El Salvador looks to become first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender

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Jai Sen

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Jun 7, 2021, 4:31:18 PM6/7/21
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Monday, June 7, 2021

El Salvador in movement…, Ideas in movement…, History in movement…, Economies in movement…

[I know nothing about Bitcoin, and my last attempt – this last weekend - to try to understand (by reading an article on it) resulted in my bailing out.  But that’s not the point : A day later, I see this article, and the part that interests me is the social (and political) basis on which E; Salvador’s President is selling his move : That it will “include” the “70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy”.  Any comments, from those who understand this field ?  Because it seems to me that the implications, and repercussions, of this step are huge, for economies – and rulers - across the world :

“Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” Bukele said in the message Saturday. “In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy and in the medium and long term we hope that this small decision can help us push humanity at least a tiny bit into the right direction.”

The U.S. dollar is El Salvador’s official currency. About one quarter of El Salvador’s citizens live in the United States and last year, despite the pandemic, they sent home more than $6 billion in remittances.

Stephen McKeon, a finance professor at the University of Oregon who studies cryptocurrencies, said Bitcoin is legal to own in most countries but has never been designated as legal tender, which would mean it could be used to to settle financial obligations, including taxes.

But, he added, “It is unclear whether anyone desires to pay their taxes in Bitcoin.”

Additional details of the plan were not released. But Bukele in subsequent messages on Twitter noted that Bitcoin could be “the fastest growing way to transfer six billion dollars a year in remittances.” He said that a big chunk of those money transfers were currently lost to intermediaries and with Bitcoin more than a million low-income families could benefit.

He also said 70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy. Bitcoin could improve financial inclusion, he said.

El Salvador looks to become first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender

Associated Press

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-el-salvador-president-plans-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender/?symbol=print-msg

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, pictured after a news conference in San Salvador on June 6, 2021, wants to make Bitcoin legal tender in his country.  (JOSE CABEZAS/Reuters)


El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced in a recorded message played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami that next week he will send proposed legislation to the country’s congress that would make the cryptocurrency legal tender in the Central American nation.

The 39-year-old president, who has maintained approval ratings above 90% and made Twitter his preferred way of communicating, characterized it as an idea that could help El Salvador move forward.

“Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” Bukele said in the message Saturday. “In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy and in the medium and long term we hope that this small decision can help us push humanity at least a tiny bit into the right direction.”

The U.S. dollar is El Salvador’s official currency. About one quarter of El Salvador’s citizens live in the United States and last year, despite the pandemic, they sent home more than $6 billion in remittances.

Stephen McKeon, a finance professor at the University of Oregon who studies cryptocurrencies, said Bitcoin is legal to own in most countries but has never been designated as legal tender, which would mean it could be used to to settle financial obligations, including taxes.

But, he added, “It is unclear whether anyone desires to pay their taxes in Bitcoin.”

Bukele’s New Ideas party holds a supermajority in the new congress seated May 1, giving any legislative proposal from the president a strong likelihood of passage.

Additional details of the plan were not released. But Bukele in subsequent messages on Twitter noted that Bitcoin could be “the fastest growing way to transfer six billion dollars a year in remittances.” He said that a big chunk of those money transfers were currently lost to intermediaries and with Bitcoin more than a million low-income families could benefit.

He also said 70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy. Bitcoin could improve financial inclusion, he said.

Riding his high popularity and his party’s dominance performance in Feb. 28 elections, Bukele has concentrated power. His party’s supermajority in congress ousted the justices of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court May 1. They then replaced the attorney general.

They had been critical of some of Bukele’s more drastic measures during the pandemic, including a mandatory stay-at-home order and containment centres where those caught violating the policy were detained.

While enjoying a positive relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump, Bukele has had a much more tense relationship with the administration of President Joe Biden.

Last month, the White House Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle Ricardo Zuniga said during a visit to El Salvador that the U.S. government would like to see El Salvador reverse the moves against the court and the attorney general. Bukele said that would not happen.

Bukele’s concentration of power, attacks on critics and open disdain for checks on his power have raised concerns about El Salvador’s path. However, Bukele has a wide base of support in part due to the utter failure of the country’s traditional parties who ruled during the past 30 years to improve people’s lives and to his ability to provide short-term benefits.

Bukele has been praised for aggressively obtaining COVID-19 vaccines and running an efficient vaccination program far more successful than El Salvador’s neighbours.


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James Pochury

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Jun 8, 2021, 5:33:15 AM6/8/21
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One bitcoin had almost touched 50,000 USD. Right now it is hovering around 36,000. You can own a fraction of bitcoin, including by giving a fraction to the 70% of the informal economy and over a period of time, the value increases benefitting them.

There are atleast 5000 cryptocurrencies and counting. Etherium is at no. 2 in terms of value. 

The decentralised nature of cryptocurrency, with crowdfunding approach in many cases, makes it a viable and political project with huge potential for the masses.

Blockchain technology is the engine that drives cryptocurrency. Blockchain is a network of millions of computers across the world wired together through a software platform. Blockchain makes decentralisation possible. A reason why authoritarian regimes don't want to let in existing cryptos into their countries. They would rather create their own Blockchain and crypto currency. 

Blockchain is also poised to be used for many other sectors, including financial, health, educational institutions, communications, transportation, trade, etc.

James

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Ashish Kothari

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Jun 8, 2021, 5:46:25 AM6/8/21
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But what about this? (and there are many more such reports):

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/27/bitcoin-mining-electricity-use-environmental-impact

Democracy that comes at a huge ecological cost is not, well, democracy! But, like Jai, then I don't understand much about all this, so perhaps someoen can enlighten.

Also, are all cryptocurrencies likely to cause such ecological impacts, or are some different ...and if so, how?

I also did not understand this, James: "blockchain is a network of millions of computers .... makes decentralisation possible" ... and then "authoritarian regimes don't want to let in existing cryptos ... would ratehr create their own Blockchain & crypto currency" ... now is blockchain/cryptos are inherently decentralised, would not authoritarian regimes risk their own power by setting up their own?

Finally, do any of these fundamentally challenge capitalism (and in the above qs, statism), or are they 'reforms' within the existing structures?

thanks to anyone, who can respond to these qs.

ashish

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helena

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Jun 8, 2021, 5:57:09 AM6/8/21
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Just quick thoughts:
I would call cryptocurrencies ultimate capitalism. Currencies in markets change value all the time. The changes with crypto are so much bigger.
'Blockchain makes decentralisation possible….' Yes for those who are in, not for those who are outside that blockchain.
I think Iran found its electricity supply seriously depleted because crypto-operators had moved in – this is a real problem.
El Salvador is a fearsome regime, isn’t it, with people fleeing from it constantly?
Helena 


Rosamma Thomas

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Jun 8, 2021, 6:00:41 AM6/8/21
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khamzang

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Jun 8, 2021, 7:01:24 PM6/8/21
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Also these:

'The Environmental Case Against Bitcoin'

https://newrepublic.com/article/146099/environmental-case-bitcoin

'Bitcoin provides entree to a wildcat market dominated by fraudsters. The ex-president clearly recognizes his milieu.'

https://newrepublic.com/article/162667/bitcoin-scams-donald-trump

'This Is What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town'

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-mining-energy-prices-smalltown-feature-217230/

Alex

Larry Lohmann

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Jun 10, 2021, 9:16:24 AM6/10/21
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-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [REDlistserve] El Salvador looks to become first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:27:19 +0530
From: Ashish Kothari <ashish...@riseup.net>
To: Larry Lohmann <larryl...@gn.apc.org>


thanks! can you post on the RED list?

