Bitcoin is described as a "hyper-capitalist" system. Is capitalism compatible with decentralization? Capitalism is a way of organizing the pyramid. Distinguish between "capitalism" and "free-market." Bitcoin represents free markets at a level that has not been done before. Old labels don't apply. Don't try to decide who goes the top -- remove the pyramid. Network-centric systems of organisation that are flat, change the political spectrum and labels like "capitalism." I'm a disruptarian: once it gets corrupted, start again. Decentralised networks give us a recipe for continuously disrupting the accumulation of power.
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[AUDIENCE] Bitcoin is a really powerful tool for accumulating capital, as it allows people to... control their own private keys. It makes it harder for wealth to be taken away. I heard Bitcoin be described as a "hyper-capitalist" system.
Capitalism is as an ideology and legal system that enables the accumulation of capital, rather than wide re-distribution of capital. This accumulation of capital concentrates power and resources into fewer and fewer hands over time. Do you think that capitalism is compatible with decentralization and accountability? The ideas you were talking about there, with reducing the power of hierarchies, do you think that capitalism and decentralization are at odds as concepts?
I think they are orthogonal. I think capitalism is a specific way of organizing the pyramid. When you take away the pyramid and create something different, the label "capitalism" doesn't really apply... to this new model, so it is obsolete.
As agrarian feudalism is to an urban environment. You can't really apply that model to the new mechanism of organization. I think it is important to make a fundamental distinction between "capitalism" and free markets. Bitcoin is so disruptive because it represents free markets; it does not represent capitalism.
It represents free markets [in money] at a level that has not been done before with a hierarchy. None of the old labels apply. [Stop] trying to figure out how to re-arrange the layers of the pyramid. Bitcoin is so exciting precisely because we are saying, "Don't decide who to put on top." "Remove the pyramid from the equation completely." That is the proposition.
Network-centric systems of organization will completely change the political spectrum. Labels like "capitalism" don't apply anymore. [AUDIENCE] If this system enables massive accumulation of capital, isn't that what leads to this imbalance of power? The hierarchy might not be arranged politically; it would be arranged through market forces.
[ANDREAS] Possibly. In which case, we should use another decentralized network to disrupt Bitcoin, thirty years from now. I am a disruptarian. Give it thirty years.
Once it is corrupted, start again. Decentralized architectures have given us an engine, a template, a recipe for continuously disrupting... the accumulation of power. That is the primary force of these decentralized systems.
Right now, we are disrupting a system of power where wealth accumulation is [mostly] based on... how many thousands of people your grandfather killed. Even if we must disrupt a system of power based on how many early blocks you mined, that is still a better system of power than what we have today. Maybe we will need to disrupt that one too.
[AUDIENCE] All right. Thanks, Andreas.