In An Anxious Age, author Joseph Bottum writes as a Catholic and a sociologist, in this book both in equal measure. He's been criticized from both sides: a devout Catholic said he failed to emphasize the "saving power of faith in Jesus," while a retired IBM engineer faulted him for imagining "that religion has any reality at all."
Mr. Bottum's work survives his critics. He is determined to write a book of sociology rather than theology, while also vigorously defending the role of religion in the discipline. Indeed, he follows in the footsteps sociology's founders: Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), Emile Durkheim (The Elementary Forms of Religious Life), and William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience) all obviously thought religion central to their study. He could also have included Karl Marx on that list, who didn't ignore religion either.
It is only latter day academic sociologists who have dismissed religion, obsessed as they are with race, class and gender. It is worth pointing out that Mr. Bottum has not been an academic, freeing him from the straitjacket of tenure and political correctness. Instead he has earned a living mostly as a journalist and author, distinguishing him in yet another way from his academic peers: the man is a superb writer!
Good writing certainly helps--a lot--but the book is not an easy read. It is incredibly dense and complicated. One shouldn't read it (as I did) on a Kindle--the dead tree version armed with a sharp pencil is a better way to approach this one.
The question Mr. Bottum asks is What happened to the mainline Protestant churches in America? Until about 1960 they dominated our society--the majority of people were churchgoing, and a Protestant ethos dominated our civil discourse. In those days (according to Jewish lore) Jews would become Episcopalians just so they could join the right country club.
But after 1960 it all fell apart. Not only would no Jew even consider becoming an Episcopalian today, the mainline denominations--Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, northern Baptists, Congregationalists--have simply fallen apart, their membership declining to nearly nothing. What happened to all those people? Where did they go?
Some of them became evangelicals--and for a while that was considered the main destination. A smaller group converted to Catholicism. But the majority didn't do either. Instead they lifted themselves out of the pews and ascended into (in their view) a more spiritual place, freed from the stifling and arbitrary rote of "organized religion." In a word, they became post-Protestants, a term Mr. Bottum shortens to poster children.
Who are these poster children, and what do they believe? Typically they hang tenuously on to the coattails of the upper middle class. Occasionally, as for some professors and journalists, that is true in terms of income. More commonly it is in their self-image as members of the elite--the opinion-makers of America. These people hold the right opinions, or as I would put it, they are the keepers of political correctness.
They are not really elite. They're actually just shlubs, generally with undistinguished, middle class jobs as teachers, counselors, civil servants, yoga instructors, etc., defined not so much by their social standing, but rather by a spiritual quality. They view themselves as morally superior--wiser and more perspicacious than others. Certainly more woke than the people they left behind in "organized religion," whom they regard as backward and uncivilized.
More accurately, elite isn't the right descriptor--instead they are members of the elect. They believe themselves to be redeemed, justified through their spirituality, and accomplished by renouncing six evils: bigotry, power, corruption, mass opinion, militarism, and oppression. To which one can add the despoliation of nature. Unlike the unwashed masses, the poster children are guaranteed salvation because of their enlightened attitudes and social activism.
Obviously there is a connection with New England Puritanism, but mediated through American history. Mr. Bottum calls this his the Erie Canal Thesis: that Protestant America descends from Puritanism, but was incubated and elaborated in Upstate New York--also known as the burnt over district. From this region originated the Millerites (today's Seventh-Day Adventists), Spiritualism (which remnant survives in Lily Dale, NY, a worthy tourist destination), and Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormons), along with the women's suffrage movement (Seneca Falls, NY).
Most important in Mr. Bottum's story is Walter Rauschenbusch, son of German immigrants who later joined the faculty at the Rochester Theological Seminary, then part of the University of Rochester. If not the founder, he is at very least the leading exponent of the social gospel movement. Mr. Rauschenbusch is responsible for the six evil sins listed above, which form the core of his belief system.
