Bitcoin as Politics: Distributed Right-Wing Extremism

Golumbia, David

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2589890

Cited by 77 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Originally, in nineteenth-century Europe, 'libertarian' was synonymous with left anarchist, but since then and following the Second World War, market radicals began to occupy the term and to shape something one could call 'anarchism for the rich' (Mühlbauer 2006: 156). David Golumbia (2015) analysed Bitcoin as a 'distributed right-wing ideology'. Guardian reporter Jonathan Freedland identified the surging fellowship of Ayn Rand among the young tech-entrepreneurs intrigued by her lionization of 'the alpha male capitalist entrepreneur, the man of action who towers over the little people and the pettifogging bureaucrats -and gets things done' (Freedland 2017).…”

Section: From Cypherpunk Utopia To Capitalist Dystopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The soft spot of hard code: blockchain technology, network governance and pitfalls of technological utopianism

Hütten¹

2018

Global Networks

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The emerging blockchain technology is expected to contribute to the transformation of ownership, government services and global supply chains. By analysing a crisis that occurred with one of its frontrunners, Ethereum, in this article I explore the discrepancies between the purported governance of blockchains and the de facto control of them through expertise and reputation. Ethereum is also thought to exemplify libertarian techno‐utopianism. When ‘The DAO’, a highly publicized but faulty crowd‐funded venture fund was deployed on the Ethereum blockchain, the techno‐utopianism was suspended, and developers fell back on strong network ties. Now that the blockchain technology is seeing an increasing uptake, I shall also seek to unearth broader implications of the blockchain for the proliferation or blockage of global finance and beyond. Contrasting claims about the disruptive nature of the technology, in this article I show that, by redeeming the positive utopia of ontic, individualized debt, blockchains reinforce our belief in a crisis‐ridden, financialized capitalism.

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Section: From Cypherpunk Utopia To Capitalist Dystopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The soft spot of hard code: blockchain technology, network governance and pitfalls of technological utopianism

Hütten¹

2018

Global Networks

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“…Its tentative formulation requires acknowledging and working through both the massive technological complexity of re-equipping universities, publishers, authors, reviewers, editors and readers with usable crypto-infrastructures, and the considerable scepticism levelled at the financial speculation and political entailments seemingly embedded with the architecture of Bitcoin itself (Golumbia 2015). Without further experimentation though, institutional inertia is liable to default to existing and known arrangements with those who supply universities the products they have already bourn the risk and cost of financing-perpetuating a perverse market and an inequitable geopolitics.…”

Section: Journal Of Current Cultural Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Publishing and its Digital Binds: Beyond the Paywall towards Ethical Executions of Code

Swist

Magee

2018

Cult. Unbound

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In this article we explore various constraints and potentials of academic publishing in the digital age. Advancement of digital platforms and their expansive reach amplify the underlying tensions of institutional and scholarly change. A key affordance of these platforms is that of speed: rapidly distributing the outputs of a precaritised profession and responding to pressures to publish as well as the profit motive of publishers. On the one hand, these systems make possible alternative modes of contributory content and peer-production for supporting the commons. On the other, they turn all too readily into privatising devices for contracting labour and profit in the corporate sector and, within the academy, for accentuating subtle power effects. Drawing upon platform studies and integrating insights from political philosophy and property law, our article seeks to problematise neat binaries of possession and dispossession associated with the sector. We examine in particular how co-existing and emergent socio-technical circuits-what we term digital binds-modulate the political economy of academic publishing on a number of scales. These entangled binds constrain but also indicate mechanisms for opening up new possibilities. We introduce three ethical executions of code towards this end: dissuading, detouring, and disrupting. Together, these mechanisms show how mutually beneficial boundaries can be drawn for designing otherwise: by blocking dominant systems and bargaining for fairer practices; exploring sanctioned and unsanctioned systems which offer more diverse publishing pathways; and, disrupting systemic processes and profits towards more inclusive and equitable conditions.

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“…As Nakamoto (2009) notes, 'banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve'. Golumbia (2015; draws out the key libertarian political beliefs surrounding Bitcoin, characterising it as an 'extreme rightist-anarcho-capitalist, winner-take-all… political vision' (see also Scott, 2014). This anti-state ideology gives rise to a range of problems and inconsistencies, for example he highlights an interesting tension in Bitcoins' anti-government libertarian ethos between Bitcoin advocates who celebrate its growing acceptance among banks and established financial players; and other members of the community who are convinced of Bitcoin's status as an alternative While many aspects of Golumbia's characterisation of the Bitcoin community ring true, the approach presented here has two principal differences from his account:…”

Section: The Bitcoin Community and Libertarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cryptocurrencies as market singularities: the strange case of Bitcoin

Dallyn

2017

Journal of Cultural Economy

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Since its creation in 2009 the electronic currency Bitcoin has generated volumes of online debate in the business press. While there have been plenty of economic arguments situating it as a financial bubble about to collapse including from Nobel Prize winning economists; its price value has proven to be more durable than many have predicted. To explain this durability, Karpik's conception of market singularities is used to understand the Bitcoin phenomenon by outlining the beliefs that maintain Bitcoin's status as a volatile financial asset. Market singularities are markets for particular kinds of goods and services that are of uncertain and incommensurable value. Singularities markets have communities of followers and a distinctive belief system that ascribes value to a particular product, service, or asset. Developing Karpik's conception, the paper explores the libertarian political belief system that surrounds Bitcoin's status as a financial asset. I also outline some political tensions within the electronic currency community concerning governance and centralization.

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Bitcoin as Politics: Distributed Right-Wing Extremism

Cited by 77 publications

References 7 publications

The soft spot of hard code: blockchain technology, network governance and pitfalls of technological utopianism

The soft spot of hard code: blockchain technology, network governance and pitfalls of technological utopianism

Academic Publishing and its Digital Binds: Beyond the Paywall towards Ethical Executions of Code

Cryptocurrencies as market singularities: the strange case of Bitcoin

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