ashish

On 10/06/21 6:24 pm, Larry Lohmann wrote:

Bitcoin and related topix:

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/cadenas-de-bloques-automatizaci%C3%B3n-y-trabajo-mecanizando-la-con%EF%AC%81anza

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/interpretation-machines

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/heat-colonialism-and-geography-artificial-intelligence

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/labour-justice-and-mechanization-interpretation

Larry



On 08/06/2021 11:00, Rosamma Thomas wrote:
On Tue, Jun 8, 2021 at 3:27 PM helena <h.p...@gn.apc.org> wrote:
Just quick thoughts:
I would call cryptocurrencies ultimate capitalism. Currencies in markets change value all the time. The changes with crypto are so much bigger.
'Blockchain makes decentralisation possible….' Yes for those who are in, not for those who are outside that blockchain.
I think Iran found its electricity supply seriously depleted because crypto-operators had moved in – this is a real problem.
El Salvador is a fearsome regime, isn’t it, with people fleeing from it constantly?
Helena 


From: <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ashish Kothari <ashish...@riseup.net>
Date: Tuesday, 8 June 2021 at 10:46
To: James Pochury <jame...@gmail.com>
Cc: Post WSMDiscuss <wsm-d...@lists.openspaceforum.net>, Post RED <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com>
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Jai Sen

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Jun 10, 2021, 2:13:23 PM6/10/21
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Thursday, June 10, 2021

 

Hello, to all those who have replied to / otherwise engaged with my post back on Monday, June 7

            (Just to make this clear, though I’m replying here immediately to a post and exchange that took place only on WSMDiscuss, till three posts ago the exchange on this issue was vigorously taking place both on WSMDiscuss and on RED – and with some very useful points made by RED subscribers cc to WSMDiscuss; and I'm therefore ccing RED back in here.)

            In some ways, and in particular, and speaking only for myself of course, thanks to all those who have posted links towards better understanding just what Bitcoins are and what the Bitcoin economy is about, and also raising associated issues such as energy related.  (And even if I openly admit that I haven’t been able to look at all of them – this overload being one of the problems of the ease of giving links ! : -)  )

            This said, and while I appreciate that it is of course important to know what Bitcoins are and what the Bitcoin economy is about – including its wider implications -, my sense is that we’ve not yet addressed the (other) fundamental issue that I tried to raise in my original post :

“… the part that interests me is the social (and political) basis on which El Salvador’s President is selling his move : That it will “include” the “70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy”.  [And specifically, the president Nayib Bukele arguing that what he’s doing is ‘all about and for the majority that is poor / the migrant workers / etc’.]  Any comments, from those who understand this field ?  Because the implications, and repercussions, of this step are huge, for economies – and rulers - across the world.”

           As I see it, this is an argument in favour of bitcoin I’ve not heard before, but is of course a populist rationale that I’m sure will now be picked up widely, by leaders of government and public opinion elsewhere, from the right and the left, and citing this case.  Just as, say, so-called ‘demonetisation’ was enacted and sold in India, a few years ago, in the name of breaking the so-called ‘black market’ economy, and through this, ‘saving the poor’.  (And was therefore actually a massive assault on the poor and on the so-called ‘informal sector’, and especially on women in this sector.)

And so where we who are critical of this, and who are alive to the dangers of populist policies, therefore need now to engage with this aspect – and try and take positions on what ‘we’ want to do about this within the contexts we live and work in.

            Any comments ?

            Jai


On Jun 8, 2021, at 1:51 PM, Brian <br...@radicalroad.com> wrote:

Indeed.  And consider as well the qualities of the Bukele regime in El Salvador, and whose interests such a policy actually intends to serve...

New Problems, Old Ideas Nayib Bukele dismantles El Salvador’s fledgling democracy

Roman Gressier, The Baffler, May 20, 2021

Brian
On 8 Jun 2021, at 10:33 am, francine mestrum via WSM-Discuss <wsm-d...@lists.openspaceforum.net> wrote:

please do not ignore the gigantic energy consumption it requires.

Francine


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Sajai Jose

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Jun 10, 2021, 11:26:37 PM6/10/21
to Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Frank Kashner, Post RED

Dear Frank,

You seem to understand bitcoin, and see it as a positive development overall. 

i also read this article, which Alex posted - truly a horrifying picture, and somewhat incomprehensible to someone like me who is far removed from the site of action. going by this, it seems to be just another gold rush, one that makes fortunes for some, and leaves behind a lot of wreckage, socially and materially [that is also to say, ecologically]. its net effect seems to me destructive on all these counts - despite the gas it keeps from flaring [surely an unintended grace].  

People who understand technology tend to be technophiles (as with everything else, there are exceptions), and seem to always concentrate on its positive side. That is to say, technology shapes their attitude, as invariably happens when you engage with something much bigger than you. 

On the other hand, those who don't understand it are likely to be technophobic at some level, focusing on the negative aspect [i'll admit to being one of these. that is to say, my attitude to technology is shaped by my ignorance of it, just as yours is shaped by your knowledge of it]. So this may be a dialogue between two people with no common language, held across a chasm that possibly cannot be bridged.     

With that caveat, I feel that the part of the problem is how you approach it - do you look at the part or the whole? I feel Woody Guthrie was wrong, a dictator is just a king who controls the electricity, so to speak. Which king ever enjoyed the kind of power, or exert the kind of control, that the average dictator holds? And where else does this power and control come from but 'electricity', that is to say, from the grid, from technology? [incidentally, this was not the only thing he was wrong about - that land does not belong to "you and me" - but he made good music, so all is forgiven]

if you look at the part, you only see the many incremental gains and the many scattered and [likely] transient liberations [for some] that technology has brought about - if you look at the whole, you see a global techno-industrial civilisation, the technosphere that has become a parasite on the biosphere, [quite apart from its direct human and social costs] has altered or destabilised every planetary system and has endangered life itself. .

the benefits - political or social or economic - brought by technology are incremental and transient, but the costs are cumulative and permanent. climate change alone, for example, can undo all the so-called gains of the modern era, while simultaneously victimising further most of the indigenous peoples of the world and the exploited masses who have already had to bear the cost of building the modern techno-industrial system, apart from the destruction of other species. their fate resembles those prisoners in the gulag who were forced to dig their own graves. 

how do two centuries of convenience and prosperity for some weigh against the destruction of indigenous and subject peoples across the world, and destabilisation of the very systems that support life? to defend the incremental gains and transient liberations of technology [by this i mean modern industrial technology - technology in its broadest sense is a different matter altogether] is to apologise for this life-destroying system, and ultimately to commit collective suicide. 

to sum up, at the very least, we need to rethink technology: its scale, its complexity, its political economy, its benefits vs its cost, its purpose, whether its present form can be altered, and so on. [Its a different matter whether we can, though. After all, the genie's been long out of the bottle - and seems to like it there. It will probably have to run its course.]

Looking forward to your response

Sajai



On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 3:44 AM Frank Kashner via WSM-Discuss <wsm-d...@lists.openspaceforum.net> wrote:
Jai, I replied to post earlier but made the mistake of changing the topic.  I hope this gets to the list.  Thanks,  Frank

 Bitcoin creation, aka mining, is an energy intensive process that secures a secure, worldwide, decentralized network.  When mining energy comes from coal, it is as polluting as any other coal electrical generation.  When the energy comes from otherwise unused hydroelectric, solar, or gas that would otherwise be flared, it is energy saving. 

