CCG Chronicles #7 - Sovereignty for the Commons
This episode is a continuation of the CCG Chronicles series which is a collection of interviews conducted during the Crypto Commons Gathering (CCG) in Austria back in August 2021. The interviews were also filmed to potentially be a part of a documentary I'm making with a few others. I interviewed Dr. Sarah Manski who I had on the podcast previously about why the left needs to care about value accounting. We both physically attended the CCG to catch up and speak more about her research. During...
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Hi, everyone. What you're about to listen to is an interview that I took in person while attending the Crypto Commons Gathering Conference in Austria in August 2021. The conference itself was a wonderful experience where people of a lot of different backgrounds and political ideas were able to discuss openly and safely about how crypto can intersect with fostering the commons. What you'll notice from these interviews is that these differences in thought are sometimes apparent because we all come from different places. And what was honestly refreshing about the experience is that we could do it in a supportive environment. This This is probably one of the most receptive audiences in crypto to socialism, which was really great for me. Also, a heads up is that you may notice sometimes that the audio was clearly recorded in the house that we were all staying in, which wasn't the best place for recording, but we did the best that we could with what we had. A lot of the interviews will also likely feature in the documentary that I'm making about the world of crypto and its potential futures with a friend. A big reason I was able to make it to this conference was thanks to all the support I received from patrons. So if you find the work that I do important, I hope you'll consider helping out starting at $3 per month on patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist.
So I'm here with Sarah Manske, who last time we spoke, we spoke a lot about the the paper that you had, published around that time, I think, with people like, people like Michelle Bounds and and and others on, thinking about well, you having having, like, a framework for thinking about cryptocurrencies within a type of, like, more common setting. And now here we are in real life sort of trying to do that face to face, I guess, to this. Right. But maybe to start very quickly in case people don't know, can you just give an introduction to yourself and Sure. Yeah.
Okay. So I'm Sarah Manske. I'm a professor in the business school at George Mason University and also in the department of global affairs. So I teach both about, you know, globalization and also about business. And my perspective is we need to grow the commons and the cooperative movement and move towards an economy that's beyond extraction, towards cooperation. And, so I'm here at the conference to be a part of the movement that is trying to do that. And it's mostly technologists at this conference, and they have their own unique strategies and tools to accomplish that end.
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, you have spoken a lot to different types of technologies as part of your research and as a part of your work. Maybe if you could give us, like, a a compare and contrast, maybe, might be interesting of some of the technologists that you have worked with before, and how that differs from maybe technologists who are involved in the crypto commons that we would vaguely call, like, loosely associated group here in in this house. Sure. Sure.
Well, you know, like all groups of people, you get, you know, people from who are just about making money and producing a product that'll make as much money for them and their investors as possible, and people who are trying to do good but are doing it in a way where it kind of just doesn't really challenge the existing system. You know, a lot of assumptions are left in place about, how we treat the environment, how we treat workers, power relations, you know, wealth inequality. And then the people here who are trying to, you know, examine and challenge all of the assumptions that that we currently live under that produce systems of that are extractive and destroy the planet and also extract wealth from employees and don't, provide people with all the things they need to be happy and, you know, live a healthy life.
Yeah. So so you say just in in what you well, I guess I'm curious what you think about the conference so far. Maybe that's that's that's Okay. Do do you think okay. Okay. What are your general thoughts about it? How about the conference? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're here in
the mountains of Austria and that's great. It's been rainy and cold. There's no heat in the house, which It's August. Right. And we are, all walking around with three or four layers on to stay warm. Right? But I I mean, the conference is great. I've never been to a conference like this. I've been to a lot of activist gatherings, so it still has that kind of feeling of being in a co op and hanging out with friends. It's been very useful for me because I've I am somebody who really tried to pay attention to all these projects, and they are projects I didn't know existed that I'm hearing about for the first time and realizing, oh, that was the missing link that needed to happen to make this happen. And that's what people are doing. They're taking and identifying all the tools we need that are missing currently, and they're just building them because they're technologists, so they could do that. So they have this, you know, socio technical imaginary where they're imagining the future world they wanna live in and building that world directly, with with the tools they have at their disposal. Yeah. And so that's very exciting because often you're at activist gatherings, and people are talking about all the problems we face and how we're going to, never really win. But the spirit here is one of optimism and excitement because they're just building the solutions they need, and they don't have to wait for anyone to give them permission or go appeal to a higher authority because it's just them and their skills, and they're brilliant. I mean, this in this house right now are some of the most brilliant minds in the world, which is always fun and exciting.