Two things are apparent: first, though Mr. Rauschenbusch was a Christian, belief in Jesus was actually incidental to his theology. And second, none of the six evils depend on personal behavior--these are not individual sins, but rather social demons. By understanding and combating the six sins, the believer became a redeemed personality, and can be confident of salvation.
The poster children took the logical step and separated the social gospel from its historical faith. Gone was Jesus and the cross; only social sins remained, in recognition of which the person was redeemed. And so were born the post-Protestant elect. Their confidence in salvation is what makes them sound to other Americans as arrogant elitists.
The second half of Mr. Bottum's book is about a revived Catholic faith, the story of how Protestant converts and youthful, born Catholics rejuvenated the Church and responded to the leadership of Pope John Paul II. He dubs these the "swallows of Capistrano." This section is more complicated (I found the first chapter very slow going), and I can't summarize it briefly.
One theme is the failed alliance between Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. The latter brought energy and numbers in support for social conservatism, while the latter brought theological and philosophical depth. In particular, natural law philosophy allowed the opposition to abortion to be stated in secular terms.
The effort to fight legal abortion failed. (As, indeed, it had to. Mr. Bottum doesn't point out the successes of the movement.) The Catholic-Evangelical alliance never captured more than a sliver of the electorate, and acquired no purchase among cultural elites. That was the preserve of post-Protestants.
My criticism of Mr. Bottum's thesis stems from my recent reading of Albion's Seed and Colin Woodard's book (my review here), both on colonial immigration to America. While Mr. Bottum is correct that American Protestantism is not just recycled Puritanism, it remains overwhelmingly a Yankee institution. Like today's post-Protestant elect, the Puritans of yore aspired to build a City on a Hill. Think Barack Obama's favorite phrase (echoing Walter Rauschenbusch), "We can do better than that!" for a summation of poster child Puritanism.
Conversely, Evangelicals are over-represented among the Scots-Irish of Appalachia. Yes, they were originally Presbyterians, but I infer from Albion's Seed that religion was less important to them than it was for other American cultures. Their worship style and theology really hasn't changed all that much. In this case I think Mr. Bottum overstates the decline of Protestant churches.
In summary, I think the poster children are more a Yankee phenomenon than representative of America generally. And the rise of Evangelicalism is as much to do with a simple renaming of Appalachian religion than anything new under the sun.
I think Mr. Bottum is right to bring religion back into sociology. What he says is really interesting. I'm too old to read hard books that are poorly written. I did read this book--from cover to cover. It's a beautiful book and well worth your time. Make sure you sharpen your pencil.
Further Reading:
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
"Perspectives for the United States"
It's been a quiet month in Trotsky-land. I've found rather little to write about. Scraping the bottom of the barrel here, not because John Reimann's article is bad, but just that I've covered this territory many times before.
I've borrowed my post's title from Mr. Reimann's piece over at The North Star. The lede paragraph:
The "racism" charge is also mostly phony. As Scott Alexander puts it, Trump is no more racist than the average 70-year-old white guy. So that's more "racist" than Obama, but it hardly qualifies him as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike previous Republican candidates, he actively campaigned in Black neighborhoods and sought out their votes. And while unsuccessful at the time, Trump is slowly winning support from Black men (see, e.g., Kanye West).
What is true is that Trump is spectacularly uninterested in racial politics or issues, about which he knows nothing and cares less. That's why he has such a tin ear on things like Charlottesville, where the media were able to take his remarks completely out of context. (See my comments on that episode here.)
Then we're told that Trump is in cahoots with the Russian mafia. Mr. Reimann's source for this is something called oaklandsocialist.com, which refers us to the equally obscure site WhoWhatWhy.org. These tout conspiracy theories--that Trump has surreptitious ties with Russian oligarchs that not Robert Mueller, nor the otherwise bloodthirsty media has been able to reproducibly uncover. This is just BS.
Finally we get to real substance: Mr. Reimann asserts that American imperialism is in decline. He separates this into two parts: domestic and foreign. He asserts that Trump's slogan, Make America Great Again, is in fact a promise to reverse this decline--a promise he won't be able to keep.
