Fixing the money doesn't fix the DIME

Self-government requires a culture shift, not just new technology

I’m very much a student of libertarian luminaries like Murray Rothbard and Gustav de Molinari, and interact with Hans-Hermann Hoppe at his annual Property and Freedom Society conference in Bodrum, Turkey. I’ve read all the anarcho-capitalist literature and recognize that a private property based legal order is the only means of assuring maximum liberty, peace, and prosperity in a social context.

The challenge, however, is moving from the present statist legal environment toward the closest feasible approximation of the private law society ideal. What steps are along the critical path? What is the first action to initiate movement in a positive direction toward that goal? Which legal means are available to support or defend a nascent libertarian movement?

I will argue that the key provisions of the United States Constitution, particularly those pertaining to money and militia, are the most expeditious and realistic means of achieving liberty in our lifetimes through radical decentralization and local autonomy. Some might call me a statist or “minarchist” because of this position. Some will argue that it is only relevant to Americans and does little for liberty in the rest of the world. So be it.

The American Revolution was the shot heard ‘round the world that lit the brushfires of liberty and provided a model for others to follow. Now, if the “good people” of the United States can use the Supreme Law of the Land to arrest the corrupt ambitions of rogue public officials and reorient government toward the protection of life, liberty, and property, the rest of the world will have another example of what must be done. However, it is indeed contingent upon those countries incorporating provisions for sound money and citizen militia into their governing charters.

Some people claim that fixing the money will fix the world. I see that as only half of the equation. In alignment with Davidson and Reese-Mogg’s Sovereign Individual thesis, I agree that technological advances in micro-processing, cryptographic security, and cyber-monies will necessarily transform the very nature of politics and government. When politicians and bureaucrats can no longer seize the financial resources of individuals and private firms, when digital assets and payment networks are beyond the reach of tax authorities, governments will need to change their mode of operation and learn how to attract clients like insurance providers and clubs do.

Davidson and Reese-Mogg also emphasized that governments would become particularly nasty during the transition period and that those losing their livelihood through technological obsolescence will shift into alternative predatory behaviors. In other words, a free society will need to find new safeguards for liberty even when sovereign individuals are empowered with cryptographically impervious cyber-assets.

Add to this the potential for governments to assert the other instruments of national power upon the populace. These are DIME: Diplomatic, Informational, Military, as well as Economic measures. Money, albeit supremely important, is just one aspect of economic policy. In conjunction with information operations and the use of force, those wielding the instruments of state power still control a variety of means for interfering with private property.

Indeed, diplomats and military officials have become more overt in recent years about the need for asserting influence in the cognitive space as social media and online information sources proliferate. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polish-American political scientist and former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, once remarked a global political awakening, facilitated by near instantaneous unregulated information flows, is making governing more difficult. Of course, as an arch swamp creature, Brzezinski’s definition of governing is anathema to a private property legal order. Dr. Brzezinksi viewed the general government of the United States as an apparatus for international interventionism and a vehicle for settling his geopolitical vendettas. Predictably, he denounced the freedom of information that might lead to popular resistance to hegemonic domination or the latitude to govern, i.e., the ability of public officials to use public resources to satisfy their personal interests.

This is just one example. The point is that so long as public officials can use their positions as a platform to frame issues and shape public discourse, the threat to private property and a libertarian social order. Bitcoin will not fix this, particularly during the transition period.

There is more work to be done, and there is much more to write on these topics. All in due time.