For China, the question of shutting down coal reliant bitcoin mines overlaps their use of coal in general, including building new coal burning plants.  China also overbuilt many hydroelectric plants, anticipating population growth in the future. Bitcoin miners at those plants were supplanted by the plant operators themselves, who support entire communities by mining otherwise wasted capacity. Nigeria is leading Africa in peer to peer adoption.

Every regime, especially the US, as the owner of the world’s reserve currency, must decide how they will respond to bitcoin, a decentralized and deflationary currency over which they have little control. Many countries are considering issuing their own national “coin”, that is, a digital dollar, or yuan, or Euro which they would control.  The only thing these coins have in common with Bitcoin is that they are digital.  Venezuela already issued one which was a flop.

Whether bitcoin challenges capitalism is like asking, did electricity end feudalism? The advancement of democracy has a relationship to technological progress, but seldom in a straight line.  At a time of great ideological debate, Woody Guthrie famously said, “Don't like dictators not much, myself, But I think the whole country ought to be run. By electricity!” 

Everyone on this list should become familiar with Bitcoin.  It will be considered as important an invention as the Internet itself.  While it does not change the distribution of wealth at the top, it offers people at the middle and bottom ways to send money home quickly and cheaply, a “banking system” that does not require banks, and, for those who can save anything, a way to escape hyper-inflation. When the Venezuelan military confiscates mining equipment, they then re-install and operate it themselves.

At minimum, Bitcoin is replacing gold as a store of value, despite its wild price fluctuations. Coupled with the Lightning network, it will offer a world wide disintermediated payment system. It is a cryptographic, mathematical, and programmatic advancement. Julian Assange argues that cryptography is a most important tool for anyone who wants ways to be independent of surveillance states, which now include almost every government in the world.

It is being used by countries under US sanctions to continue economic activity, and by individuals around the world to exchange value with others within and outside of their own country. Iran suspended bitcoin mining only for a few peak energy months and will resume after that.  It is entirely different from India’s demonetization policy which was a vehicle to steal billions from the people of India.

While many people associated with Bitcoin can be characterized as Libertarian Conservatives, there is room and need for Libertarian Socialists to find ideological footing.

 

 




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Patrick Bond

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Jun 11, 2021, 12:23:52 AM6/11/21
to Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Sajai Jose, Post RED

A couple of comments. First, the dilemma is put well by Sajai: the anti-environmental, anti-social and anti-sovereignty features of Bitcoin and so many other 4th Industrial Revo strategies and tactics by tech capital seem to overwhelm movements for justice.

    I do find some solace in the fightback, and in South Africa we are fortunate to have several fronts in which activists are actually winning against 4IR hucksters like Schwab, Musk, financial-inclusion predators, social-media bot PR firms, surveillance-state road privatisers, etc etc. Here is the huckster line, in a little teaching video for my masters students; and here are my favourite 4th Industrial Counter Revos.

On 6/11/2021 5:25 AM, Sajai Jose via WSM-Discuss wrote:
... People who understand technology tend to be technophiles (as with everything else, there are exceptions), and seem to always concentrate on its positive side. That is to say, technology shapes their attitude, as invariably happens when you engage with something much bigger than you. On the other hand, those who don't understand it are likely to be technophobic at some level, focusing on the negative aspect [i'll admit to being one of these. that is to say, my attitude to technology is shaped by my ignorance of it, just as yours is shaped by your knowledge of it]. So this may be a dialogue between two people with no common language, held across a chasm that possibly cannot be bridged.   

In such a situation, is there a dialectic possible between the thesis and anti-thesis? This isn't about a bridge, but a different way of positing the use of technology that's not rejectionist. That sort of solution would also attempt to end the late-capitalist distinction between the financialised and 'real' economies, grounding monetary representations - 'fictitous capital' in its paper or ether versions - of value properly, on the solid terrain of production. I'm not sure what such a socialist financial and monetary dialectic would like like. But with the world's stock markets still soaring - South Africa's to the world's highest-ever Buffett Indicator, of market capitalisation/GDP - while real economies like ours suffer enormously, this contradiction remains among the most potent.

    The same dilemma confronts anyone seeking to find ways to address planetary ecocide beyond the banal call for "climate action now!" - which leads so many ecological modernisationists into tech "false solutions" and zany market schemes distorted beyond recognition by banksters. The classical rebuttals are from the "climate justice!" camp, and of course are generally correct. What I'm curious, though, is whether a dialectical strategy can get us through this oppositional framing onto a new plane, by "radicalising the theses of ecological modernisation," as David Harvey suggested should be the strategic objective (in a book, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference written 25 years ago), e.g. by internalising externalities properly, e.g. for the purposes of full-cost accounting to prevent extractivism, or for demanding environmental reparations such as climate debt payments. An appeal along these lines is here.

    To Frank:


On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 3:44 AM Frank Kashner via WSM-Discuss <wsm-d...@lists.openspaceforum.net> wrote:
...

Everyone on this list should become familiar with Bitcoin.  It will be considered as important an invention as the Internet itself.  While it does not change the distribution of wealth at the top, it offers people at the middle and bottom ways to send money home quickly and cheaply, a “banking system” that does not require banks, and, for those who can save anything, a way to escape hyper-inflation. When the Venezuelan military confiscates mining equipment, they then re-install and operate it themselves. At minimum, Bitcoin is replacing gold as a store of value, despite its wild price fluctuations... While many people associated with Bitcoin can be characterized as Libertarian Conservatives, there is room and need for Libertarian Socialists to find ideological footing.

These features are worrying. If progressives do ever get hold of a wretched state - Peru?! - that must immediately impose capital controls to prevent the unpatriotic bourgeoisie's drainage of wealth, then Bitcoin holders will be at the vanguard of our enemies' economic sabotage. The prospect of a left takeover of a state seems very remote in my neck of the woods, Southern Africa; only for brief moments have radicals had any influence on any post-colonial economic policies before neo-colonialism set in. But we did learn something from a recent - late-2017 - encounter with Bitcoin under circumstances of a coup next door in Zimbabwe, below.

    Maybe for "libertarian" socialists - perhaps Chomsky is the best known to self-describe like this - that's just no big deal, a "whatever." But if you want to halt an immediate destruction of an economy - and a society that has become dependent on a capitalist currency - while one engages in some form of state reform or state smashing or whatever you see fit in the circumstances, then Bitcoin will be a serious barrier to your success, not so?

    Here's how I tried to work this through on another list:


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [marxmail] Bitcoin
Date: Thu, 27 May 2021 19:38:27 +0200
From: Patrick Bond <pb...@mail.ngo.za>
To: marx...@groups.io

On 5/27/2021 4:59 PM, Michael Meeropol wrote:
... I would guess that the reason people are "playing at" investing in these things is because it LOOKS like another one of those get rich quick schemes --- and as with ponzi schemes, the first ones through the door make out like bandits (that was the idea behind the CHAIN LETTERS that were "popular" in the 1960s!)

With you on the critique Michael. But there's more to it, including a dematerialized "hedge" function for this bogus money, which is relatively unique as far as I can tell: cyber-currencies as vehicles for international capital flight.

We got a sense of how serious this can be in November 2017 when in Harare, Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe was overthrown in a coup. Bitcoin activity soared as the local rich folk (very nervous as many had gotten wealthy through his patronage corruption) took record amounts of their local funding into the ether - and out of Harare.

