[spectre] Visions of a techno-leviathan: The politics of the Bitcoin blockchain

[marc garrett]

Sorry for any cross posting...

Visions of a techno-leviathan: The politics of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Brett Scott examines the politics of the Bitcoin Blockchain and whether 
there will be a place for equality and democracy, as the power systems 
already in place begin to reshape new digital economies according to 
their own intentions.

“What has been introduced to the world is a method to create 
decentralised peer-validated time-stamped ledgers. That is a fancy way 
of saying it is a method for bypassing the use of centralised officials 
in recording stuff. Such officials are pervasive in society, from a bank 
that records electronic transactions between me and my landlord, to 
patent officers that record the date of new innovations, to 
parliamentary registers noting the passing of new legislative acts.”

http://furtherfield.org/features/articles/visions-techno-leviathan-politics-bitcoin-blockchain

Brett Scott is the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: 
Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press: 2013). And writes for various 
publications, including The Guardian, Wired Mag and New Scientist, and 
commentate on issues like financial reform, cryptocurrency and 
peer-to-peer systems. he is also involved in projects related to 
alternative finance, financial activism, and economic justice, such as 
Action Aid, World Development Movement, Open Oil, The Finance Innovation 
Lab, and MoveYourMoney UK.