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Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

Fiat money works because government has a strong say in its creation and valuation, and govt. is elected by the people. Lobbying and other private interests aside, by and large, the system is still beholden to the opinions of the citizenry.

Decentralized finance, while originally designed to give more power directly to the people (Nakamoto’s “one CPU one vote”), is now clearly shown to be beholden to an oligopoly of private interests. It’s important to point out the reality behind the fallacious narrative of “the people are in control,” so that people wake up and realize that DeFi without govt. intervention is a bad thing.

An individual has zero say in Bitcoin prices. At least with fiat currency, if they don’t like what’s happening, they can change the govt. to one that is more aligned with their collective fiscal view.

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The notion that citizens have a say over their country's fiscal policy seems pretty unsupportable to me. In the US, the Federal Reserve is specifically designed to avoid political pressure, and the European banking institutions are even more insulated from the consequences of elections. Your vote's impact on currency policy is very small, indirect, and highly delayed in time, so much so that it is for all practical purposes equal to zero.

Pretty unsupportable? Complete and utter nonsense. The Fed just handed out cheques to all Americans because Congress asked it to. It was unprecedented in US history, and the strongest indication that the system still works for the average person. Under what circumstances would that be possible with Bitcoin? Do the big whales in crypto care that you've lost your job? Congress does because it's their job to care. That's how government works. It's not perfect but it's far better than the alternative people seem to be proposing.

Anarchy only works for the person on top, and they know it, that's why in every real anarchy, the ones on top spend most of their resources trying to stay on top. For everyone else, it's a universally miserable experience.

I want to believe you but keep in mind that at the same time the government also propped up the private sector (special interests) and it did spend way more than on the citizenry. Industries that were too big to fail were bailed out while a big chunk of the population were left unable to support themselves and I'm sorry but a check or two of a few thousands is not gonna do a damn thing for them when they are forced to foreclose their mortgages.

Big industry means lots of jobs. They were right to bail them out. Are we supposed to let the car industry die on principle if it causes a massive amount of destruction? China wouldn't let it happen.

Help both and if that takes too much a slice from the industry let them suffer a bit, how else can they learn their lesson? So far the Feds bailed them out and the cancer in these corporations that was supposed to naturally recycle will be even more entrenched, so this will continue to weaken the country while the unfortunate who got laid off during the pandemic would have to figure it out without a job, with the possibility of losing it all and becoming homeless.

> The Fed just handed out cheques to all Americans because Congress asked it to.

Uh, no, the Fed didn't.

The US Treasury did because Congress directed (not asked) it to. Congress can make non-binding requests, but neither round of stimulus checks was a product of such a nonbinding request, and neither was executed by the Fed.

> It was unprecedented in US history

The size was bigger, but broad individual stimulus checks based on past tax filings are not unprecedented in US history. They were done in 2001, for instance.

> Under what circumstances would that be possible with Bitcoin?

Fiscal stimulus would be just as possible with a Bitcoin monetary system as a fiat one; the difference is that the divide between fiscal and monetary policy, which MMT correctly points out is artificial in a fiat system, would be a hard divide in a Bitcoin system, which would mean that where in fiat securing financing such as by selling debt is not strictly required for deficit spending, though traditionally done because of the strength of the belief in the fiscal metaphor, in a Bitcoin system there would be hard constraints which would require financing of deficit spending. This would probably drive up the cost of borrowing, since while lenders don't want borrowers to monetize debt, the fact that they ultimately can reduces default risk since it is impossible for a debtor whose debts are denominated in its own fiat to be forced to default through insolvency.

> Fiscal stimulus would be just as possible with a Bitcoin monetary system as a fiat one;

This article in the MIT Technology Review seems to disagree: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/10/3060/bitcoin-wou...

That’s strange because I see it essentially in reverse of that:

To change the Bitcoin price, vote with your dollars, going long or shorting. You will materially impact the order book and resulting price. Other ways exist: starting a company like the ones mentioned in the article.

In contrast, in federal elections you have a vanishingly small chance of casting a deciding vote between two participants in an actual oligopoly (more specifically, a duopoly), who are themselves primarily allied with powerful interests which include the banking sector. Does anyone really believe their reps are responsive to them on issues like monetary policy?

And if you don't have dollars? No dollars, no votes? And the corollary: More dollars, more votes? Sounds like a plutocracy, don't you think?

Be careful what you wish for. Unless you're secretly Bezos or another of the billionaires' club, in a plutocracy you and I and countless others are just peons. At least in democracy you have a voice, regardless of your bank balance. Democracy may suck as a system, but it's definitely better than the alternatives :) I'll venture further and say those who say otherwise have either never actually lived in the alternative, or secretly harbour delusions of grandeur.

Without dollars there is: advocacy, open source contributions, and sweat equity - as many ways to participate as there are social and creative avenues. Incidentally, some but not all of these are vaunted as the noble ways to participate in politics, including the voice you so celebrate.

Is democracy better? Why did our founders have such a negative opinion of it? The history of unrestrained Democracy is one of failure, e.g. voting oneself into poverty via socialism, or a French-style democratic revolution in which heads roll. So yeah, maybe take your notion of democracy down a notch, it's not so noble.

This is the problem with anarchy. People forget how states formed in the first place...

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