Here in South Africa - considered in 2019 to be the world's main cybercurrency casino - we have one of the world's most corrupt, unpatriotic bourgeoisies, with profound deep-racist/patriarchal sources of profit such as the migrant labor system, running an incredibly carbon-addicted economy (behind only Kazakhstan and the Czech Republic in emissions/GDP/person). So none of these elites give a damn about the terrible ecological implications of cyber-currency gambling, given how much energy is utilised in Bitcoin mining and blockchain computations.

There is, though, the notable recent case of Elon Musk - raised in Johannesburg - becoming aware of the hypocrisy of the CO2-guzzling Bitcoin paying for Teslas, so he canceled that offer, crashing the Bitcoin price by more than a third. Ah, I see that two days ago he tried to rescue his dogecoin by pretending it's ok to keep the mining going but with a bit more renewable power.

These damn gamblers...


Sajai Jose

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Jun 11, 2021, 10:58:04 PM6/11/21
to Matt Meyer, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Dear Matt,

I happen to agree with you. There was no need to drag poor old Woody Guthrie into this. (just to clarify, i was suggesting that this was essentially a conversation between the settlers - with Guthrie giving voice to the commoners who felt cheated out of their Promised Land. but that's a whole other debate which we needn't get into here). Saying this because I don't want the main point to get side-tracked.

I suppose I was too shocked by the Politico article [here's it again]
I was always under the impression that bitcoin was a relatively harmless pastime for those who want to play rebel in the cool shade of the capitalist umbrella. It is clearly much more than that, with far greater potential for positive change as Frank pointed out, but also far greater destructive potential [both socially and ecologically] than i myself had realised. 

however, im convinced that it would be a mistake to make this about weighing bitcoin's good against its bad [so to speak] - that's a debate that can and will go on endlessly, because both sides will have lot of 'evidence' to support their case. But the debate is framed thus for a reason - it distracts from the real problem. which is that such pseudo-solutions that operate within the system's framework give it fresh legitimacy, sow confusion in the majority, and ultimately make them acquiesce with its larger destructive work even when it has become visibly suicidal.  

'Renewable energy' falls into this same category - perhaps the biggest pseudo-solution at work today. In fact, this particular debate is almost over. Most people are by now convinced that 'climate change is the problem'  and 'renewable energy is the answer'. Who in 'polite society' (and polite society runs the world) will criticise solar energy today? Or wind power? It would be almost like arguing against the sun and the wind themselves, something absurd. Never mind the facts - whether its the question of net energy or the sea bed being ripped up. Or the added emissions, of all things!

But we must continue to interrupt polite society, rudely if necessary. In fact, each of these pseudo-solutions is an opportunity for us to expose them, and also point to the systemic nature of the problem. 

Over and out. 

regards

Sajai

 






On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 10:03 PM Matt Meyer <resistancein...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear comrades,

I'm having a little trouble taking this otherwise fascinating and cogent exchange seriously when the otherwise insightful Brother Sajai appears to get Woody Guthrie's magical words a bit wrong! Of course Woody understood that "this land" didn't literally belong to you and me...that's the whole point of the song! It is a revolutionary aspirational vision based on what should be and perhaps could be with a massive shift in consciousness and subsequent political action! If we all truly believed that the land was yours and mine - not the thieves who stole and occupy it - we might make the kind of revolution (there's that word again!) which Woody was trying to fight for and build.

Could there be parallels here to cryptocurrency? In reality, it is still tied too closely to the power brokers who control all currency, wealth, and related economic power. Aspirationaly, however, might it have the potential to envision the shifts which Frank writes about?

MattM

Tom Abeles

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Jun 12, 2021, 8:38:54 AM6/12/21
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Hi Sajai
regarding solar/wind and biomass renewables, there is a question regarding quantity that can be produced and the cost. More importantly, there is a question of time to get needed energy installed. There are those in the renewables/sustainable energy area who are pro nuclear but biting their tongue to not be pilloried by the renewable folk. These are the new small, modular, reactors that provide power and industrial level heat. There are operational units and research is ongoing in China, Russia, US and other countries.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CAMHFA4Ym_tEMsdFh8dMtcb9pg7SQhdsp_Ae1_9Zn0qLro74Q2g%40mail.gmail.com.

Sajai Jose

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Jun 14, 2021, 12:51:00 AM6/14/21
to Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Tom Abeles, Post RED
Dear Tom,

The nuclear solution has been embraced by, among others, some of the biggest 'green saints' - for eg. the two Jameses (Hansen & Lovelock) and one George (Monbiot). Scientists in their ivory towers can be forgiven for such eccentricities (though the harm is greater given their greater prestige) but Monbiot's turn, him being an activist with feet on the ground, was especially disappointing to me personally.

Again, this is not to start a debate about the pros and cons of nuclear - but to point out that if industrial/finance/digital/whatever capitalism, and its attendant consumer culture and lifestyles (indeed, its underlying reductively materialistic worldview), etc is the problem, then any hi-tech, centralised solution will only add to the problem, and therefore cannot be a part of the solution. At best, it may bring short-term benefits (usually outweighed by long-term harm), at worst it will make the problem worse. It's the same with the other 'solutions' proposed for the so-called energy transition.  
 
This isn't merely an ideological argument - this has been the case of all such top-down solutions - ie, solutions that are proposed from within the system, or within its ideological and political-economic framework (sometimes shared by those opposed to it for other reasons). for eg. in the case of solar, wind etc, there is a case to be argued that it is counterproductive even when it comes to emissions - that is, even without counting its ecological costs in terms of extraction, waste etc [ie, the fossil fuels we will need to burn to replace the world's fossil fuel infrastructure with renewables under the present rate of energy consumption will put so much carbon into the atmosphere in the short term - and the short term is what counts when it comes to climate change given tipping points - as to make it worse]
[A discussion from 2016 of the costs vs benefits of (mainly on solar photo-voltaic tech) can be found here:]

Frank,

I have serious doubts about the claims you make for bitcoin; again, not in a pros and cons sense, but on structural terms:
 
1] this so so called counter-technology is entirely dependent on the infrastructure of industrial capitalism - from electricity to computer hardware - and thus permanently beholden to the state and big corporations at some level. the level of complexity involved ensures that it will always remain the playground of the elect - the technical whizkids. 

2] the more high stakes it gets, the more the big players will want a piece of the action - always the path to doom. the differences apart, i see a parallel between bitcoin miners and hackers. once celebrated as freedom fighters, the hackers got carved up in no time - the more reckless ones by organised crime, and the tamer ones by big corporations and governments - the original cause remains a minority pursuit, indulged by the likes of Anonymous.  

3] if it feels and sounds and looks like a gold rush, it is a gold rush - or at least, has become one - however we dress it up. this is not to diss gold rushes, they too were liberatory, but in the way capitalism always has been - partially and ephemerally. but finally, a gold rush is a gold rush, and no more.

And this is just political economy. The ecological dimension is in addition to this. Globally, we are on the brink of ecological and climatic collapse - the stakes cannot be higher, so in the big picture view, the bitcoin rush is a minor sideshow, or a distraction. Yet another speechifying false prophet of the end times, like renewable energy. The nuclear visions of the green saints fall in the same category. There may be compelling reasons for such pseudo-solutions to be generated constantly [geopolitics for eg.] - but this does not change in anyway the essential truth about them being inappropriate, inadequate or, worst of all, counterproductive. This brings us back to question - why then are these solutions implemented, and for whom? 

