The War on Cash and The Coercive Nature of Money ft. Brett Scott
This week I spoke to financial activist and author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance Hacking the Future of Finance Brett Scott (@Suitpossum). His last book was written in response to the Occupy Wall Street protests and is a guide to the world of high finance and the emergent forms of alternative finance, alternative currencies and economic activism that are challenging it in response to the financial crisis. He has a new book forthcoming in 2021. In this interview we speak about his i...
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Transcript
Hello there. You're listening to The Blockchain Socialist, and I'm here today with a special guest, Brett Scott, who is a financial activist and the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance, Hacking the Future of Money, and who also has a new book coming out next year. Hey, Brett, how are you doing? Yeah, very good, great to be here. Thanks. So one of the things I wanted to start off with because, I think it's a really interesting, idea you have and you've talked about a bit, online that I've seen some presentations of is what do you call the war on cash? So I, it's a really interesting way of thinking about how money is evolving in our everyday lives from, from the physical to the digital world. And a lot of times, I think people who are on the right, especially like Austrian economists, also have this sort of war on cash as well, but from a much different angle than what you come from. So I was curious to hear if you can explain what, your idea is on the war on cash.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, it's pretty simple. I mean, it's kind of in the name, this idea about being a war on cash. Well, it's it's probably more something a bit more like a cold war, you know, a slow war of attrition. But basically, I'm not the only person who uses this concept. There's quite a few people who use this concept, but the idea is that there are rather than the move away from cash being an organic bottom up process driven by ordinary people, the idea is that actually, it's been as much pushed by top down by players that have a commercial or political interest in degrading the cash system. Strangely enough, this puts me in in a similar, like, camp to some, like, quite hardcore conspiracy theorist types who also argue similar things. But I've got a sort of different way of arguing about it. But the basic idea that the basic intuition that actually there are powerful players in society who wish to get rid of cash is pretty well known. It's it's like the mainstream media will never really talk about it the way the mainstream media always talks about it. Like, this issue, they always say, oh, you know, quote and quote, consumers are going cashless. So you'll see these, like, you see, like, all these news reports right now. Consumers go cashless. There's never anything about, like, people are slowly pushed into the digital money ecosystem controlled by the banking sector. Like, that's what it also that's what it actually means. So this term cashless society actually means like I don't actually use that term. I use the term the bank full society. Right? It's like, what are you going into? You know, you're getting pushed into the private ecosystems controlled by the banking sector. And actually once you start to look, I mean, like the war on cash is pretty damn, like, apparent. Like, the Bank of America CEO, like, openly talks about it, like he wants to get rid of cash. Like, Visa openly talks about it. The Indian government has talked about it like so openly. Like this so there's like a lot of players who like overtly talk about their desire to get rid of the cash system. And they all got different reasons for it. Maybe it's one little like framing thing around this though is that part of what the war on cash is also about is around the privatization of the money system. Alright? Because right now we've got a a, a jewel money system. So when, you know, when you're in the crypto world, people sort of generically talk about quote unquote fiat currency. Right? They just sort of gen sort of generically talk about it as if it's a single system. But actually fiat currency is not a single system as it's got multiple subsystems to it. And it's actually got multiple different circuits within the fiat currency world. And the sort of base circuit, as it were, is the sort of state money, of which there are two forms, one of which is physical, which we call cash, and that's the one we have access to. Then there's a second form, which is reserves, which you find at the central bank, and only banks can use that. Right? But that's digital state money that that banks have access to, but we don't. Alright? So in our world, in the ordinary person's world, cash is actually the only form of state money you have access to. Then there's a world of digital bank deposits, which are the second form of fiat currency, and it's a separate a separate form and it's a separate system. And essentially, this is like banks issue that. Right? This is privately issued promises issued by banks, which give you access to state money. Right? And the sort of the the general sort of like analogy I tend to use or the metaphor wodge of cash with you to the casino and you walk up there and you're like, hey, please can I have some chips to so you go to the cashier and they give you a bunch of chips which are privately branded promises issued by the casino which you can use within the casino ecosystem? Alright? Those are physical chips though. But imagine now if there were digital chips. Right? And, like, digital chips are essentially what banks issue to us. So you go, you can give them state money, they will issue you private digital chips, which you then call your bank account. Right? As you say, oh, I got this money in my bank account. What what you actually have is privately issued digital chips, which you can then move around within the private ecosystem controlled by the banking sector. So when we're talking about the war on cash, we're basically saying this world where the banks are increasingly kind of corralling people into their private ecosystems, and trying to get rid of that state form of money, the physical form of state money in favor of a digital form of private bank money.
Yeah. So what I've found in like some of the, from the right wing framing on the war on cash is that, is is also in that, you know, we should have a right to to physical cash. And that actually the the government and big banks are forcing us to go digital. But at the same time, what they I think what they miss a lot of the time is that they're not acknowledging that cash is sort of like the nationalization of money, so to say. Yeah. So would you say that it's like Yeah. There's a It is the privatization of like this nationalized
Yeah. There's actually quite a sort of deep tension in libertarian right wing libertarian, campaigning around this issue because the reason why right wing, right leaning libertarians, also align with me on the war on cash, they also often agree that it's a bad thing. Right? Which is good because, you know, it's it's good to have cross ideological agreement on an issue because it makes it easier to compare to campaign on it rather than having divisiveness. But they have got a different reason for it. Right? So the the reason why they think is that they think it's a state wants to surveil everybody. Right? So because, of course, within within right leaning ideology, it's always the state that's seen as the main boogeyman. In left leaning stuff, you tend to have more the corporate sector as being the people, like, tend to focus their attention on that. Right? They're like, well, it's the banks who want this. Right? Actually, in different situations, there are different players, who who want this there are actually state interests and also commercial private player interests in destroying the cash system. But in general, the libertarian way of framing it is around state surveillance. And then insofar as they care about the banks, it's this idea that that that that the banks are sort of state cronies. So banks are, you know, vilified insofar as they're seeing seen as being agents of the state. Okay. So like Wild to me. It is wild to me. Yeah. But then the interesting thing is that that that strangely then pushes libertarians into this position of saying of supporting cash, which, as I mentioned, is actually the only form of public money we have. The private digital bank deposits is a privately issued, form of money. So actually, instead of like straightforward, like, bog standard kind of like free market language or sort of right being language, actually it should theoretically, the sort of privately issued corporate money should be preferable. Right? Yeah. But like so there's a strange, like, tension there. But like, you know, I mean, libertarian ideology is quite flexible and dynamic in certain ways. So they can actually accommodate this and just say, like, okay, well, we're just gonna just whatever. It's like a privacy for preserving form of state money. And, you know, incidentally, this is why the crypto world became so appealing to libertarians. So that so it's one it's one of the the ways you can resolve these sort of contradictions that you find in the thought. You can say, like, okay, well, we want cash, but cash is state money. We don't like states. Like, okay, but one way to resolve this is to talk about a form of digital cash that you can get. Right? But so this is, you know, it's it's it's interesting that this is a a sort of yeah. Cross ideological thing. And also, of course, in the sort of very, like, far right conspiracy theory world, there's a lot of this stuff around the sort of globalist cabal that wants to take over the world. Billions of people. Right. And then, like, I mean, I was recently featured on this conspiracy theory video where they took, that this video of me they took a slice of a video when I was speaking in Sweden and they put it into their own, piece. And I I like, there's me talking about the war on cash and then, like, directly after it comes as like, evangelical preacher who's talking about, like, the mark of the beast and, like, the sort of new world order. Alright? So, like, it's kind of interesting that this is I mean, I find it quite quite powerful in a way. I'm like, okay. Well, at least we can work with this intuition that people have that, like, forms of centralized power can be negative. Right? Or like like and actually, like, even if you're like even if there's, like, misidentification of, like, where the main source that power is, it's still, like, a useful intuition to to work with people with in this issue. And, so yeah. Yeah. Hope that made sense.