I'm flattered if I'm included. You're included. Definitely. Definitely. So, I wanna talk because you you you talked earlier in the conference, so I wanted to, like, dig a little bit deeper on some of those, concepts that you talked about. Mhmm. So the first one I wanna talk about is sovereignty. Because sovereignty is something that is used a lot in, like, crypto related discourse. Yes. There's a lot of mention of sovereignty, And I imagine that there's also a lot of misunderstanding of sovereignty and sort of, whether whether knowing it or not, sort of obfuscating, like, who is actually sovereign in different types of systems. Right. So wondering if you could speak about Sure. Yeah.
No. I I wrote that piece on sovereignty because I kept hearing self sovereign identity and value sovereignty and the word sovereignty all the time in this space. So I was like, okay. I'm gonna write about sovereignty. But the way I mean, politicians will say talk about sovereignty. Technologists will talk about it. Lawyers will talk about it. But when I talk about sovereignty, it's, I define it as who, has the legitimacy in a particular bounded space to make the rules. And so as we move through the day, we move through various sovereign spaces. You're in the city. You're under their governance, and you're in that country, and you're under that governance. And, usually, you know, in The US, it's a democracy. Right? So you're the people are supposed to be sovereign. But then you go into a workplace, and your sovereignty is kind of disappears in most workplaces because you're under a corporate layer of sovereignty, and you have to follow those rules, which are very different. Right? The employees don't usually rule in the workplace. They don't make the decisions. Yeah. So our sovereignty as individuals is often restricted extremely. And then you go into digital spaces where we spend most of our time, And, universally, digital spaces are authoritarian and nondemocratic. Right? You are given a terms of service that you have to agree to and you can't change. And if you don't agree to them, then you don't get to use the digital world. And most of these terms of service are, we own everything you create, and we can make money off of it. Right? So, you know, we in the blockchain space want to challenge that. So I think that's why people are always talking about sovereignty because they like the fact that in these decentralized systems, people own their own data. And nobody owns the content, and it's fully distributed among the users. And so that gives us gives the power back to the people, and that's what's really exciting. And so they're building all kinds of tools right now to replace the digital tools we currently use. So a new self sovereign version of Facebook. Right? A new self sovereign version of the, Internet server server system. A new sovereign version of, nonprofit giving. Just, you know, every every service you use right now, then they're making it a sovereign version of that.
It it it sounds like what you're describing is also, like, the essence of what also people call, like, a transition from web two to web three a bit. Yes. That's the one lenses through through the sovereignty. Yes. Where right now as users, you're just sort of agreeing to, things enter into these, like, walled gardens where you sort of yeah. They're going to make money off of your data, and that has various consequences,
that they're partying. Right. Yeah. In academia, we call that heteronation where the users do this labor that is completely uncompensated. Now in the Silicon Valley world, let's say, actually, that's called freemium. You are getting something. You're getting this great service. You know? So there's two sides to that, but, definitely, the value being created by all the users is much greater than than the service you're usually being provided.
Yeah.
Do you think that's, a lot of times that crypto projects are that they're using the word correctly? Or have you seen any instances when, sovereignty is sort of, like, misused
Yes. Well yeah. Sovereignty refers to a, like, a situation. So you can't really have value sovereignty because value doesn't create sovereignty. Right? So it's like a strange pairing. I know what they're trying to say. They're trying to say that, we're gonna give value back to the people kind of thing, but it's just a weird way to talk about it. Mhmm.
Yeah. I guess the way I've sort of tried to understand sovereignty is that, like, it's almost like you have the ability to also destroy it. Mhmm. Like, whatever you have. It's like if I have sovereignty, I guess, a bit, I don't know. If I can say, like, the financial system, I can't, like, burn my, you know, Wells Fargo bank accounts or something like that. Right. But if I have it in cash, I can throw it into a fire, and then it's
gone. Is that sovereignty? Is that incorrect? I would say no because in the situation you're describing or talking about that that you yourself have sovereignty, but you're talking about, like, the ability to enter and exit into relationships and contracts. Right? So you do you do in a democracy, you have the ability to make the rules about how you will handle your own wealth. Right? So, you have political sovereignty. I think what you're talking about, maybe you could call it, like, financial sovereignty, I guess. But it's still it's like it's not the probably the most clear way to describe what you're talking about. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
One of the other, concepts that you mentioned that was really interesting during one of your talks was about a race between systems. Mhmm. So what what is this race, and who is competing in this race? Sure.