I will sign off with some quotes

this is by from Samuel Alexander's 'Sufficiency Economy'

If a society does not have some vision of where it wants to be or
what it wants to become, it cannot know whether it is heading in the
right direction – it cannot even know whether it is lost. This is the
confused position of consumer capitalism today, which has a fetish
for economic growth but no answer to the question of what that
growth is supposed to be for. It is simply assumed that growth is
good for its own sake, but of course economic activity is merely a
means, not an end. It can only ever be justified by some goal beyond
itself, but that is precisely what consumer capitalism lacks – a
purpose, a reason for existence. It is a means without an end, like a
tool without a task. What makes this state of affairs all the more
challenging is that the era of growth economics appears to be
coming to a close, due to various financial, ecological, and energy
constraints, and this is leaving growth-based economies without the
very capacity for growth which defined them historically. Before
long this will render consumer capitalism an obsolete system with
neither a means nor an end, a situation that is in fact materialising
before our very eyes. 

this is from Ted Trainer's “But Can’t Technical Advance Solve the Problems?”

 Because technology has achieved many wonders it is assumed that it will come up with the required solutions, somehow.  This is as rational as someone saying, “I have a very serious lung disease, but I still smoke five packs of cigarettes a day, because technical advance could come up with a cure for my disease.”  This argument is perfectly true… and perfectly idiotic.  If you are on a path that is clearly leading to disaster the sensible thing is to get off it.  If technology does come up with solutions then it might make sense to get back on that path again.

The tech-fix optimist should be challenged to show in detail what are the grounds for us accepting that solutions will be found, to each and every one of the big problems we face.  What precisely might solve the biodiversity loss problem, the water shortage, the scarcity of phosphorus, the collapse of fish stocks, etc., and how likely are these possible beak-throughs?   Does it not make better sense to change from the lifestyles and systems that are causing these problems, at least until we can see that we can solve the resulting problems?

It should be stressed that the argument here is not to deny or undervalue the many astounding advances being made all the time in fields like medicine, astronomy, genetics, sub-atomic physics and IT, or to imply that these will not continue. The point is that technical advance is very unlikely to come up with ways that solve the resource and environmental problems being generated by affluent lifestyles.  The argument is that when the magnitude of the task (above) and the evidence on the significance of technical advance for resource and ecological problems is considered (below), tech-fix faith is seen to be extremely unwarranted … and the solutions have to be sought in terms of shifting to a Simpler Way of some kind.

A comprehensive collection of articles and books by Trainer and Alexander is available here

Finally, here is Bookchin:


“To speak of ‘limits to growth’ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.”_

— *Murray Bookchin*



On Sat, Jun 12, 2021 at 8:11 PM Frank Kashner <fkas...@gmail.com> wrote:

Alex and Sajai, thank you for your responses. I had not seen this article and I encourage people to read it. 

At first, it sounds like a horror story.  So much (wasted?) energy. For what? Much of the discussion on this forum has focused on bitcoin mining and its ecological and social impact. Yes, it is like a gold rush, the gold being otherwise wasted, inexpensive electricity turned into bitcoin rather than, literally, water over the dam.

Notice that the amazing capacity of those hydroelectric dams was created for a now gone aluminium industry and a soon to be gone demand from California that is increasingly fulfilled by more local solar and wind generation. The author fails to account for the enormous economic benefit gained by the public power company through the sale of power to the miners, and its beneficial effects. (New road? Schools? Hospitals? - I don’t know)

Patrick, you point out that Bitcoin is a good vehicle for capital to flee a country.  Prior to Bitcoin did capital ever have a problem fleeing any country? Something new is that Bitcoin is a good vehicle for capital to enter a country via millions of small dollar remittances, from first to third world countries, previously ripped off by Western Union and other vultures.

Matt, thank you for the defense of Woody.  I am not going to use this forum to describe what I find amazing about Bitcoin and how it is developing.  That information is readily available on the web, or, for some of you, from your children or others of that generation. It is a mistake to lump it together with the corporate and governmental arms of our surveillance states, or with AI or other “4th generation” labor and freedom undermining technologies.


Tom Abeles

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Jun 14, 2021, 9:06:05 AM6/14/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
hi sajai

It has been my contention that the idea of "growth" has been "baked into our thinking when the finance sector adopted the measure of productivity using Kuznet's GDP, not as an indicator but rather materializing it as a tangible object like so many dozen donuts. We are at a tipping point where other "measures" are seen as more substantive, such as "happiness" but as of the moment not fully present. I keep seeing the Transnational Institute's Change Finance, Not the Climate as an indicator. As George Lakoff has eloquently argued, to get change, change the "frame" otherwise you are in the world of ephemera like Hamlet and Polonius. 

The same holds for nuclear power generation where the changing of the technology has changed the "frame". Not all tech must be able to be fully understood by even the lay public, whether energy or the bits in your Mac Air, ipads and androids which are magic in your hands as you post to this website, or for some of us who are alive due to vaccines and arterial stents. The Chinese have learned their lessons when they sent their intellectuals to till the fields and today now have 5G technology that is ahead of the West, or Alibaba and their finance side, Ant, which brings unsecured micro loans as pioneered by Kenya's M-Pesa now copied by local ISP's. There is need for those ensconced in their "Ivory Towers" and those building community cooperatives at the grass roots levels.



Sajai Jose

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Jun 15, 2021, 9:35:33 AM6/15/21
to Tom Abeles, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Dear Tom,

As the relatively more technologically privileged (privileged enough to communicate this way), we are all in one way or the other implicated (although with 'differentiated responsibilities"). Are we then to simply celebrate it? Or silently acquiesce with it? (Even with a crime - not just a scam - like 'renewable energy') What exactly is implied here? 

Sajai

Tom Abeles

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Jun 15, 2021, 12:06:41 PM6/15/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Hi Sajai

It has been long argued that GDP is a poor measure, but one that was expedient when Kuznets created it so that the government could determine how to pay for economic recovery. It has since been materialized. Thus whether one is pro growth, pro green growth, degrowth etc, GDP has become the "coin of the realm". It was the same when the kings and then the nobles, in England, did an assessment of the land income value in order to set tax rates. Until an alternative measure becomes accepted and not set up by making it convertable to GDP units we are in the same "boat". As long as we are tied to the financiers through leveraged borrowing (debt) the link can't be broken. An alternative needs to become accepted. Academics, for the most part have difficulty with a frame shift. It is happening in the private sector but needs the credibility of those who are in the communications arena to accept this as more than "it's an interesting idea with possibilities".

As many have noted, the switch from concentrated energy sources such as fossil fuels to renewables is faced with the following challenges:
a) quantity that can be supplied given the impact on the planetary resources
b) the rate at which these can be taken to scale given the problems with climate
c) the variable demand for power and the ability to respond in a timely manner
d) only a concentrated power source that can't be met by a combination of production and storage in concert is required. At the moment  that is nuclear, particularly the new technologies that are becoming commercially available

Frames are the critical matrix for addressing these and other issues


Sajai Jose

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Jun 16, 2021, 7:33:56 AM6/16/21
to Tom Abeles, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Dear Tom,

I think the problem is not Kuznets or the GDP, or for that matter, Economics, but the system that has enshrined Kuznets (and the likes of him), the GDP and Economics as the high priest, deity and theology respectively. It's the Church that makes the theology, and not the other way round. And this was done for a very obvious reason - to enable greater and greater accumulation, growth, profits. The social cost of this process, the exploitation of labour, for eg. is 'collateral damage', while its ecological cost is an 'externality.' 

