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Episode 260 – Practical Applications with Joshua Dávila, the Blockchain Socialist
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When we hear the term “blockchain,” we immediately think of libertarians and capitalists. Crypto bros. They have been dominating that space but they don’t hold a monopoly on it, and our guest, Joshua Dávila, AKA The Blockchain Socialist, refuses to cede the ground. In this episode he and Steve discuss the need for bridging the gap between technical knowledge and social understanding because blockchain technology can be a valuable organizing tool for socialists.
Joshua suggests creating collective wallets and experimenting with democratic input in economic institutions as a starting point. He also speaks of the potential of blockchain technology in creating a new economic system that challenges the existing power structures.
The space of what is economically possible is much wider than many realize. (As MMTers, we agree.) Joshua believes the tools provided by digital systems can be used to create post-capitalist systems that compete with the existing globalized digital economy. He challenges the notion that the tools used in libertarian economic systems cannot be leveraged for post-capitalist ones.
Check out his blog, The Blockchain Socialist.
Joshua Dávila is an author, expert on blockchain technology, and the creator of The Blockchain Socialist blog and podcast. His book, Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It, was published in 2023.
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/
@TBSocialist on Twitter
Macro N Cheese – Episode 260
Practyical Applications with Joshua Dávila, the Blockchain Socialist
January 20, 2024
[00:00:00] Joshua Dávila [Intro/Music]: The most interesting thing about blockchain for me is this ability to create autonomous infrastructure, specifically digital technical infrastructure, using computers, the internet to communicate with one another, but in a way that doesn’t rely so much on the types of entities, middlemen, centralized actors that we currently have to while using the internet.
We don’t have any kind of standardized education around how computers work or the internet really, at least when I was a kid, the only thing we learned was like how to type. The internet is a black box for most people.
[00:01:34] Geoff Ginter [Intro/Music]: Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine.
[00:01:42] Steve Grumbine: All right, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. My guest today is the Blockchain Socialist, but he’s come out of the shadows. We now have a name, it’s Joshua. I’m so thrilled. I actually knew his name prior, but I kept it on the DL. And now he’s saying I’m Josh, the Blockchain Socialist. So I’m really thrilled to have him on.
And let me build the case for why I’m bringing Josh on. I have become a non-believer in the establishment and all things electoral. I have come to believe that the state has a million bulwarks against the people having actual agency and representation. And the understanding of modern monetary theory serves more to radicalize people, than to actually create space for policy. Because to create a space for policy and the things we’d like through the system that’s built- to keep us away from power, to maintain wealth of the oligarchy in the capital class- for me, that’s a non starter now. And so Joshua- as the blockchain socialist- he’s been exploring different uses for digital technologies- especially within the blockchain space- for how the left, in particular socialists, can organize and work with these tools.
It’s been tough to see the advantages and the value of blockchain. I know there’s a use case for it. And I don’t know what I don’t know. So, there’s no plan for this, other than to explore where we can go with this. So, I hope you all enjoy this. Josh, the Blockchain Socialist. Welcome, sir.
[00:03:30] Joshua Dávila: Hi, Steve, thanks for having me again. This time, not anonymous.
[00:03:35] Grumbine: I forgot that you were in Europe, only to find out that- here you are- buddies with another buddy of mine, in Brett Scott… and come to find out, Josh is buddies with him as well. And so, this is a nice little loop to tie.
If you were me and you’ve heard what I’ve been saying, what would you find interesting about blockchain? What would draw me to care about this, other than to see it as a libertarian construct meant to privatize the commons?
[00:04:07] Dávila: Yeah, sure. That’s a big question, but I think it’s a really important one. So, maybe some context for people… the past, I think now about four years, I’ve been running a blog and a podcast called the Blockchain Socialist. Where I’ve been trying to find the intersection between the crypto world and left politics, and provide an analysis from a left-wing point of view, that isn’t super hype, and just throws it all away or just completely neglects it.
And that comes from my experience of working in this space, and working hands on with technology and trying to think about it in a different lens, a post-capitalist lens. So, I think the most interesting thing about blockchain- for me- is this ability to create- what I would call, I guess, as autonomous infrastructure- specifically digital technical infrastructure, using computers, the internet, to communicate with one another. But in a way that doesn’t rely so much on the types of entities, middlemen, centralized actors, that we currently have to, while using the internet… especially in an economic sense.
So, I’ll preface this, that when you’re looking into blockchain stuff, you will find libertarian leanings into why something ought to be put onto a blockchain, or why the currency is useful. And often that can be framed in a way that is, we need to bring private property to the internet. Which to a lot of people- and rightfully so- it sounds like privatization.
It sounds like you’re taking, what is already the bad parts of the internet, and then making it worse, and making it a speculative object or something that I can invest and speculate on. While I think that is often the case, what most of the biggest figures push in the crypto space… there is, at the same time, a smaller but much more progressive- and using a different lens- into thinking about ‘how do we build infrastructure over the internet, using blockchains for what they’re good at.’
And there’s a little bit of truth behind the statement that cryptocurrencies or blockchains can be used to enforce private property relations. In some ways that is the case, or that is true, you can do that. But at the same time I think, when we’re thinking about it and the internet from a more progressive point of view, and the way that we want to think about or want to relate to the internet, we do have to think about property relations.
Of course, we don’t want to think about them in the frame of private property, and for someone to be able to speculate and make money off of. And so what blockchains are really interesting to be able to do, is to create autonomous infrastructure that doesn’t necessarily have the profit motive in mind in order for it to be facilitated. And therefore you are creating a digital commons, or a space where people have a property relation with the commons, but isn’t one based on private property, isn’t one based on capital.
Of course, we already live in a heavily globalized neoliberal world, and so- often case- the thing that a lot of people become interested in- and when there is a lot of money- is whenever someone creates a project where there is a chance that people can make money off of it.
So, that tends to take up a lot of the space in the discourse and conversation, especially from mainstream media. Especially from people who are critics as well. Those are the things that they tend to focus on. I just want to remind people that there is this other side of the same coin, that allows us to facilitate commons oriented relationships with digital infrastructure.
And therefore creating organizations over the internet. Or creating, let’s say, more legible organizations. I think there is already organization, even if we just think about the online left- we can call it that- or people who do politics through online platforms or whoever else. There already is some amount of organization, but there isn’t a very structured one.
For example, I like to think of things like Patreon, which is a very common platform that people use in order for people to pay and support creators. This became a very popular thing within the left contents creator space. But it does mean that innovation only happened due to micropayments, which is, innovations in micropayments is what facilitated that.
And it also means that Patreon, which is a VC backed company, is essentially a large part of the infrastructure of the online left to economically sustain itself. And Patreon, being a private actor, means that it can remove people if it wants, if it disagrees with what they’re saying. It could also go bust because of the whims of venture capitalists that own it.
And so, I would rather imagine a type of internet where we are having more democratic inputs or more autonomous relations with the way that we interact with people and communicate. And maybe even share economic value with one another over the internet, that aren’t facilitated by Patreon, tech startups, MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, all of these centralized for-profit corporations.
And so, I think blockchain is one of potentially more tools than just blockchain, of course, that can help facilitate this autonomous infrastructure for a better organization. And so, just also say that this past August, I published a book with repeater books called Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It, where I go through a different framing for how to understand blockchain from a left-wing point of view, that isn’t tainted by the expectations or the bad ideology that often dominates a lot of crypto books or writings, from largely conservatives and reactionaries and libertarians.
[00:09:41] Grumbine: I’m going to have to get that book. I did not know that, and I feel like a heel because I follow you and I should have known that. We’re going to have to have you come back so we can talk about your book as well. Being able to do this, it’s always riding on something that the establishment has built, because we have not built dual power and parallel systems.
There is some of that, but even cryptocurrencies are built largely on state currency. And in this case, these networks, the internet, is highly tapped into by federal institutions, the governments of the world. How does blockchain remove surveillance, both from the state and from private entities, like we deal with, with all the different social media platforms? How does that work?
I know that there is a point where blockchain is not really the application layer, it’s really an underlying layer. So, how does one access this technology for the use of what you’re describing?
[00:10:46] Dávila: Yeah, sure. I think the question on privacy really depends. Because the way that a blockchain works is- of course, some people may know- is that all of the transactions that happen on the ledger, on the blockchain- which you can just think of as a giant database that is shared amongst many computers in a peer-to-peer fashion- are the fault, many of them, public. You can see the transactions happening. So, it makes things very legible. It also means that you have some privacy, in the sense that your identity isn’t necessarily linked to the crypto address that you’re sending transactions from. That is detached.
But if you are using something like Coinbase or one of these big centralized exchanges, they probably put you through some sort of ‘know your customer’ process, KYC. Where you had to give your information- your data, whatever else about yourself- because they have to give those to state authorities. So then, if you withdraw your cryptocurrency from Coinbase and onto your own crypto wallet- which we will talk about in a little bit- they’ll know your identity, related to your wallet.
But so, the way that you would usually interact with a blockchain- let’s just take Ethereum for example, since it’s the more popular one, it has the most applications and it has the most robust ecosystem- you would use a browser extension. A browser extension is just something that you download onto your browser. Google Chrome has many of these and all Chrome based browsers have the Chrome store. I think Mozilla has its own extension store as well. I think Safari, maybe doesn’t do it.
But with browser extensions, you can download a wallet or just a piece of software that lets you keep track with your cryptocurrency. There are many different ways to interact with a blockchain, or many different types of wallets that you could use in order to interact with a blockchain.
The most important thing is that you have to be able to prove that you are the owner of a particular address. And so, that’s done through what’s called a private key, some people may know PGP keys.
Essentially, you can think of your address as a PGP key, where you have the private key, which you keep to yourself- that’s like your password in a sense- and then you have your public key, which is what is publicly available. And those things are linked to a one-way mathematical function called a hash.
And so usually, if you want to do something, you would go to a website that is Web3 enabled, and it’s something where you can do crypto stuff on. You would connect your wallet through the browser extension, and then you could make transactions through that website. That’s the standard, most consumer friendly, user friendly way that people interact with a blockchain… is through that.