So in any new okay. Let me start again. I would say that we are in a situation like Gramsci called the interregnum, which is a when one system is the technologies of that system are not, they're too brittle to respond to the needs of the system. And you start to see breakdowns happening, political breakdowns like with the election of Trump, financial breakdowns with the banks and the housing crisis, health care breakdowns with COVID and people not being able to get the treatment they need. And so as the system starts to break and be unresponsive to the needs that the people have, you can get all kinds of weird things that go on. And so we're in this race because, if we don't the whole thing could break, basically, if we don't build new systems. And the people at this conference definitely feel that, and I've been told many times by different technologists that they are building an arc. Like, they're just trying to build a bicycle while they ride it kind of metaphor of racing as fast as they can to build the things that people need before we have social collapse. And so I I'm I'm appreciative that they're doing that. Right? Because I don't see people in Washington, DC, like, when I talk I talked to a senator the other day, and I was talking to him, and he's, like, really unaware that there's serious changes that need to happen. They think that they can make small changes, you know, on the sides, and that will be okay. Like, we can have just new policies, and people will be alright. Right? Obviously, major global problems like climate change are not gonna Like a tax hike isn't going to fix it. That's not gonna fix it. Right? Or carbon you know, some little carbon credits are there. So, yeah, that's the and also with technologies, there's pathway dependencies. So if you build something like a computing system, you have to make all these hundreds of design choices to get it to work. And then as the material structure of the technology changes, those design choices usually are carried along with it. So the way computers are designed right now, I hear technologists tell me that they don't like it because it was originally designed because you actually had, like, actual tape in the machine, and that's why certain data structures are laid out the way they are. And it's still like that even though you don't need to do it anymore. And so if we create pathway dependencies with this technology that reinforce capitalism and extraction and, gender inequality and and all of that, they they might stay with us for a really long time. And so we have to fig like, the Internet, for instance, is, one example of, you know, you take a technology, you drop it in a capitalist system, and what what is it used for? You know, it's used for, like For capitalism. For capitalism. They made a bunch of money for a few people. Right? So, they're trying to figure out how to not to race forward faster than the capitalists who are gonna take this technology and use it for their own benefit. Of course. Right? So Yeah. So the
would you just generally describe the races between, like, entrenched capitalist class and some sort of, like, post capitalist alternative trying to be made, I guess, form of technologist?
Yes. I mean There could be small divisions. I'm sure. No. There yeah. There's a transnational capitalist class. There's also a transnational cooperative, you know, commoner class. Right? They are here mainly. You know, sometimes they're called digital nomads, but, and so capitalists are already they're way ahead, you know, because they're better financed. Although the types of things they're you this technology is uniquely designed to not be very good for capitalists. It was designed to get around Wall Street and states. Right? So capitalists benefit when they can enclose something, and it restrict access to it, create scarcity. Right? This technology is kind of, like, does the exact opposite. So they have to figure out how to use it in a way that will make them money. Like, it's inherently unenclosedable. You know? So unless you try to design it, so it is.
I I can imagine, though, some listening who is, maybe on the left, and they're all like, what they see is, like, speculation on the crypto markets and, you know, huge Right. Jumps in price and, and drops in price seemingly from, you know, tweets of a billionaire.
Yeah.
So how how do you mean by by by that?
Well, what people see are just the most visible aspects of the use of this technology. And, of course, the first blockchain was a cryptocurrency, and that's why it's one, it's the most developed Bitcoin. But two, of course, it was immediately embraced by capitalists and the capitalist system because you can make money, speculating on it, investing in it. Bitcoin itself, though, is also being used by people who wanna send remittances to their relatives and not pay huge fees. It's also being used by people in countries where they don't have access to banking services. You know? So it's you don't see a lot of the progressive uses of this technology. You see the speculation. Additionally, it's because it's a new very new market, the the rises and falls in price are just a reflection of the friction of desire and demand. So because it's not like a friction free exchange market, that's why it goes way up and then goes way down. It's like a rubber band. You know? You pull it, and it just snaps back. Bitcoin will increase in value and price because it's scarce and it's it's useful. I think also that because Bitcoin threatened state sovereignty and Wall Street sovereignty, states have used their vehicles of communication like the New York Times to put out essentially propaganda to try to convince the general public that using cryptocurrencies is not for them. It's scary. It's only for billionaires or people who wanna buy drugs or guns, so stay away from it. Right? Yeah. And so, of course, they don't want any sort of, currency that they don't control. I'm sure you'll start hearing that about other technologies that are built on systems where they can't control it.