Mr. Reimann does have a point. As a fraction of global output US GDP has declined: from 37% in 1967 to 25% today. This happened (in major part) because China (a very big country) rejoined the world economy in 1980 and global GDP has expanded considerably as a result. But it is a big mistake to interpret this as the decline of America (though in Mr. Reimann's defense, Trump makes the same error). The US has hugely benefited from the industrialization of China, as I have documented in detail here (in response to an article by Marxist Lynn Henderson).
It is an undeniable fact that almost all Americans at all income levels are far richer than they were in 1980. Today we have the Internet, cell phones, 500 channels on cheap, 72" televisions, access to streaming movies, real-time video games, much safer, more reliable, and better cars, cheaper food and much cheaper clothing. Etc. I find it completely incredible that my Trotskyist friends can still claim that we're all getting poorer with a straight face. That is manifestly not true!
Yes, some things have gone awry: Mr. Reimann cites lower home ownership rates. Even there he's cherry-picked his data point, for the quality of housing has increased dramatically over that past 40 years. Even renters are substantially better off than they used to be.
Speaking of cherry-picking, Mr. Reimann cites At Our Own Peril, a report published by the US Army War College, as if it represented the last word in Pentagon thinking. Rest assured--it does not. DoD is a huge organization and publishes a zillion reports annually. Some of them are certifiably stupid, like the one that suggested that climate change is the most important defense priority for the United States.
At Our Own Peril is not silly, but to take it as the last word on global politics is silly. Yes, in many ways US influence has declined since 1945, most precipitously since the demise of the Soviet Union. A multipolar world is intrinsically more complex than a bipolar one. And ever cheaper technology makes weapons of mass destruction more easily obtainable, even by non-state actors. So in that sense Mr. Reimann is correct.
But the US spends 37% of all global defense expenditures, roughly triple what China spends. We are by far the most powerful nation on the planet, a fact that is not likely to change any time soon. It's not even close. When President Trump promises "fire & fury," he is very much in a position to deliver just that.
In an all-out war with North Korea, we win. Easily and hands down. But Mr. Reimann distorts that prospect. He writes
Mr. Reimann devotes much of his article to the political responses to Mr. Trump. Given his assumption that Trump is some right-wing, Russia-loving, kooky crackpot, no wonder he gets it all wrong. I remind him that Trump won the 2016 election, and he didn't do that by being a bumbling, incompetent, undisciplined idiot. Quite the contrary--the campaign was spectacularly well run. See, for example, here and here (unfortunately I can't now find the best article on this subject).
The truth is Trump is a masterful politician! He has upended politics in precisely the same way Amazon disrupted bookstores, and Uber has trashed taxicabs. The man is not only disciplined--he's a genius! That doesn't mean he's always right on the issues, but he understands the political pulse in America as no other.
Mr. Reimann, writing back in January, claims Trump only had 32% support. Today it's up to about 50%. But none of those numbers matter. Trump may very well be the most unpopular politician in America--except for all the others. I can't think of a single Democrat who has a chance of beating him.
A lot can change between now and 2020. If nothing else, Trump is getting on in years and his health might fail. Still, Trump is far and away the odds on favorite to win reelection in 2020.
Further Reading:
I've borrowed my post's title from Mr. Reimann's piece over at The North Star. The lede paragraph:
The Marxist method is to start by trying to figure out the main processes – the main forces at work – and get some idea of how they will interact and develop. Only then can we figure out our tasks within that general process. Recently a small group of Marxists – the Workers International Network – held a conference in Britain. Here are some thought on the perspectives for the United States that were submitted to that conference:It's a fine thought, but then why is the following sentence so spectacularly wrong?
