By Bitcoin Magazin - 1 éve - Olvasási idő: 12 perc
Bitcoin Songsheet: Hogyan teszi tönkre a Fiat pénz a civilizációt
Fiat money leads to a degradation of incentives, creating a society motivated only by the consumption of resources and zero value production.
This is an opinion editorial by Jimmy Song, a Bitcoin developer, educator and entrepreneur and programmer with over 20 years of experience.
Szép dolgokat akarunk. Szeretnénk egy szép házban élni, jókat enni és kielégítő kapcsolatokat kialakítani. Szeretnénk egzotikus helyekre utazni, nagyszerű zenét hallgatni és szórakozni. Szeretnénk építeni valamit, ami tartós, valami nagyszerűt akarunk elérni, és egy jobb világot hagyni holnapra.
These are all part of being human, of participating in society and of progressing humanity. Unfortunately, all these things and more get ruined by fiat money. We want nice things, but we can't have them, and the reason is because of fiat money.
Governments want the power to decree prosperity, fulfillment and progress into existence. They're like the alchemists of yesteryear, who wanted to turn lead into gold through some formula. Actually — they're worse. They're like a five-year-old that thinks by wishing hard enough, that she can fly.
Being the delusional power-drunk politicians that they are, the elites think that by decreeing something to be so, it magically happens. That's indeed where the word "fiat" comes from. The word literally means "Let there be," — in Latin and in English, it's become an adjective to describe creation by decree. This can be most easily seen in Genesis 1:3 in Latin. The phrase there is "fiat lux" which means "let there be light."
Of course, creation by decree doesn't quite work like it does in Genesis. If you want a building, you can't just say, "Let there be a building." Someone has to dig, pour a foundation, add framing, etc. Decrees don't really do anything without capital and labor. In the absence of the market forces of supply and demand, decrees require people and resources to be enlisted. In other words, as much as governments would love for reality to be different, a decree by itself doesn't really do anything. By itself, a decree is about as useless as an old man yelling at the sun. There has to be some coercion involved to fulfill the decree. Fiat decrees are a euphemism for using force and violence.
For buildings, it's obvious that creation by decree doesn't do anything. Yet for money, decreeing it into existence seems legit, maybe even compassionate. Keynesian economists see fiat money as something that by itself does something. Of course, they're wrong and no amount of calling it "adósságunk magunknak," changes the fact that it's theft. That's about as honest as Enron's könyvelés.
The deviousness of fiat money is that it makes government violence look like a market process. Fiat money printing steals from the other holders of the currency and pays people to do the government's bidding. That theft is hidden and combined with a good dose of Keynesian propaganda, which makes fiat money seem innocuous, perhaps even benevolent.
In a sense, fiat money is less violent than other forms of fiat rule. But that's like saying mobsters that give you a chance to pay them off are less violent than street thugs.
A diktátorok nyilvánvaló erőszakot alkalmaznak, hogy polgáraikat a diktátor vágyainak teljesítésére kényszerítsék. A kényszersorozás, a háború és a szegénység gyakori ezekben a társadalmakban, és az övék egy nyomorúságos lét, amelyről alig lehet beszélni. A Fiat-uralom szörnyű az emberiség számára, amint az jól látható abból, hogy mennyire elmaradott volt a Szovjetunió, vagy mennyire elmaradott jelenleg Észak-Korea. A rabszolgamunkára épülő társadalomban nagyon nehéz a haladás.
Fiat money, by contrast, at least looks voluntary. Yet in many ways, it's still very harmful to civilization. Fiat money is more like organized crime, which makes everything seem voluntary.
A Fiat pénz tönkreteszi az ösztönzőket
Fiat money ruins many market incentives. The reason is because there's a special buyer in the market that has much less price sensitivity. That buyer, of course, is the fiat money creator. They can and do print money for all sorts of reasons — some benevolent (welfare for the poor), others not (military buildup). They spend like drunken sailors who just found pirate treasure.