Well, I guess I guess how how I would relate this to the race is that there is, like, there seems to be a race where I think the state doesn't really know what to do with it, and it it sort of challenges it to a certain, extent. And this is why you see, like, this, this big interest in in CBDCs or central bank digital currencies on one side. And then as well, I think, you know, capital, is also a little bit I mean, some portions of capital have completely embraced it and have, of course, you know, venture capital firms or investment firms that are almost exclusively, specialized in cryptocurrency or blockchain related startups. And you're also seeing, you know, some like, there there's this there's like, a lot of banks have different, ways that they're approaching it. Some of them are, you know, we'll we'll give exposure to Bitcoin for our wealthy clients. Other ones are saying, like, no. We won't touch it at all. So, like, I guess the race I guess some some of them are competing in this race of what to do with it, which is basically, like, how do we co opt it best to beat the other people who are racing trying to
build something different. Mhmm. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of money to be made by banks and investors, and they they just haven't all realized it yet. So I am I mean, the the entire economy will move to tokens. That's my prediction. And so the first the first people take advantage of that will make money. And as soon as one bank sees another bank making some money, offering the ability to say, immediately move your dollars into tokens, it's super easy, then they'll all start doing it.
So you're saying that I assume you're basing this off of, like, the amount of, technologists and, fancy people that you've spoken to Right. In in your research Right. Gives you a strong impression that and that these are fairly powerful people who are going to do it. And Yeah. Yeah. No. If if all the, you know,
you know, multimillionaire billionaires I talk to say that this is happening, it's probably gonna happen because they control vast amounts of the economy. So yeah. And they're totally a 100% embracing it.
Yeah. Which is scary.
Right. I guess. Right. I mean, scary, but for me, not scary. And I don't buy into the hype like, oh, technology is gonna solve everybody's problems. But
I do like
the fact that average people will probably, if we're successful, be better off using, decentralized systems and tokens are one because you can create community currencies and mutual aid currencies and all kinds of, currencies that will keep money in a community. You can, make it so they're non deflationary. Right? So right now, you use a dollar. You don't really benefit because it doesn't you save it, but it doesn't increase in value. It's actually decreasing in value. You can't color the dollar. And so in the sense that you can't force it to stay, like, within your cooperative community, so it can just be sucked up by some multinational. You don't have there's no control over the amount of dollars. You know? So it's like, yeah, it's scary because we're not used to it, but, really, dollars do not benefit the average person.
Mhmm. Yeah. I guess what what sort of you're getting at, what I what I think is, like, that these decentralized systems being inherently open source and, like, tools that are like, digital tools that are available to, I mean, basically, anyone with an with Internet access. On, like, the on one side, I think it's basically inevitable that capital is going to do whatever it can to make money off it and is going to try to, you know, maximize that, that that thing happening, making money. But at the same time, their tools will be, like, very transparent and it's like, you will see how they're making money and what the tools that they're using. And so it makes it very easy to, like, copy and adjust a bit. For example, if you want to have a mutual aid, currency or, like, you know, to to make some sort of system, that facilitates particular types of relationships that you see as more, yeah, I mean, more socialistic.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's the technology is also becoming democratized in that. They're building systems where you don't need to know Python or some coding language to be able to make an application. So anybody who wants to make an application will be able to do so. Even the AI I've seen, being developed for the spatial web, you can talk to it in English and tell tell it what you want to make, and it will just write the software for you. And so, theoretically, children could make applications. You know what I mean? And, so this process will, I think, unlock the great wealth of human creativity that is currently, unable to be expressed right now because people don't have the tools to do it. And once that, you know, door opens, I don't think people be like, yeah, I want to be exploited. And, yeah, I want to live in a system where I have no sovereignty, and we're trashing the planet, and I don't know my neighbor. You know? So maybe I'm just being too optimistic thinking that people will use all these amazing tools to, like, liberate themselves. But, you know, when I was at occupy and other big gatherings, that's what happens. You know? People, once they realize that they have agency and they can make things happen and do things, and we're all kind of together shared in a shared space as one human community. It's beautiful. And so I'm optimistic about the future in particular because the people in this room are they're successful. Like, I'm seeing their projects, and I can see, yeah, that's gonna work. And they're gonna interconnect, and it's gonna be, like, so amazing. What happens once people are finally able like, everybody is finally able to do, you know, what they're doing here? Yeah.