On November 9, 2016, the world awoke to Americans having elected the most right wing and racist president since before the US Civil War.Surely Presidents Reagan and both Bushes were more "right wing" than Trump, at least if judged against standard Republican principles. They all explicitly tried to shrink the size of government (unsuccessfully), and were eager to use US military force abroad (Grenada, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Iraq). Trump, meanwhile, just signed the biggest deficit-spending bill in history, and apart from two pinprick strikes against Syria has barely used American military force at all.
The "racism" charge is also mostly phony. As Scott Alexander puts it, Trump is no more racist than the average 70-year-old white guy. So that's more "racist" than Obama, but it hardly qualifies him as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike previous Republican candidates, he actively campaigned in Black neighborhoods and sought out their votes. And while unsuccessful at the time, Trump is slowly winning support from Black men (see, e.g., Kanye West).
What is true is that Trump is spectacularly uninterested in racial politics or issues, about which he knows nothing and cares less. That's why he has such a tin ear on things like Charlottesville, where the media were able to take his remarks completely out of context. (See my comments on that episode here.)
Then we're told that Trump is in cahoots with the Russian mafia. Mr. Reimann's source for this is something called oaklandsocialist.com, which refers us to the equally obscure site WhoWhatWhy.org. These tout conspiracy theories--that Trump has surreptitious ties with Russian oligarchs that not Robert Mueller, nor the otherwise bloodthirsty media has been able to reproducibly uncover. This is just BS.
Finally we get to real substance: Mr. Reimann asserts that American imperialism is in decline. He separates this into two parts: domestic and foreign. He asserts that Trump's slogan, Make America Great Again, is in fact a promise to reverse this decline--a promise he won't be able to keep.
Mr. Reimann does have a point. As a fraction of global output US GDP has declined: from 37% in 1967 to 25% today. This happened (in major part) because China (a very big country) rejoined the world economy in 1980 and global GDP has expanded considerably as a result. But it is a big mistake to interpret this as the decline of America (though in Mr. Reimann's defense, Trump makes the same error). The US has hugely benefited from the industrialization of China, as I have documented in detail here (in response to an article by Marxist Lynn Henderson).
It is an undeniable fact that almost all Americans at all income levels are far richer than they were in 1980. Today we have the Internet, cell phones, 500 channels on cheap, 72" televisions, access to streaming movies, real-time video games, much safer, more reliable, and better cars, cheaper food and much cheaper clothing. Etc. I find it completely incredible that my Trotskyist friends can still claim that we're all getting poorer with a straight face. That is manifestly not true!
Yes, some things have gone awry: Mr. Reimann cites lower home ownership rates. Even there he's cherry-picked his data point, for the quality of housing has increased dramatically over that past 40 years. Even renters are substantially better off than they used to be.
Speaking of cherry-picking, Mr. Reimann cites At Our Own Peril, a report published by the US Army War College, as if it represented the last word in Pentagon thinking. Rest assured--it does not. DoD is a huge organization and publishes a zillion reports annually. Some of them are certifiably stupid, like the one that suggested that climate change is the most important defense priority for the United States.
At Our Own Peril is not silly, but to take it as the last word on global politics is silly. Yes, in many ways US influence has declined since 1945, most precipitously since the demise of the Soviet Union. A multipolar world is intrinsically more complex than a bipolar one. And ever cheaper technology makes weapons of mass destruction more easily obtainable, even by non-state actors. So in that sense Mr. Reimann is correct.
But the US spends 37% of all global defense expenditures, roughly triple what China spends. We are by far the most powerful nation on the planet, a fact that is not likely to change any time soon. It's not even close. When President Trump promises "fire & fury," he is very much in a position to deliver just that.
In an all-out war with North Korea, we win. Easily and hands down. But Mr. Reimann distorts that prospect. He writes
There is the matter of North Korea, for example. Right now, the rhetoric as far as crushing that country seems to have receded. But who knows what’s going on beneath the surface? There have been some reports that some generals are implying they would disobey an order to launch a first strike nuclear attack. But relying on the military, which has always had its crazed Dr. Strangelove wing, is a very weak assurance indeed.Why would the US launch a first strike nuclear attack? We have no need--we can destroy the Nork's nukes with perfectly conventional weapons. Which (I hope) is what we will do if Mr. Kim cannot be persuaded to give them up otherwise.
