bitcoin

_Broken Money_ book club, part 3

elvismercury

> 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 ...