It's, I can imagine it can be a little bit annoying getting, grouped in with some,
some stuff. I know. It's a lot of a badge
badge of lack achievement in some way. That's true. Yeah. That's true. I can't wait to, like, get featured in the conspiracy case videos. But, so then to to expand a bit on that, would I just an observation that I've made recently. But, like, you have these these, like, Austrian economics, types who are, yeah, also have this idea of the war on cash, but from a different point of view and that we should have cash because it also allows privacy. But then you have this sort of, this class of libertarians who have achieved Nirvana and they say, actually, no. We need to have a com real cash is completely market based. Like, I don't know if you know Eric Voorhees. Yeah. Yeah. She's He's like a he's a billionaire, or maybe near billionaire CEO of ShapeShift. And he, you know, he there's this video he did where he talks about, he can't wait till we his children can finally use real money or, like, market based money, which I thought was a Yeah. Sure. Interesting observation that the for
I mean, he probably a little bit more true to his principles in that sense. Yeah. Well, I mean in in libertarian circles especially in like Austrian economic circles, I mean in Austrian economics is the main sort of body of economics used by libertarians generally, amongst others. But like there is a in a lot of the language and stuff, there's an there's an implicit idea that the states and the market are separate. Yeah. Right? It among nuanced libertarians, it's understood that they're not. Like, nuanced libertarians will say, we understand that the state underpins property rights and under underpins, like, contract systems, which then catalyze the ability for markets to actually work. And in the absence of that state, you have pirate markets, like of, like, stateless regions, which are actually are very, like, don't have economic development. They don't develop you don't find huge successful startup companies emerging from,
you know, war torn stateless regions. Right? You haven't heard of that, the the the unicorn from Somalia?
Yeah. Exactly. So this is the typical way people will be like, among the nuanced libertarians, they understand this idea that the state is the sort of under sort of underpinning base layer to enable a market to work. But then the main thing in libertarian ideology is like, well, we want the state to underpin property rights and contract law, but we don't want it to do anything else beyond that. Alright? This is like the sort of like Minichist idea that you I mean, and if you if you zone into the realm of like anarcho capitalists, they sort of like start to imagine like there being no base layer infrastructure for markets, then somehow markets producing their own base layer infrastructure. So people will be paid to, like, provide security and contract law, and they can be paid in a form of money that somehow, like, transcends law. Alright? So, like Yeah. This idea that basically, like, there is, and this is why, you know, libertarians often fetishize gold because there's a sort of mythology around gold that it will always be seen as valuable regardless of your political situation. So it's a form it's a it has this, like, mystical power which even if you have no state, you will suddenly just, like, act and use your labor in response to gold. Okay? If somebody somebody dangles some gold in front of you and then you'll give them a service. Alright? So you dangle gold in front of somebody and then they're like, I will protect you. Alright? I will offer you, like, police services. Of course, like, I mean, like, the then the sort of the the kind of, like, sort of conceptual problem, of course, is that, like, if somebody is, like, in a position to offer you, like, security services or police services, they're probably just gonna steal your gold from you. This so, like, anarcho capitalism and stuff always, like, breaks down on this on this point. But the basic idea, like, in in Eric Voorhees' world is this idea that states and markets are separate. And therefore, the the ultimate pure money is some kind of, like, market based stateless money, which has never really existed other than very small scale situations. And don't get me wrong. I mean, I've worked on many pre crypto alternative currency projects, which are, technically speaking, stateless. You're you're taking a community group and you're saying, hey, within this community group, we can issue forms of money. Right? But basically this idea of, you know, that works at a very small scale, but the stuff that people at Foorhees want is this, like, transnational stateless money, at a huge scale, which we've never ever seen before in the history of humankind. Yeah. Even gold doesn't have that characteristics, you know. Gold is, like, controlled by monarchs historically. Anyway, I'm I'm kind of going off like in a tangent. But yes. Within within that sort of thinking, they're imagining this form of money that can, transcend human politics.
Mhmm. So then so you in your framework and your theory around the war on cash, where exactly does, cryptocurrency fit in all this in comparison to, like, pieces of data in a in a in a bank's database to represent money?
Well, you know, actually the history of cryptocurrency is partly if you look back at the old sort of cypherpunk movements, one of the chief concerns actually was financial privacy. Right? And actually the and this potential for a future, you know, cashless society or whatever, bank full society, which I would say. People like David Chaum, were already in like '19 early nineteen eighties were writing about this saying, hey, if we do go to a system, you know, there's a rise of the digital world is occurring, the Internet was being built and stuff. It'd be like if they were looking ahead and saying, shit, this is like, it could be like really dystopian, right, if we have everybody within these centralized or these oligopoly type of systems, right, which is what how the current current management system works. And so a lot of the early early development around crypto came out of this prediction around cashless society stuff. And, I mean, so so that's that's one immediate point to say, like, and if you wanna try and position the way I would normally frame this is that, like, I and I I sort of started off by saying we've got a dual monetary system. We have a state part to it, and there's a private bank part to it. Alright? And those work in combination with each other. And right now our options are state physical money and bank digital. Okay? Now there's lots of, like, other things that emerge when you start to say, like, could we have state digital money? Okay. There's a whole debate right now going on about that. And by that, what they mean is, like, state digital money issued to ordinary people. Okay? You can also say, could we have a non state, non bank form of digital money? Right? And that's where the crypto world has tried to fit in. It says, like, we are creating this non state, non bank, digital unit you can move around and, you know, all the sort of technicalities of crypto, like how you do that. The main failure has been that it hasn't really operated as money at at all. And actually, if you wanna take one step further in this trajectory, when you hybridize the crypto architecture with the fiat money architecture, you get into the world of stablecoins. Alright? Which are essentially, promises issued for fiat money that circulate on an unregulated decentralized market. And so that's actually an authentically new development that's come from the sort of hybridization of the crypto world with the fiat currency world. So I guess the state of play right now is you got state physical money, bank digital money, a debate around state digital money for ordinary people, central bank digital currencies, a ongoing debate about Bitcoin and stuff like that, which has gone on for like ten years, and then like a new debate around stable coins, which actually do look like they could be quite disruptive in the sense of like being seen as real money by a lot of people. So that's where the crypto world sort of fits in. And some like Libra are just like, you know, like the big Facebook currency. These were all like iterations on a theme, you know. Yeah. Like just new iterations on on one or more of those parts.
Yeah. It it's I mean, just the past few years, it's at least to me, it seems like it's really just like taking something in like small little tweaks over time that have happened pretty quickly. And, I mean, the past ten years, things have changed quite a bit from from Bitcoin, to now stable currencies, you're saying. And now to talk about CBDCs or central bank digital currencies. Yeah.
