Introduction
I am a huge fan of Star Trek.
Even to this day I still re-watch it.
There's so much to like about that Star Trek. I like the space flight, I like the adventure, I like the technology and of course I like the compelling alien cultures that have so much to share.
Every once in while whenever I watch Star Trek they'll drop a mind bomb.
They'll say that there is no money in the future, or that poverty was wiped out, or that everything is free, or that people don't need to work.
I've reflected on these things for a long time, and I think that's a big reason as to why I love Star Trek.
It shows a better egalitarian future where people are not hindered by scarcity. They have access to all the need and want. They live in a society where they are free to explore the depths of their talents and ambitions.
That's the kind of world I want to live in.
Anarchism
I see the term Anarchism popping up more and more lately.
I watched a review of the Alan Moore graphic novel "V for Vendatta" and that heavily delves in to Anarchism.
Likewise I read a Batman comic that has the villain Anarky in it and he is also extols Anarchism. Also there's been lot of news lately labeling protesters as agents of Anarchy.
But what does Anarchism mean? What's it all about?
First off Anarchy has be the worst name for a concept ever devised. It just sounds terrible, and it's certainly far removed for the idea of what it means.
Whenever people hear of Anarchy they think of lawlessness. They think of people running riot in the streets throwing Molotov cocktails at the nearest thing that irks their rage.
That's not Anarchy, that's whats known as Chaos.
Anarchy on the other hand simply means that people are free, and no authority can exist unless it can justify itself as valid. It's as boring as that definition sounds.
There certainly are rules and laws. And people do organize themselves to accomplish broader goals.
However, this does not require a government, or a nation state or financial institutions or any other third party for that matter.
Valid Authority
Today we live in a world filled with authority. We have politicians, and police in riot gear, and bankers, and lawyers, and judges, and bosses and bureaucrats.
Everywhere you look there is some form of authority with their hand out taking a cut of what you have.
In the case of government it's taxes, in the case of banks its fees, in the of police its fines, in the case of work it's your time.
Anarchy says we should remove all third parties, and their rentier activities and let the people govern themselves. I like this idea, and in fact it's more consistent with what Democracy stands for.
Democracy is "for the people by the people". This stuff about elected representatives is not necessary - it only made sense when we were trying to figure out how to scale society to a global level.
Chomsky and Graeber
The Linguist Noam Chomsky and the Anthropologist David Graeber speak a lot about Anarchism.
The work these men have done is outstanding.
They have been speaking Anarchism for decades, but I think that the idea of Anarchism was never fully realized because it was never able to fully scale to a nation level of global level.
Bureaucrats and bankers exist for a reason after all. They handle organisation at a national or global level. They are the ones who manage the administration of the society while we spend eight hours toiling at work.
However this has all changed, and we don't need that kind of authority anymore.
We can do all these things for ourselves now.
Blockchain
Bitcoin is decentralised money. That means you don't need banks - Commercial, reserve or otherwise.
Compound.io is decentralised finance. That means you can earn interest on your collateral and take a loan without a bank. A fascinating thing about Compound is that as a holder of the compound token you can vote on proposals to the infrastructure and the functioning of it. This represents decentralised voting.
Civic is decentralised identity management. That means you can identify yourself and the extent of information you want to disclose, without the need for government issued passports or identity documents.
This BlockChain technology gives us the ability to organise ourselves as a society without the need for third parties.
We're beginning to realise that we don't need banks, and we don't need money issued by governments, and soon we will realize that we don't even need governments or nation states at all.
Conclusion
We are now have the nascent tools to self govern.
We should ensure that we are all familiar with cryptocurrency and how it works.
Because this technology is setting the stage for a better Democracy.
It's laying the foundations for a better world. A world that looks more like Star Trek, in which no one needs to work, money isn't an issue, all needs are addressed and people are free to explore the depths of their talents and ambitions.
The first step to that world of Anarchy starts now.
It's start with Bitcoin.
(and Veganism - buts a story for another time)
Photo by Dušan Smetana on Unsplash