No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.
There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question)
It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and is not the case.
I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.
I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.
You're calling me strident and shrill, when you're characterizing all government as violent and extortionate? OK, if it makes you feel better.
Monetary bases that are not government created are essentially worth only their commodity value, because they lack any reliable institutional backing. In practice, this typically makes them rather inconvenient: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Special-Delivery.aspx
No, I follow perfectly well, the mugger demands his due in a specific form of paper, therefore that specific form of paper is more valuable than one in which similar predation does not take place, that's precisely why I disagree that it's actually feature.
> You're calling me strident and shrill, when you're characterizing all government as violent and extortionate? OK, if it makes you feel better.
That's not a characterisation, it's a simple fact. Government is a monopoly of force, there are no governments in existence who do not use that monopoly of force for extortion.
> Monetary bases that are not government created are essentially worth only their commodity value
As opposed to absolutely nothing in the event of the failure of the backing state.
On the balance, however, we are shifting away from that with globalization and the ridiculous logistical requirements of such an approach (eg. every new US president doesn't de-circulate, debase and re-issue USD.)
These days, as long as you have liquidity that allows money to viably function as one or more of a medium of exchange ("settlement system"); a unit of account ("accountable asset"); and a store of value ("somewhere to stash accrued value"), then you're doing OK. Bitcoin has the former two properties and seems to be doing OK in the latter category despite volatility, despite relatively narrow acceptance.
Digital currencies and settlement systems as a whole will undoubtedly continue the trend that Bitcoin has started; the genie is so far out of the bottle at this point it's almost entering the third-stage of truth: self-evidence.
Historically, a new monetary base needed significant printing infrastructure, law enforcement to prevent its counterfeiting (if it is a paper and coin currency, which is effectively every currency ever) and you needed to artificially control its reproduction. That requires a government. That usually is associated with taxation.
I think you are looking at the causal relationship in the wrong way. Old paper money required artificial limiters to prevent anyone from printing it and using it. With bitcoin, the trust system of the block chain means to "counterfeit" bitcoins you need as much computational power as a majority of the swarm.
Actually, to the same effect you could use a bug in bitcoind, control of the view-of-the-swarm (network access) by the processing merchant, an implementation issue, or a careful double spend. Bitcoin is exceptionally hard to implement well for merchants, particularly those with near real-time requirements, and it's not getting any easier.
If by that you mean a democratic government empowered to stabilise the currency via a variety of means, including supply inflation...
Hell yes that's a feature.
It's funny how many different ways there are to paint over the underlying unpleasant reality of the situation with pretty words designed to lend a veneer of legitimacy to the enterprise. It's almost like there's an uncomfortable underlying truth that many people would prefer you would not state in such a blunt fashion.
You see a violent extortionate power, I see a cooperative, democratic government. You see parasitism of the monetary base, I see an important stabilising role in the common currency that keeps the economy ticking.
These are not words I use to gloss over "the underlying unpleasant reality", there is no "uncomfortable underlying truth that many people would prefer you would not state in such a blunt fashion". We genuinely have different views on these things.
This is one of the things I find so fascinating (and childish) about internet libertarians and objectivists - they assume that everyone that doesn't agree with them is either actively evil, totally deluded, or just hasn't been exposed to their self-evidently correct way of thinking yet.
I bet it never occurs to you that other people think about the very same things you do but can come to completely different conclusions?
But I suppose I am not one for the acceptance that things are only what we label them with. If no differences can be iterated between one thing with a pretty label, say a democratic government for argument's sake, and another thing with an ugly label, say an organised crime ring with a byzantine structure designed to convey the perception of community support but which retains the core underlying features of being impossible not to participate in under threat of violence, parasitic and corrupt even by it's own rules; it just never occurred to me someone might truly be naive enough to honestly accept that the labels alone change the nature of the underlying labelled things.
It's a fine trick if you can find enough suckers to pull it off I suppose.
I don't think that most western nations do have a government that could be described as an organised crime ring. I don't think you can cite this as an empirical fact. In fact I think that all of the words you used there are overly-emotional negative labels you use to reinforce your own belief that democratic government is necessarily evil, a view I don't subscribe to.
The labels you or I use to describe the institution in question are entirely irrelevant, it is the characteristics which those institutions have which dictate their actual material nature. Responding to my iteration of the characteristics that a government shares with an organised crime syndicate with "I don't think so" is exactly as effective as trying to tell me a marsupial is not a mammal despite its characteristics because you don't think so.