And I mean and and even within that category of central bank digital currencies, you got different ways of implementing that particular thing. So you could actually have a crypto type version of that or else not. So, like, those are the main subcategories right now of the Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And then and the Bitcoin world still goes on around in, like, circles largely. I mean, it's been going on for, like I mean, I was involved in the early Bitcoin community in London. And, like, the same things are basically said over and over again for, like, like years. It seems like a almost like a millenarian cult, you know, like a kinda like a cargo cult waiting for, like, a salvation and sort of getting really rich in the meantime.
Yeah.
So that's been kinda like sort of like funny and yet sort of sad at the same time to sort of like see how the Bitcoin community largely hasn't moved forward often in, like, its actual understanding of monetary systems or, and it's kinda like devolved into this sort of like, you know, mosh pits of speculation and like backstabbing and stuff like that. Because in the early days, it actually was pretty exciting.
Mhmm. The the the drama of the Bitcoin world is, is a fun one. It's a dull. I mean, I find it dull as hell. I mean, just like, I mean, I think I have just like, a guilty pleasure or something.
No. It's like it's like a soap opera. It's like watching a sitcom. It's like goes around in circles like Days of Our Lives. You know? But it was like the bold and the beautiful. It's just like watching the same theme just repeat itself over and over again. Yeah.
So then, so taking thinking about this this framework again, I was curious on your thoughts now that there's sort of, there's I mean, it's it's it's already started, but, like, this mix of this, of cryptocurrency and sort of the the corporate world with now very recently the announcements that PayPal and Venmo will also, begin allowing for crypto transactions, and you can buy and sell your crypto and send your crypto to to your friends through PayPal and through, and through Venmo. So I was curious about what what your thoughts on on that are.
I don't really have any, like, very well developed thoughts on that. I mean, basically, people like, you know, these guys are businesses. Right? Like, if they can make money by offering some service, then they will. Like
Like, maybe, like, five or so years ago? I mean, there's the PayPal CEO was like, no. We'll we'll never touch it. And then, you've seen it. You've seen the shifts.
Like, the I mean, if you wanna understand, like, capitalist organizations, I mean, I'm sure you Yeah. Do, you know, like, it's like they they will, you know, like your PayPal and crew will be, like, initially say something and then change their mind. They fickle, you know. If it's, like, if there's profit to be had, they will go after it. Like, that's how, like, corporates work. So I I don't actually, like, know precisely why they've not decided and what exactly the new service entails. Maybe you can give me some more detail on it because it's quite quite recent news. Right? They're just like, on my PayPal account, I'll be able to hold a balance or like As as far as I understand, I mean, I think what I imagine
is that they're doing a similar thing as what Coinbase already has. Just like home base only just crypto and I think, really, I mean, I guess for me if I were to describe it is just sort of like this ongoing sort of the neoliberalization of cryptocurrency.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because I mean, I would argue that cryptocurrency isn't inherently neoliberal neoliberal neoliberal but the so the neoliberal actors want a piece of the pie. And I think that's just sort of what's And I think it's important to, like, in the early crypto community,
the way that bank involvement and stuff was framed was very much like banks will try to defend themselves by either attacking this or by trying to co opt it in some kind of way. So there's a lot of sort of conspiratorial tones around this idea that some other banks were gonna be under threat. And the banks really are not under threat by by this. There's been no significant disruption of the banking sector as result of this. So insofar and and PayPal and these guys are built on top of the banking sector, so they're basically part of the same overarching system. Okay. So insofar as they engage with it, they engage because they have a profit motive and they say, like, well, we can maybe, like, facilitate people see this as an investment asset and we'll, like, offer a, People see this as an investment asset and we'll, like, offer a, you know, in my in my PayPal accounts, I currently have, like, you know, US dollar promises. Well, US dollars you say. Yeah. But now I can also add an another, like, part of it that will now be enabled enabled me have, like, easily access crypto, units of crypto. And of course, like, interestingly, we look at people like Eric Voorhees, you know, on the one hand, like, they're they're, like, supposedly hard line libertarians. But on the other hand, they'll, like, very quickly enter into deals with these big, like, massive corporates, alright, which have, like, the state support half the time. So, like, there's always this, like, ambiguity around, like, you know, the commercialization of crypto as it were. So, like, on the one hand, there's all this, like, angst that sort of that the community if you hang around in the Bitcoin community and stuff, there's a there's a lot of, like, kind of, like, hand wringing and angst around the co optation of crypto. And yet within libertarian ideology, there's also the promotion of self interest as a prime motivator, in which case it becomes very hard for them to sort of say we condemn the entrepreneurs who sell out to corporations. Alright? Because they're following their self interest. So you know, it's like it's hard to like go and diss some entrepreneur who's gone and sold his crypto project to some big corporate because it's like well, he's acting as an as a private actor on the market and that's what he's supposed to do, right? Sell out to the corporations. Like, so there's always this, like, sort of angst in the crypto world of, like, are you supposed to, like, take on the banks? Or are you supposed to sell to the banks? Or are you supposed to, like and, you know, sorry. It's a bit like a long rambling thing but, like, this is a I agree with your ramble though. It's part of that it's part of that ongoing Days of Our Lives soap opera that that gets reported on in in that, you know, but but let's say, you know, I'm I'm sounding very jaded around crypto right now, but, like, there are, like, authentically exciting parts of it, and you're totally right. There are, like, really subversive elements in crypto, that could have, like, really sort of empowering potentials. But, like, when I see stuff like PayPal and Venmo offering this, I don't see anything particularly profound. Right? Because they're just entering the market to facilitate, like this idea of crypto investment where which is which is not about establishing a new monetary system. It's about speculating on an asset. Right? Yeah. So. Yeah. And and, you know, I've I've still use crypto to, like, make do transactions and stuff. It's not like I'm I'm like, don't use it. But, like, yeah. There's just, like, so much bullshit when you hang around with your people, like, imagining that's I actually don't know what the crypto community's response to to PayPal and Venmo getting involved is. Yeah. I'll have to go and see.