[00:13:19] Grumbine: For people that are not overly technical- for the average person- what is Web3?’ What is the dark web things that people hear about, but aren’t sure of? And what is the purpose of them?
[00:13:34] Dávila: Yeah. So, I would say that- sometimes I have to adjust how I talk about things, depending on the audience, so it’s more understandable- but Web3, I would preface with saying that it’s largely a marketing term. A venture capitalist marketing term that comes from 10 years ago, people were calling the rise of social media- like Facebook and everything else- Web2, and the creation of APIs as the new open internet. And now we can say- from the vantage point of the future, of that past- that hasn’t really worked out.
So, Web3 generally focuses on this idea that you can own your data and your digital assets that don’t require a centralized entity. You can think of whenever you use Steam- for example, if you’re into gaming- you can use Steam points to buy games and things like that. Other games have different points that you can use. You can only use it within that ecosystem.
What blockchains enable you to do, is by detaching your identity with a particular application- and instead your identity, being at the protocol level or at the lower level of the technical stack- you’re able to bring and take your assets with you, into different contexts, and have more than one entity accept your digital assets in some way. So, your steam points could potentially be used in a completely different context, and that’s what it’s referring to when talking about Web3.
The dark web is, I think, when- usually just means to talk about, basically- websites that are not indexed by Google or other search engines. And so, you have to know the URL to get into it. And then usually, these are websites where you’re able to do some type of illicit activity- buy drugs or whatever else- and usually, they accept cryptocurrency as payments to do that.
[00:15:20] Grumbine: I appreciate that. Some of this stuff I know, but I know a lot of people who’ve never heard of some of these things. That this is just so far into them as they walk through life and they think, is this a viable way of moving forward to organize around and to work with? Some of this stuff is just inaccessible.
Not because it’s for elites, but it’s intellectually unattainable at this point. How do we see this as a real change agent beyond the tech geeks that really are into this stuff? How does this become more than that?
[00:15:58] Dávila: Yeah. First, I would frame this whole problem as the fact that we generally separate technical and social things. People are generally, ‘I’m a tech geek’ or ‘I’m more into humans’, I’m more into social things. Whereas, I think how we should instead be thinking about it, is that everything- all of this, any type of platform, piece of technology- there’s always a social aspect to it because technology is facilitating a particular social relationship.
Whenever we are using Facebook or Twitter or whatever else, there is a particular relationship that is facilitated by that company. By that corporation. And they control a large part of that relationship- between you, your followers, the people you follow, the influencers, whatever else- whether or not you get paid for making viral content to their platform.
All those things are controlled and managed by for-profit, centralized entity. But I think your question was about, how do we make this more relatable to the average person. Can I say it like that?
[00:17:04] Grumbine: You can say it however you want, because at this point- this is what is beautiful and scary about this interview, is that- I don’t know where I’m going with this. And I know things that I’m thinking of. I’m trying to consider what people that listen to this- maybe that older generation that is still politically motivated to operate, but it feels overmatched by these things- and so, would be freaked out just to even hear some of the conversation, much less consider actually being part of it.
When we talked to Brett Scott to discuss his book Cloud Money, one of the things he said was, all the middlemen and the skimming of profit each step along the way, they’re part of our lives today, because they do have that air of ease. Super easy to do.
I’m not sure to what degree they skim and do whatever, but these are frequently used things that have a very easy interface for people to say, ‘Oh, I see what I’m supposed to do here.’
But then you realize that the underlying technology, people aren’t touching the underlying technology, maybe they’re just using the edge app that leverages that. So, I’m trying to delineate between where the use case and the communication path, that most people don’t even consider. They don’t even think about what happens underneath.
[00:18:28] Dávila: What’s coming to my mind- that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately- is how, for one, we don’t have any kind of standardized education around how computers work, or the internet, really. At least when I was a kid, the only thing we learned was like how to type. The internet is a black box for most people.
And I think this comes from a couple of things. One is, I think this heavily relates to the idea of alienation in Marx’s theory of commodification, that we are alienated from our product. I think this is also related- in the digital sphere- where each application that we use, we are alienated from how it works. We don’t know what is behind it. We only see the front end.
The front end of an application is ‘what’s the user experience.’ It’s the graphic interface. Right now we’re using Zencaster. I don’t know what types of relationships in their databases that they have. I don’t know what exactly their stack is. I can maybe look that up and I can get to know- to some degree- so I can see where are the points of centralization. But I don’t know how most applications work.
And I think that is done on purpose. That is done as a way for people to not really know how their data is being used. To not really know how their money is being used through these platforms. It’s an intentional strategy. And it’s also one that you’re commonly told, if you are a developer of consumer applications- or applications in general- that you want to baby your user. You want them to be able to look at a screen and be able to know how to use it- and it just work- without them needing to understand it.
And while there’s a kernel of truth in that kind of belief, in that way of thinking, it has- over time- completely destroyed anybody’s technical understanding of all of these tools that we now severely depend on. Especially during the pandemic, when everyone was using zoom and reliant on digital technologies to be able to do work, with everyone else. We had no idea how they work.
Nobody knows. It’s pretty rare to find someone who can properly define what a server is. And that’s a pretty fundamental piece of technological infrastructure. So, I think by default, that’s the way that things work. What’s nice about blockchains is that it’s much more legible and much easier to see how things work, underneath the hood, in the back end, so to say.
[00:20:43] Grumbine: Let me just tell you a little bit about our organization’s aspirational framework, so you can see how this might play into it. We have seven knowledge areas: economic justice, environmental/ecological justice, peace with justice, equality with justice, democracy, health and wellbeing, and technology and innovation.
When I think of technology and innovation, I typically think about the people that say ‘the robots are coming.’ And so, that’s partly because we were promised that we would all share in the fruits of technological advancements, especially those things that were crafted and generated through public spending. We were hoping that everyone would be able to share in the benefit of that.
Ultimately, we’re dealt with a false understanding of how things come together. So, when you look at all these innovations, a lot of these things were intentionally kept obscure, to maintain the prestige of the role, instead of allowing it to be more publicly understood.
Part of that masking has prevented the regular people from understanding. In your eyes- understanding economic justice and technology and innovation- how would you break down blockchains relevance, to society as a whole beyond the crypto space?
What are some of the use cases that you can envision, that would enhance the public purpose and provide for that public commons payment systems ? I’ve heard people talk about elections, and voting and integrity.
We previously talked about smart contracts. What are some of the use cases that we might see, that would enable equality, democracy, technology and innovation for the use of all? Help me understand that a little better.
[00:22:42] Dávila: Yeah. All of these things would be- at least in part- likely facilitated by smart contracts. So, maybe I recommend people to look at our last interview, to be able to understand that, so we don’t have to explain too much about that.
But I think- for me- what I’m most interested in, is economic experimentation, that blockchains are this economic medium. It’s a design space where we can create different economic institutions that are autonomous. That once you encode it, and you code it well- let’s assume- then it just works. There’s a lot less other stuff that you have to do around technical implementation, that you would normally have to do.
You have to create your own centralized database and all this. We can create a somewhat neutral institution, but it’s encoded inside of it, like our political values. I’m very interested in economic democracy- or to me- socialism really is, essentially, bringing democracy to the economy. Keeping it not just as this farcical theatrics of every four years, we vote for who we want to beat us with a stick. That is just not democracy to me. Democracy needs to be something that permeates throughout society, and that includes the economy.
That includes the creation of democratic workplaces and institutions. And that creates a way for people to provide input into their institutions, so that they actually listen to- and respond to- the wants and needs of the people that it’s serving.
And so, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are usually thought about solely within the realm of currency, or in a monetary view- in a monetary sense. But also, like you alluded to before, the same problem with money and currency- that maybe people were trying to solve with the creation of things like Bitcoin- also are relevant for the problem of ‘how do we have voting systems through digital infrastructure and digital space?’
We have the same problem. And so now, with the solving of this problem to a certain extent, we are given new tools to be able to facilitate democratic input for how we want our economic resources to be used. And so, for me- let’s say- one very relevant, little use case or idea that people may not be aware of, is what’s called a multi-signature wallet or a ‘multi-sig.’
You can basically think of it as a joint bank account, which you can spin up- depending on the blockchain you use- literally for pennies, if not less than a penny, if not free in some applications.
And you can create a bank account that is owned by you. And let’s say, many of your friends, many of the people that you work with, people that you organize with and you, can all have a democratic input and how you use your shared resources within your quote- unquote ‘joint bank account.”
Except your joint bank account can hold more than just dollars or money. It can hold voting power in another institution. You can think of it in a very fractal sense. You can create your own little institution of people, who have democratic input in how you share your resources.
And you are a member of another institution in which you provide democratic input for that institution based on how you all- kind of- come to consensus. I think, to me, it opens a space to where we could imagine using digital technologies to allow for this much more democratic, faster form of- I would call it even in a grander scale- collective intelligence. Just like being able to ingest and make sense and analyze democratic input from as many people as possible, to produce some sort of outcome that is based on that information. That feeding of information.
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[00:27:26] Grumbine: One of the things that I love about you, is that you’re very analytical. One of the things that scares me about this is, for example, let’s just look at the Bitcoin space. They created an artificial gold standard- an artificial scarcity- to feed the sound money, libertarian mind. And many people that bought into this- there’s some that won, there’s many that lost, but that’s okay in that world.
In the world that I would like to see come to be, that speculative framing of- and socialists do this too- socialists are determined that they’re going to recreate 1917, when we’re in 2024. As opposed to look forward and look at what the material conditions are, to transform these concepts, that people that we respect from yesteryear- like Marx, Engels, and all the other thinkers of that time- did.
And we try to recreate the Bolshevik construct, when really, there’s just no comparison for what happened then, to where we are today. How do we use these tools, outside of that, so that we have a say? Because otherwise, it’s almost like we’re living in a neo-feudal society, without any way out. It’s like being trapped in a bubble, with rules that they’ve made for us.
