I have been an admirer of the book Atlas Shrugged for some time, the world Ayn Rand created spoke to me as it expressed a view of the individual as the hero and that Government interference in our lives is the last thing anyone should want. The book is massive with many ideas piled on top of other ideas, the main idea is summed up in the creed:
“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine”. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1957.
But there is another aspect of the story that I believe has, at least partially, influenced the creation of cryptocurrency.
Be advised, this is my own opinion.
In the novel, the men of the mind went on strike to protest the ever growing corruption and strong-arm tactics of the government. They retreated to a portion of land owned by Michael “Midas” Mulligan in Colorado. The men and women who came to Mulligan’s Gultch (also known as Galt’s Gultch) as it became known had either sold all of their business holdings or destroyed them outright.
Leaving their “worldly possessions” behind, how would those people live? Would they rely on the charity of Midas Mulligan? Would they expect John Galt to come up with a means to give them food and water? These were the Men of the Mind, after all, so they had to put their minds to work. In the Gultch, there was a rule that everyone had to work for their keep. Even John Galt worked, using the motor he created to provide power to the valley and in return was paid by the residents of the valley, think a one-man Department of Water and Power. Midas Mulligan who owned the valley acted as landlord and residents paid rent for the land or housing they stayed in. John Galt would pay Midas rent and Midas would pay John for the power.
So how does this relate to Cryptocurrency? In the Gultch, there were no banks or police, the only “law” was Judge Narragansett was basically there for arbitration issues. Similar to the Cryptospace, the Gultch was essentially run on trust. Trust that when services were rendered, a payment would be received. Just like in Crypto. Also as with Crypto, there are no third parties to mediate the transactions. Person A has an item they will sell for 0.0007 BTC and Person B sends it to them, the expectation is that the item will be sent by Person A, trust.
And also similar to Midas and Galt in the Gultch, Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin created an infrastructure that allowed those transactions to happen but did not try to manipulate those transactions, those who came after Satoshi or work on the Bitcoin project are there to maintain the infrastructure and help it grow.
The essence of Cryptocurrency is to remove banks and governments from our lives and how we interact and do commerce with each other. Of course government and banks are going to fight this tooth and nail, as Timothy May said in his work “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto” “The State will, of course, try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration.” Timothy May 1992.
Think about this as we hear the story of Ross Ulbricht who was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole for running the Silk Road website where users were able to freely able to conduct commerce amongst themselves using Bitcoin as the means of transaction. The charges against Ross were not so much to make him do anything for the government but as a message to other would-be Ross’ “do as we say or we will smash you!”.
In Atlas Shrugged when John Galt revealed himself, the government tried to bribe him to save their crumbling economy and state and when he refused to do that, they threatened him if he did not do the same.
Cryptocurrency is poised to, as John Galt said “Stop the motor of the world” because it takes the power away from the authority and gives it to the people. What is even more encouraging is that Bitcoin is being embraced by people from across the political spectrum as they find that using Bitcoin allows them to receive funding for their projects without having to worry about being shut down by organizations that do not care for their form of speech. This is the battle we find ourselves in and we need to understand that Cryptocurrency is not about getting rich or lambos, it’s about and has always been about FREEDOM.
Take Care…