, that's good enough for me ... my only question is where are all the freedom fighters willing to stand up and have their voices heard today?

PS: thanx for your vote of support, you and I make two.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Isn't Bitcoin already a 'movement' in its own right? It sounds like you're advocating more marketing, cold-calling, and pseudo-leadership/management mumbo-jumbo wrapped up in a non-profit organisation, but want to see how many suckers will pledge donations before doing anything.

(Edit: sorry, my reply was only meant to be taken lightly, but my sarcasm levels seem to be a bit off today.)

You can always just delete such a mean-spirited post after the fact you know. If you are of a cynical mind then I guess you should just go looking for suckers ... there are of course many others ways you could help if you went looking for those also.

Such a Free Money Movement would spawn a plethora of non-profits I suppose, I have no interest in operating one. As long as they are getting the message out and spending the donor funds efficiently ... are they so different to the first bitcoin marketing video effort that was created from donated bitcoins?

[Spekulatius]

If you explained Bitcoin to strangers, in public, fairly often, many would walk away before the first 5 minutes

If you said what the OP said, I reckon you might stand a better chance of getting people interested in Bitcoin, say, 2-6 weeks later when they find it for themselves.

Almost certainly when I bring up bitcoin, it ends up in a longer discussion.

[Ichthyo]

Sorry to interfere with the general excitement...

The following is the irrational part of that stance:

....but the prompt removal of all the legal obstacles
which have for two thousand years blocked the way
for an evolution which is bound to throw up
beneficial results which we cannot now foresee.

- F.A. Hayek - Denationalisation of Money, 1976.

Myabe Hayek's mind was dazed by some (possibly subconscious) leftovers of religious motives?


Anyway: The free exchange of market forces is similar to nature's forces.
These are not bound to be beneficial. In fact, nature doesn't know "good" and "bad".
Same for the market, which isn't "beneficial" but rather just indifferent.

The market connects in a seemingly random fashion any ends which just might be connected.
In the extreme, if there are people craving to get rich quickly, and if there is a pirate, the market connects them.


In all honesty, our feeling towards nature and anything going the way of nature is ambivalent. We love her like a mother, but the same time, since ages, we're building layers and layers of protection against "mother". More so, since several thousand years, we're living under the influence of formulated religions and have that deeply infested inner demand to do our "deal with the good". Note especially this includes the notion of "doing something".

This makes up for some thoroughly dishonest tendency in the apparent public opinion.
Everyone loves "freedom", especially monetary freedom. Everyone loves to evade tax. Everyone loves to make income and get a sweet life. But the moment something goes "wrong", be it just the natural oscillation of market equilibrium, be it just the average hurricane of the season, or some average pirates for that, immediately there is the demand "that something needs to be done about that".


Sure, there are some sketchy figures, doing extremely well in the vicinity of the state organisation. But it is simply not true that just a bunch of evildoers called "the state" is taking the oh so good population as hostages and brainwashes them. Letting all ideology and focussed conflicts aside, on the average, people roughly agree with the general direction things are going.

Technology wins. Technology is about doing something. Doing something about finances is finance technology.
When we're able to do much, the grand majority of every population will demand that much must be done.

You simply can't tell me that the majority will ever agree not to do large-scale finance technology, since we're capable of doing that.
This way, we get finance and market regulation. To put it maliciously, its just natural we're picking this route.

[Rudd-O]

The recent ECB report amply demonstrates that from central banking quarters there will be no informed public discussion of the crucial meta-issue bitcoin raises,

That's alright -- there won't be any informed private discussion either.  There'll be lots of propaganda to try and assassinate Bitcoin into stillbirth, but informed discussion?  Haha, nope.

-----------------------------------

There is an interesting phenomenon that takes place in large and inflexible organizations like governments and corporations (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong):

It usually is the case that most important issues are never to be discussed openly -- even if everyone is aware of the issues.  People who could conceivably bring those issues up and address them usually don't, because the mere acknowledgement of the issues might come across as "too threatening", or "out of line", or bringing the subject up costs these people status within their organization.  So the issue is dealt on the basis of a "common understanding" on a nod-nod-wink-wink basis.