How does this- that you just described- translate to freedom, from this? I mean, I’m trying to understand it from every angle. But in this particular case- through this construct- rather than recreating the past… how do we take the past, to inform the future and understanding the world that we’re in, and the real enemy of ‘prosperity for all?’ How do we use these technologies to run counter to that monster of a system?
[00:29:31] Dávila: I resonate with a lot of what you’re saying, I think. I don’t want to oversell a technical solution to something as big as some of these problems. I think what’s important- and this is relevant for any technical implementation- is just being aware. What exactly are the problems you’re trying to solve, and are able to solve with it, and what you are not?
I think though, the space where blockchain is interesting, is the space of creation, and the creation of new institutions, and new ways of being and relation. And in that process, perhaps, that being a part of a larger strategy, for moving from one system to another, creating that bridge.
And so, I think people could argue, for example- the one that people like to bring up is- the US dollar is backed by its military strength, its military power. And perhaps using cryptocurrency more could reduce the power of the US dollar. I don’t really, necessarily agree fully that, but that’s one argument that some people throw around. But I think we have to think of technology as having a specific spot within a strategy, to be able to augment those other things.
I read this book recently by a guy named Rodrigo Nunez, who is a Brazilian and it was called neither vertical nor horizontal. And it was really good, it was basically, in summary, talking about the differences between anarchist and more Marxist Leninist forms of organizing and how usually it tends to be juxtaposed to one another, as if the left needs to pick one of those strategies because one of them are better than the other.
But he argued instead that we should be looking at strategy as an ecology of many strategies that come together and reinforce one another from different directions. That some things maybe need to be organized in a more hierarchical way, perhaps. And some things could be organized in a more horizontal way and we just need to be cognizant and pick where the space we want to play is and how we want to simply go towards the agreed upon political objective while taking on a kind of diverse set of strategies and organizations.
[00:31:43] Grumbine: I really like that concept because I do process flows. And so as I think about democracy and how to leverage something like this, I want to understand if you were building a democracy stack, where do you think this technology would lie in that stack? What do you think a stack of inputs and outputs in this connecting points might look like?
Where does blockchain or where does. These new systems, these non horizontal, non vertical, where do they fit in here? How do we look at them as a tool to pull from the pouch?
[00:32:23] Dávila: Yeah. So I think definitely I would say, I think it could fit in many different places. This is why I find it maybe difficult to focus on one, but I think I would say first, if you are someone who is interested in this type of thing. I would highly recommend we have online communities called Cryptoleftists if you want to join and to find other people to begin experimenting in a collective way with this technology and create your own multi signature wallets with other people and just play around and see what you can do and create groups and form a purpose around your group or organization.
Maybe it is that you guys just want to all chip in whatever a couple hundred bucks and use that as a grant to give to someone else so that they can work on something or. It depends on really what you want to do.
Say you want to buy a bunch of assets that give you democratic input into some sort of core piece of infrastructure in the Ethereum blockchain space.
And then you want to collectively decide what you want to do with that. And then you can think of this as almost in some ways in that respect, like being an active shareholder or something like that. Which of course may be not the thing that you’re interested in, but it means being involved in the actual goings on of core infrastructure of the blockchain space.
There’s an already existing blockchain space, which has a lot of core pieces of infrastructure that are run by these Neo institutions or DAOs is usually the name that’s thrown around there as what they are decentralized autonomous organization, which basically means that you’re using blockchains and crypto and smart contracts to facilitate organization in a decentralized manner and take part in that already existing economic ecosystem, since it already exists, and then there’s also taking the side of let’s begin to create our own.
Infrastructure, which is a bigger task, a bigger ask, but is probably in the long term, something that we will need to do anyways, I think. And so I could imagine definitely into the future, there being many more blocks or groups or institutions inside institutions that profess certain interests within these institutions to put forward their political agenda, perhaps for this piece of infrastructure, for example,
[00:34:32] Grumbine: As you’re thinking about development, creation, research, and experimentation, right, we don’t have that luxury with the federal government. As much as it would be great to say, we’d like to do these things, it’s captured. So you may dream a better dream, but it’s not going to make it through. Because you have no agency in the existing system, but reality is I need to take my interests and apply action to them, not just wish for a better day, but create a better day.
The unfortunate part of that can’t be overlooked. The fact is our government isn’t representing us. And so. In this interim phase, while we’re contemplating a new world and additional ways of interacting, providing economic justice through other means, since they’re not interested in doing it through the establishment.
There’s got to be some way of getting people to see that we’re talking about you. And I hate putting it on the individual because the individual is beaten down right now. They’re without hope. A lot of people are checked out because they see no path to change. This feels a little like hope, but it’s scary because you’re such a small peon in this big space.
What you’re describing mostly is economic exchange. You’re talking about economic systems. The existing space looks far more libertarian than it does what you’re describing. And I don’t know. If those spaces of these are the places where people learn, or if they have to come equipped with a lot of knowledge, I have no idea what the gang like mentality is.
Is it open? Is it welcoming? Right. What is the accessibility, to joining here? What is prerequisite knowledge?
[00:36:41] Dávila: I would say that actually. What has been very surprising about all of my adventures being the socialist in very libertarian spaces, oftentimes, is that actually it is way more welcoming than you think in the sense that the crypto space attracts a lot of people who I think similar to you are very disillusioned by current institutions that they simply do not work and they’re not up to task and are not solving the problems in the way that people would like them to be solved.
And so there are a lot of people who are, I would say, radical. in some sense, but maybe they’re not going to read a political theory book. They’re not going to read Marx. They’re not going to get into that side of political education or they have not so far at that point. So they are out there looking for solutions.
So that tends to be the people that they attract, but also tends to be people who are fairly welcoming in many senses, because I think part of it is perhaps like a toxic positivity with a little bit of problem in the crypto space that people want to get you come inside and come hang out and whatever.
But I would say that’s pretty standard. Whatever type of crypto organization that maybe you may or may not want to be a part of. I have my own community called Cryptoleftists, where we have a subreddit and a discord. We have regular community calls. We’re starting regular community calls pretty soon.
Where it is meant to be a space for people to check in. If they have any questions about crypto or the blockchain space, they can find other people where they can have these types of discussions and figure it out. Where are the spaces that maybe they should be looking. You mentioned earlier Brett Scott.
We had met. I’m not sure, maybe it was the first time that we had met, it was actually in Austria, in this place called the Commons Hub, which is basically an old bed and breakfast in the middle of the Alps, where a friend of mine, his family owns like this giant bed and breakfast den. So, he runs. Events there every once in a while.
One of those events is the crypto commons gathering. So is people who are interested in using crypto in the lens of the commons or creating commons. And that’s where a lot of us meet and where a lot of us have the intellectual discussions that we have and share updates about projects and find partnerships and whatever else.
So there are ways to get involved and ways to be a part of it. Of course, with any kind of new thing you’re getting into, it does require a little bit of. Self education and reading a few bits of document. I can recommend my book as potentially a place to get the quick rundown. And basically I write the book in a way for people who don’t necessarily know anything about technology as well, so that they can get up to date and up to speed for all the major concepts that they need to understand to be able to take part in the crypto world.
[00:39:16] Grumbine: One of my other interests that has nothing to do with technology is mycology and friends of mine that I see that are amateur mycologists that. Dove deep into the study of mushrooms and mycelium and the various ways that they work together. And the space is very welcoming. The people that have been doing it for a long time are extremely proud of their own accomplishments and don’t mind letting you know it.
And then of course, there are other people that are much more humble that are very inviting and want to work with the newcomer, bring them in to the fold and help them get started. Break down the language barrier and the process barriers. And the deeper you go, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more interested you are.
This feels a little bit like mycelium. If you understand mycelium, the mushroom network, this feels to me like it is mycelium.
[00:40:16] Dávila: It’s actually extremely funny that you say that because that is a very big theme in the crypto commons gathering events is mycelium and taking the structures of biology and especially mushrooms and applying that in the crypto space or not even necessarily just related to crypto but how people should potentially relate to one another etc.
There’s a guy, maybe you know him if you’re in the mushroom world, his name is Jeff Emmett.
[00:40:43] Grumbine: I’ve heard the name actually.
[00:40:45] Dávila: He’s a good friend of mine. We met at the Crypto Commons gathering as well. And he is a really big mushroom guy. He’s trying to make this new aesthetic called mycopunk, which is very funny, but he helped found the common stack, which is a crypto project that makes primitives for creating commons. He also helped create what are called augmented bonding curves.
I won’t go into detail what that is, but it’s like a kind of a way to facilitate a commons through a blockchain, which I talk about in the book. So it is very funny that you said that. You
[00:41:17] Grumbine: To me, little things that caught my attention were grounding, putting your bare feet into soil and being connected. And to me, this is the digital version of that the whole time we’ve been talking. That’s been on my mind. The relationship between these two worlds. Folks are unfamiliar with any of what I’m saying.
Think of the movie Avatar and consider the tree and the connections with the roots underneath the ground and the communication network with the electricity. The synapses of this neural network of nature. Mr. Stamets. Has got some stuff out there that you can watch as movies and documentaries. There’s a lot of good stuff out there to help you understand these networking concepts and I see that relationship.
Your entire focus has shifted to this. This is where you’re at. What is it that you feel is the most important thing right now? I understand the focus on payment systems, but. This is something you’re extraordinarily passionate about. What do you think is the most important thing right now today that someone would get from this?
[00:42:37] Dávila: mean what they would get from joining the space?
[00:42:41] Grumbine: The space, the concept, the whole thing. If someone is to walk away from this conversation, what do you think would be the most important thing for people to get about this space so that they’re not afraid of it, so that they are rightfully pushing back on things that violate a socialist ethos? So that they don’t run from, but embrace the things that are good, that work for them.
[00:43:09] Dávila: I would just say that the space of what is economically possible is much wider than we realize and that we have the tools to begin to create. At the very least experimentations to look into the future for what would a post capitalist system potentially look like that we have these economic tool sets using digital systems to facilitate that so that it also can compete with a already existing globalized digital economy to have this similar types of affordances that we are granted with these conveniences of the future.
