The Satoshi Revolution: A Revolution of Rising Expectations
Section 4: State Versus Society
Chapter 9, Part 4
Does Your Money Serve the State or You?
The State, in short, subjects people, whereas Society associates them voluntarily.
– Felix Morley
Two simple litmus tests determine whether money serves the state (organized force) or whether it serves society (voluntary exchanges).
- Who issues it? State money is issued either by the state or by an authority controlled by it, who claims a monopoly.
- Can people choose to use it or not? State money is established by requiring people to accept it as legal tender.
Cryptocurrency is privately issued, and no one is forced to use or to accept it. Crypto is a pure money of society—a public money, not one that serves rulers and elites. Indeed, many people use it to escape the corrupt central banking system and its domination of the global economy through fiat money. Control of the economy is the basis of social control.
The state lives or dies through its ability to regulate the flow of wealth within society. This makes cryptocurrency, even in its infancy, a threat to established power that the state addresses by dominating crypto through regulation, through its own monopoly issuance, or through banning it. Each step requires law. And, except for dictatorships, law requires public justification. Even with dictatorships, public justification is usually offered in order to avoid public resistance. The state needs law to destroy crypto, which means it needs justification. If there is not a real need, then a false one must be created.
The appeal to law reveals another and more fundamental difference between state money and that of society. Namely, what is the purpose of law regarding each one?
