It's my view that we're sitting in the front row of a movie theater, popcorn on our lap, and we're watching history play out before us. Specifically, we're watching a film called "The New Economic Revolution" starring Bitcoin.
Revolutions, true revolutions where the old world order is turned down and the new order is transformed up, are rare. We usually think of political revolutions when we hear "revolution," at least I do. A power overthrow is an easy thing to see and grasp.
Social revolutions are another good example, often initiated by or aided by technological revolutions. The Protestant Revolution, aided by the printing press, unchained the Holy Bible from the gatekeepers of the Catholic church and brought it to directly to the people in their own language.
But, economic revolutions, I'd argue, are extremely rare. How many true economic revolutions have their been?
-
The move from forager to agriculture, maybe? Though I'd argue agriculture has been around since the beginning.
-
The beginnings of the use of money. This one is hard to pin down and would depend on geography, but it's a game changer.
-
Around the 1700s there was what's called the "agricultural revolution" or "enclosure." (This was the second agricultural revolution, the first being #1 above.) Enclosure might be the better word, because it's essentially just fencing off land. In this way, enclosure is essentially capitalism being carried out, the move from the communal to private property. See the next number below.
-
Adam Smith's free market capitalism. Capitalism has raised the standard of living of more people than anything I can imagine. Historically, it liberated millions, maybe billions, from mercantilism and the clutches of the haves controlling the have-nots. Today, with capitalism, a have-not with an idea, grit and determination can achieve great things. Certainly, a gritty person stands to live a better life in capitalism than in any other economic system.
-
Bitcoin. I rank bitcoin right there among these other landmarks because it disconnects money and value from power-brokers and connects that value directly to the people. This is, of course, why they dislike and fight bitcoin.
So, is bitcoin in the four or five greatest economic revolutions of history? I think it is. The technology it revealed aside, the way-of-thinking it awakened to so many people might be its most incredible achievement. Like Plato's cave allegory, coming out of the cave is difficult and can be frightening and painful. Yet, once out of the cave and viewing the beautiful world outside, no one crawls back into the cave to live a life in darkness.
In bitcoin, we hear the term "flywheel" used fairly often. It's a great analogy: the flywheel, once spinning, creates its own inertia to generate greater spin and greater inertia, and thus, its own energy. That bitcoin flywheel is spinning, and speeding, and not everyone likes the revolution its creating.
We're watching this movie play out in real time. I'm not even talking price here, though that is one effective measure and easy-to-handle metric of the revolution. I'm talking about a complete change from "your" money and "my" money being liberated from gatekeepers and power brokers and placed directly into your and my hands. It is the scripture from Latin to the vernacular.
On the topic of religion, I think back to the patriarchs of the Old Testament, particularly Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of Genesis. They became wealthy, influential, and powerful men. Their wealth was not in money as we think of it. It was not in gold. It was not even in land for much of their lives. Their wealth was in livestock...an asset or commodity that would literally walk around with them as they traveled to and fro across the Holy Land. My point here is that they were the actual holders, the custodians of their wealth. They held their flocks and herds with them, completely divorced from any governmental or institutional overseer. Their money had four feet, ate, sleep, defecated, and got eaten themselves. But, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob controlled their own wealth.
Bitcoin effectively returns us back to herding sheep and goats. We can trade a sheep, slaughter a goat without anyone's permission and without anyone taking a fee for us doing so. With legacy money, this is not the case.
Anyone who is old enough to have lived through the period when the internet became accessible to normal folks, the 90s and early 2000s, they might see how we've been blessed to witness a couple of revolutions. First, we saw the information revolution play out, and we've lived it out. Anyone who did research pre-internet understands the difference between looking for things on microfiche and searching the 'net. The ease of the search, the wide spread of the net that's cast, and the accuracy and pertinence of the results are ridiculously better now. It's not that information could not be found prior to the internet, it's that the entire process has been sped up to an incredible degree.
As a quick and simple example, suppose you ask, "What was the name of the first song the Rolling Stones came out with?" Pre-internet, you'd have to take an afternoon to go to the library, find a book on rock 'n roll music history, if your library had one. Else, you had to request it. Then wait a few days, then go back, then thumb through it. Maybe it would have the answer, maybe not. If not, request another book. Or, maybe dig rather aimlessly through the microfiche and pray.
To research that question now...do a search. There's your answer.
And secondly, we're able to watch the revolution of money that bitcoin started and which the flywheel is now fueling. The combined technological revolution of the internet and the economic revolution of bitcoin, are, well historic to say the least. I'm convinced that in 20 years people will look back at this time in awe. Certainly in 50 years and a hundred and hundreds, this period will be in the history books properly recorded as truly revolutionary.
We're blessed to be sitting and watching this amazing time. Out of roughly 5,000 years of recorded history, we're living in one of the few times where we get to witness such transformative changes. There haven't been many changes this big, and we get to live it.
Be thankful, humble, and enjoy the movie and the popcorn.