The problem with a buyer like the government is that someone always sits in the middle. It's not the "government" per se, that actually buys a fighter jet or an office building. There's always someone amely a vásárlást végző kormány ügynökeként működik. Az ügynök a kormány nevében dolgozik különféle áruk és szolgáltatások beszerzésén, és a kormány megbízza az ügynököt azzal a felhatalmazással, hogy a nevében költsön.
Unfortunately, this arrangement is ripe for abuse. The agents are essentially spending other peoples' money for other peoples' gain, so they aren't incentivized to trade very efficiently. Their incentives are as skewed as the Pisa-i ferde torony.
When we are buying and selling in the market with our own money for our own benefit, we do complicated economic analyses to figure out whether we'll benefit enough from the good or service to be willing to part with our money. Thus, we'll be price sensitive and attempt to get the most value for the money we pay.
For a government bureaucrat that's in charge of procurement, however, getting value for the money is not their priority. They are incentivized to spend in a way that's for their own benefit and not the governments'. This doesn't have to be in obvious ways as with bribes. They can spend much less time examining the goods and services, or buy from people that they like. The result is generally a bad trade where the agent gets some small benefit at a much larger expense to the government. In a sound money economy, the government would fire such people — but in a fiat money economy, the government doesn't care as much since money is abundant and they're not price-sensitive. You can do that when there's a cookie jar that you can always steal from.
Tehát a végső matematikában az ügynök mindenki más rovására részesül. Ezeket az embereket hívjuk lakbért keresők. They don't add any benefit but still get paid. And it's not just government bureaucrats. If you are an investment banker that takes extremely leveraged bets, you are a rent seeker, too. Generally, they get to keep the profits when their investments win, but get megmentették when their investments lose. They, too, don't add anything and leech off of society. What's worse, these are supposed to be some of the most talented and driven people in society. Instead of building things that would benefit civilization, they're engaged in grand larceny! Of course, they're not the only ones guilty of rent-seeking theft. Sadly, most jobs in a fiat money society have a huge rent-seeking component.
One rule of thumb that we'll get to later in this article about how to tell if something is rent seeking is by seeing how much of the job is political and not value-adding. The more politics involved, the more rent seeking there generally is.
Rent-seeking jobs cheat the system and when people have the incentive to cheat, many will. You only need to look at online gaming to know that. Cheating is attractive because it's a lot easier than doing hard work and if the cheating is normalized, as it is today, there's little moral impediment. We've all become that soccer player that pretends to be in pain to influence the referee.
Rent seeking is understandable since creating a good or service that the market wants is not only hard, but it's very fickle. What you produce today is an innovation away from becoming obsolete. Rent-seeking positions, even with less compensation, are nevertheless more desirable because of their certainty. Is it any wonder that rent-seeking positions are so sought after?
Think about how many people want to become investment bankers, venture capitalists or politicians. They're way more profitable than providing a good or service, require way less effort and have lots more certainty.
A Fiat pénzzel kapcsolatos ösztönzői tönkrementek, mint a Sam Bankman-Fried.
A Fiat pénz tönkreteszi a meritokráciát
A sok járadékszerzési pozíció megléte azt jelenti, hogy a gazdaság nagy része nem a szokásos kereslet-kínálati piaci erőkön működik. Még a bérleti díj igénylésének lehetősége is azt jelenti, hogy az áruknak és szolgáltatásoknak figyelembe kell venniük a versenyfeltételek megváltozását. A Fiat pénze tönkreteszi a meritokráciát.
Egy normál piaci rendszerben a legjobb termékek nyernek. Nem a politikailag leginkább kötődő termékek. Nem azok a termékek, amelyek a legtöbb embert foglalkoztatják. A legjobb termékek nyernek, mert több ember igényeit és szükségleteit elégítik ki. A Fiat pénze megváltoztatja az egyenletet a politika hozzáadásával.
Amikor a kormány pénzt nyomtathat, a legtöbbet azok profitálják, akik először jutnak hozzá a pénzhez. Ezt hívják a Cantillon effektus and it's the reason why rich people get richer without adding much, if anything. So how does the government determine who gets access to the money? As with everything government related, decisions on who gets what money is determined through politics. And when the money printer is political, everything else becomes political. A politika egy rák amely az egész piacon terjed.
