96 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 15 Apr \ parent \ on: What Would Carl Menger Think Of Bitcoin? libertarian
I'm not as familiar with Menger, so I'm not sure if there is a great argument that bitcoin "evolved" in the way he was thinking.
It's not clear to me, though, why it's not an evolution of existing money, accounting, and cryptography concepts.
There have been plenty of innovations that required synthesizing several different ideas. That certainly would not be news to Menger. Neither would the idea that big projects often require a lot of planning. That makes me think he's talking about something slightly different.
I just re read what you said. I think I'm starting to see your point. Is this the standard libertarian bitcoiner argument? Like I said, I've been out of touch for a while.
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I'm not sure if many libertarians care about this and, as we know, many of the Austrians are behind the curve on Bitcoin.
I had heard a bunch of pretty unconvincing arguments, prior to Bob's, that just seemed like rationalization to me.
I guess that's a long way of saying "I don't know."
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I can't help but think that what Menger is referring to is the natural money that emerges in a community, like in Szabo's Shelling Out:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36329520-shelling-out
Sea shells, beads, wampum.
We can agree to disagree.
Ultimately, it won't matter to me. Bitcoin is too important for me to worry about shoe horning it into a philosophy for armchair discussion. It is important to think about, though, when we consider the free market and our own criticism of manufactured fiat.
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what Menger is referring to is the natural money that emerges in a community, like in Szabo's Shelling Out
I have no doubt about that.
I was basically taking your question as whether or not Menger would understand Bob's point, given that Bitcoin has seemingly established itself, or if he would be skeptical of it because of how it originated.
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I see. I guess we'll never know.
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No, but I want to think Menger would get it, because Bob's explanation is so true to Menger's insight about subjective value.
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