Recent technological advancements, but without needing to rely on the kind of capitalistic institutions that we allow to own basically that means of production and means of communication and means of economic value transfer, I guess you could say, and it may seem counterintuitive, especially if you’re someone who’s been paying attention to criticisms of the space.
But a lot of the same tools that have created the most laughable or most ridiculous economic systems in a libertarian worldview are the same types of tools that we can use to create post capitalist ones.
[00:44:32] Grumbine: I love it. I use Amazon Audible to fight the empire because I can’t read. My eyes are bad. So I listened to books. There’s an opportunity here to leverage this. And I’m very interested in exploring it further. Yeah. Josh, I’m hoping that you can give us as many links. We’ll put them in the extras so people can check these things out on their own so they can join if they feel compelled.
I know I’m going to be looking into this. So we’re definitely going to get your book up on our bookstore. I would love to have you back on so we can actually walk through your book. I think that would be a fantastic discussion as well if you wouldn’t mind.
[00:45:12] Dávila: Yeah, of course. I would love to do that. And just to mention, since you said you like audiobooks, the audiobook version is coming out in February.
[00:45:19] Grumbine: Okay. Bye.
[00:45:21] Dávila: So. I believe that will also come out through Audible. These are all decisions that were made beyond me. I’m glad to have another way for people to be able to learn about the book.
Consume the information. Yeah, consume, I didn’t want to use the word consume, like they’re a better word.
[00:45:40] Grumbine: Josh, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Real Progressives is a nonprofit of 501 C3. We survive by your donations. So if you are compelled and you feel there’s value in what we do, please go to our Patreon. Which is patreon. com slash real progressives. You can also go to our website, real progressives.
org, go to the donate button and we have donor box as our other backend system. And with that, Josh, tell folks where they can find further information for how we can find you.
[00:46:17] Dávila: Yeah, sure. My website is where I post the vast majority of my content, the blockchain socialist. com, there I have blogs, I’ve written articles, I have podcasts where I’ve interviewed a lot of people. And I also have a section that I should’ve mentioned earlier, but called blockchain 101 for socialists. So it could be a good starting point as well for people, maybe if they’re waiting for their book to arrive.
So there you can find me. And then I’m also on social media as. Usually tbsocialist, if you look up the blockchain socialists, usually it’s the only one there. But you should be able to find me.
[00:46:46] Grumbine: Very good. Awesome. Well, this was wonderful. I really appreciate it. And I think this was really good. This is really helpful for me. Thank you for that. My guest, Josh, the blockchain socialist. This is Steve with Macro N Cheese. We are out of here.
[00:47:08] End Credits: Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy. Descriptive writing by Virginia Coggs, and promotional artwork by Andy Kennedy. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by our Real Progressive Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro N Cheese, please visit patreon.com/realprogressives.
GUEST BIO
Joshua Dávila is an author, expert on blockchain technology and the creator of The Blockchain Socialist blog and podcast. His recent book Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It focuses on the radical political potential of the blockchain, showing how it can be used by the left in the fight against capitalism.
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/blockchain-for-socialists-part-1/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptoleftists/comments/dxpzp6/welcome_to_rcryptoleftists_updated/
Josh’s Twitter is @TBSocialist
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Brett Scott
is an economic anthropologist, financial activist, and former broker. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, and Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets. Brett has spoken at hundreds of events across the globe and across international media, with his focus on financial reform, digital finance, alternative currency, blockchain technology, and the cashless society.
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/brett-scott
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in 1818 in the Rhine province of Prussia and was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, philosopher, and economist whose works inspired the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is certainly hard to find many thinkers who can be said to have had comparable influence in the creation of the modern world. “Marx was before all else a revolutionist” eulogized his associate, and fellow traveler, Friedrich Engels, saying he was “the best-hated and most-calumniated man of his time,” yet he also died “beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/karl-marx.asp
https://plato.stanford.edu/Entries/marx/
Friedrich Engels
was a 19th century German socialist philosopher and the closest collaborator of Karl Marx in the foundation of modern communism. They coauthored The Communist Manifesto (1848), and Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Marx’s death.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Engels
Vladimir Lenin
or simply “Lenin”, was a Russian communist revolutionary and head of the Bolshevik Party who rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The bloody upheaval marked the end of the oppressive Romanov dynasty and centuries of imperial rule in Russia. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party, making Lenin leader of the Soviet Union, the world’s first communist state.
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/vladimir-lenin
Jeff Emmett
is a Token Engineering researcher at BlockScience, and co-founder of the Commons Stack.
Paul Stamets
is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and mycoremediation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets
INSTITUTIONS / ORGANIZATIONS
Logical LLC.
is an IT service provider.
Coin Base
is a cryptocurrency broker.
https://www.coinbase.com/about
Crypto Commons Association (CCA)
is a non-profit organization, hosted on OpenCollective. It promotes the general development of Crypto Commons infrastructures, through contents, research, courses and events.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/about-darpa
UUNET
was founded in 1987 as one of the first and largest commercial Internet service providers. Today, UUNET is an internal brand of Verizon Business (formerly MCI).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUNET
CONCEPTS
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
is a heterodox macroeconomic supposition that asserts that monetarily sovereign countries (such as the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada) which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending.
Put simply, modern monetary theory decrees that such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can issue as much money as they need and are the monopoly issuers of that currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of a rising national debt, but rather by price inflation.
https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060
https://gimms.org.uk/fact-sheets/macroeconomics/
Modern Money Primer by L. Randall Wray
https://realprogressives.org/mmt-primer/
Federal Job Guarantee
The job guarantee is a federal government program to provide a good job to every person who wants one. The government becoming, in effect, the Employer of Last Resort.
The job guarantee is a long-pursued goal of the American progressive tradition. In the 1940s, labor unions in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) demanded a job guarantee and Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the right to a job in his never realized “Second Bill of Rights”. Later, the 1963 March on Washington demanded a jobs guarantee alongside civil rights, understanding that economic justice was a core component of the fight for racial justice.
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/theory-of-change/what-is-a-federal-jobs-guarantee/
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/pavlina-tcherneva-on-mmt-and-the-jobs-guarantee
Federal Job Guarantee Frequently Asked Questions with Pavlina Tcherneva
https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/job-guarantee-faq/
Taxation within a Fiat System
The monetary system that the United States employs is a state money, or fiat, system, and from that framing, the most important purpose of taxes is to create a demand for the state’s money (specifically, for its currency). Further, being the monopoly issuer of its own currency, the state really does not need tax revenue to spend and can never run out of money to pay debts or provision itself so long as it’s spending is denominated in its own currency.
https://realprogressives.org/a-meme-for-money-part-4-the-alternative-tax-meme/
Monetary Agency
The term monetary sovereignty is sometimes used in MMT literature to describe governments that issue their own non-convertible, floating currency. Recognizing that no nation is truly independent or sovereign in an absolute sense in our interconnected world, we prefer to use terms like monetary agency or fiscal capacity. In any case, the key point is that any nation that issues its own currency (e.g. the U.S., Japan, Canada) will generally have more fiscal capacity if it can maintain the following:
-
- Makes no promises to convert its currency to other currencies or gold at a fixed rate.
- Allows the currency to float in foreign exchange.
- Has no (or minimal) debt in other nations’ currencies (or gold).
- Operates a central bank function to manage interest rates and payments.
Countries that do not meet one or more of these criteria are often subject to greater domestic fiscal policy limitations.
https://modernmoneybasics.com/glossary/
Blockchain
is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
is any form of currency that exists digitally or virtually and uses cryptography to secure transactions. Cryptocurrencies don’t have a central issuing or regulating authority, instead using a decentralized system to record transactions and issue new units.
https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-cryptocurrency
Micropayments
are small transactions or payments usually of less than a dollar—and, in some cases, only a fraction of a cent—that are mainly made online. Micropayments are seen as a way to leverage the internet to facilitate the immediate distribution of digital rights, royalties, in-game purchases, online tipping, and even to coordinate devices connected via the internet.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/micropayment.asp#
Commodity
is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
Libertarianism
is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom and minimize the state’s encroachment on perceived violations of individual liberties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/marxism-of-the-right/
Bolshevism
originated at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, was associated with the activities of the Bolshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party led by Vladimir Lenin, and is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the “dictatorship of the proletariat“.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevism
Austrian Economics
is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivations and actions of individuals and their self-interest. Austrian school theorists hold that economic theory should be exclusively derived from basic principles of human action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_school_of_economics
Feudalism
was the system in 10th-13th century European medieval societies where a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along with a promise of military and legal protection, in return for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (vassal).
https://www.worldhistory.org/Feudalism/#google_vignette
Toxic positivity
is the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying one’s own emotions or someone else denying another’s, insisting on positive thinking instead.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/toxic-positivity
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
is a conceptual model created by the International Organization for Standardization which enables diverse communication systems to communicate using standard protocols.
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/glossary/open-systems-interconnection-model-osi/
Know Your Customer (KYC)
standards are designed to protect financial institutions against fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing.
https://www.swift.com/your-needs/financial-crime-cyber-security/know-your-customer-kyc/meaning-kyc
Web3
is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as “Big Tech“.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
is the mechanism used by browsers to retrieve any published resource on the web and is essentially the address of a given unique resource on the Web.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Common_questions/Web_mechanics/What_is_a_URL
Edge
is a Microsoft browser application.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge
Zencastr
is a podcasting application.
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
was the result of a U.S. government-funded project during World War II to build an electronic computer that could be programmed.
https://www.hp.com/ca-en/shop/offer.aspx?p=computer-history-all-about-the-eniac#
PUBLICATIONS
Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It by Joshua Dávila
Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization by Rodrigo Nunes
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets by Brett Scott
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When we hear the term “blockchain,” we immediately think of libertarians and capitalists. Crypto bros. They have been dominating that space but they don’t hold a monopoly on it, and our guest, Joshua Dávila, AKA The Blockchain Socialist, refuses to cede the ground. In this episode he and Steve discuss the need for bridging the gap between technical knowledge and social understanding because blockchain technology can be a valuable organizing tool for socialists.