This situation usually proves fatal to the organization.  That is how revolutions and bankruptcies happen, and people are left saying "well, we didn't see that coming, one day we were getting our paycheck and the next day the doors were boarded up".  It is quite literally the inevitable fault that causes threats to be unaddressed, which ultimately brings them down.

This is why we will prevail.

Welcome to the Free Money movement -- it's already here, and we are it.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Sorry to interfere with the general excitement...

The following is the irrational part of that stance:

....but the prompt removal of all the legal obstacles
which have for two thousand years blocked the way
for an evolution which is bound to throw up
beneficial results which we cannot now foresee.

- F.A. Hayek - Denationalisation of Money, 1976.

Myabe Hayek's mind was dazed by some (possibly subconscious) leftovers of religious motives?


Anyway: The free exchange of market forces is similar to nature's forces.
These are not bound to be beneficial. In fact, nature doesn't know "good" and "bad".
Same for the market, which isn't "beneficial" but rather just indifferent.

The market connects in a seemingly random fashion any ends which just might be connected.
In the extreme, if there are people craving to get rich quickly, and if there is a pirate, the market connects them.


In all honesty, our feeling towards nature and anything going the way of nature is ambivalent. We love her like a mother, but the same time, since ages, we're building layers and layers of protection against "mother". More so, since several thousand years, we're living under the influence of formulated religions and have that deeply infested inner demand to do our "deal with the good". Note especially this includes the notion of "doing something".

This makes up for some thoroughly dishonest tendency in the apparent public opinion.
Everyone loves "freedom", especially monetary freedom. Everyone loves to evade tax. Everyone loves to make income and get a sweet life. But the moment something goes "wrong", be it just the natural oscillation of market equilibrium, be it just the average hurricane of the season, or some average pirates for that, immediately there is the demand "that something needs to be done about that".


Sure, there are some sketchy figures, doing extremely well in the vicinity of the state organisation. But it is simply not true that just a bunch of evildoers called "the state" is taking the oh so good population as hostages and brainwashes them. Letting all ideology and focussed conflicts aside, on the average, people roughly agree with the general direction things are going.

Technology wins. Technology is about doing something. Doing something about finances is finance technology.
When we're able to do much, the grand majority of every population will demand that much must be done.

You simply can't tell me that the majority will ever agree not to do large-scale finance technology, since we're capable of doing that.
This way, we get finance and market regulation. To put it maliciously, its just natural we're picking this route.

Well, after rambling through your words, (some of them good, some misguided and misinformed) ... did you have a topical point regards a Free Money Movement?

I didn't see one in there.

[blablahblah]

...
You can always just delete such a mean-spirited post after the fact you know. If you are of a cynical mind then I guess you should just go looking for suckers ... there are of course many others ways you could help if you went looking for those also.

Such a Free Money Movement would spawn a plethora of non-profits I suppose, I have no interest in operating one. As long as they are getting the message out and spending the donor funds efficiently ... are they so different to the first bitcoin marketing video effort that was created from donated bitcoins?

OK intentions, just bad wording, hate deleting posts, and I was too tired to think of anything better.

The ECB has already made clear that it considers bitcoin (and other "virtual currencies") as coming under its purview, this is wrong on several levels. ECB has no mandate to interfere with bitcoin in anyway, whatsoever.  The long bow they try to draw about "bitcoin possibly destabilising the system the public expects us to regulate" is a very tenuous link indeed and is a transparent fabrication to extend its lawful functions outside their mandated boundaries, with the evil intention to strangle the competition in the cradle.

They could also be looking out for Bitcoin? The vibe I got from some of the comments in the report made it seem like some messages were aimed at competing central banks, and there were even some subtle hints of MAD thinking. To paraphrase very loosely: "if you continue your crazy scheme of devaluing the dollar, forcing us to competitively devalue as well, and hoping that the dollar will be 'the last man standing', we may be forced to leverage the power of the media to popularise a viable alternative. If we go down, so do you!" If I can read into it like that, then the message must be very clear for power-hungry nut-jobs who are even more paranoid than I.

Notice that the report was written in English. Had it been aimed at domestic audiences, they could have written it in German or Dutch perhaps.

[Ichthyo]

Well, ... did you have a topical point regards a Free Money Movement?

I didn't see one in there.

