Category Archives: Economics

Total Record: The Blockchain Protocol Towards Post-Capitalism

In 2018, Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure published an article in Cairn entitled «Total Record. Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme.»1)Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure «Total Record: Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme,» in Multitudes 71 (2018/2), 70-79.  The article, cited in Mark Alizart‘s Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (official translation in progress, as per Alizart, with an unofficial one being worked on by me), has yet to be translated.2)Mark Alizart, Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (Paris: PUF, 2019). Given the interesting subject matter and my current forays into French, I’ve decided to translate the article myself. It ought to be noted, however, that this is an unofficial translation with not only no support or guidance from the authors, but no direct institutional affiliation. Given that, it is up to the reader to take what they want from the article and, as with everything else, take my words with a grain of salt.

While I stuck to the text as literally as possible in some places, I was forced to make small changes as translation is never 1:1. In places of ambiguity or where I deemed it necessary, I have included the appropriate French original in hard brackets. Additionally, everything else in hard brackets not within a quotation is extra commentary by me. Finally, the only ‘official’ translation of any part of this article that seems to exist is the abstract on Cairn‘s website. To allow the reader to get a feel for my translation vs. Cairn‘s vs. the original French, I have reproduced all three below before the full text of the paper. I urge any reader not well versed in French to note the differences between Cairn‘s translation and my own as that will help you get a feel for my style. And of course, as translation is a tricky and dangerous game to play, I welcome any and all feedback. Without further ado, here is the abstract.

Original:

Le protocole Bitcoin (2009) s’inscrit dans le prolongement des utopies crypto-anarchistes visant à développer une monnaie numérique sécurisée et distribuée sur le réseau Internet pour échapper à la centralisation du pouvoir par les banques et les gouvernements. Récupérées en grande partie par la finance spéculative, ces technologies à chaînes de blocs (blockchain) se sont progressivement développées et dépassent désormais largement le champ monétaire (applications distribuées, contrats intelligents, jetons de valeurs, etc.). Malgré la persistance de certains freins sociaux et techniques, les protocoles blockchain pourraient-ils prendre de vitesse la logique destructrice du capitalisme financier ?

Cairn‘s Translation:

Bitcoin (2009) is an extension of crypto-anarchist utopias aimed at developing a secure and distributed digital currency on the Internet network. It thus aims to escape the centralization of power by banks and governments. Caught up by speculative finance, blockchain technologies now extend beyond the financial field (decentralized applications, smart-contracts, tokens, etc.). Despite some remaining social and technical barriers, could blockchain protocols encourage the emergence of post-capitalist futures?

My Translation:

The Bitcoin Protocol (2009) marked an extension of the utopias envisioned by the Crypto-Anarchists with the development of a secure and distributed online digital currency designed to escape the centralization of power by banks and governments. Hijacked [récupérée] in large part from speculative finance, these technologies, ‘chains of blocks’ (the blockchain), were progressive developments that widely surpassed applications in the traditional monetary field (distributed applications, smart contracts, tokens of value, etc.). Despite the persistence of certain social and technical breaking points, can the blockchain protocol work with, and even speed up, the destructive logic of contemporary finance capitalism?

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References

References
↑1 Guillaume Helleu and Anthony Masure «Total Record: Les protocoles blockchain face au post-capitalisme,» in Multitudes 71 (2018/2), 70-79.
↑2 Mark Alizart, Cryptocommunisme: Soviets + Bitcoin (Paris: PUF, 2019).

The Gordian Knot of Climate Change and Terrorism

Following the recent terror attacks in Manchester and on the London Bridge, both the Left and the Right have been quick to give their own narratives of what happened and why. The Right, predictably, blames the attack on open-borders, multiculturalism, and Islamic extremism, whereas the Left is placing blame either upon “hate-mongers,” climate change, and interventionist foreign policies. As with all things, I think that the truth lies in the middle…but that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to reply to dear, old Tomi Lahren and the following asinine tweet of hers:

Tomi’s tweet, along with countless others like it, are imbued with a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gordian Knot that is the relationship between climate change and terrorism. This post will be a modest attempt to explain what people mean when they say “climate change is linked to terrorism.”