Joshua suggests creating collective wallets and experimenting with democratic input in economic institutions as a starting point. He also speaks of the potential of blockchain technology in creating a new economic system that challenges the existing power structures.
The space of what is economically possible is much wider than many realize. (As MMTers, we agree.) Joshua believes the tools provided by digital systems can be used to create post-capitalist systems that compete with the existing globalized digital economy. He challenges the notion that the tools used in libertarian economic systems cannot be leveraged for post-capitalist ones.
Check out his blog, The Blockchain Socialist.
Joshua Dávila is an author, expert on blockchain technology, and the creator of The Blockchain Socialist blog and podcast. His book, Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It, was published in 2023.
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/
@TBSocialist on Twitter
Macro N Cheese – Episode 260
Practyical Applications with Joshua Dávila, the Blockchain Socialist
January 20, 2024
[00:00:00] Joshua Dávila [Intro/Music]: The most interesting thing about blockchain for me is this ability to create autonomous infrastructure, specifically digital technical infrastructure, using computers, the internet to communicate with one another, but in a way that doesn’t rely so much on the types of entities, middlemen, centralized actors that we currently have to while using the internet.
We don’t have any kind of standardized education around how computers work or the internet really, at least when I was a kid, the only thing we learned was like how to type. The internet is a black box for most people.
[00:01:34] Geoff Ginter [Intro/Music]: Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine.
[00:01:42] Steve Grumbine: All right, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. My guest today is the Blockchain Socialist, but he’s come out of the shadows. We now have a name, it’s Joshua. I’m so thrilled. I actually knew his name prior, but I kept it on the DL. And now he’s saying I’m Josh, the Blockchain Socialist. So I’m really thrilled to have him on.
And let me build the case for why I’m bringing Josh on. I have become a non-believer in the establishment and all things electoral. I have come to believe that the state has a million bulwarks against the people having actual agency and representation. And the understanding of modern monetary theory serves more to radicalize people, than to actually create space for policy. Because to create a space for policy and the things we’d like through the system that’s built- to keep us away from power, to maintain wealth of the oligarchy in the capital class- for me, that’s a non starter now. And so Joshua- as the blockchain socialist- he’s been exploring different uses for digital technologies- especially within the blockchain space- for how the left, in particular socialists, can organize and work with these tools.
It’s been tough to see the advantages and the value of blockchain. I know there’s a use case for it. And I don’t know what I don’t know. So, there’s no plan for this, other than to explore where we can go with this. So, I hope you all enjoy this. Josh, the Blockchain Socialist. Welcome, sir.
[00:03:30] Joshua Dávila: Hi, Steve, thanks for having me again. This time, not anonymous.
[00:03:35] Grumbine: I forgot that you were in Europe, only to find out that- here you are- buddies with another buddy of mine, in Brett Scott… and come to find out, Josh is buddies with him as well. And so, this is a nice little loop to tie.
If you were me and you’ve heard what I’ve been saying, what would you find interesting about blockchain? What would draw me to care about this, other than to see it as a libertarian construct meant to privatize the commons?
[00:04:07] Dávila: Yeah, sure. That’s a big question, but I think it’s a really important one. So, maybe some context for people… the past, I think now about four years, I’ve been running a blog and a podcast called the Blockchain Socialist. Where I’ve been trying to find the intersection between the crypto world and left politics, and provide an analysis from a left-wing point of view, that isn’t super hype, and just throws it all away or just completely neglects it.
And that comes from my experience of working in this space, and working hands on with technology and trying to think about it in a different lens, a post-capitalist lens. So, I think the most interesting thing about blockchain- for me- is this ability to create- what I would call, I guess, as autonomous infrastructure- specifically digital technical infrastructure, using computers, the internet, to communicate with one another. But in a way that doesn’t rely so much on the types of entities, middlemen, centralized actors, that we currently have to, while using the internet… especially in an economic sense.
So, I’ll preface this, that when you’re looking into blockchain stuff, you will find libertarian leanings into why something ought to be put onto a blockchain, or why the currency is useful. And often that can be framed in a way that is, we need to bring private property to the internet. Which to a lot of people- and rightfully so- it sounds like privatization.
It sounds like you’re taking, what is already the bad parts of the internet, and then making it worse, and making it a speculative object or something that I can invest and speculate on. While I think that is often the case, what most of the biggest figures push in the crypto space… there is, at the same time, a smaller but much more progressive- and using a different lens- into thinking about ‘how do we build infrastructure over the internet, using blockchains for what they’re good at.’
And there’s a little bit of truth behind the statement that cryptocurrencies or blockchains can be used to enforce private property relations. In some ways that is the case, or that is true, you can do that. But at the same time I think, when we’re thinking about it and the internet from a more progressive point of view, and the way that we want to think about or want to relate to the internet, we do have to think about property relations.
Of course, we don’t want to think about them in the frame of private property, and for someone to be able to speculate and make money off of. And so what blockchains are really interesting to be able to do, is to create autonomous infrastructure that doesn’t necessarily have the profit motive in mind in order for it to be facilitated. And therefore you are creating a digital commons, or a space where people have a property relation with the commons, but isn’t one based on private property, isn’t one based on capital.
Of course, we already live in a heavily globalized neoliberal world, and so- often case- the thing that a lot of people become interested in- and when there is a lot of money- is whenever someone creates a project where there is a chance that people can make money off of it.
So, that tends to take up a lot of the space in the discourse and conversation, especially from mainstream media. Especially from people who are critics as well. Those are the things that they tend to focus on. I just want to remind people that there is this other side of the same coin, that allows us to facilitate commons oriented relationships with digital infrastructure.
And therefore creating organizations over the internet. Or creating, let’s say, more legible organizations. I think there is already organization, even if we just think about the online left- we can call it that- or people who do politics through online platforms or whoever else. There already is some amount of organization, but there isn’t a very structured one.
For example, I like to think of things like Patreon, which is a very common platform that people use in order for people to pay and support creators. This became a very popular thing within the left contents creator space. But it does mean that innovation only happened due to micropayments, which is, innovations in micropayments is what facilitated that.
And it also means that Patreon, which is a VC backed company, is essentially a large part of the infrastructure of the online left to economically sustain itself. And Patreon, being a private actor, means that it can remove people if it wants, if it disagrees with what they’re saying. It could also go bust because of the whims of venture capitalists that own it.
And so, I would rather imagine a type of internet where we are having more democratic inputs or more autonomous relations with the way that we interact with people and communicate. And maybe even share economic value with one another over the internet, that aren’t facilitated by Patreon, tech startups, MasterCard, Visa, Stripe, all of these centralized for-profit corporations.
And so, I think blockchain is one of potentially more tools than just blockchain, of course, that can help facilitate this autonomous infrastructure for a better organization. And so, just also say that this past August, I published a book with repeater books called Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It, where I go through a different framing for how to understand blockchain from a left-wing point of view, that isn’t tainted by the expectations or the bad ideology that often dominates a lot of crypto books or writings, from largely conservatives and reactionaries and libertarians.
[00:09:41] Grumbine: I’m going to have to get that book. I did not know that, and I feel like a heel because I follow you and I should have known that. We’re going to have to have you come back so we can talk about your book as well. Being able to do this, it’s always riding on something that the establishment has built, because we have not built dual power and parallel systems.
There is some of that, but even cryptocurrencies are built largely on state currency. And in this case, these networks, the internet, is highly tapped into by federal institutions, the governments of the world. How does blockchain remove surveillance, both from the state and from private entities, like we deal with, with all the different social media platforms? How does that work?
I know that there is a point where blockchain is not really the application layer, it’s really an underlying layer. So, how does one access this technology for the use of what you’re describing?
[00:10:46] Dávila: Yeah, sure. I think the question on privacy really depends. Because the way that a blockchain works is- of course, some people may know- is that all of the transactions that happen on the ledger, on the blockchain- which you can just think of as a giant database that is shared amongst many computers in a peer-to-peer fashion- are the fault, many of them, public. You can see the transactions happening. So, it makes things very legible. It also means that you have some privacy, in the sense that your identity isn’t necessarily linked to the crypto address that you’re sending transactions from. That is detached.
But if you are using something like Coinbase or one of these big centralized exchanges, they probably put you through some sort of ‘know your customer’ process, KYC. Where you had to give your information- your data, whatever else about yourself- because they have to give those to state authorities. So then, if you withdraw your cryptocurrency from Coinbase and onto your own crypto wallet- which we will talk about in a little bit- they’ll know your identity, related to your wallet.
But so, the way that you would usually interact with a blockchain- let’s just take Ethereum for example, since it’s the more popular one, it has the most applications and it has the most robust ecosystem- you would use a browser extension. A browser extension is just something that you download onto your browser. Google Chrome has many of these and all Chrome based browsers have the Chrome store. I think Mozilla has its own extension store as well. I think Safari, maybe doesn’t do it.
But with browser extensions, you can download a wallet or just a piece of software that lets you keep track with your cryptocurrency. There are many different ways to interact with a blockchain, or many different types of wallets that you could use in order to interact with a blockchain.
The most important thing is that you have to be able to prove that you are the owner of a particular address. And so, that’s done through what’s called a private key, some people may know PGP keys.
Essentially, you can think of your address as a PGP key, where you have the private key, which you keep to yourself- that’s like your password in a sense- and then you have your public key, which is what is publicly available. And those things are linked to a one-way mathematical function called a hash.
And so usually, if you want to do something, you would go to a website that is Web3 enabled, and it’s something where you can do crypto stuff on. You would connect your wallet through the browser extension, and then you could make transactions through that website. That’s the standard, most consumer friendly, user friendly way that people interact with a blockchain… is through that.
[00:13:19] Grumbine: For people that are not overly technical- for the average person- what is Web3?’ What is the dark web things that people hear about, but aren’t sure of? And what is the purpose of them?