Georgescu-Roegen made the case half a century ago, as did the Limits to Growth report. And more recently, Eleanor Ostrom. (I mention these because they come from within the heart of the system, using criteria acceptable to it, ie, 'scientific'. The common sense case against industrial capitalism must have existed from the day it was born.) But, what was the response to the Limits to Growth report's findings? An unprecedented expansion of capital starting with the Thatcher-Reagan consensus, followed by four decades of neo-liberalism. 

In the intervening years, there have been countless official studies and reports commissioned by governments that project doomsday like scenarios [see links below for samples]. Then there are the IPCC reports on climate change.  When we know all this, how can we pretend that the system resists change because no one has made a case? Or because it doesn't know the facts itself? Should we still think that the sham of renewable energy is being promoted by a bunch of innocents?

You talk of a 'frame shift'  but your own preferred solutions [whether in finance or energy] involves or requires no such thing. At least, nothing even close to what we need (to survive as a species, not merely to feel good about ourselves). Even if we leave out the question of safety and waste disposal (taking your word for it) in nuclear, there remains the question of infrastructure. The problem doesn't go away - building the infrastructure for any alternative source on a scale large enough to replace the world's fossil fuel infrastructure (built over the course of a century) will likely use up so much fossil fuels (and consequently, emissions) as to make the long term gains irrelevant.

regards,

Sajai

Tom Abeles

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Jun 16, 2021, 8:27:23 AM6/16/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
hi sajai
what's your solution?

Patrick Bond

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Jun 16, 2021, 8:37:34 AM6/16/21
to radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com

Tom - on your two points:

On 6/15/2021 6:06 PM, Tom Abeles wrote:
whether one is pro growth, pro green growth, degrowth etc, GDP has become the "coin of the realm"...Until an alternative measure becomes accepted and not set up by making it convertable to GDP units we are in the same "boat". As long as we are tied to the financiers through leveraged borrowing (debt) the link can't be broken. An alternative needs to become accepted. Academics, for the most part have difficulty with a frame shift....

You're right on this. My own sense is that one way to shift consciousness is alongside the rapidly-growing awareness of reparations payments as a way to address structural inequality. We've seen it this month with the German government recognising - and making a $1.3 billion downpayment for - its colonial genocide in Namibia (after the $89 bn payment to Holocaust survivors), and Black Lives Matter demands are now advancing into a U.S. House of Representatives commission, though as one BLM leader put it, "'Reparations' makes people kind of uncomfortable, so we can call it 'reinvestment' if you want to. Use whatever language makes you happy inside."

One demand from BLM is "Reparations for the wealth extracted from our communities through environmental racism," which is also appropriate for North-South imperialist relations in which wealth is extracted in the form of uncompensated, undercompensated and generally unrecognised depletion of natural resources.

Indeed, undermining the (white-male-U.S.-economist-invented) category GDP would allow us to better advance the cause of reparations due for North-South and inter-generational unequal ecological exchange associated with capitalist markets, imperial power and generational abuse. Call it an ecological debt, especially a climate debt. On the other side, thanks to the U.S. State Department and its allies in the EU and BRICS, the Paris Climate Agreement bans signatory states from making this sort of claim - but that certainly hasn't stopped it from emerging. Even South Africa's latest Nationally Determined Contributions statement requests “support by the international climate and development and finance community for nonfossil-fuel development in Mpumalanga” (very cheeky, as if SA doesn't owe the rest of Africa a vast ecological debt, e.g. neighbour Mozambique, whose people we overpolluters should be paying so as to halt ultra-destructive fossil fuel development in Cabo Delgado province).

Meanwhile those reactionaries - especially white male Global-North economists - who cite GDP as a marker of progress consider pollution irrelevant and they calculate the extraction of non-renewable resources as purely a positive (credit) and not as a depletion of a society's wealth (a logically-corresponding GDP debit - as if you were selling the historic 'family silver' to get yourself a momentary income and to hell with descendants), along with ignoring (mainly women's) unpaid social reproduction and community work.

So raising this problem of GDP as often as possible is important for decolonising our political economy debates and realities. (Here's a South African effort to recognise and measure such modes of super-exploitation drawing on Rosa Luxemburg's theory of capitalism/non-capitalism relations.)

As many have noted, the switch from concentrated energy sources such as fossil fuels to renewables is faced with the following challenges:
a) quantity that can be supplied given the impact on the planetary resources
b) the rate at which these can be taken to scale given the problems with climate
c) the variable demand for power and the ability to respond in a timely manner
d) only a concentrated power source that can't be met by a combination of production and storage in concert is required. At the moment  that is nuclear, particularly the new technologies that are becoming commercially available

Second, it seems to me this is an impoverished way to look at energy, since it is only supply side. Why are we not looking to cut back dramatically on demand, especially where there is so much electricity wasted on smelting and other high-carb activities - e.g. to make tin cans for beverages - that could be readily halted, were we to get a handle on energy demand. Then we would be able to scale down nuclear, coal, gas, oil, the most destructive of renewables and other objectionable technologies, and plan the allocation of power where it is most rational and just.


David Barkin

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Jun 16, 2021, 11:37:19 AM6/16/21
to Patrick Bond, Radical Ecological Democracy list
This conversation has gone far astray from the original post on bitcoin in El Salvador... I think there are two comments worth mentioning:
1) Bitcoin is only relevant for those segments of society that have "cash" -- and access to the electronic circuits in which they operate -- leaving quite outside the majority who continue to suffer from all the political and criminal mechanisms of oppression that characterize that society.
2) At present, renewables are themselves a mechanism of further social and environmental inequalities, given their cost, and the extraordinary damage that the raw materials required for their production are wreaking on the poorest parts of the poorest countries (Congo, northern Chile; Mexico), save when some state intervention mitigates this somewhat (Bolivia) ...
3) The problem is deeper - the social model of consumption that is increasingly energy intensive and  based on individual consumption in a free market that places no bounds on the way in which those that "have" can do what they like and whose that "dont" are facing the terrible effects of disease, hunger, and environmental degradation of all sorts.
David Barkin, Mexico

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Sajai Jose

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Jun 17, 2021, 6:14:30 AM6/17/21
to Tom Abeles, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Dear friends,

I just realised from David Barkin's response that this thread may have gotten confusing for many. This has happened because two separate exchanges, one on resource extraction and renewable energy on the RED list, and the other on bitcoin on the WSM list, got mixed up because some of us are involved in both.

But, the momentary confusion apart, that may not be such a bad thing considering the two have some things in common. to my mind at least, both are pseudo-solutions at best, and in the case of renewables, it actually worsens the problem it promises to solve [climate change], apart from all the other harm it does which David pointed out. 

The most dangerous effect of the 'energy transition' could be that it will - if it hasn't already - convinced most people that is the solution to climate change. I'm arguing that renewables could pose itself as the solution only because the problem itself was stated falsely - as climate change rather than capitalism/whatever.

Now, to Tom Abeles,

You asked 'what is your solution?' I take this to be a rhetorical question. [In fact,, i feel 'solutionism' is part of the problem], would like to point to others - I referred to Samuel Alexander and Ted Trainer's 'Simpler Way' as an example. Also the Degrowth movement, Transition Town movement, Project Drawdown (specifically on climate change) and an initiative that has grown out of this list [RED] , which you can view here: https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org/ 

It is quite realistic to think that all these proposals will be ignored by most people in the short term at least. But what would be truly unrealistic to think anything less would do. Or to believe that the Green New Deal (the New Deal with green paint), Eco-modernism, Geo-engineering - or for that matter, 'renewable energy' - will save the day. (for reasons we have already touched upon). I feel that apart from building genuine alternatives, we also need to expose these as not just scams, but for socially and ecologically 'criminal mechanisms' [as David put it] they are.