Mr. Reimann devotes much of his article to the political responses to Mr. Trump. Given his assumption that Trump is some right-wing, Russia-loving, kooky crackpot, no wonder he gets it all wrong. I remind him that Trump won the 2016 election, and he didn't do that by being a bumbling, incompetent, undisciplined idiot. Quite the contrary--the campaign was spectacularly well run. See, for example, here and here (unfortunately I can't now find the best article on this subject).
The truth is Trump is a masterful politician! He has upended politics in precisely the same way Amazon disrupted bookstores, and Uber has trashed taxicabs. The man is not only disciplined--he's a genius! That doesn't mean he's always right on the issues, but he understands the political pulse in America as no other.
Mr. Reimann, writing back in January, claims Trump only had 32% support. Today it's up to about 50%. But none of those numbers matter. Trump may very well be the most unpopular politician in America--except for all the others. I can't think of a single Democrat who has a chance of beating him.
A lot can change between now and 2020. If nothing else, Trump is getting on in years and his health might fail. Still, Trump is far and away the odds on favorite to win reelection in 2020.
Further Reading:
- Summary Statement of US Strategic Goals for the Coming Period
- If Everybody is a Racist, Then Nobody is a Racist
- Book Review: The Accidental Superpower
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Crypto as a Global Currency
If you travel to Japan you need to convert your US dollars into Yen. The currency exchanges at the airport will charge you 7% each way (USD-->JPY-->USD), for round trip vigorish totalling 14%. If you use your credit card the fees are not quite so high, but still outrageous.
It’s like that for every country. You can’t even catch a break in Canada. Yes, greenbacks are widely accepted by our neighbor to the north, but at a price. A store will probably charge you 10% for the privilege. And woe to Canadians travelling to the USA--once you get south of Plattsburgh, NY, or Blaine, WA, your money is practically useless.
So one can sympathize with the euro project. My German friends used to carry bags of coins around with them to use while on day trips across one border or another: not just Marks, but also Francs, Guilders, Kroner, etc. The euro flattened it all out, and for the tourist trade it was a godsend, universally acclaimed by citizens everywhere who could go shopping in Belgium, France, or Germany without any currency headaches at all.
Though the euro has not fared that well. It turns out that a tourist’s convenience is not the primary test of a currency. At the end of the day the balance of payments must balance--that is, a country’s debits and credits have to match up. Greece was spending lots of euros buying German manufactures, and getting those euros back required them to borrow money. Lots of it. Greece is now completely bankrupt.
Without the euro Greece would certainly have big problems, but it likely wouldn’t be in debt up to its eyeballs. Arguably the euro has made the situation in Greece, along with Italy, Spain, and even France, much worse. It looks like Europe will eventually shed the euro and its citizens will go back to paying exorbitant currency exchange fees.
So there are reasons why countries have separate currencies. A currency zone isn’t just a matter of coinage, but depends on culture, language, banking rules, business habits, and comparative advantage.
Is there a way out of this mess? I argue yes, and the answer is cryptocurrencies.
No, I am not suggesting that we all go on bitcoin and expect to live happily ever after. If Europe can’t even support a single currency, then how much less the rest of the world? Germany and Greece use their currencies in different ways.
But we don’t have to divvy it up by national boundaries. Instead, let’s ignore political borders and consider different industries.
I was inspired to think about it this way when I ran across something called bunnyToken. It’s an ICO (initial coin offering) that aspires to be money for the adult entertainment industry. (That this particular ICO is widely believed to be a scam does not affect my larger point.) BunnyToken wants to be the money you will use if you want to buy a porn video, go to a strip club or hire a sex worker, etc. The intention is that you can use it for that purpose anywhere in the world--no exchange fees necessary.