Yeah. I would imagine it's, it's it's mixed. I mean, but from what I've seen people are like, yeah. Now there's like more mainstream adoption. This is what we need to see. And the other the other side is like, what do you mean this is supposed to be, you know, our little project. It's supposed to be our few guys. Like, we're supposed to get away from, And also bear in mind, I mean, I'm like, in the crypto world, there's this constant,
cognitive dissonance between the idea of something like Bitcoin being money and something like Bitcoin being an investment. Alright? And, like, I've spoken quite a lot about this cognitive dissonance where, you know, money is something you use to price other things in. Right? When you when you see a unit of money, you're supposed to think about other things. You're supposed to think about what you can get for that money. That's what that's what makes money, money. Is it like, like you don't see it as being something in and of itself, you conceptualize the goods and, like, your desires and dreams when you look at it. Right? Whereas, like, something that is not money, you, for example, like this microphone that I have or, like, the the whatever, like, these speakers and so on, and around me my desk. When I look at them, I don't think about other things. I think about them in and of themselves. I think about the speakers and the sound quality that comes out of them. I think about that kind of stuff. Right? Because they are, like, not money. They're objects in and of themselves. Alright? And I price them in money. So when I think about their resale value, I'll be like, I wonder how much money I could get for these speakers if I resell them. Okay? So I either think about them in and of themselves or I think about their resale value. But I never, like, think about, you know, groceries when I look at my speakers. Okay? Yeah. Whereas with money, that's what you're supposed to think about. It's it's the unit it's the unit of account for all the other goods in society. Right? So, like, you go and you you when you see your wadge of cash and your wallet or the the the deposits in your bank account, you're thinking to yourself, what could I spend this on? Right? Now when you when it comes to the crypto world, you gotta ask yourself this this question, and a lot of crypto people don't wanna ask themselves this question. You you say, when you look at your crypto, what do you think about? Do you think about its resale value, or do you think about other goods? And for most people, they're thinking about its resale value, which means it is not money. It is a good price in money. It's It's what they're thinking of as what they call an investment right now, which is like, I buy this object and then I try to resell it for money later. And this is like the, you know, the the sort of the dark secret, the dark skeleton hidden in the closet of so many of these crypto communities is this pretense of a monetary revolution which is actually just an attempt to make speculative fiat currency, profits. Okay? Yes. And even people like Eric Voorhees and stuff, who like for all their, like, like, sort of like, you know, railing against the fiat money system, all, you know, become super wealthy in fiat money. Alright? And like, that's that's that's considered a success. And the last thing I'll say about that is that, like, to be able to reconcile that cognitive dissonance requires a certain view on what money is. And this is where Austrian economics comes to the rescue of a lots of, like, libertarians. They say, like, oh, well, money is, like, simultaneously in an investment and this, like, exchange medium. Alright? And, like, the the only way you could hold that contradiction in your head is to start believing that money is just like any other object. Right? And so this is where we can talk about that later, babe. But like, yeah, I get so pissed off with this like ambiguity or this like lazy,
like, this lazy sort of calling it money. Super lazy. Super lazy. But I think in in like, in a Marxist terms, at least what I understand is that it it's basically the difference between, money having exchange value and like goods having a use value. It's kind of
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Although, you know, Marxist theories of money are ambiguous as well.
Yeah. Which is what I wanted to talk to you ask you next actually because, in a recent interview that you did for, with at a consensus, consensus distributed. You mentioned that you yourself don't adhere to a commodity theory of money which is, I mean, Mark's uses sort of commodity theory of money as well as a lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts. So I was curious if you can, maybe elaborate a bit on on, your non Marxist theory of money.
Yeah. I mean, look, like the Marxist world is actually, you know, it has something in common with with, and I say this cautiously because there are differences in the way that money is conceived. But just generically, when you're looking at classical economics from which Marx comes, right, like draws on like Adam Smith as for a lot of the sort of political economy stuff he's doing. And all those guys are using commodity theories of money. Right? They were, like, saying, you know, like, money is a commodity. The reason we value it is it's a commodity, and it's it's like a but it's like a special commodity. It's like a special commodity that will then become this kind of like universal exchange meter. And you look into Austrian economics, they use this like bizarre sort of thought experiment, which they call it called a regression theorem, which is which which sort of does this as well. It's like a kind of a historical thought experiment, which you can sort of like you you imagine like a useful object and then you imagine it kind of like sort of becoming a universal exchange media. And this is actually like not that different from how many Marxists think about money actually. Albeit, I'm sure those two groups would, like, vehemently deny Oh, yeah. For sure. That this is, a similarity. But, yeah. I mean, the basic deal about commodity theories of money is that well, number one, you imagine that money comes from something. So you say I have money, like, there is money from something, right? And to get this money you have to go and produce it. Right? I'm just going to, like, find it somewhere. Alright? I have to, like, exert energy into, like, obtaining it, right? And then in the Marxist framework that this gets put into the labor theory of value. But you don't have to say it like that. But, like, basically, the idea is, like, you gotta produce money. And once you've produced it, you then use it to induce other people to give things to you. Alright? So you're holding this object of value and then you, like, dangle it in front of somebody and you say, hey, look at this dangling object of value. Can I induce you to give up one of your objects, of value for me, this money? Right? So essentially, they see it as some kind of, like, elaborate form of barter. And this is like what commodity theories of money assume. Like, you produce the money, you use it to induce people to give you something, and often the money is perpetual. It just sort of will keep on, like, floating around, like, forever until it decays. Okay? So you're just imagining it's just another object. Now if you, like, go into the opposite school of thought of money, firstly, it denies that money comes from something. Right? The idea is that money comes from nothing, okay, which is often a scaremongering line used among commodity theorists. They say, like, fiat money comes from nothing. It's just it's, you know, magicked out of thin air. Alright? But within credit theories, like, this is, like, taken for granted. It's like, yes, of course. This is what money is. Right? It's it's not an object. It's a system of accounting. So by default, of course, it's magicked out of air. Alright? It's like that's what in a a sort of like a system of credit is. Okay? So the first thing about, like, credit there is that money comes from nothing, but it takes the form of promises. Okay? So essentially, you issue promises. And the key insight in the credit theories of money is that you can pay people by issuing promises. Alright? Okay? And this is like, what will be called IOUs. So if you're coming from commodity theories, you imagine you first have to have value in your hand before somebody will give you something. Whereas credit theories say, I don't have to have anything in my hand before somebody gives me something. I can issue them a promise and they will give me that thing. And if they believe in my promise and they can objectify that promise as a unit, that promise can become a monetary form. Okay? And there's different versions of these promises that exist. And the main sort of intuition when you look look into the state theories of money is that very powerful players are the ones who are best able to issue those promises and for their promises to be accepted. Okay? So if you look at the theories of money called, like, chattelism, they say the state is uniquely positioned to issue money because it's a powerful player. Right? So its promises are are widely accepted. Banks can issue these as well. Right? So, but credit theories of money extend beyond states and banks. I mean, you can have it among friends. You can say, I issue you an IOU and maybe, like, we agree that this is, like, a a real thing between us and you got an obligation at some point to give me something back. Right? So I can call on that promise. Alright? And then the monetary system is essentially the the system of of of recording and transferring those promises around. Okay? I mean, if you work in a bank, this is, like, straightforward and obvious. Yeah. That's exactly what the entire database system of banks is. There's ways of issuing promises and moving them around. Right? But it comes as news to lots of people.
