Self-responsibility leads to better societies – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion editorial by Mickey Koss, a West Point graduate with a degree in economics. He spent four years in the infantry before transferring to the finance corps.
Subjective values are no way to enforce objective measures and open up society to a litany of anti-freedom and anti-individual action in the name of the greater good.
The main issue is that the individuals who do not value bitcoin have decided that their lack of subjective value justifies censorship of energy use, among other things in the good name of society. I don’t think they understand the precedent that sets.
- It’s not hot enough outside, so we kill the power to your air conditioner.
- Watching “The Kardashians” is a waste of power, so we’re going to reduce the amount of electricity entering your house.
- It’s not cold enough yet, so we cut the gas to your furnace.
- Your car is too big for you to drive alone, so we will limit the ability to buy fuel.
- Bitcoin is a waste of energy so we need to ban mining or change the code.
Each statement is essentially the same. Some others enforce their subjective values. Although the examples seem silly at first glance, I never thought that a farmer would have to protest to continue farming until it started happening in the Netherlands.
Things like this are always justified for the good of society.
“It is therefore necessary that the individual finally comes to realize that his own ego is of no importance in relation to the nation’s existence, that the individual’s position is solely conditioned by the interests of the nation as a whole.” – Adolf Hitler
There are no groups. There are no group effects. There are only individuals. While we work together to form a society, society cannot be affected, only individuals.
Keynesian Values Revealed
I will never forget the callous math used to justify minimum wage increases in my undergraduate macroeconomics class. Given the estimated supply and demand curves, we would calculate the increase in unemployment versus the wage gain for those who remain employed after the minimum wage increase.
To get an A+, your conclusion had to support the decision to raise the minimum wage. The way the equations were written dictated the outcome from the beginning: the wage gains would always outweigh the unemployment losses.
Applied to a real-life scenario, it is not difficult to imagine this being true of all policy decisions. Estimating Equations to do some math to produce more estimates. We got exactly the result we wanted, and our math backs it up. Science, baby.
What about the individual?
I did all the math correctly, but my recommendation is where I lost points:
“I do not recommend increasing the minimum wage because it leads to increased unemployment. Forcing people out of work is immoral.”
The professor, who had written his thesis on the elasticity of demand for basic goods in sub-Saharan Africa – estimated using estimates with little real value – casually brushed off the concerns by using unemployment insurance as justification. And this was at the #1 ranked Public Policy School in the US at the time.
“Damn the plebs. Let them become dependent on the government.”
Any action on an individual can be justified by the greater good of society. There are no limiting principles, and that slope is steep and slippery.
Good Riddance Keynes
I think the intellectual class’ opposition to bitcoin is because they know, at least subconsciously, that it takes away their power to try to fine-tune society from their ivory towers.
A thousand people losing their jobs is fine as long as they remain faceless statistics in pseudoscientific mathematical equations.
What about the single mother, the single father, the family of five, the first generation American, who struggles every day to live a meaningful and dignified life, to show their children what it means to earn and provide? As I made these calculations, I couldn’t help but think of the broken faces of broken people, shuffling home to tell their families that they had failed that day, that their wobbly scale of existence in this broken fiat world had just tipped displeasure, that their future was now uncertain.
If I need to lie to myself to get an A on an economics paper, then it’s okay to tell the truth.
Bitcoin and the marionette
I could listen to bitcoin celebrity Dr. Jordan Peterson for hours. To be honest, I already have and will continue to do so. His gift for language is beautifully highlighted in his analysis of the children’s story “Pinocchio”.
Pinocchio’s journey leads him to accept responsibility when he enters the belly of the beast to save his father. Self-actualization leads to personality. Everyday responsibility is the action of the everyday hero. Without responsibility we have nothing. And yet without scarcity, there can never be accountability at the macro and political levels of society.
The journey to the bitcoin standard leads to radical self-responsibility and cuts the chains of control from the so-called experts who so desperately want to control you. We will no longer be marionettes, puppets dancing through life on the end of a fiat string.
We will no longer be statistics and aggregates, parts of overly and intentionally convoluted equations used to justify sacrifice on behalf of the common good. That will no longer be possible on the bitcoin standard. With scarcity reintroduced to the market, blanket dictates will no longer be economically viable.
There is no society without the individual. There are no societal effects. Only individuals make decisions on the margins. Sacrificing individuals is and always will be immoral. If you want a better society, responsibility is probably a good place to start. Bitcoin fixes this.
This is a guest post by Mickey Koss. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