Two points:
1) The adult industry is usually at the leading edge of new technology--witness VHS, internet payments, livestreaming, etc. That’s partly because the customers are not especially price-sensitive, but mostly because the industry is typically excluded from normal financial and distribution channels. So they have to invent their own. The fact that they're experimenting with their own currency is an important milestone.
2) BunnyToken has to guarantee anonymity and reliability. On the other hand, transaction times don’t have to be that fast (10 minutes should suffice), nor do transactions have to be all that cheap. Because transactions will likely be for relatively small amounts of money, super-tight security may not be necessary.
Think how sensible this is. Porn is porn, whether in Thailand or the USA. The prices won’t be the same--the law of comparative advantage still holds--but there is no reason why it has to be exchange rate sensitive, dependent on a nation’s macroeconomic variables. Let the porn industry have its own currency.
I can easily imagine any number of other bespoke currencies. A TouristCoin would be wonderful. Just imagine if I could pay for hotels, airlines and cruise ships around the world using a single coin. The specs on this money will differ from bunnyToken. It definitely should NOT be anonymous--I want to prove that I paid my hotel reservation. Transactions might be large, so security will be more important.
While the Greek economy overall is poorly developed, the country has a world-class tourist industry. Why should that industry be tied down by problems in the rest of the economy? Let them share a currency with tourist businesses across the globe, and let comparative advantage rule.
Similarly, a restaurant token is long overdue. Starbucks has invented a pale reflection of that with their phone app. But a real restaurant token will work anywhere in the world, from any Starbucks, to Alinea in Chicago, to a streetside vendor in Hanoi.
This will not eliminate exchange problems. After all, a pornstar may want to eat in a restaurant some day, where her bunnyTokens won’t buy her a meal. So she’ll have to exchange her bunnies for something that works in a restaurant. That could be fiat currency, which would be a very expensive solution. More likely it will be bitcoin, using exchanges like Binance. Our actress can exchange her bunnies for bitcoin, which can then be used to buy restaurant tokens. These exchanges will cost money, but far less than the 14% charged by fiat exchanges--likely only a couple percent. To be competitive it will have to be cheaper and more transparent than today's bank fees.
Like today’s fiat currencies, this proposed model is not one-size-fits-all. There will be different currencies for different industries, unlike today’s system where currencies correspond to political boundaries. Each currency will be tailored to the industry it serves, but within that industry it will have a global remit.
To make it work there needs to be a currency against which all the others can be traded, like the role of the US dollar today. I suggest that currency will be bitcoin--it has the first mover advantage, and also the largest market cap. Further, it’s stuck with an old-fashioned, slowpoke technology that has the benefit of being ultra-secure. Apps can be built on top of that to allow for more efficient and cheaper trading.
This is how crypto takes over the world. Not with one big whack, but rather with a thousand cuts. Starting with the porn industry.
Further Reading:
It’s like that for every country. You can’t even catch a break in Canada. Yes, greenbacks are widely accepted by our neighbor to the north, but at a price. A store will probably charge you 10% for the privilege. And woe to Canadians travelling to the USA--once you get south of Plattsburgh, NY, or Blaine, WA, your money is practically useless.
So one can sympathize with the euro project. My German friends used to carry bags of coins around with them to use while on day trips across one border or another: not just Marks, but also Francs, Guilders, Kroner, etc. The euro flattened it all out, and for the tourist trade it was a godsend, universally acclaimed by citizens everywhere who could go shopping in Belgium, France, or Germany without any currency headaches at all.
Though the euro has not fared that well. It turns out that a tourist’s convenience is not the primary test of a currency. At the end of the day the balance of payments must balance--that is, a country’s debits and credits have to match up. Greece was spending lots of euros buying German manufactures, and getting those euros back required them to borrow money. Lots of it. Greece is now completely bankrupt.