So then to me if like to me it sounds like it's more about, the power relation or power hierarchy in a sense, and how you create, like, whether or not something is money. Like, who if there is some sort of, like, there's there's a little bit of an authoritarian nature to it almost if you want money at least at like a grand scale. Yeah. And there's actually there's no,
nobody in credit there is a money is trying to claim it. There's not huge power dynamics. I mean, that's precisely how this the money system works, is through gigantic power dynamics and actually, like, network effects. So, like, libertarians have this, like, quite crude way of putting it. They'll say the state uses violence, forces you through violence to accept its money. Right? Like, almost like it's an alien invader that sort of, like, floats down to the planet and, like, points a gun at you. It says you're gonna have to use this. Right? But, like, what is the state, though? The state is an organic structure that cannot exist without the people that make it up. Right? I mean even like Thomas Hobbes and people like grasp the idea of like the Leviathan as being this like entity that's made up of the people that construct it. Right? Like, if you if you look at like the old like books on like Thomas Hobbes and stuff, the the the opening pictures of this like gigantic like monarch made up of other people, alright? And this is like actually a much more intuitive real version of what the state is. Like, fine it has particular people you can identify as being on the top echelons, but actually it derives its power from the people that constitute it. It doesn't derive its power from an external energy source like an alien invader would. Right? So actually, its ability to coerce is limited and it can actually be pacified by the people who inhabit it. Which is what the story of democracy is. Right? Like, people within a state will slowly, like, pacify this construction that they've created or have been, like, under. Right? And and this is, like, what, you know, that our our politics revolve around. Right? So yeah. Like like in that sense, money is like okay. In a crude sense underpinned by violence. But in reality, what it's really underpinned by is like partially violence, but like largely like coercive network effects. The idea that you're all locked into a interdependent mesh that you cannot escape and have been born into and have no idea what's outside of. Right? So, like, I can sort of intellectually say something and, like, go out into the street and shout stuff about that the money system is not real, but nobody cares. Because to everybody, it's very, very real and it's the only way you can access the things you need for your survival. And you really don't need, like, military troops wandering up and down the streets, like, pointing guns at you for you to reuse us. You have to use it because everyone else is using it. Right? Like, and in that sense, that's an extremely powerful credit system. And one of the, like, the bizarre things you find in libertarian circles is the idea that a commodity money would be more powerful than this huge network structure. But it's like, why would, like, random pieces of gold be more powerful than a network of 350,000,000 people? Alright? Like, the strength of networks is never to be underestimated. They're, you know, super powerful. So and I think this is like, credit there is a money often, like, sort of, dissed by commodity theorists as being like, you know, sham money or fraud money. You know? It's like, oh, there's like Ponzi money issued by these, like, you know, tin pot players. And I'm like, Jesus. Like, no. You've you've seen the power of these these these these network systems. It's incredible. Alright? So, like, there's a lot of, like, straw manning and underestimating the power of credit money systems in crypto. Anyway, that's my rant.
Hey, guys. I just want to chime in for a second and remind you that if you are enjoying the interview, then please take a minute to open up your phone or wherever you're listening to and leave a five star review. It really helps with the search engine optimization and make sure that the podcast gets, showed to other people. As well, if you really want to help out, you can provide help financially. So I have a Patreon. If you go to patreon.com/theblockchainsocialist, you can donate either $3.06, or $10 a month to help out with the cost that I have to pay for myself, in order to host a podcast and host the website. So right now, at the moment, I pay a little bit more than I receive in my Patreon donations, so any amounts really helps. And with that, donation, you receive some special accesses to special posts that are Patreon exclusive as well as extra privileges in the Discord group. But that's it from me. That's all I wanted to say. So let's get back to the interview with Brett Scott. But so then knowing this I'm curious to hear then what exactly would be I mean I don't even know if this is impossible, like what what would be the properties of like the perfect money for you?
Well, look there is no perfect money and like actually weirdly over the years because I've been involved in financial activism and stuff for a long time. I always get emails from like cranky like normally like these old dudes email me with their like but they're like visions of perfect money. And then they're like, I've worked out the formula for like the world's perfect money. And then never to be that they're like formally an engineer who worked like, I don't know, in the oil industry or something. And they put like engineering skills and they love the world. I mean I'm I'm I'm kind of like making this a bit cruder than it actually is. But like, they often imagine that monetary systems are sort of technological engineering systems. And that they they're currently poorly designed. Right? And therefore, you know, it's like how can we be using these poorly designed systems? And I've I've made a much better design and surely everybody should see that my design should naturally take over and I have this mathematical equation to show, you know, the optimal amount of money in the economy and so on. And it's like, why is this relevant? It's got nothing to do with how monetary systems work. You know, monetary systems are not engineering problems. They're like huge political systems. Right? And sort of giant network political systems with like like political power is behind like how this works. Like, that's where you make innovations in the money system. There is a technology element to it, but it's like one of the sort of smallest elements. So yeah. So that's why I'm very shy of, I'd be very wary of saying I, you know, have some perfect money system. But what I would say is that the drive to try and decentralize the power in the in the money tree system is a very laudable goal because absolutely the monetary system forms the base layer for how the entire capitalist system works. Right? So, if you if you're interested in, like, the general problems of capitalist systems, like social inequality, ecological destruction, you know, existential disconnection from reality, then thinking about that base layer of the money system is very important and, like, a very beautiful thing to do. And then in in this sense, I'm actually been, you know, with the with the traditional crypto community and being, like, there's a lot of creativity in trying to, like, experiment with various tokens and stuff. But obviously, as you can tell, I've been very frustrated by the waste of energy and sort of waste of, like, creative talent that's gone into, like, dead ends in crypto. So, like, looking forward, the stuff I'm finding super interesting is, you know, I just went on that rant about credit money versus commodity money. What I would love to see is, a hybridization of using, like, sort of crypto architectures and decentralized architectures with the credit money, the intuitions around sort of credit theories of money. Right? So, like, you can you can start to make some really interesting forms of money like that. And, so, like, the types of projects that I follow right now in crypto are things like trust lines, circles is another one. There's various experimentations with how you issue essentially IOU systems on decentralized architectures. I can go into those more if you want me to, but like,
Yeah. Sure. If you if what what exactly I mean because I think what a request that I get a lot is actually is, they always tell me, like, I get messages about, you know, what are the I mean, one, what are what are the crypto projects that are trying to create socialism and like, you know, what, how can, if we just, make a cryptocurrency that's actually just labor vouchers and we would make the perfect socialist money. That's something I get a lot. I'm always like, I mean, I I don't know the answer, and I can't tell you what what is right and what is wrong. But I am but I do think that there is value, and it's,
you know, interesting to know what other people are doing. So, like, look, on the left wing crypto stuff, I mean, that's kinda like what you, you know, I I sort of you said it in Blockchain Socialist. Right? Like, but there's been I mean, it's been a very small part of the crypto community historically. Although there is crossover. I mean, yeah, in libertarian, you know, I'm sort of like being quite like, you know, like making some sort of blunt statements about libertarianism. But obviously, libertarianism is a sort of a more rich tradition than just like some of the crude forms of conservative reactionary libertarianism that you see. Right? There is a lot of, like, traditions of, like, left leaning anarchism and even, like, hybrids and blends between, I mean, right now, for example, you're seeing people like Glenn Weil. I mean, and, it's Glenn Weil Glenn Weil and, the sort of, like, radical markets community who are trying to do these forms of hybridization between sort of market thinking and, communitarian thinking. Right? So, like, there is a lot of, like, interesting let's say, like, unformed ideological space in crypto, which actually sort of transcends, like, the traditional left right boundaries. And I think that's super interesting. It's a bit like, what it's like stem cells. Are there might like in that analogy. Right? There's like Yeah. Cells that haven't yet, like, figured out where they're going. No. Abs I mean I mean, just to just to make this comment, I think absolutely, like, the the space of
kind of, like, post capitalists in the crypto space Yeah. Yeah. Who are a bit who who pretend like they're un ideological, I think is a a really important space for the left to be in and to, like, push and, like, provide some influence for them. Yeah. You got it totally right there. I mean, the the post capitalist
I mean, what what is post capitalism? I mean, it's it's basically, like, it doesn't have any characteristics really. Right? But it's an intuition. It's it's an attempt at, you know, if if crudely speaking capitalism is like the the thesis, then you have anti capitalism as as antithesis. Then post capitalism is this attempt at synthesis. Right? It's like this kind of like, you know, and and and that sort of post capitalist space, you have all the talk around creative commons, open source, peer production, collaborative economy. There's always kinda like sort of like semi hybrid forms that exist and they're all sort of generically lumped under there. And so and that's a very interesting space because it's quite creative. Right? And it actually brings together people who have quite disparate ideological backgrounds. And I do think that's where one one area that crypto really excels right now is being in that space and also offering those those, like, that opportunity for experimentation. Because after all I mean, let's let's look at early Bitcoin. What are the the two there's actually two contradictory components to early Bitcoin. Well, not necessarily contradictory but, like, they're often presented as being one. But but basically, there was it was said to be decentralized. Alright? But then there was also this, like, sound money. Alright? Now sound money, this idea of, like, fixed money supplies and commodity like money is, like, very overtly a right wing ideology. Okay? Whereas, decentralization isn't actually, inherently, like, any particular there's actually a lot of different political traditions that will draw on that idea of decentralization, including, for example, cooperatives and communitarian, like, initiatives, like, also like libertarian socialism. We'll say, like, actually, we want these forms of, like, collaboration at scale and stuff like that. Right? But the early Bitcoin community sort of, like, took those two things to be one and the same. Like, we're gonna it's like we're we're gonna have a collectively issued right wing form of money. Alright? But actually, there's nothing, like, inherent to, like, blockchains that says, like, that that has to be the only way you do it. Right? There's actually a lot of, like, potential to say, like, okay. We could do, like, hypothetically, like, a worker owned co op using a blockchain architecture, right, where you actually have the whole thing distributed like a distributed Uber or something like that, right, which gives workers more rights and gives them more power. And that's the sort of communitarian reading of blockchain.
