Advertisement
Interesting. I guess it makes sense that the next alt ec comes from virtual practicality:
www.ft.com/cms/s/6e4d7c...5df10621.html
www.ft.com/cms/s/6e4d7c...5df10621.html
posted by:
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: China moves to "fence off" virtual economies
Wed, March 7, 2007 - 12:23 PMI tend to be easily confused; I mean just generally. That makes me something of a connoisseur of confusion. The FT article and Scribe's observation show that what's "virtual" is getting rather muddy.
"Virtual money can only be used to buy virtual products and services the companies provide themselves, issuance will be limited, and users are “strictly forbidden” from trading it into legal tender for a profit, says the notice."
Last summer at Phil's Platform Wars blog he made the observation: "the economy is a communication network and money is its protocol."
He wrote:
"The network is not the means to the end of money."
"Instead, money and IP are rival protocols in rival networks which are means to the same end : that of articulating human labour to create more wealth for humanity."
platformwars.blogspot.com/2006/...r.html
China's actions are predicated on constraining gambling. It seems hard for me to imagine gambling as a productive activity, but not so hard to imagine alt.money which facilitate the articulation of human labor toward productive ends. So it seems worthwhile to consider how virtual money might threaten "real-world financial stability" without loosing sight of the potential for virtual money to increase wealth.
The crux of my confusion, I think lies in drawing clear distinctions between what is virtual and what is real-world. As a connoisseur of confusion, I know I'm not the only one confused. -
-
Re: China moves to "fence off" virtual economies
Tue, March 13, 2007 - 3:15 AMThe confusion probably stems from starting at the "real world" as *non* virtual. Most everything in today's economies is fake, AFAIC: whether I can afford something or not depends more on how much peope say I should be able to afford than anything else. The value of money is decided by the flow of money, and the flow of resources. The increase in the value of money is set not too high and not too low such that people neither burn out nor get unaddicted to it altogether.
This does not mean that "legal tender" is any more "real" than "virtual" tender. It just has a different network in sight. Book tokens aren't legal tender, but they're a (vague) form of economy, just as CD tokens are. But I can't spend book tokens on CDs, or vice versa. Why not? Because the Book and the CD vendors don't want me to. What is "productive" (in this case, the books *or* CDs) is subjective.
Thus, the question (in my mind) becomes - what is the purpose of each kind of money? What do these virtual economies that China are keeping separate do that the "legal" economy doesn't? Or, perhaps, vice versa.
If money = a form of communication and communication = power, then the control of money controls who communicates, which controls who has power. Standardising on "real" money collates power, which can then be wielded on a global basis by a single point of control.
-
-
Re: China moves to "fence off" virtual economies
Tue, March 13, 2007 - 9:51 PM"If money = a form of communication and communication = power, then the control of money controls who communicates, which controls who has power. Standardising on "real" money collates power, which can then be wielded on a global basis by a single point of control."
That's such an important observation and precisely why alternative currencies seem appealing to me.
The current state of the US dollar and its relationship to this control suggests change is in the offing. The approach of a market basket of currencies being used seems a likely replacement. I wonder what moves in this direction will say about control?
-
-