Incidentally, here are two links on bitcoin which seem important, but which others here can make better sense of


The SEC doesn’t understand blockchain. The claims made in SEC vs. LBRY would destroy the United States cryptocurrency industry

https://helplbrysavecrypto.com/


Sajai

Tom Abeles

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Jun 17, 2021, 9:56:29 AM6/17/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
hi sajai/all

Thanks Saji

1) regarding crypto "currency" and the two refs. As with any monopoly, there is an effort to control entrance thru a variety of mechanisms which can be discussed. In this case the securities industry has a strong interest in retaining control and hence this is a move to protect profits and control.

2) Thanks for the references on transitions around resource use and the climate issues. These are great. I don't think there is a compilation of similar efforts. I would point out:
Most of these exist within and not separate from the existing matrix in which they are embedded. In other words a "transition town" depends on the larger infrastructure. The issue regarding crypto as mentioned here points to what a number of parties have identified as represented by the TNI paper, "Change finance and not the climate. 
3) criteria: sustainable, expandable, duplicable and transferable. The other issue is "time". with respect to climate and energy there is a timeline or date which is a tipping point. That is why these examples are great but can the needed changes occur in time. Change the System is the key and that moves the issues into the larger matrix in which the examples are embedded. Think "Arab Spring" or the "wall street" protests. Until they can be reformulated they are the equivalent of "folk politics"

tom

Tom Abeles

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Jun 17, 2021, 10:07:16 AM6/17/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Here is an article from the IMF which reinforces my previous comments:

Sajai Jose

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Jun 19, 2021, 9:37:20 PM6/19/21
to Tom Abeles, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Dear Tom,

This bit, from the IMF article you referenced, is hard to believe:: "Digital money has the potential to transform the financial sector. Emerging markets and lower-income countries stand to gain the most from this dramatic shift."  Has the IMF promoted a single policy that actually has served such a purpose? 

India's 2016 demonetisation exercise - which caused an enormous amount of hardship, apart from literally causing many deaths, also crippled the economy and livelihoods for the poor and small businesses - was cheered on by the IMF because it aligned with the cashless economy agenda championed by the IMF
In 2017, the IMF was still praising it
Only to disown it in 2018, when a defence of it became untenable

Meanwhile, millions of lives were impacted. Such economic 'experimentation' probably outranks animal experimentation by Big Pharma and the cosmetics industry in terms of sheer cruelty, and the IMF's criminal record on this is a long one. But because they are behind the scenes players, the charges not only don't stick, but usually are never made to begin with. So given this record, the IMF agreeing with you is a cause for concern, more than anything else.

My layman's understanding of digital money and the push for a cashless economy is that 
1] it turns money itself into a commodity, ie, it monetises the exchange of money from one person to another - earning a profit for the 'service provider' on each transaction from what used to be free
2] it enables every single financial transaction to be tracked and traced- supposedly a good thing because it curtails criminal activity etc [i personally doubt this, given bitcoin other options] - but in practice would be nothing but an extension of 'surveillance capitalism' 
3] it claims to "reach out" to those outside the banking system, but it could be said that it seeks to "rope them in" - it depends on whether you see the present banking/monetary system as a good thing or not 
   
will respond to other points later

Sajai

Tom Abeles

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Jun 20, 2021, 8:32:13 AM6/20/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Post RED
Hi Sajai
One has to realize that the WB and IMF are creatures of the pvt banking system and will remain so until the dollar is not the reserve currency and countries aren't tied to the dollar denominated debt. Right now there is an effort to define crypto as a regulated security. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, in part, is trying to provide alternative options to the dollar reserve currency as  is the BRIC New Development Bank. Digital can allow a more flexible set of fungible reserve currencies but in all cases, the holder of the debt can, as is now current, control defaults and force structural adjustment. But, at the country level  and country denominated, it can be out of control of the private banking sector. Digital can create a more liquid market.

Given M-Pesa and similar digital funds transfer systems, the citizen with a cell phone is already in the digital world. The issue is the denomination of the digital currencies. If the exchange is within a country it can be denominated in local funds. The issue is cross border transfers, not necessarily important for most persons, nor is the need for encryption as with bitcoin. 

The big issue is DEBT, foreign or at the individual level. Banks make money by creating debt at which point, the party in debt can get pressured by the party holding the debt. The literature well documents efforts to intentionally get countries and, of course, individuals into debt. In the case of countries this has led to structural adjustment, including conversions of public debt into private, as is well understood. But also there are other ways to extort favors, leading to corruption.

How do we get beyond folk politics?


Tom Abeles

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Jun 22, 2021, 8:32:56 PM6/22/21
to David Ranney, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, Sajai Jose, Post RED
Hi david

thanks for your analysis and summary, which are spot on.

You are right, crypto currencies and bitcoin in particular probably are not stable enough to be a reserve currency. El Salvador has a long way to go.

You have made a critical point when pointing out the US's efforts at bretton woods and subsequently how it has used international financing specifically in "lending" to countries creating debt, the consequences thereof are most recently seen with Greece, but has been used similarly in other countries as with Ecuador, forcing that country to open up its oil reserves to privatization. All well documented.

Your other point ,that the dollar as the major reserve currency, needs to be unpacked and watched with, as you note, other countries are with the idea of further weakening the dollar's position.

As others have eloquently stated, Change Finance, Not the Climate, or Change the System not the Climate, are seminal statements. As George Lakoff has stated, one can't win an argument on the opponent's linguistic frame. That means seeking other paths. An area that needs serious discussion on this and other lists.

tom

On Tue, Jun 22, 2021 at 3:40 PM David Ranney <dcranne...@gmail.com> wrote:

Friends

 I  have followed with interest the discussion on this list that began with the notion that El Salvador is moving toward replacing the U.S. dollar with bitcoin as its official currency. I am grateful to all who have participated in this – especially Sanjai and Tom. I am by no means an expert in this area but have been thinking about it for some time and decided to share some of what I have been thinking about

 When we consider the importance of crypto currencies and what the IMF called “digital money,”  it is important not to forget that all of these are different types of capitalist money. They mostly act as a measure of the value that capital extracts from labor. They make it possible to turn every social relationship into a commodity and to turn value itself into exchange value. Money is at the heart of capitalism. We want to abolish capitalism and the money forms that go with it. So we should be examining the current debates about money forms primarily as a sneak peek at what the ruling class is up to.

 The different forms of money do, however, work in different ways. And some may hurt the working class more than others within the stricture of  capitalist exploitation.  What makes bitcoin and the other crypto currencies different is that they are also an instrument of unregulated  speculation and up to now have been part of the playground of the super rich including criminals. They are similar in this respect to other “assets” like  collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Only CDOs are traded in quasi regulated exchanges while crypto currencies seem to be using the block chain technology so they are traded in one open market. The IMF places crypto currencies into the “asset” category as opposed to “digital money” which they favor because they can’t regulate the crypto currencies. But they are correct that they are likely too volatile to achieve the function of capitalist money.  Like CDOs, crypto currencies have been the playthings of  very wealthy individuals, the 1%, who won’t let just anybody onto their playground. So likely El Salvador and others  are making a huge mistake to think they can benefit in any way by using crypto currencies as state money forms.

