Samuel Adams Revolution Fits Bitcoin Economy – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Frank Nuessle, former TV manager, university professor and publishing founder.
This is the second part of an essay that explores lessons to be learned from how Samuel Adams framed the American Revolution and how that same framing can accelerate the development of the vibrant American bitcoin economy that we all know is somewhere unseen over the horizon. Part one can be found here.
Because the US has the most to lose from the coming destruction of the US petrodollar system, the focus of my research and conversation is an attempt to answer this question: “What is the social system design that will allow the viral growth of a bitcoin economy in the US ?” The story of the US bitcoin economy is essential to the viral development of a healthy monetary economy.
I believe that Samuel Adams destroyed the “divine right of kings” paradigm with his framing, just as bitcoin must destroy the “divine right of fiat money” paradigm if it is to succeed.
It is important for us to understand the state of mind of the average European and American colonist in the 1760s. At that time in Western civilization, a king was essentially a god and was to be worshiped as such. The divine king paradigm had captured the human imagination and ruled Europe for 500 years.
In Europe at the time, there was a Spanish Empire, a British Empire, and a French Empire, among other smaller empires, each with its own king. This explains why Europe was in a perpetual state of war. How many divine kings can a world have?
Adams destroyed that paradigm because he recognized that America’s struggle for independence was above all a spiritual struggle. He believed that self-government and freedom were essential to self-government and that the essential qualities were respect for all people, integrity, frugality and selfless service to society.
How might Samuel Adams’ framing of the American struggle for independence serve to break the current grip on the American paradigm of the divine right of fiat money?
Just as Adams was able to bring the higher levels of respect for all and service to society in the struggle for American independence, Bitcoiners must find new ways to add value to money.
A successful US bitcoin economy will incorporate social values into money and develop participatory social structures that promote place-based communities and local economic structures along with a culture of reciprocity and mutual aid.
I suggest we call this new paradigm “the right of the divine community”, where money serves the whole and not the other way around. Money is just a tool and should not be put on a pedestal.
VISA founder Dee Hock envisioned such a community when he wrote, “The organization of the future will be the embodiment of community based on common purpose that calls to the people’s higher aspirations.”
In 1968, Hock was president of a small bank outside Seattle when he took over a collapsing credit card company franchised by Bank of America. Within three years, he founded VISA, reviving the nascent credit card industry that was failing at the time. VISA became the largest commercial enterprise on earth.
In his 1999 book, “The Birth of the Chaordic Age,” Hock wrote, “ahead, the possibility of the restoration of individuality, freedom, community and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony of nature with each other, and with the divine intelligence, as the world has always dreamed.”
The challenge to fulfilling Hock’s vision is that we all unconsciously still live out of the paradigm that the robber barons left us: Financial capital is sacred above all else. This scarcity mindset is also the main barrier to convincing Bitcoin skeptics.
A direct attack on a skeptic’s faith only reinforces their fear and resistance. Something deeper must shift. As change agents for Bitcoin, we need to address this deeper thing, this wound at the heart of the fiat money paradigm and the scarcity it produces.
Like all living things, paradigms have a lifespan. As the fiat money paradigm ages, serious cracks have begun to appear.
My late friend Joseph Chilton Pierce used to say, “A miracle is the name we give to the crack that allows the light to shine through from a greater, more brilliant reality.” This crack says not only that the greater reality is coming soon, but that it is more than you can imagine. It is both a glimpse and a promise.
The Bitcoin revolution begins when we allow ourselves to imagine a different kind of economy, a different kind of world. Bitcoiners must offer an invitation to the bigger, more beautiful world.
Just as Samuel Adams was able to ignite the American Revolution with his paradigm-shattering vision of freedom, Bitcoin miracle workers can do the same for the world of good money.
This is a guest post by Frank Nuessle. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