[00:13:34] Dávila: Yeah. So, I would say that- sometimes I have to adjust how I talk about things, depending on the audience, so it’s more understandable- but Web3, I would preface with saying that it’s largely a marketing term. A venture capitalist marketing term that comes from 10 years ago, people were calling the rise of social media- like Facebook and everything else- Web2, and the creation of APIs as the new open internet. And now we can say- from the vantage point of the future, of that past- that hasn’t really worked out.
So, Web3 generally focuses on this idea that you can own your data and your digital assets that don’t require a centralized entity. You can think of whenever you use Steam- for example, if you’re into gaming- you can use Steam points to buy games and things like that. Other games have different points that you can use. You can only use it within that ecosystem.
What blockchains enable you to do, is by detaching your identity with a particular application- and instead your identity, being at the protocol level or at the lower level of the technical stack- you’re able to bring and take your assets with you, into different contexts, and have more than one entity accept your digital assets in some way. So, your steam points could potentially be used in a completely different context, and that’s what it’s referring to when talking about Web3.
The dark web is, I think, when- usually just means to talk about, basically- websites that are not indexed by Google or other search engines. And so, you have to know the URL to get into it. And then usually, these are websites where you’re able to do some type of illicit activity- buy drugs or whatever else- and usually, they accept cryptocurrency as payments to do that.
[00:15:20] Grumbine: I appreciate that. Some of this stuff I know, but I know a lot of people who’ve never heard of some of these things. That this is just so far into them as they walk through life and they think, is this a viable way of moving forward to organize around and to work with? Some of this stuff is just inaccessible.
Not because it’s for elites, but it’s intellectually unattainable at this point. How do we see this as a real change agent beyond the tech geeks that really are into this stuff? How does this become more than that?
[00:15:58] Dávila: Yeah. First, I would frame this whole problem as the fact that we generally separate technical and social things. People are generally, ‘I’m a tech geek’ or ‘I’m more into humans’, I’m more into social things. Whereas, I think how we should instead be thinking about it, is that everything- all of this, any type of platform, piece of technology- there’s always a social aspect to it because technology is facilitating a particular social relationship.
Whenever we are using Facebook or Twitter or whatever else, there is a particular relationship that is facilitated by that company. By that corporation. And they control a large part of that relationship- between you, your followers, the people you follow, the influencers, whatever else- whether or not you get paid for making viral content to their platform.
All those things are controlled and managed by for-profit, centralized entity. But I think your question was about, how do we make this more relatable to the average person. Can I say it like that?
[00:17:04] Grumbine: You can say it however you want, because at this point- this is what is beautiful and scary about this interview, is that- I don’t know where I’m going with this. And I know things that I’m thinking of. I’m trying to consider what people that listen to this- maybe that older generation that is still politically motivated to operate, but it feels overmatched by these things- and so, would be freaked out just to even hear some of the conversation, much less consider actually being part of it.
When we talked to Brett Scott to discuss his book Cloud Money, one of the things he said was, all the middlemen and the skimming of profit each step along the way, they’re part of our lives today, because they do have that air of ease. Super easy to do.
I’m not sure to what degree they skim and do whatever, but these are frequently used things that have a very easy interface for people to say, ‘Oh, I see what I’m supposed to do here.’
But then you realize that the underlying technology, people aren’t touching the underlying technology, maybe they’re just using the edge app that leverages that. So, I’m trying to delineate between where the use case and the communication path, that most people don’t even consider. They don’t even think about what happens underneath.
[00:18:28] Dávila: What’s coming to my mind- that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately- is how, for one, we don’t have any kind of standardized education around how computers work, or the internet, really. At least when I was a kid, the only thing we learned was like how to type. The internet is a black box for most people.
And I think this comes from a couple of things. One is, I think this heavily relates to the idea of alienation in Marx’s theory of commodification, that we are alienated from our product. I think this is also related- in the digital sphere- where each application that we use, we are alienated from how it works. We don’t know what is behind it. We only see the front end.
The front end of an application is ‘what’s the user experience.’ It’s the graphic interface. Right now we’re using Zencaster. I don’t know what types of relationships in their databases that they have. I don’t know what exactly their stack is. I can maybe look that up and I can get to know- to some degree- so I can see where are the points of centralization. But I don’t know how most applications work.
And I think that is done on purpose. That is done as a way for people to not really know how their data is being used. To not really know how their money is being used through these platforms. It’s an intentional strategy. And it’s also one that you’re commonly told, if you are a developer of consumer applications- or applications in general- that you want to baby your user. You want them to be able to look at a screen and be able to know how to use it- and it just work- without them needing to understand it.
And while there’s a kernel of truth in that kind of belief, in that way of thinking, it has- over time- completely destroyed anybody’s technical understanding of all of these tools that we now severely depend on. Especially during the pandemic, when everyone was using zoom and reliant on digital technologies to be able to do work, with everyone else. We had no idea how they work.
Nobody knows. It’s pretty rare to find someone who can properly define what a server is. And that’s a pretty fundamental piece of technological infrastructure. So, I think by default, that’s the way that things work. What’s nice about blockchains is that it’s much more legible and much easier to see how things work, underneath the hood, in the back end, so to say.
[00:20:43] Grumbine: Let me just tell you a little bit about our organization’s aspirational framework, so you can see how this might play into it. We have seven knowledge areas: economic justice, environmental/ecological justice, peace with justice, equality with justice, democracy, health and wellbeing, and technology and innovation.
When I think of technology and innovation, I typically think about the people that say ‘the robots are coming.’ And so, that’s partly because we were promised that we would all share in the fruits of technological advancements, especially those things that were crafted and generated through public spending. We were hoping that everyone would be able to share in the benefit of that.
Ultimately, we’re dealt with a false understanding of how things come together. So, when you look at all these innovations, a lot of these things were intentionally kept obscure, to maintain the prestige of the role, instead of allowing it to be more publicly understood.
Part of that masking has prevented the regular people from understanding. In your eyes- understanding economic justice and technology and innovation- how would you break down blockchains relevance, to society as a whole beyond the crypto space?
What are some of the use cases that you can envision, that would enhance the public purpose and provide for that public commons payment systems ? I’ve heard people talk about elections, and voting and integrity.
We previously talked about smart contracts. What are some of the use cases that we might see, that would enable equality, democracy, technology and innovation for the use of all? Help me understand that a little better.
[00:22:42] Dávila: Yeah. All of these things would be- at least in part- likely facilitated by smart contracts. So, maybe I recommend people to look at our last interview, to be able to understand that, so we don’t have to explain too much about that.
But I think- for me- what I’m most interested in, is economic experimentation, that blockchains are this economic medium. It’s a design space where we can create different economic institutions that are autonomous. That once you encode it, and you code it well- let’s assume- then it just works. There’s a lot less other stuff that you have to do around technical implementation, that you would normally have to do.
You have to create your own centralized database and all this. We can create a somewhat neutral institution, but it’s encoded inside of it, like our political values. I’m very interested in economic democracy- or to me- socialism really is, essentially, bringing democracy to the economy. Keeping it not just as this farcical theatrics of every four years, we vote for who we want to beat us with a stick. That is just not democracy to me. Democracy needs to be something that permeates throughout society, and that includes the economy.
That includes the creation of democratic workplaces and institutions. And that creates a way for people to provide input into their institutions, so that they actually listen to- and respond to- the wants and needs of the people that it’s serving.
And so, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are usually thought about solely within the realm of currency, or in a monetary view- in a monetary sense. But also, like you alluded to before, the same problem with money and currency- that maybe people were trying to solve with the creation of things like Bitcoin- also are relevant for the problem of ‘how do we have voting systems through digital infrastructure and digital space?’
We have the same problem. And so now, with the solving of this problem to a certain extent, we are given new tools to be able to facilitate democratic input for how we want our economic resources to be used. And so, for me- let’s say- one very relevant, little use case or idea that people may not be aware of, is what’s called a multi-signature wallet or a ‘multi-sig.’
You can basically think of it as a joint bank account, which you can spin up- depending on the blockchain you use- literally for pennies, if not less than a penny, if not free in some applications.
And you can create a bank account that is owned by you. And let’s say, many of your friends, many of the people that you work with, people that you organize with and you, can all have a democratic input and how you use your shared resources within your quote- unquote ‘joint bank account.”
Except your joint bank account can hold more than just dollars or money. It can hold voting power in another institution. You can think of it in a very fractal sense. You can create your own little institution of people, who have democratic input in how you share your resources.
And you are a member of another institution in which you provide democratic input for that institution based on how you all- kind of- come to consensus. I think, to me, it opens a space to where we could imagine using digital technologies to allow for this much more democratic, faster form of- I would call it even in a grander scale- collective intelligence. Just like being able to ingest and make sense and analyze democratic input from as many people as possible, to produce some sort of outcome that is based on that information. That feeding of information.
[00:26:35] Intermission: You are listening to Macro N Cheese, a podcast brought to you by Real Progressives, a non profit organization dedicated to teaching the masses about MMT, or Modern Monetary Theory. Please help our efforts and become a monthly donor at PayPal or Patreon, like and follow our pages on Facebook and YouTube and follow us on TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, Rokfin, and Instagram.
[00:27:26] Grumbine: One of the things that I love about you, is that you’re very analytical. One of the things that scares me about this is, for example, let’s just look at the Bitcoin space. They created an artificial gold standard- an artificial scarcity- to feed the sound money, libertarian mind. And many people that bought into this- there’s some that won, there’s many that lost, but that’s okay in that world.
In the world that I would like to see come to be, that speculative framing of- and socialists do this too- socialists are determined that they’re going to recreate 1917, when we’re in 2024. As opposed to look forward and look at what the material conditions are, to transform these concepts, that people that we respect from yesteryear- like Marx, Engels, and all the other thinkers of that time- did.
And we try to recreate the Bolshevik construct, when really, there’s just no comparison for what happened then, to where we are today. How do we use these tools, outside of that, so that we have a say? Because otherwise, it’s almost like we’re living in a neo-feudal society, without any way out. It’s like being trapped in a bubble, with rules that they’ve made for us.
