Bitcoin for Libertarian Socialists with Ben de Waal - WBD547
The Peter McCormack Show
Peter McCormack
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2022
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben de Waal is the VP of Engineering for Swan Bitcoin. In this interview, we discuss living on bitcoin, what it means to be a libertarian socialist, the issues with capitalism and why Bitcoin should be a home for those on the left and the right.
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The last year has been marked by a growing interest in Bitcoin from progressives. A number of high-profile liberal names have emerged from within the community extolling the utility of Bitcoin. But, this is not a new phenomenon: the community has always been a home for the full spectrum of views. Further, there are important reasons why Bitcoin appeals to those on both the left and the right.
Bitcoin has garnered a strong libertarian following. This was something Satoshi envisioned: in 2008 he stated in a post "It's very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly." This was successful; there are many who have been attracted to the Bitcoin community for its potential to provide an alternative to state-controlled currency, and thereby limit the size of government.
This alignment with the right has acted as a barrier to some on the left. But not all. The original cypherpunks philosophy was predicated on anarchist ideals, to work outside of government controls. This attitude is analogous to those on the left who feel disenfranchised by the current global capitalist hegemony. Bitcoin too offers those on the left a chance to opt-out of what they perceive to be a broken system. Increasing numbers are waking up to this opportunity.
The issue is obviously that the left and the right have been at loggerheads for centuries. Over this time debate has evolved into grandstanding. Misconceptions have been allowed to fester on both sides. This has been supercharged by social media where the general aim now is to marginalise an opposing opinion rather than seek to analyse and potentially assimilate different ideas.
If Bitcoin really is freedom money, then it needs to be a home to people of all opinions. The issue is that our society has become polarised; a winner takes all attitude has metastasized. We need to reaffirm the basis of a strong democratic system: a pluralistic society that tolerates and supports multiple centres of power. Where ideas are debated, solutions are found, and progress is made. We need the same philosophical approach as the United States' founding fathers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Left libertarianism is |
| 0:03.5 | libertarian socialism is the idea that you want to maximize freedom for people |
| 0:09.7 | in general so maximizing of liberty that's the libertarian part of it, and the socialist part of it is explaining |
| 0:15.3 | that the best way to do that is with traditionally socialist structures rather than more capitalist structures. |
| 0:24.0 | rather than more capitalist structures. Hello there, how are you all doing? |
| 0:27.0 | Welcome to the What Bitcoid podcast, which is brought to you by Gemini, |
| 0:30.0 | it's the only place I'm using to buy in Bitcoin. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm your host Pete to the formatac, and today I'm talking to Swan's VP of Engineering. |
| 0:37.0 | Ben the Wall. |
| 0:38.0 | Now I've been following Ben on Twitter quite some time. |
| 0:41.0 | I've been following some of his tweets and seeing him jump into various disagreements or arguments. |
| 0:46.0 | I've quite enjoyed his takes. I've quite enjoyed some of the things he said. Not everything, |
| 0:50.1 | don't agree with everything he said, but there was nothing there for me to want to get him on the show and talk about these things now Ben is a libertarian socialist which I know can trigger some people it can seem contradictory to Bitcoin but at the same time I think |
| 1:04.7 | Bitcoin is made up a bunch of different people so I'm trying to talk to as many |
| 1:07.9 | people as I can with a wide range of set of perspectives. I've previously |
| 1:11.8 | spoken to Ben Ark about left libertarianism so I |
| 1:14.8 | asked Ben to come on the show he agreed to come to Bedford and yeah we got into |
| 1:18.8 | this now I did struggle with some of his arguments you will hear that during the show but then I struggle with some of his arguments. You will hear that during the show, but then I struggle with some of the arguments across a range of different people, so no harm done there. |
| 1:29.0 | But yes, it was a valuable discussion. I hope you enjoy it. Anyway, if you got any questions about this or the show you want to |
| 1:33.8 | reach out to meet my email addresses hello at what Bitcoin did dot com |
| 1:39.0 | Ben how are you man I'm good it's a pleasure to be here. Well, you're the first guest in the Bedford studio. |
| 1:48.0 | Yeah, so nice place. Thank you for coming out to do this. I want to talk to you for a while as you know I really enjoyed your |
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