Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle
— given by Mohandas Gandhi to his grandson Arun shortly before his assassination
BITCOIN AND BLOCKCHAIN
The world is on fire lately with the exponential growth of Bitcoin and other electronic cryptocurrencies. While some see these as speculative bubbles that are tied to nothing, used on the dark web to ransom hacked computers, and profligate users of electricity, others see Bitcoin and its ilk as our liberation from nation states and their central banks. Both could be true. Perhaps more important is that the platform underpinning Bitcoin, called blockchain technology, and later advances such as Ethereum, have the potential to completely transform the way that the world operates.
Many people see the rise in Bitcoin as the result of a growing distrust in governments, official/artificial fiat currencies, corporations, institutions, and other people. If the thing that we now call money has no inherent or intrinsic value, and is controlled by people and institutions who do not have our best interests in mind, why not invest in an alternative?
Bitcoin is not the only alternative economic game in town, just the first to capture the global imagination. People have spent decades developing other ways of moving in the economy that do not leave the planet trashed and societies broken. This work goes under many different names: regenerative or steady-state economics, LETS systems, the solidarity economy, local living economies, local currencies, Time Trade and barter networks are just some of them. The intentions of each vary somewhat, but a common thread is to create social economic mechanisms that do not rely on debt, interest, inflation, exploitation, restricted access to capital, or continuous growth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