How does this- that you just described- translate to freedom, from this? I mean, I’m trying to understand it from every angle. But in this particular case- through this construct- rather than recreating the past… how do we take the past, to inform the future and understanding the world that we’re in, and the real enemy of ‘prosperity for all?’ How do we use these technologies to run counter to that monster of a system?
[00:29:31] Dávila: I resonate with a lot of what you’re saying, I think. I don’t want to oversell a technical solution to something as big as some of these problems. I think what’s important- and this is relevant for any technical implementation- is just being aware. What exactly are the problems you’re trying to solve, and are able to solve with it, and what you are not?
I think though, the space where blockchain is interesting, is the space of creation, and the creation of new institutions, and new ways of being and relation. And in that process, perhaps, that being a part of a larger strategy, for moving from one system to another, creating that bridge.
And so, I think people could argue, for example- the one that people like to bring up is- the US dollar is backed by its military strength, its military power. And perhaps using cryptocurrency more could reduce the power of the US dollar. I don’t really, necessarily agree fully that, but that’s one argument that some people throw around. But I think we have to think of technology as having a specific spot within a strategy, to be able to augment those other things.
I read this book recently by a guy named Rodrigo Nunez, who is a Brazilian and it was called neither vertical nor horizontal. And it was really good, it was basically, in summary, talking about the differences between anarchist and more Marxist Leninist forms of organizing and how usually it tends to be juxtaposed to one another, as if the left needs to pick one of those strategies because one of them are better than the other.
But he argued instead that we should be looking at strategy as an ecology of many strategies that come together and reinforce one another from different directions. That some things maybe need to be organized in a more hierarchical way, perhaps. And some things could be organized in a more horizontal way and we just need to be cognizant and pick where the space we want to play is and how we want to simply go towards the agreed upon political objective while taking on a kind of diverse set of strategies and organizations.
[00:31:43] Grumbine: I really like that concept because I do process flows. And so as I think about democracy and how to leverage something like this, I want to understand if you were building a democracy stack, where do you think this technology would lie in that stack? What do you think a stack of inputs and outputs in this connecting points might look like?
Where does blockchain or where does. These new systems, these non horizontal, non vertical, where do they fit in here? How do we look at them as a tool to pull from the pouch?
[00:32:23] Dávila: Yeah. So I think definitely I would say, I think it could fit in many different places. This is why I find it maybe difficult to focus on one, but I think I would say first, if you are someone who is interested in this type of thing. I would highly recommend we have online communities called Cryptoleftists if you want to join and to find other people to begin experimenting in a collective way with this technology and create your own multi signature wallets with other people and just play around and see what you can do and create groups and form a purpose around your group or organization.
Maybe it is that you guys just want to all chip in whatever a couple hundred bucks and use that as a grant to give to someone else so that they can work on something or. It depends on really what you want to do.
Say you want to buy a bunch of assets that give you democratic input into some sort of core piece of infrastructure in the Ethereum blockchain space.
And then you want to collectively decide what you want to do with that. And then you can think of this as almost in some ways in that respect, like being an active shareholder or something like that. Which of course may be not the thing that you’re interested in, but it means being involved in the actual goings on of core infrastructure of the blockchain space.
There’s an already existing blockchain space, which has a lot of core pieces of infrastructure that are run by these Neo institutions or DAOs is usually the name that’s thrown around there as what they are decentralized autonomous organization, which basically means that you’re using blockchains and crypto and smart contracts to facilitate organization in a decentralized manner and take part in that already existing economic ecosystem, since it already exists, and then there’s also taking the side of let’s begin to create our own.
Infrastructure, which is a bigger task, a bigger ask, but is probably in the long term, something that we will need to do anyways, I think. And so I could imagine definitely into the future, there being many more blocks or groups or institutions inside institutions that profess certain interests within these institutions to put forward their political agenda, perhaps for this piece of infrastructure, for example,
[00:34:32] Grumbine: As you’re thinking about development, creation, research, and experimentation, right, we don’t have that luxury with the federal government. As much as it would be great to say, we’d like to do these things, it’s captured. So you may dream a better dream, but it’s not going to make it through. Because you have no agency in the existing system, but reality is I need to take my interests and apply action to them, not just wish for a better day, but create a better day.
The unfortunate part of that can’t be overlooked. The fact is our government isn’t representing us. And so. In this interim phase, while we’re contemplating a new world and additional ways of interacting, providing economic justice through other means, since they’re not interested in doing it through the establishment.
There’s got to be some way of getting people to see that we’re talking about you. And I hate putting it on the individual because the individual is beaten down right now. They’re without hope. A lot of people are checked out because they see no path to change. This feels a little like hope, but it’s scary because you’re such a small peon in this big space.
What you’re describing mostly is economic exchange. You’re talking about economic systems. The existing space looks far more libertarian than it does what you’re describing. And I don’t know. If those spaces of these are the places where people learn, or if they have to come equipped with a lot of knowledge, I have no idea what the gang like mentality is.
Is it open? Is it welcoming? Right. What is the accessibility, to joining here? What is prerequisite knowledge?
[00:36:41] Dávila: I would say that actually. What has been very surprising about all of my adventures being the socialist in very libertarian spaces, oftentimes, is that actually it is way more welcoming than you think in the sense that the crypto space attracts a lot of people who I think similar to you are very disillusioned by current institutions that they simply do not work and they’re not up to task and are not solving the problems in the way that people would like them to be solved.
And so there are a lot of people who are, I would say, radical. in some sense, but maybe they’re not going to read a political theory book. They’re not going to read Marx. They’re not going to get into that side of political education or they have not so far at that point. So they are out there looking for solutions.
So that tends to be the people that they attract, but also tends to be people who are fairly welcoming in many senses, because I think part of it is perhaps like a toxic positivity with a little bit of problem in the crypto space that people want to get you come inside and come hang out and whatever.
But I would say that’s pretty standard. Whatever type of crypto organization that maybe you may or may not want to be a part of. I have my own community called Cryptoleftists, where we have a subreddit and a discord. We have regular community calls. We’re starting regular community calls pretty soon.
Where it is meant to be a space for people to check in. If they have any questions about crypto or the blockchain space, they can find other people where they can have these types of discussions and figure it out. Where are the spaces that maybe they should be looking. You mentioned earlier Brett Scott.
We had met. I’m not sure, maybe it was the first time that we had met, it was actually in Austria, in this place called the Commons Hub, which is basically an old bed and breakfast in the middle of the Alps, where a friend of mine, his family owns like this giant bed and breakfast den. So, he runs. Events there every once in a while.
One of those events is the crypto commons gathering. So is people who are interested in using crypto in the lens of the commons or creating commons. And that’s where a lot of us meet and where a lot of us have the intellectual discussions that we have and share updates about projects and find partnerships and whatever else.
So there are ways to get involved and ways to be a part of it. Of course, with any kind of new thing you’re getting into, it does require a little bit of. Self education and reading a few bits of document. I can recommend my book as potentially a place to get the quick rundown. And basically I write the book in a way for people who don’t necessarily know anything about technology as well, so that they can get up to date and up to speed for all the major concepts that they need to understand to be able to take part in the crypto world.
[00:39:16] Grumbine: One of my other interests that has nothing to do with technology is mycology and friends of mine that I see that are amateur mycologists that. Dove deep into the study of mushrooms and mycelium and the various ways that they work together. And the space is very welcoming. The people that have been doing it for a long time are extremely proud of their own accomplishments and don’t mind letting you know it.
And then of course, there are other people that are much more humble that are very inviting and want to work with the newcomer, bring them in to the fold and help them get started. Break down the language barrier and the process barriers. And the deeper you go, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more interested you are.
This feels a little bit like mycelium. If you understand mycelium, the mushroom network, this feels to me like it is mycelium.
[00:40:16] Dávila: It’s actually extremely funny that you say that because that is a very big theme in the crypto commons gathering events is mycelium and taking the structures of biology and especially mushrooms and applying that in the crypto space or not even necessarily just related to crypto but how people should potentially relate to one another etc.
There’s a guy, maybe you know him if you’re in the mushroom world, his name is Jeff Emmett.
[00:40:43] Grumbine: I’ve heard the name actually.
[00:40:45] Dávila: He’s a good friend of mine. We met at the Crypto Commons gathering as well. And he is a really big mushroom guy. He’s trying to make this new aesthetic called mycopunk, which is very funny, but he helped found the common stack, which is a crypto project that makes primitives for creating commons. He also helped create what are called augmented bonding curves.
I won’t go into detail what that is, but it’s like a kind of a way to facilitate a commons through a blockchain, which I talk about in the book. So it is very funny that you said that. You
[00:41:17] Grumbine: To me, little things that caught my attention were grounding, putting your bare feet into soil and being connected. And to me, this is the digital version of that the whole time we’ve been talking. That’s been on my mind. The relationship between these two worlds. Folks are unfamiliar with any of what I’m saying.
Think of the movie Avatar and consider the tree and the connections with the roots underneath the ground and the communication network with the electricity. The synapses of this neural network of nature. Mr. Stamets. Has got some stuff out there that you can watch as movies and documentaries. There’s a lot of good stuff out there to help you understand these networking concepts and I see that relationship.
Your entire focus has shifted to this. This is where you’re at. What is it that you feel is the most important thing right now? I understand the focus on payment systems, but. This is something you’re extraordinarily passionate about. What do you think is the most important thing right now today that someone would get from this?
[00:42:37] Dávila: mean what they would get from joining the space?
[00:42:41] Grumbine: The space, the concept, the whole thing. If someone is to walk away from this conversation, what do you think would be the most important thing for people to get about this space so that they’re not afraid of it, so that they are rightfully pushing back on things that violate a socialist ethos? So that they don’t run from, but embrace the things that are good, that work for them.
[00:43:09] Dávila: I would just say that the space of what is economically possible is much wider than we realize and that we have the tools to begin to create. At the very least experimentations to look into the future for what would a post capitalist system potentially look like that we have these economic tool sets using digital systems to facilitate that so that it also can compete with a already existing globalized digital economy to have this similar types of affordances that we are granted with these conveniences of the future.