That's the Ava co op, if you, Oh, cool. Yeah. You know that. Within within the money space,
the money space is actually being where the sort of a left leaning, kind of stuff hasn't excelled as much. And actually, right now in the money space, I'm, like, most interested in sort of mutual credit systems and how they could be you can make crypto versions of mutual credit systems. Mhmm. Which I could elaborate more on, but depends on where you wanna take this.
Well, I think now would be a good time since, I wanted to go through a couple of interesting tidbits from from your last book, that I think sort of I mean, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are now, like, seven or eight years later, on on a couple of the things, especially this one here. So in in your book towards somewhere in the end, you have a very small subsection about, about Bitcoin and how, there is, like, this importance of, underground hype for certain currencies, and you use Bitcoin as, like, a really good example. So I I thought it was really interesting, that, I mean, this was, I mean, only five years or so after, Bitcoin had been created and it was really like up and coming and in like very, very small circles. But you mentioned that, you know, currencies don't need, not only good design principles, but also a sense of underground hype to charge them with psychological power and soul. And you said Facebook and Gmail understood this, initially promoting themselves via closed peer groups, creating a sense that one was missing out by not using them. Because that can be the first step to going viral. Yeah. I was curious on, does that still fit within your theory of money? Does there like, I don't there's, you know, I don't I don't know if there was necessarily underground hype for, most state monies, but
Yeah. Look, I mean, that's I guess the point going back to those of these debates we're having around look, I mean, what is cryptocurrency? If you coldly look at it, they're digital objects. Alright? That you can move around. At least Bitcoin. And that's all you can really say about it. And I mean, like, the way I often speak about this is like, you know, imagine I had a bowl of glass marbles. Alright? And then I'm I turn those into a digital form. Alright? And I could sort of move this featureless digital object around. Alright? Like, that's what crypto tokens originally were. Like, featureless digital objects that could be moved around in a a network of people. Right? You could a a a group of strangers could use a common protocol to issue tokens and move them around. Right? But the own those tokens essentially had nothing beyond being a token. They're just like it's an object. Okay? Now if you think of yourself, like, how do I make a random object into a monetary system? Now that's a very difficult task. Okay? Like, it's it's one thing that's why I initially would never call these things cryptocurrency. I call them crypto tokens. Right? Because it's they're not currencies until they're actually used as currencies. Right? Initially, they're just these objects. And in the absence of having a state issue these things or having a powerful, you know, monetary circuit that will sort of underpin your system, you really need these forms of hype. And that's what the the thing I was talking about there. And actually the hype of Satoshi was one of the key things that enabled these digital objects. And I remember being in the early community, and they used to be like nobody knew what these things were. They'd be like they'd be like, oh, these are kind of these cool, like, things, these units. You go you go to people, you'd be like, hey. Do you want some Bitcoin? And they'd be like, well, wait. What is it? And you're like, oh, it's this. It's a digital object. It's a thing. And they're like, okay. But yeah. Well, what like, what? Like so it's like it's like going up to somebody with, like, a piece of blank piece of paper and saying, do you want this thing? Like, look at this cool thing I got. Right? And they're like, yeah. Well, what is it? And it's like, it's a blank piece of paper. And they're like, well, why don't I take this blank piece of paper? And it's like, because there's only like like a few of them. Take that, it's cool. It's like it's like, you know, there nobody there was no like features you could really speak about other than the fact that you could move them around without a central party. Was the limited supply aspect in, a part of that as well? I can imagine. That was that sort of, like, became a a a talking point. Right? Like, the limited supply supposedly gave the blank object something. Right? But, like, you know, I could have a limited supply of, like, blank pieces of paper. It doesn't do anything. Right? Like, it's you know, like, this became part of the sort of official, like, ideology or sort of mysticism around cryptocurrency was this this mythical limited supply. Yeah. But I mean, like, you know and how do you know that the supply is limited? I mean, it's arbitrary. It's it's an arbitrary number that was chosen for what the limited supply is. Like, it's you know, it could have been 500,000,000 or it could have been 5,000. I mean, like, it's totally arbitrary. This this sort of the the only thing that that was sort of known about it was that, like, it was a, had a a a predictable schedule of issuance. So, actually, this is what a lot of people were were speaking about with that what they when they were saying it had a limited supply. What they really meant was it has a predictable issue in schedule. Okay? And, actually, it's a really weird number to have chosen, just, like, incidentally, like, 21,000,000. I mean, it's, like, so weird. Yeah. I don't know. And and think think about this. If you if you want to talk about to talk about, like, the inequality in these systems. Right? Imagine you're a designer of a currency system and you're like, I'm gonna issue 21,000,000 units, but then I'm gonna give the rewards for its initial issuance out in 50 unit chunks. Okay. Now, how many like people are in the world? There is like, you know, 8,000,000,000 people. Alright? And you're imagining in some hypothetical equal distribution of this currency, if you had to take 21,000,000 and it would divide divide that by 8,000,000,000, you end up with like tiny fragments of bitcoins. Right? If each person in the world was getting an equal amount. Right? That's so so an equal distribution would be tiny fragments of this unit and yet it was given out in 50 unit chunks. Alright? Like from the very beginning it was saying like, we like want a small group of people to become insanely wealthy off these tokens. Right? I hope that makes sense. Like Yeah. No.