 The IMF paper is important because it does give us a look at the foundation of a new accumulation regime in the making. The IMF is more than “a creature of the private banking system as Tom argues. It is that but it is also under the control of the bloc of capital dominated by the U.S. and the U.S. government that serves it . This has been the case since its creation at the end of World War II. It was quite transformed in the late 70s and early 80s to allow this bloc of capital to adjust to a new accumulation regime in the form of neo liberal globalization. The IMF has 190 members who vote on all IMF policies on the basis of the amount of money each contributes. The U.S has about 17% of all votes cast. The next largest voting shares are with Japan 6.5% and China 6.4%. This gives the U.S. a virtual veto on all policy questions. The U.S. representative is the U.S. Secretary of Treasury and her backup is the chairperson of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

 The IMF seems to be in a process of transforming itself, contemplating a shift in the dominant accumulation regime. Regulating digital money may be a very big part of that.

 Related to this is the changing role of the U.S. dollar in maintaining U.S. dominance over global capitalism. This revolves around the status of the U.S. dollar as the top international reserve currency. Nations now can use dollars to settle international trade transactions.  This creates a practically unlimited demand for U.S. dollars. And it enables the U.S. to be able to sell government debt and to print new dollars without inflation. As such it is a major part of the political and economic power of the U.S. government. The dollar has, since World War II ended, enjoyed this status. But up to 1971 it did so by international treaty that fixed the value of the dollar at a set amount of gold. In 1971 Nixon was forced to take the dollar off the gold standard, effectively canceling the old Bretton Woods agreement. And he opened up a currency exchange that allowed the dollar to be traded against other currencies. But it has still maintained its status as the largest international reserve currency.  But there are challenges being made by other blocs of capital for this status.  The next largest bloc is represented by the Euro. In 1958 the dollar comprised 85% of all global reserves. It has had some ups and down since but has been dropping steadily since the year 2000. It is now at a historic low of 59%.

 I believe this is an important part of the context of the IMF’s paper on digital money and struggles among blocs of capital world wide. And it is also a way to look at the potential of crypto currencies.

 Sorry for the length of this. But these are the things I have been thinking about. I hope it contributes something to the conversation.

 Dave Ranney

6-22-21

Tom Abeles

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Jun 23, 2021, 8:59:38 AM6/23/21
to Frank Kashner, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, David Ranney, Post RED
Hi Frank
Actually, we are in a transition period where it appears that the use of digital for "value" transfer, not just currency, is a wild wild west that has governments scrambling as well as creative entrepreneurs.

China appears quite open about the "costs" of investments in their Belt and Road Initiative which involves more than trade and int'l traffic management. China and India are the largest equity holders in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. What is interesting here is that the Bank considers soft infrastructure as financeable while Biden can't get Congress to fund more than bricks and mortar.

Climate change and "green" advocates promote the idea that the economy can thrive on non-material exchanges (e.g. service) reducing impact on planetary resources. This thread points out that there is a move in this direction with the AIIB being an early mover while the US is still stuck in the material domain except for development funding. This is another critical area as there is a growing concern that both government and NGO development funding is unstable and problematic with a move to considering reductions (e.g. GB's budgetary reductions in this area. 

The ramifications for low/moderate income countries, as the digital starts to fill out, is significant and needs consideration on this and related lists. Many of the needs can be satisfied by non-material or reduced material services which changes entire economies including "work". A digital public "commons" (think Wkipedia) similar to the physical commons has yet to be fully explored.

tom
tom abeles

On Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 7:32 AM Frank Kashner <fkas...@gmail.com> wrote:

As others have observed, the United States has been able to use the dollar as a weapon to dominate the world. The most extreme expression of this are economic sanctions which cripple economies and cause extreme poverty, including starvation.

The rest of the world understands and resents the US power and domination.  China, a major competitor, uses the Yuan to dominate other countries, forcing, for example, Ecuador, to drill for oil on previously protected Indeginous lands, to satisfy a debt to China.

China is close to issuing a digital Yuan.  That may be one reason they are closing down Bitcoin mines. But once there is a digital Yuan, China will be unable to seal the digital spillway to Bitcoin, because there will be exchanges that will exchange any digital currency for any other digital currency.

El Salvador did not adopt Bitcoin as its national currency.  They are allowing Bitcoin to exist alongside their real national currency, the US dollar.  Bitcoin will have little impact on the national level.  Far more interesting to me is the use of Bitcoin’s second layer, Lightning, as a means of currency transfer home, from millions of El Salvadorans abroad. They never see Bitcoin. It is a protocol layer that eviscerates exploitive Western Union. 

Nations under US sanctions are using Bitcoin to avoid those sanctions.  Meanwhile, people in many of those same countries are using Bitcoin to get past their own nation’s failing currencies and economies.  When Iranian or Venezuelan authorities seize Bitcoin mining machines from individuals, they probably repurpose them for the government’s goals.

Please consider what it means to have a form of money that is not under any government’s control. Bitcoin is Internet money, controversial, unstable, poorly understood, environmentally contentious, even hated, that is growing in the gut of the world economy.


Frank Kashner

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Jun 23, 2021, 12:36:21 PM6/23/21
to Tom Abeles, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, David Ranney, Post RED
Thanks Tom, I agree with you, and would add that we think in terms of countries so much that it is hard to conceptualize non-country oriented phenomena that impact people and countries.  Of course there is global warming, but we still view it by national responses.

 I really like the idea of commons and again, wonder if we can conceptualize commons that are in some ways independent of country, or, trans country.  Like "the international working class" that seems to have gone out of vogue. Yes, value will increasingly be viewed digitally, and there is a vast difference between national or privately controlled value and value that is not. 

Bitcoin is creating a financial commons, still dominated by the very wealthy, but perhaps less accessible to fulfill national agendas like sanctions and wars.  Please notice again that I am distinguishing Bitcoin from all of the other digital coins, national and private.

Sajai Jose

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Jun 25, 2021, 8:01:14 AM6/25/21
to Frank Kashner, Tom Abeles, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, David Ranney, Post RED
Pls see (courtesy Britt Baatjes)

A pair of South African brothers have vanished, along with Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion from their cryptocurrency investment platform.

A Cape Town law firm hired by investors says they can’t locate the brothers and has reported the matter to the Hawks, an elite unit of the national police force. It’s also told crypto exchanges across the globe should any attempt be made to convert the digital coins.

Following a surge in Bitcoin’s value in the past year, the disappearance of about 69,000 coins — worth more than $4 billion at their April peak — would represent the biggest-ever dollar loss in a cryptocurrency scam. The incident could spur regulators’ efforts to impose order on the market amid rising cases of fraud.




To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CAFneGjU6MhBd-acBi%3DaXHY%2BmC_5bLr%2B5v2XrnykrPW-BaigWWA%40mail.gmail.com.

Britt Baatjes

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Jun 25, 2021, 9:07:36 AM6/25/21
to Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Tom Abeles, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, David Ranney, Post RED
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CAMHFA4YCyHMKFZQeYpJGVLD8_PiJxMRdGfBmpMqpxhCT9ucA3Q%40mail.gmail.com.


--
The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity. It is worth noting that this is not the work of ignorant people. It is, rather, largely the result of work by people with BAs, BSs, LLBs, MBAs, and PhDs. (Orr, 1991)

Rosamma Thomas

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Jun 25, 2021, 9:23:24 AM6/25/21
to Britt Baatjes, Sajai Jose, Frank Kashner, Tom Abeles, Discussion list about emerging world social movement, David Ranney, Post RED
the climate crisis is fundamentally an inequality crisis.


To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/CANttV23At2W_dBZkBUxuzZKEds8RQySFAM3vi4xRKeQBj5Rxxw%40mail.gmail.com.
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