Recent technological advancements, but without needing to rely on the kind of capitalistic institutions that we allow to own basically that means of production and means of communication and means of economic value transfer, I guess you could say, and it may seem counterintuitive, especially if you’re someone who’s been paying attention to criticisms of the space.
But a lot of the same tools that have created the most laughable or most ridiculous economic systems in a libertarian worldview are the same types of tools that we can use to create post capitalist ones.
[00:44:32] Grumbine: I love it. I use Amazon Audible to fight the empire because I can’t read. My eyes are bad. So I listened to books. There’s an opportunity here to leverage this. And I’m very interested in exploring it further. Yeah. Josh, I’m hoping that you can give us as many links. We’ll put them in the extras so people can check these things out on their own so they can join if they feel compelled.
I know I’m going to be looking into this. So we’re definitely going to get your book up on our bookstore. I would love to have you back on so we can actually walk through your book. I think that would be a fantastic discussion as well if you wouldn’t mind.
[00:45:12] Dávila: Yeah, of course. I would love to do that. And just to mention, since you said you like audiobooks, the audiobook version is coming out in February.
[00:45:19] Grumbine: Okay. Bye.
[00:45:21] Dávila: So. I believe that will also come out through Audible. These are all decisions that were made beyond me. I’m glad to have another way for people to be able to learn about the book.
Consume the information. Yeah, consume, I didn’t want to use the word consume, like they’re a better word.
[00:45:40] Grumbine: Josh, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Real Progressives is a nonprofit of 501 C3. We survive by your donations. So if you are compelled and you feel there’s value in what we do, please go to our Patreon. Which is patreon. com slash real progressives. You can also go to our website, real progressives.
org, go to the donate button and we have donor box as our other backend system. And with that, Josh, tell folks where they can find further information for how we can find you.
[00:46:17] Dávila: Yeah, sure. My website is where I post the vast majority of my content, the blockchain socialist. com, there I have blogs, I’ve written articles, I have podcasts where I’ve interviewed a lot of people. And I also have a section that I should’ve mentioned earlier, but called blockchain 101 for socialists. So it could be a good starting point as well for people, maybe if they’re waiting for their book to arrive.
So there you can find me. And then I’m also on social media as. Usually tbsocialist, if you look up the blockchain socialists, usually it’s the only one there. But you should be able to find me.
[00:46:46] Grumbine: Very good. Awesome. Well, this was wonderful. I really appreciate it. And I think this was really good. This is really helpful for me. Thank you for that. My guest, Josh, the blockchain socialist. This is Steve with Macro N Cheese. We are out of here.
[00:47:08] End Credits: Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy. Descriptive writing by Virginia Coggs, and promotional artwork by Andy Kennedy. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by our Real Progressive Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro N Cheese, please visit patreon.com/realprogressives.
GUEST BIO
Joshua Dávila is an author, expert on blockchain technology and the creator of The Blockchain Socialist blog and podcast. His recent book Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It focuses on the radical political potential of the blockchain, showing how it can be used by the left in the fight against capitalism.
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/
https://theblockchainsocialist.com/blockchain-for-socialists-part-1/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptoleftists/comments/dxpzp6/welcome_to_rcryptoleftists_updated/
Josh’s Twitter is @TBSocialist
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Brett Scott
is an economic anthropologist, financial activist, and former broker. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, and Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets. Brett has spoken at hundreds of events across the globe and across international media, with his focus on financial reform, digital finance, alternative currency, blockchain technology, and the cashless society.
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/brett-scott
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in 1818 in the Rhine province of Prussia and was a revolutionary, sociologist, historian, philosopher, and economist whose works inspired the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is certainly hard to find many thinkers who can be said to have had comparable influence in the creation of the modern world. “Marx was before all else a revolutionist” eulogized his associate, and fellow traveler, Friedrich Engels, saying he was “the best-hated and most-calumniated man of his time,” yet he also died “beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/karl-marx.asp
https://plato.stanford.edu/Entries/marx/
Friedrich Engels
was a 19th century German socialist philosopher and the closest collaborator of Karl Marx in the foundation of modern communism. They coauthored The Communist Manifesto (1848), and Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Marx’s death.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Engels
Vladimir Lenin
or simply “Lenin”, was a Russian communist revolutionary and head of the Bolshevik Party who rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The bloody upheaval marked the end of the oppressive Romanov dynasty and centuries of imperial rule in Russia. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party, making Lenin leader of the Soviet Union, the world’s first communist state.
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/vladimir-lenin
Jeff Emmett
is a Token Engineering researcher at BlockScience, and co-founder of the Commons Stack.
Paul Stamets
is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and mycoremediation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stamets
INSTITUTIONS / ORGANIZATIONS
Logical LLC.
is an IT service provider.
Coin Base
is a cryptocurrency broker.
https://www.coinbase.com/about
Crypto Commons Association (CCA)
is a non-profit organization, hosted on OpenCollective. It promotes the general development of Crypto Commons infrastructures, through contents, research, courses and events.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA
https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/about-darpa
UUNET
was founded in 1987 as one of the first and largest commercial Internet service providers. Today, UUNET is an internal brand of Verizon Business (formerly MCI).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUNET
CONCEPTS
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
is a heterodox macroeconomic supposition that asserts that monetarily sovereign countries (such as the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada) which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending.
Put simply, modern monetary theory decrees that such governments do not rely on taxes or borrowing for spending since they can issue as much money as they need and are the monopoly issuers of that currency. Since their budgets aren’t like a regular household’s, their policies should not be shaped by fears of a rising national debt, but rather by price inflation.
https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588060
https://gimms.org.uk/fact-sheets/macroeconomics/
Modern Money Primer by L. Randall Wray
https://realprogressives.org/mmt-primer/
Federal Job Guarantee
The job guarantee is a federal government program to provide a good job to every person who wants one. The government becoming, in effect, the Employer of Last Resort.
The job guarantee is a long-pursued goal of the American progressive tradition. In the 1940s, labor unions in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) demanded a job guarantee and Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the right to a job in his never realized “Second Bill of Rights”. Later, the 1963 March on Washington demanded a jobs guarantee alongside civil rights, understanding that economic justice was a core component of the fight for racial justice.
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/theory-of-change/what-is-a-federal-jobs-guarantee/
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/05/pavlina-tcherneva-on-mmt-and-the-jobs-guarantee
Federal Job Guarantee Frequently Asked Questions with Pavlina Tcherneva
https://pavlina-tcherneva.net/job-guarantee-faq/
Taxation within a Fiat System
The monetary system that the United States employs is a state money, or fiat, system, and from that framing, the most important purpose of taxes is to create a demand for the state’s money (specifically, for its currency). Further, being the monopoly issuer of its own currency, the state really does not need tax revenue to spend and can never run out of money to pay debts or provision itself so long as it’s spending is denominated in its own currency.
https://realprogressives.org/a-meme-for-money-part-4-the-alternative-tax-meme/
Monetary Agency
The term monetary sovereignty is sometimes used in MMT literature to describe governments that issue their own non-convertible, floating currency. Recognizing that no nation is truly independent or sovereign in an absolute sense in our interconnected world, we prefer to use terms like monetary agency or fiscal capacity. In any case, the key point is that any nation that issues its own currency (e.g. the U.S., Japan, Canada) will generally have more fiscal capacity if it can maintain the following:
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- Makes no promises to convert its currency to other currencies or gold at a fixed rate.
- Allows the currency to float in foreign exchange.
- Has no (or minimal) debt in other nations’ currencies (or gold).
- Operates a central bank function to manage interest rates and payments.
Countries that do not meet one or more of these criteria are often subject to greater domestic fiscal policy limitations.
https://modernmoneybasics.com/glossary/
Blockchain
is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
is any form of currency that exists digitally or virtually and uses cryptography to secure transactions. Cryptocurrencies don’t have a central issuing or regulating authority, instead using a decentralized system to record transactions and issue new units.
https://usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-cryptocurrency
Micropayments
are small transactions or payments usually of less than a dollar—and, in some cases, only a fraction of a cent—that are mainly made online. Micropayments are seen as a way to leverage the internet to facilitate the immediate distribution of digital rights, royalties, in-game purchases, online tipping, and even to coordinate devices connected via the internet.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/micropayment.asp#
Commodity
is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
Libertarianism
is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom and minimize the state’s encroachment on perceived violations of individual liberties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/marxism-of-the-right/
Bolshevism
originated at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, was associated with the activities of the Bolshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party led by Vladimir Lenin, and is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the “dictatorship of the proletariat“.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevism
Austrian Economics
is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result primarily from the motivations and actions of individuals and their self-interest. Austrian school theorists hold that economic theory should be exclusively derived from basic principles of human action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_school_of_economics
Feudalism
was the system in 10th-13th century European medieval societies where a social hierarchy was established based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (fiefs). A landowner (lord) gave a fief, along with a promise of military and legal protection, in return for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (vassal).
https://www.worldhistory.org/Feudalism/#google_vignette
Toxic positivity
is the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying one’s own emotions or someone else denying another’s, insisting on positive thinking instead.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/toxic-positivity
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
is a conceptual model created by the International Organization for Standardization which enables diverse communication systems to communicate using standard protocols.
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/glossary/open-systems-interconnection-model-osi/
Know Your Customer (KYC)
standards are designed to protect financial institutions against fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing.
https://www.swift.com/your-needs/financial-crime-cyber-security/know-your-customer-kyc/meaning-kyc
Web3
is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as “Big Tech“.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
is the mechanism used by browsers to retrieve any published resource on the web and is essentially the address of a given unique resource on the Web.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Common_questions/Web_mechanics/What_is_a_URL
Edge
is a Microsoft browser application.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge
Zencastr
is a podcasting application.
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
was the result of a U.S. government-funded project during World War II to build an electronic computer that could be programmed.
https://www.hp.com/ca-en/shop/offer.aspx?p=computer-history-all-about-the-eniac#
PUBLICATIONS
Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It by Joshua Dávila
Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization by Rodrigo Nunes
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets by Brett Scott