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Why Climate Change Really Is Our Most Urgent, Number One Priority Right Now

A little over a week ago Bill Nye (the Science Guy) was on CNN’s “Crossfire” segment where he “debated”, and I hesitate to use this word when describing the following people, pundit S. E. Cupp and the Heritage Foundation‘s Nicolas Loris on the impact that climate change has on our lives. Amidst Bill’s clearly superior understanding of climate science and Loris’ “>muh federalism” cries, Cupp stepped up and did make one interesting point when she said

[Y]ou can look at entitlement reform which will bankrupt this country long before climate change destroys us, heart disease kills 7 million a year worldwide, 870 million suffer from hunger; I want you to look me in the eye and tell me in good conscience that climate change is our most urgent, number one priority right now.

While I loved Bill’s response and her reaction, I feel like he could have run with it more. Specifically, climate change directly affects the root cause of each of those issues and solving climate change is a prerequisite to solving any of the issues Cupp brought up. You see, climate change really is our most urgent, number one priority because it will not only be a huge blow to the economies of the world due to flooding and relocation issues, but it will disrupt global food supplies due to crop failures and ocean acidification, and the increased temperatures will create higher outbreak rates for diseases. All these, which will be fleshed out below, are reasons why climate change is a prior question and answers the impacts of Cupp’s claims.

My aim in writing this is not to provide a comprehensive list of the impacts of climate change, rather to point out that climate change comes before every issues that Cupp claims is more important.

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Attempting the Impossible – Calculating Capitalism’s Death Toll

Update 8/10/18

Given the popularity of this post (and its recent resurgence), I figured I ought to write an update. The following post was written back when I was a senior in high school and still rather idealistic and polemical. Given that, this post clearly has rhetorical oomph that is not found in my current writings. Additionally, I no longer strictly endorse the number of deaths laid out in the following post for a few reasons. First, I think structural issues that cause violence can rarely be subsumed to simple fiscal policy and as such, saying Capitalism killed X or Communism killed Y masks violence perpetrated by larger institutions. Second, and more importantly, while ideology is certainly a driving factor in violence, individuals are just as much to blame and thus I worry that saying a given ideology as such is responsible for a given number of deaths is a convenient way to let individuals off the hook. And third, there are so many deaths that go unaccounted for in our world that it would be foolish to assume that I can provide an accurate account while living in a first world country. Indeed, I think it’s foolish to assume that anyone could provide an accurate number. Given that, take everything with a grain of salt. I leave this post up as it is part of my intellectual heritage. If need be, a longer and more in-depth preface may be written.

To anyone still reading, I do think overall argument / analysis holds, but I do not currently stick to any hard-and-fast number. I suggest that everyone do their own research and use this post as a starting point.

INTRODUCTION:

While there have been other attempts to count up the number of deaths that can be attributed to Capitalism (to counter the figures presented in The Black Book of Communism as well other places), most noteably, determinatenegation’s list and The Castroists’ list, neither critique the methodology used by the the supporters of the “OMG Communism killed 70 trillion people!!1!” nor do they provide easy to verify sources. So while I think both lists are fabulous (and I may use parts), this post will be not only a critique of the methodology used by the other side, but also a more user friendly list.

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Climate Denial and the Death of Rationality

Unfortunately, despite all our scientific advances and supposed advances in rationality, there is still one lingering and debated issue…whether climate change is anthropogenic or not. If you’re a person who enjoys the Kochs or believes everything the CATO Institute tells you, this is directed towards you. In 2013 a study was completed by and authored by nine different scientists ranging from climate scientists at the University of Queensland to geological scientists at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The article, titled, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”, apart from being one of the best articles on climate science I have ever seen, without a doubt proves the human influence on the environment. Specifically, the authors, Cook et al., took over 10,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles published in journals examining climate science over the past 20 years and found that “papers rejecting the consensus on AGW[1]…[make up]…a vanishingly small proportion of the published research” (Cook et al.). Specifically, the study found that literally less than 1%[2] of all the papers published and studied rejected the anthropogenic thesis. When one churns the math (.007 * 11,944 papers = 83.6, rounded to 84), 84 out of the over 10,000 papers rejected the thesis that climate change is anthropogenic and, as per the study, that already amazingly small percentage is shrinking (Cook et al.).

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