Your conclusion (or the conclusion within the quote) is superficial; more precisely, it's a merely formal conclusion.
For reasons of symmetry there "needs to be" a Free Money Movement, since this is "bound to be beneficial"

But your so called Free Money Movement is lacking substance -- or is otherwise comprised of mythological thinking.


The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

So there are two objections.

Fist, it is not clear how the "prompt removal of all the legal obstacles" will in any way improve the situation. There will certainly be the refreshing shock effect of removing worn-out cruft. But also a lot of old-known and new problems will spring up, to which we don't have any conclusive answer either.

Secondly, there is no impetus for such a "movement", beyond very specific circles of educated people, geeks and technocrates. The average folks neither want to be blessed by socialism, nor do they long for the blessings of libertinarism -- mostly, they just want to be left alone, and when matters go wrong, "something needs to be done about it"


Thus, we even might be successful with igniting a movement of "Hope" and "Change". And then??
Then... the "movement" will find itself right in the middle of the task of addressing this and fixing that -- effectively it will be turned into building --
guess what -- a technological system of monetary control. How brilliant.


So to conclude: We don't need more Manifestos, yet more public relations and all that "movement business".
And we're not going to save the world.
But it is possible, and we should concede that we're reworking and rebuilding a subsystem of an increasingly interconnected world.
Nothing more and nothing less.

[Rudd-O]

The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

No, not really.  I would beg to differ.  While I agree that these things were sold to the public under the pretenses you cite, the real purpose is simply control freakery and profit: to control the tax farm more tightly.  The ostensible purpose does not match the real purpose, and I know this because I can see that the observable effect does not match the allegations.

If a guy on the street grabbed a hammer "for the purpose of hammering a nail", and used it instead to bash someone's head in, would you believe his alleged "purpose"?  Does the ostensible purpose match the observable purpose?

No.

I say the same is true about these things your interlocutor is criticizing.

Now, I could sit here and give you a gigabyte-long printout of exactly how those things were sold under false pretenses, but instead I'll give you the one case I consider to be humanly incontestable.  "Governments" were "created" to allegedly protect their own people, yet just in the 20th century, they slaughtered more than 270 million of their own people, excluding wars.

https://i.imgur.com/uWAgH.jpg

So.... in closing... these things you speak of?  They're not for your own good.  Anyone who tries to sell you a "solution" to social problems that requires threatening millions of peaceful people with violence, is an anti-social person and you should tell them to GTFO.

[Ichthyo]

The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

No, not really.  I would beg to differ.  While I agree that these things were sold to the public under the pretenses you cite, the real purpose is simply control freakery and profit: to control the tax farm more tightly.  The ostensible purpose does not match the real purpose, and I know this because I can see that the observable effect does not match the allegations.

If a guy on the street grabbed a hammer "for the purpose of hammering a nail", and used it instead to bash someone's head in, would you believe his alleged "purpose"?  Does the ostensible purpose match the observable purpose?

Nail on.
And if he actually uses the hammer for nailing?

Your response nicely demonstrates that kind of muddy mythological thinking I am criticising here.

In your thinking style, there are the "evil ones" and the "good ones". Each of them is so substantialy and clear.
Nothing of that matches reality in any way.

In your thinking style, there is an magical mythological evil entity called "the state". Which has nothing to do with the "real people". And "government" activities are obviously always staged, pretended, sold and manipulated, like in the next best, average shady Hollywood-Thriller.


Fact is: "The Government" is up to the very last bit and atom part of a Nation and the population, the people making up the government are right from the middle of the nation, and supported by it. "They" is in fact "us". We're sharing the same believes, the same thinking style, the same values, the same hopes, goals and demands. We all, including the government, are solving problems with roughly the same methods, including "collateral damage" when it comes in handy.

It is utterly true that the government, and thus we are killing our brothers and sisters. Face it.
It is also true that with tax money, we're feeding the poor and helpless, supporting the sick, running schools and universities, building streets and railways, building tanks and bombs and in doing so, are keeping a significant part of the population in employment. Face it.
None of this is "good" or "evil", all of this is mixed. Face it

[Rudd-O]

Your response nicely demonstrates that kind of muddy mythological thinking I am criticising here.

In your thinking style, there are the "evil ones" and the "good ones". Each of them is so substantialy and clear.
Nothing of that matches reality in any way.