Without the euro Greece would certainly have big problems, but it likely wouldn’t be in debt up to its eyeballs. Arguably the euro has made the situation in Greece, along with Italy, Spain, and even France, much worse. It looks like Europe will eventually shed the euro and its citizens will go back to paying exorbitant currency exchange fees.
So there are reasons why countries have separate currencies. A currency zone isn’t just a matter of coinage, but depends on culture, language, banking rules, business habits, and comparative advantage.
Is there a way out of this mess? I argue yes, and the answer is cryptocurrencies.
No, I am not suggesting that we all go on bitcoin and expect to live happily ever after. If Europe can’t even support a single currency, then how much less the rest of the world? Germany and Greece use their currencies in different ways.
But we don’t have to divvy it up by national boundaries. Instead, let’s ignore political borders and consider different industries.
I was inspired to think about it this way when I ran across something called bunnyToken. It’s an ICO (initial coin offering) that aspires to be money for the adult entertainment industry. (That this particular ICO is widely believed to be a scam does not affect my larger point.) BunnyToken wants to be the money you will use if you want to buy a porn video, go to a strip club or hire a sex worker, etc. The intention is that you can use it for that purpose anywhere in the world--no exchange fees necessary.
Two points:
1) The adult industry is usually at the leading edge of new technology--witness VHS, internet payments, livestreaming, etc. That’s partly because the customers are not especially price-sensitive, but mostly because the industry is typically excluded from normal financial and distribution channels. So they have to invent their own. The fact that they're experimenting with their own currency is an important milestone.
2) BunnyToken has to guarantee anonymity and reliability. On the other hand, transaction times don’t have to be that fast (10 minutes should suffice), nor do transactions have to be all that cheap. Because transactions will likely be for relatively small amounts of money, super-tight security may not be necessary.
Think how sensible this is. Porn is porn, whether in Thailand or the USA. The prices won’t be the same--the law of comparative advantage still holds--but there is no reason why it has to be exchange rate sensitive, dependent on a nation’s macroeconomic variables. Let the porn industry have its own currency.
I can easily imagine any number of other bespoke currencies. A TouristCoin would be wonderful. Just imagine if I could pay for hotels, airlines and cruise ships around the world using a single coin. The specs on this money will differ from bunnyToken. It definitely should NOT be anonymous--I want to prove that I paid my hotel reservation. Transactions might be large, so security will be more important.
While the Greek economy overall is poorly developed, the country has a world-class tourist industry. Why should that industry be tied down by problems in the rest of the economy? Let them share a currency with tourist businesses across the globe, and let comparative advantage rule.
Similarly, a restaurant token is long overdue. Starbucks has invented a pale reflection of that with their phone app. But a real restaurant token will work anywhere in the world, from any Starbucks, to Alinea in Chicago, to a streetside vendor in Hanoi.
This will not eliminate exchange problems. After all, a pornstar may want to eat in a restaurant some day, where her bunnyTokens won’t buy her a meal. So she’ll have to exchange her bunnies for something that works in a restaurant. That could be fiat currency, which would be a very expensive solution. More likely it will be bitcoin, using exchanges like Binance. Our actress can exchange her bunnies for bitcoin, which can then be used to buy restaurant tokens. These exchanges will cost money, but far less than the 14% charged by fiat exchanges--likely only a couple percent. To be competitive it will have to be cheaper and more transparent than today's bank fees.
Like today’s fiat currencies, this proposed model is not one-size-fits-all. There will be different currencies for different industries, unlike today’s system where currencies correspond to political boundaries. Each currency will be tailored to the industry it serves, but within that industry it will have a global remit.
To make it work there needs to be a currency against which all the others can be traded, like the role of the US dollar today. I suggest that currency will be bitcoin--it has the first mover advantage, and also the largest market cap. Further, it’s stuck with an old-fashioned, slowpoke technology that has the benefit of being ultra-secure. Apps can be built on top of that to allow for more efficient and cheaper trading.
This is how crypto takes over the world. Not with one big whack, but rather with a thousand cuts. Starting with the porn industry.
Further Reading:
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