0 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 2 Nov 2023 \ parent \ on: _Broken Money_ book club, part 3 bitcoin
Global attitude here means the global attitude of states. Non-state money disfavors the state. As Lyn tells it, the petrodollar/IMF/World Bank stuff favors the state at the expense of the state's people.
All you need to create the surprise is to give low conscientious people state power.
The West tipping global political scales in its favor. I don't think this happens naturally. It makes no sense. Until this part of the book, I hadn't appreciated (what I guess is called) neocolonialism fully.
Global attitude here means the global attitude of states. Non-state money disfavors the state. As Lyn tells it, the petrodollar/IMF/World Bank stuff favors the state at the expense of the state's people.
There's clearly a sense in which this is true -- in which there is an entity, called The State, that from one PoV has independent existence, in the same way that there is a thing called A Human Being that has an existence independent of its constituent cells. In this way, states can want X even when their components want Y.
Mises and many Austrians would hate that description, though. I can't count how many times I've read "There's no such thing as X, it is just people making decisions." I think this is mostly wrong, for the reasons above, but it's not completely wrong.
So I guess the point is that, when it comes to this stuff, the desires of states are just stronger? Or, in individual-language: it's the nature of systems where a smallish number of people do well, and they act in accordance with their interests, which are contrary to the larger interest?
Until this part of the book, I hadn't appreciated (what I guess is called) neocolonialism fully.
Same. Although I'm still not comfortable with that label, as the process itself is an expression of forces playing out, whereas the label implies willful action. And the state / individual distinction, given above, blurs that.
I have no doubt that there's some dudes in a room making explicit decisions with full awareness; I also have no doubt that the people I know, buying candy bars and shitty beer with their dollars, are not trying to fuck the people of Bangladesh. And yet some people, engaging in the public dialogue on the topic, would have it so.
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There's clearly a sense in which this is true -- in which there is an entity, called The State, that from one PoV has independent existence, in the same way that there is a thing called A Human Being that has an existence independent of its constituent cells. In this way, states can want X even when their components want Y.
I was thinking of dictatorships and oligopolies when I wrote that. They are the least interesting states to consider though and they might not be special. So why might a free democracy go along with the petrodollar?
They get to be courtier's to the king which is likely optimal all things considered.
Then the global order is set and everyone else goes along to smooth their suffering.
Although I'm still not comfortable with that label, as the process itself is an expression of forces playing out, whereas the label implies willful action. And the state / individual distinction, given above, blurs that.I have no doubt that there's some dudes in a room making explicit decisions with full awareness
I'm with you. Reflexively, I see it like dominos. A few dominos decide to tip over and the rest, just being dominos, tip over too.
Those early fucking dominos tho ...
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