In your thinking style, there is an magical mythological evil entity called "the state". Which has nothing to do with the "real people". And "government" activities are obviously always staged, pretended, sold and manipulated, like in the next best, average shady Hollywood-Thriller.

Umm, you might be confusing me for someone else.  Never have I said anything of the sort, and of course I won't be responding to comments that put words in my mouth.  While I technically could, It wouldn't make any sense for me to defend views I do not hold.

Also, can you tone it down on the "your thinking is mythological" unsubstantiated assertions?  I find it hard to sustain a conversation with someone who from the outset assumes that his interlocutor (me) must necessarily be so wrong as to willfully believe in fantasies.  It frustrates me, because I get the feeling that the other person just won't listen to anything I say.

Now, going back to the topic -- and staying there -- how about responding to the argument http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLODu02R_gA&feature=youtu.be&t=17m13s?  Respond directly to what I said instead of introducing new ideas (don't break rule #1 in the handy guide on my signature right here below), and I'll gladly have a conversation with you.  Thanks for your cooperation :-)

[salfter]

The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

...and they're doing such a bang-up job of it. Does Dodd-Frank ring a bell? :-|

It's been said that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it. I think an analogous case can be made for Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies that they can be useful for working around an increasingly broken central-banking system.

[Ichthyo]

The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

...and they're doing such a bang-up job of it. Does Dodd-Frank ring a bell? :-|

It's been said that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it. I think an analogous case can be made for Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies that they can be useful for working around an increasingly broken central-banking system.

...which would underpin, that it's rather an ongoing process of patching and fixing and sometimes maybe improving the situation.

Since the new methods of organising fincance -- i.e. computer based, distributed, decentralised  -- aim at the same goals and are supported by the same basic values than the existing system which they augment and maybe even replace, there is no guarantee that those new methods will actually perform better. There is some likelyhood that -- assumed a "Bitcoin Free Money Movement" takes over, it will do the same kind of a bang-up job, or maybe even worse.

Wer're really far from any clear understanding of our large scale ecoonomy, and thus it would be prudent not to start big movements or promise solutions which are "bound to throw up beneficial results which we cannot now foresee". We should go the unspectacular path.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The very things you're criticising so vigorously, the state, the laws, the monetary controls, the governments, the regulations and all that technocracy were exactly created "for the general good", to defeat specific problems and to improve the situation.

...and they're doing such a bang-up job of it. Does Dodd-Frank ring a bell? :-|

It's been said that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it. I think an analogous case can be made for Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies that they can be useful for working around an increasingly broken central-banking system.

...which would underpin, that it's rather an ongoing process of patching and fixing and sometimes maybe improving the situation.

Since the new methods of organising fincance -- i.e. computer based, distributed, decentralised  -- aim at the same goals and are supported by the same basic values than the existing system which they augment and maybe even replace, there is no guarantee that those new methods will actually perform better. There is some likelyhood that -- assumed a "Bitcoin Free Money Movement" takes over, it will do the same kind of a bang-up job, or maybe even worse.

Wer're really far from any clear understanding of our large scale ecoonomy, and thus it would be prudent not to start big movements or promise solutions which are "bound to throw up beneficial results which we cannot now foresee". We should go the unspectacular path.

So after all that, basically you want to say that you think that a Free Money Movement would be a bad idea.

We get it, you disagree with Hayek. Your ideological stance based on your subjective opinion (gut feel?) is that the freedom to experiment with value transfer information technologies of choice would be a bad idea.

(Hint: do some research on efficiencies provided by emergent behaviours if you have doubts about the efficacy of free markets and freedom in general.)

Thanks for your input, can we move back to the topic now, and stop derailing and dragging the thread off on wrong-headed, illogical tangents?

[Rudd-O]

So after all that, basically you want to say that you think that a Free Money Movement would be a bad idea.

We get it, you disagree with Hayek. Your ideological stance based on your subjective opinion (gut feel?) is that the freedom to experiment with value transfer information technologies of choice would be a bad idea.

(Hint: do some research on efficiencies provided by emergent behaviours if have doubts about the efficacy of free markets and freedom in general.)

Thanks for your input, can we move back to the topic now, and stop derailing and dragging the thread off on wrong-headed, illogical tangents?

Well said.  Anyone who continues to insist in saying "Bitcoin baaaaaaaaad" can start a new thread, thanks.