But I think I mean, I don't that either it either tells that or I think it might also tell that I mean when Satoshi or whoever was making this, they they didn't they really hadn't didn't think that they didn't have the vision that this would be
a global thing. I'm being cynical. Actually, if I if I was taking the side of of of Satoshi, I mean, I've read the white paper many times. It's a very beautiful piece of of it's a very elegant, piece of writing. It's a very elegant, sort of design. Right? But it's extremely naive from a monetary perspective. It's it's idea that, you know, that's what I'm saying. In the early community, you're like, okay, how do we mystify these objects? And you create this whole incentive structure where you're getting given these big chunks of the of the overall supply, of the imagined future supply. You've been given, like, huge amounts of them at the upfront in the hope that at some point it becomes adopted as a global currency, at which point you're gonna become insanely wealthy. Right? And that's part of the incentive structure that that sort of became part of, like, how it was it was pitched. But the initial story around Satoshi was a very important element of this. Right? You needed this sort of mythical founder who was all like, sort of sat there. And actually there are a lot of people in the crypto community who now sort of refer to this as, like, the immaculate immaculate conception. Right? This, like, unattached person, you don't know who they are, goes in and and I I remember I was speaking at the Bitcoin Cash conference in Tokyo, like, a two a couple of years ago, the the sort of opening Bitcoin Cash. It was called Satoshi's Vision conference. Oh. And I remember I was at this bar and, Craig Wright was there and he was like, I think he might have been pretty drunk. I don't know. But he was like I I had I had this, like, moment of being like, you know what, like, the reason why we don't wanna know who Satoshi is is that like, as soon as you pin it to a real world person, who's like taking a piss in the urinals and is like, you know, like talking loudly or is like whatever, maybe regardless of whether they're like a nice guy or not, like, it suddenly attaches all this interpersonal politics to the person. Right? Yeah. And Ethereum has had this, you know, with, like, Vitalik. Like like, it's the the the personal politics gets attached to him and what he says rather than like in Bitcoin, where actually there was a sort of this entity that just sort of like floated there as this like saint. And I think that was very powerful in Bitcoin was just like, not only the incentive structure, but also like the sort of mysticism that was generated around this sort of this founder. But it's it subsequently failed to actually, like, rarely create the types of economic circuits that a state can create, all these, like, credit money systems can create. So Yeah. I would update my book now by saying, you know, like, you can it says it succeeded in a marginal sense. It's becoming a sort of quasi money, but it hasn't really succeeded beyond that.
No. I think I think we can agree there. Speaking of things that maybe you would rewrite in your book just because I have this quote, I think is very funny. You mentioned so with most consumption goods, the value goes down fairly rapidly. The value of a toilet paper gradually depreciates to zero. Do you think in the were you thinking about the coronavirus during that time? Well,
I mean it's true though like with, even in corona as as you use up the toilet roll it depreciates pretty quickly. So yeah, yeah. You know one thing I would change though is I actually don't refer to I don't refer to money as having value. I don't I actually I I, actually that's true. The toilet paper is like actual value and it it literally disappears into nothing. It's not that it has I don't I don't yeah. Sorry. I'll I'll take that back.
I mean, I guess as long as you're not, you don't have a toilet paper shortage like, some people have maybe in the past. Yeah. So one of one of the the last things from your book I wanted to talk about because I think, in the on the left, we tend to have this problem, I think, in being able to approach spaces, that traditionally the left is either not involved in or is a space that is already dominated by sort of establishments or like right wingers. So I mean cryptocurrency especially is a space with the left really does not like to, to get close to. There tends to be like a really strong, knee jerk reaction cryptocurrency is brought up in left wing circles. Yeah. That's a it's a it's a shame, I think, because there's while there's plenty to criticize, I think I would like to think if, any of the famous Marxists of the past were alive today, they wouldn't just, take the time to analyze it. So I mean, in this book, you mentioned, the person who dislikes computers will never be a computer hacker. And that's, it seems like an obvious thing. Like, if you, you know, if you say you don't like computers, just as because you're not, you know, of one because you're not like you know, you don't wear glasses, therefore, you don't like to, you don't like to read or something, then of course, you're if you have that idea in your head, you're never going to approach it. Yeah. You're always just going to dismiss it, and then you'll you'll never read or something. So I was curious what your, advice is or your thoughts on, how say, for example, if you are a socialist and you, right now have a knee jerk reaction towards cryptocurrency. How would you go about,
approaching these spaces? Yeah. But I mean, in the heretics guide to global finance, which is my old book, which came out 2013, you know, like, it was it was actually written in response to for it was the the publishers asked me to write it for Occupy after the Occupy Wall Street, protests where it was realized that many activists really didn't know what they were talking about. Or or, you know, had an intuitive feeling of repulsion of what the financial sector would do, but didn't have a way of articulating what their actual concerns were. No. And it wasn't it wasn't even, just down to, like, you know, finances technical and full of jargon. It was almost like a cultural repulsion or a lack of desire to actually learn. And actually this is like a slightly darker you know you know, things being technical is like one reason why people don't learn stuff. But another reason is like it's I I feel some sort of like lack of resonance culturally with it. But actually if you wanna like really get into the sort of arts of what you know I was calling that book sort of financial hacking, you gotta kind of like dirty yourself a bit. You gotta kind of like get into the spirit of systems. Otherwise, you're always gonna be, on the outside. Alright? And you're gonna be throwing rocks at it from the outside, but not always sort of being somewhat on the back foot. And that's a controversial line that I was taking there. I was saying, you know, activists should get a lot more, like, stuck in the weeds about how these systems work and, like, actually try to, like, be, I use a controversial term here, like, empathetic to these systems. You know? Actually suspend disbelief a bit. Actually go in and and be a little bit open. Right? You know, and I've been ranting a lot to, you know, in this interview about, you know, crypto and stuff and some of the shortcomings. But actually, it's always I've always tried to be open and to go in and try and, like, listen to what people say. And, you know, know, I've developed my critiques from the fact that I've actually been immersing myself in those systems. Right? Rather than just, like, reading, critiques. And it's and it's often this is also why I'm, you know, now I'm starting to get into position to actually start to advocate for alternative forms of that same thing. Right? And there's I'm not the only person. There are other sort of left leaning people in the crypto space who are now saying who are now finding each other and saying, okay. We we we've been exploring the space for a while. We see the limitations of the typical, sort of, like, the bog standard libertarian stuff. And now we're gonna start making something much more interesting. Alright? And that's where the real creativity starts to, like, get unleashed is when you start to have people who are, like, kind of both in and out of a system. You know, like, they they sort of like which is why you know, I I called that book The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance. The reason why I chose the term heretic was I was arguing that, like, an old sort of, like, Christian dogma, you know, the heretic was a much more threatening figure than somebody who didn't believe or who came from a different religion. Alright? Because the heretic was both an insider and an outsider at the same time. The heretic was somebody who took elements of a religion and then sort of like changed it or altered sort of points of doctrine. And this is why they were so persecuted. It's like they're much more threatening figures because they don't they they could actually like win over like, Yeah. And you get the you get the point. So actually, this this notion of, like, the heretic in these systems is, like, you you try to have some part of yourself open to it while it's also, like, bending stuff. So in the case of crypto, it is, like, very useful. I mean, I I wish I wish when I went to Bitcoin