My new book “Bitcoin Nation” was published on the 15th anniversary of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, October 31, 2023. You can read it below, one chapter per week. Or buy it here.
DOES BITCOIN FIX THIS?
Regardless which of our society’s problems, you mention, Bitcoin maximalists respond with: “Bitcoin fixes this.”
This statement is often ridiculed by so-called “pre-coiners” (people who are not yet convinced by Bitcoin), and every so often Bitcoin enthusiasts are dismissed as crackpots, or Bitcoin is referred to as a “religion.”
For several years now, I have considered myself part of the circle of Bitcoin maximalists (people who see Bitcoin as more than just a cryptocurrency). In this book, I want to defend the thesis “Bitcoin fixes this.” with solid arguments.
More precisely, I will attempt to show that there are only two categories for the pressing problems of our time:
Bitcoin fixes this. Only through Bitcoin can one begin to fix this.
This book is aimed at people with little or no economic background. The first part focuses on didactic aspects, while the scientific character takes a back seat. In the second part of this book, after having established a solid foundation, I want to provide even other Bitcoin maximalists with some food for thought.
Without giving too much away, in the latter half of this work we will discuss how a state built on Bitcoin could look like and whether such a “state” truly still deserves to be called a state.
The US revolution was one of the most significant turning points in history. From the day the Declaration of Independence was signed—July 4, 1776—the world would never be the same.
Republican democratic states had been tried before, but this was the first time that freedom and basic human rights were at the center of a nation’s constitution. Furthermore, the United States had proven that a determined rag tag army of armed volunteers, could beat even the strongest of empires. A lesson that the US themselves have had to be taught over and over again, be it in Vietnam, Korea, or Afghanistan.
The cause which lead the US of A to repeatedly endure that painful, costly lesson, without the nation’s leadership ever taking it to their hearts, was already enshrined on that fateful 4th of July. No, I am not talking about the president having too much power and being too hard to remove from office or other mistakes. The real reason is the biggest error in the US Constitution. An error that was made already at the very beginning of the revolution.
“No taxation without representation.”
Under this slogan, North American people united to fight off the arbitrary rule by the English King and his devastating taxes.
The problem with this slogan was—and to this day is—that it legitimizes taxes. While the Americans could clearly see, how the British taxes hurt their economy and the development of their people and country, they didn’t dare question the concept of taxes itself.
To their defense, it should be said that they didn’t have the internet at the time, nor modern historical sciences. And even today, where the evidence is readily available to everybody who has a smartphone, many still deny that taxes historically were the worst form of funding public expenses. Many even deny that there are alternatives to taxes at all.
Since, many books have been written on historic and new concepts for a taxless society, I will for brevity’s sake not discuss these here. Rather, I will focus on, how taxes have directly lead to the erosion of US freedoms and human rights and the endless wars.
For the first century of US history, the tea party spirit was strong in the American citizens, so the government didn’t dare to abusively tax them. Especially, since a healthy skepticism against central banks, barred the sneaky option to do a hidden taxation via inflation.
This lead to a small government and the US citizens to become the freest and most prosperous in the world, creating the “American Dream”.
The first dent in this “Dream” came after the civil war.
As is always the case, the Northern, and Southern states couldn’t actually afford the war effort, so they needed to extort their citizens out of the money. This was done by taking on gigantic debts and by issuing the Fiat “Greenback” notes.
In a perfect world, the soldiers on both sides, would have understood the meaning of these actions, turned on their generals and united against the real enemy, the political and financial elites profiting from the war.
I dare not hope that humanity ever learns this lesson, still I need to try to spread the knowledge: Fiat money printing and taxation always lead a nation into tyranny and economic, moral and technological decline. These methods are never and under no circumstances to be tolerated by a free and just society.
With the precedent of the first major US war, and its monetary debauchery set, it took less than 60 years for the elites to gradually erode people’s resistance to taxes and central banks. In 1913, both the federal income tax and the FED were created.
It is no coincidence that these two events happened in the same year, neither is it that World War I started just the next year in 1914 and that a century of perpetual war followed.
You may think: “WWI started in Europe, it surely couldn’t have anything to do with the United States.”
This couldn’t be further from the truth. The European states had been in constant military squabbles for centuries. The only reason, this war could escalate to such a large scale and last so long was the US. By staying out of the war at first and using their new powers to create money out of thin air, the US of A created a giant military industrial complex and a giant fractional reserve financial industry. These two industries funded and supplied the war efforts (on both sides, at first), greatly enriching the US elites. Only, when both sides were already significantly weakened, did the US pitch in to decide the winner and the war.
This model proofed so successful that the US elites repeated it in WWII. First, they enabled Hitler Germany’s rise in power, with credit and raw materials. Then they supplied and funded the Allies as well. And finally, when Germany had spread itself too thin, by attacking Russia before they had defeated England, the US entered the war itself.
Unfortunately for the US elites, you can play that game only so often, before your opponents figure out your moves and don’t fall for the same ploy. Thus, after WWII, the elites needed another way to abuse the financial and political system for their enrichment.
Their concept was simple. With the Bretton Woods system, they had forced the war-weakened nations of the world, to make the Dollar the world reserve currency. This gave them leverage to put an inflation tax on the whole world economy, impacting the US citizens least.
With this trick, they could indebt and plunder not only their own country, but all the countries in the Euro-Dollar system. Best of all, the armed and vigilant, freedom loving US citizens would not feel the pain for a long time. In fact, the flooding of the world with Dollars, would be paid for with cheap imported goods, which would raise the living standards for US citizens, sleepwalking them into tyranny.
With the US people appeased with cheap goods, the elites led the United States into their role as the world police and opposer of communism. Countless wars followed, most of which the US lost.
This was on purpose, however.
The longer any war lasted, the more money could be created and moved into the pockets of the wealthy and powerful elites. A game of money laundering and hidden taxation that goes on to this day.
Right now, as I am writing these lines, the US is preparing to send another couple billion dollars to the military industrial complex to “support Ukraine”.
Unfortunately for the elites, Abraham Lincoln was correct, when he said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
The corruption of the US political, financial and military systems has become so blatant that more and more people are waking up and opposing it.
The first blatant corruption was when Nixon took the US off the gold standard in 1971 and effectively declared bankruptcy.
From this point on, the US citizens were directly impacted by the money printing that the Bretton Woods system had previously shielded them from. So while the productivity increased, wages didn’t and people had to work longer and longer hours, just to keep their standard of living.
In 1970, a blue-collar worker could support his wife, half a dozen children, own a decent house and drive an indestructible car. In 2020, just 50-years later, most families have only one or two children. Yet, even with both parents working two full-time jobs, the equivalent of the 70s blue-collar worker, can’t afford to purchase a house and the car is a shitty plastic thingy that breaks down after 5 or 6 years.
Another key moment in the wake-up process, was the 2008 financial crisis, when banks were bailed out—even though they caused the crisis—while innocent people were left homeless.
Afraid of the angry citizenry, the United States, like all other states before them, went berserk on the money printer, using it to build up a surveillance system and militarize the police, to keep the people in check.
Normally, the next step would be increasing authoritarianism, which would continue, until the people dispose of the elites in a bloody revolt.
Luckily, in 2009 the Bitcoin network was launched. Giving humanity for the first time a peaceful weapon against the tyrants. With Bitcoin, we have a chance to dry out the money fountain that is used to fund the suppression. With a combination of Gandi’s peaceful resistance and Ayn Rand’s strike of John Galt, we likely can halt the motor of their unjust, exploitative system and build a new just society on the foundations of freedom and human rights.
And hopefully this time we will do it right. Without taxes.