A great article from the outgoing head of CFTC Christopher Giancarlo.
https://www.coindesk.com/christopher-giancarlo-cftc-future-of-blockchainSome excerpts:
In a few more weeks the world will mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo Da Vinci.
One of the powerful lasting figures of the Renaissance his cross-disciplinary genius gave us art, architecture and invention. Da Vinci was uniquely gifted and positioned in history to be present at a time when people’s thinking around life moved from something that had to be short and brutish toward something that could be enjoyable.
The Renaissance was a time of education and study when people attempted to improve the world through the power of ideas. I do not think I am being too bold when I say that we are in such a time again. A boldness to innovate is at the center of the technology revolutions of big data, DLT and AI.
The combination of these technologies and others still yet unimagined will standardize and distribute data to market participants and regulators while bringing tremendous efficiencies. These technologies will also bring amazing advances to other areas of our world as well, such as international trade, charitable endeavors, health care, social services and more.
I believe we are at a tipping point, where innovation will help us rise to meet our greatest challenges.
As we consider potential solutions to these great challenges, I think it’s important to view them through the prism of an enduring ideal, which is the value proposition of free market capitalism.
The proposition is that broad and sustained prosperity generally occurs wherever in the world there are open and competitive markets, free of political interference, combined with free enterprise, personal choice, voluntary exchange and legal protection of person and property. Free markets and innovation are natural partners in this respect.
Under free market capitalism, well-regulated and well-ordered trading activity is considered a forum of human self-expression and economic advancement. Freedom to act in the marketplace is a part of freedom itself. Billions of consumers, following their own self-interests and individual needs, make the decisions that direct the future, not have it directed for them.
For an emerging generation fascinated by crowdsourcing, free capital markets are the ultimate in crowd-sourced decision making. Free market capitalism is not a source of misery and oppression; free market capitalism is the antidote. It is unmatched in alleviating global poverty and unlocking human potential.
We must disabuse ourselves, our peers, and future generations of the notion that there is anything attractive or aspirational about political control of markets and human enterprise. Everywhere it has been tried, it has been a fraud and a failure. It crushes human liberty and society. It steals power from individuals and families and gives it to government and government elites. It enables abuse by a select few who exercise unbridled power over many.