If you hope to convince me that the state is not an intrinsically violent and extortionate body you would do far better pointing to examples of how one might choose not to participate in the structure of the state without being subject to it's violent sanction. That you can't do this is precisely why the pretty labels you plaster it with are utterly unconvincing to anyone unswayed by simplistic feelgood propaganda.
No, because we can point at a marsupial and agree on the characteristics. You and I do not agree on the characteristics of government or currency. --edit-- In fact many of the 'characteristics' you list are emotional labels as far as I can see. Yet you continue to insist that they are part of an 'underlying reality'. I disagree.
"If you hope to convince me that the state is not an intrinsically violent and extortionate body"
I don't hope to convince you of that, it's clearly central to your outlook on life. I only hope to convince you that not everyone sees it that way, and that not everyone that doesn't see it that way thinks the way they do because of ignorance.
Government is by definition;
Violent; the state claims a monopoly on violence and employs the use of violence when forcing compliance with its edicts.
Parasitic; the state functions by siphoning productivity from a captive populace and channelling it into the activities of the state such as bureaucracy, war and the continued maintenance and expansion of the state and its power. In the absence of a productive body there can be no state as there is nothing for the state to parasite from.
Extortionate; the state obtains money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion.
Now you can deny these all you like, but the simple fact remains that all states share the above characteristics. It's not a matter of opinion or viewpoint, those are simple facts. Disagreeing with them does in fact make you ignorant to the reality of the situation as it stands regardless of how uncomfortable that might make you feel.
We, the people, reserve the use of violence to those we collectively appoint to help run our society. This is necessary in order to protect the rights we grant ourselves. How would you propose to protect what you see as your property rights without violence? Oh that's right, it's only violence when other people do it, not when you do it.
We, the people, impose taxes (extortion! LOL) in order to provide collective services we all rely on.
And I disagree both that democratic government is parasitic or that expansion of the state and state power are necessarily the aims of all democratic governments.
So I absolutely can and do disagree that all states have those characteristics, that your ideal stateless existence is free of them or that all of these things are necessarily negative. Sorry. It really is a matter of opinion and viewpoint.
This is exactly why I look forward to the rise of cryptocurrencies; protection from people like you.
Sorry. It's far from perfect, but it's better than any other system I can think of and it's sure as hell better than a libertarian free-for-all which (IMHO) would devolve into feudalism and indentured servitude in no time.
Difference of opinion again you see.
--edit-- and I hope you enjoy your crypto-currencies. I also like them, I love crypto and am often amazed at what can be done with it. I just don't think that some of the features of BTC (particularly the fixed supply) are as awesome as some others seem to, nor do I find it important for currency to be free of central control, because I consider it a social utility rather than an absolute possession.
If crypto currencies prevail, we will see if your fears or my hopes end up justified. I am just happy it's finally possible.
It's not 'my team vs your team'. It's that I genuinely don't see cooperative government or managed currencies as evil (quite the opposite), and you do.
Things are not going ok.
Again, different people have different attitudes. I'm not saying his (or your) view of the world is invalid. I'm saying that acting like it is the only possible rational or objective view on the world, and using heavily loaded words and a lot of absolute pronouncements, is a shortcoming I've seen in many internet libertarians.
--edit-- along with an assumption that anyone disagreeing with them just doesn't understand the arguments (I do), or is being wilfully ignorant (I'm not)
If that excuse works for you, that's fine, but it doesn't negate the fact that the labels still accurately apply, you've just tried to justify them.
I do agree (and said as much) that we delegate the use of violence to our representatives, but I'd quite like to know how libertarians would enforce property rights without violence, and why that's just AOK but not allowed for any other right we grant ourselves. This is where you're just as guilty of allowing 'your team' to get away with something.
--edit-- anyway, I'm done here, I'm pretty sure we've demonstrated that you're intolerant of other worldviews
It's not taxation, it's extortion.
It's not quantitative easing, it's debasement.
It's not enhanced interrogation, it's fucking torture.
It's not pre-emptive targeted killing, it's assassination.
It's not lobbying, it's bribery.
Putting your thugs in uniforms does not make them other than thugs. It doesn't matter which of these labels you accept, the description does not modify the reality. The map is not the territory.
I am sick to death of statist word game bullshit and yes, I will not silently take it while being told once again that war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
Good day.
Depends on how popular your opinion is.