So there's this race between systems, and you're, like, in a, I think, a particular spot within this race. Just do do your research and, like, people that you're interacting with. So I'm curious, if you can explain a bit, how do you go about this interaction? Because I imagine for some people it could be I don't know. I've never spoken to a billionaire before. Like, I don't know what I would tell a billionaire if I wanted him to, like, fit like, you know, if I was on, you know, if I had, like, Mark Zuckerberg's ear Right. What would I do? Like, I guess, on on one side, people would say, like, oh, why are you talking to Mark Zuckerberg? He's, you know, he's a billionaire and, not doing very much good in the world. But if I have that relationship, then what is the use of me burning the bridge, I guess? Right. Right. I guess, how how do you how do you see that that position and how you interact?
Sure. Well, you know, I always try to meet people where they're at and appreciate the spirit of what they're trying to do. And so these cabbos are not, like, evil, like, mister Burns evil. You know what I mean? They're they're usually trying you know, they have kids and a family, and they're trying to they think usually to do something good for the world. Right? The Silicon Valley crowd is super positive and optimistic, you know, so it sounds like it's hard to to talk with them. And so, you know, talking with them about issues of democracy, about power, about making, technologies available to people, often they're like, yeah. That's a good idea. Let's do that. You know? Like, saying, hey. Let's give everybody on planet Earth a wallet just by default. Right? You make that suggestion. They're like, oh, I never thought of that. That's a good idea. We're gonna do it. And then everybody on Earth has a wallet. You know? So it's for me, it's meaningful because, these are people who have a lot of power. You know? The way they design systems really makes the difference. So, so, yeah, like, I'm gonna be speaking at the Bitcoin conference. And all of the people here are like, why would you ever go to that? Right? Because it's so
Very brave.
You know, Bitcoin bros. And I'm usually one of the very few women there who's not like a girlfriend or wife of somebody. And, yeah, you know, I just go up and I give my talk about how we need to build systems to increase democracy and help people and, you know, like protect the environment. And usually after my talks, people come up to me, you know, like 30 people and say, that was great. I never thought about that. Yeah. Let's do that. You know what I mean? So it's it's kind of like if you don't engage with them, they you can't blame them for not knowing what you're doing. They're not gonna find you. You gotta go talk to them. So
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, something maybe to to learn from, like, how there's there's no reason having a a political movement that's just, like, you know, your friends or, like, people that that are things like you and, you know Right. Or you go anywhere. Yeah. I mean, we're what we're saying is we are all
part of a commons planet Earth. We all are human beings. You know? So, we have to act that way and reach out to people, and they're not usually, they're not bad people. I mean, there are some bad people. Right? But, usually, they're not. They just literally have never been exposed to this information about that there is a possibility that we could use the technology for this instead of just making money off Bitcoin. Right? Yeah.
So I wanna ask you this question because I'm asking someone else. But what does the crypto commons mean to you?
Okay. The crypto commons for me is about distributing all the wealth of the planet to everybody in the planet using technology. And I think that's achievable. I think we have to do it. So, you know, using the word crypto might be a little, like, doesn't really capture what we're trying to do because we're not really about cryptocurrencies or the tokens or anything like that. It's really about building up the common, switching from an extractive system to a generative system, switching from, you know, fear to hope, you know, from inequality to equality. It's all about just unlocking, the great potential of humanity to, you know, to be our best as to do what we are really born to do, which is, like, be happy and, love each other and, work, but work in a meaningful way. So that's that's what it means to me.
Cool. Well, thanks a lot for for taking this time and for coming on for seconds. I know.
I'm flattered. I'm number. Oh, wow. Come on.
Okay. But, Anytime. Is is there any do you have any plugs? Is there any place where people can keep up with you and your work that you'd like to share? Or I usually post my articles available for free
on my website, which is, you know, sarahmansky.com. And, I guess it should be sarahmansky.io now because everybody's I o. And, you know, I I will be speaking at conferences. So if you hear this before November, then I will be in Miami. And then if you're in there's a conference happening in Malta also in November. So, yeah, I encourage people who are interested to attend these conferences because they are for you. Right? So you might be like, oh, I don't own any Bitcoin. I can't go. You should go because you will find that you'll learn a lot. And if you're, like, a lefty, go and talk to people, you know, and tell them about this great work that we're doing because they have money to help fund it too. Nice. Yes.