events, which I often do, there were more, like, people there who were not just, like, you know, the typical, like, you know, Murray Rothbard quoting, like, the libertarianism one zero one adherent, you know. Like, I wanna see, like, more, like, people who are coming in from, like, different angles. And there are people like that, but it's there are far too few of those people. And so, but beyond crypto, I mean, this is something I still I would still advocate for, like, all systems, you know, whether it's, like, Silicon Valley Tech Bros or whether it's, like, you know, the the mainstream finance system. All of these systems need people in them who are, like, trying to figure out how they can be co opted towards more kind of communitarian ends. Right? And, towards sort of more holistic ends. And, you know, like, the last thing I'll say about that is that, like, I didn't, like, advocate that, like, everybody has to go and, like, embed themselves in a bank or embed themselves in a crypto firm or, like, have to become, like, you know, there's there's ways and needs. There's different depths of that you can go into these systems, you know. Whether even if it's just, like, hanging out in some of the forums or, like, you know, going to like an event or going to a conference or something and just like trying to speak to people, like imagining yourself as like an anthropologist, trying to actually like open yourselves up. Because you know beyond all this like fiery politics where you know we're we're like you know, libertarians slating socialists, and socialists, like, dissing libertarians and so on. Actually, we're all humans in the end, and we we have different interpretations of the struggles we find ourselves in. But actually there's a lot of, like, common cause that we can find, and actually a lot of those sort of energies often misdirected. A lot of people who end up in, like, politically quite backwards scenes or politically sort of like you know, I've met a lot of, like, like hardcore racists and stuff who actually, like, you know, I highly disagree with their political views, but you can sort of see that they've been pushed into these quite defensive positions by, you know, being, you know, fucked over by giant corporations and stuff, for example. Yeah. You know? And then they've sort of taken on this, like, reactionary right wing position as a sort of defense mechanism for some situation they find themselves in. And it's not really useful to just, like, attack in that situation. So, yeah. There's a lot of a lot of, lot to be said for trying to, like, open yourself up a bit. Is there any type of, like,
because in the book, I think you mentioned that you worked as a as a trader for a bit. A broker. Yeah. A broker. So then what's like, how do you deal with that mentally, I guess, if you are, you know, trying to learn or yeah. Learn about a system by, like, being in it, but also at the same time disagreeing with it, maybe quite,
quite a bit. Yeah. But bear in mind, just just as a as an aside, the global financial system is actually politically quite flexible. I mean, one of the things that a lot of left wing activists often make a mistake in thinking is that capitalist systems are like, quote unquote, right wing systems. Like, capitalist systems will co opt, any movement that has you can make profit from. This is why it'll co opt Black Lives Matter. It'll co opt, like, the LGBTQ movement. It'll co it'll it'll, like you know, Barclays Bank has got, like, you know, in in London here, so, yeah, supports gay pride, marches. You know? They don't give a shit. Right? They're all like any any, like, political flavor that you can sell, a a corporation will will gravitate towards. It's it's like a like a profit seeking, you know, machine. It doesn't really care about what you think about yourself. And and this is like something that's often like mistaken by left wing activists in thinking that, like, these corporations really care about the political stuff, you know, when what they really care about is profit. Right? And actually so within banks, you find lots of people who are quite, like, politically agnostic, actually. Now, of course, conservative right wing ideology is associated, on the one hand, with some of the wealthiest people in the world because it is a useful ideology if you're trying to protect your wealth. Alright? And then you find, like, a working class version of it, which sort of is like which is like the story told by right wingers to workers, which is like, you know, don't think about the collective, think about yourself, think about it's only you and your family in this world, like, you know, it's all about your own personal effort. And so, like, it's sort of like there's, like, the wealthy version of right wing ideology and then there's the sort of working class version of it which echo each other and sort of, like, play into each other. And but within a global bank, the average worker could be left wing or right wing. There's actually, like, a whole sort of range of, like, different types of political divisions within banks. And the only thing that banks require you to do is to make money. They don't give a shit what you think beyond that. And so, like, that's one of the most eye opening things in these systems is you sometimes you realize that they're actually, like, sort of weirdly apolitical in the way that they're actually, like, structured inside. Even though they got huge political implications, it will create re political reactions. I mean, even to this day, like, Silicon Valley, supposedly this big progressive zone. Right? But it's one of the it's one of the reasons why there's all these, like, alt right backlashes is to do if you do the analysis, you can see it's related to, for example, like, the automation tech that Silicon Valley produces. Alright? Like, this is, like, one of the reasons why, for example, truck drivers will start to, like, rebel, you know, and and turn to, like, racist narratives about migrants and stuff like that. I mean, I'm I'm giving them I'm kinda just, like, riffing right now, but you get the point. Right? Like, the corporate sector, follows profit, and then all these, like, political movements will sort of spin off as a result and in reaction to that. And and the whole sort of, like, art form of, like, politics is around, like, trying to position yourself, you know, if you're if you're on the left, positioning yourself in such a way that the right doesn't take advantage of of those those things that the corporations create. Sorry. So this is like a long, sprawling kind of, like, pronounce it. But you you know, I think this is people gotta be more, like, open to the fact that these scenes are, you know, politically ambiguous.
Yeah. Right. So I guess for me, I I try to remind myself, like I said, you're going into a system and, like, there's a lot of different players and you're just one of them. And it's sort of, you gotta take advantage of the, of like those moments when they happen. Also knowing that most people are, are apolitical and a bit are, influenceable, I guess. Yeah. Okay. So I guess to to almost finish up, I was curious if you can give us maybe a little bit of, a sneak peek or, you know, let us know what the focus of your next book that's coming out next year. Oh, sure. Yeah.
It's I mean, it's looking at the intersection of big tech and big finance and the war on cash is one element of that. So that it's I'm looking at the war on cash. This this sort of undermining of the state money system, which is what we sort of talked about in the very beginning of this conversation, as sort of one element of a broader process of trying to automate the financial sector or the sort of at the sort of intersection of tech and finance. Right? And then I look at the crypto community as one response to that, or the sort of the claims made about creating this sort of alternative decentralized form of, sort of automated large scale automated structures. And then I'll sort of move forward in the book or conclude by looking at all the sort of new hybridized forms, including some of these things we've been talking about, you know, like, the sort of more left leaning anarchist kind of communitarian approaches to building, I guess, alternatives to both big tech and big finance and also to, like, original crypto. So, like, sort of, like, cutting edge interesting stuff going forward. And that's where I'm leaving the book off there and then it's gonna be hopefully, I could kind of manifesto for, a new way of moving forward on on a lot of the stuff.
Nice. It sounds, super interesting and I I'll probably definitely pick it up. So thanks a lot for for taking time. Maybe just the last question if you want to, let people know where they can keep up with you and where Sure. Where they can find you.
On Twitter, I'm at suit possum, which is s u I t p o s s u m. There's a whole story behind that name, but I'm not gonna go into it now. I also got a new YouTube channel. If you go to, youtube.com/c/brettscott, or else you can find it on my Twitter profile. You can find it there. I also have a new website called alteredstatesof.money. So altered states of money with a dot between the of and the money. And you can find all the links there. And that's that's my my new site that I've set up. So yeah.
Nice. I hope, people will check that out. Thanks a lot for taking the time and, have have a good one. It's really interesting.
Cool. Thank you.