The "haves" in a fiat money economy tend to be the ones that are good political players. They know how to get newly printed money directed toward them and they have a large advantage over those that don't. Politically savvy companies will do better than the non-politically savvy companies that make better products. Thus, surviving companies in a fiat money economy are very politically savvy. It's no wonder so many companies seem to be led by politicians rather than entrepreneurs, especially as these companies age.
Így a politikailag hozzáértő inkumbenseknek óriási előnyük van a fiat pénzgazdaságban. Szabályozási költségekre fogják nyergelni az újonnan érkezőket, és újonnan nyomtatott pénzből támogatást kapnak, megcsontosítva pozíciójukat. A piac tele lesz régebbi, rosszabb árukkal, és az újabb, jobb áruk soha nem fognak piacra kerülni, tekintettel ezekre a tisztességtelen előnyökre. Az inkumbensek játszhatnak CalvinBall and change the rules whenever they're losing.
A szakszervezetek, a zombicégek és a régi politikusok mind azt jelzik, hogy az intézmények túlmutatnak a társadalom számára. Mindannyian politikai eszközökkel pótolják a piaci vágyak teljesítésének hiányát. A hanyatló és haldoklók soha nem halnak meg, hogy helyet adjanak az újítóknak. A politika elfojtja a vállalkozói szellemet és a kreativitást. Ez egy rák, amely elpusztítja a testet életben tartó jó sejteket.
Más szóval az érdemeket a politika mindenhol utolérte.
A Fiat Money tönkreteszi a fejlődést
The ubiquity of politics over merit means that it's become harder than ever for civilization to improve. Better stuff doesn't necessarily win and markets tilt toward the political. Fiat money protects the existing politically connected players against the newer, more dynamic players from gaining market share.
Ezért a fiat pénz tönkreteszi a fejlődést. A civilizáció megcsontosodik, mert az inkumbens játékosoknak sokkal nagyobb erejük van az új játékosok megállítására. Az inkumbensek gyakran hatalmas szabályozási árkokat vetnek ki, a fiat támogatásával alulárazzák az újabb versenytársakat, fiat pénzzel vagy utolsó gázadásként felveszik a legjobb alkalmazottakat, egyszerűen csak kivásárolják az új játékosokat. Mindezek a stratégiák az újonnan nyomtatott pénzhez való hozzáférésen keresztül működnek. A zombik túlélik, ha esznek agyat.
Most mindent atomenergiával kellett volna működtetnünk, de ez a technológia teljesen az elfojtott by regulation. Government can enforce this mandate through fiat money. Oil, natural gas and coal continue to dominate because we don't make scientific progress on other ways to provide better energy. Technologies like wind and solar get government backing because they're politically popular, despite their clear inferiority in variance, energy density and portability. We're going backwards in energy.
A luddisták win in a fiat monetary system because fiat money and political considerations essentially force everything to stay the same. It's profoundly conservative in that the old and decrepit are saved at the expense of the new and meritorious. If that sounds familiar, it should. That's the exact math that was used to justify the lockdowns of the past few years.
Ezt a dinamikát láthatjuk a légitársaság ipar. A New Yorkból Londonba való utazás ideje rosszabb most, mint 50 évvel ezelőtt. Ezt a dinamikát a mosogatógépeknél is láthatjuk. 50 éve egy mosogatógép takaríthatna a full load in under one hour. It now takes more than 3 hours. Regulations protect incumbents and put politics as a priority over merit. The result is that civilization doesn't progress.
Instead, fiat money has regressed civilization. The nuclear engineers of yesteryear are working on React.js apps and scammy Web3 products because that's where the money is. The inventors of yesteryear are investment bankers creating high-frequency trading systems. The incentives are broken — merit is no longer a consideration, so is it any wonder we're regressing as a civilization?
We peaked as a civilization in 1969 when we landed a man on the moon. Everything since then hasn't pushed humanity forward, but turned it inward. At best, it's preserved what we already have. At worst, it's destroying humanity's progress.
What's worse, all this rent seeking has inflamed the entitlement mindset. Having good political connections, these rent seekers think they are entitled to these negative-sum positions. Nothing is more toxic to progress than people whose incentives are to keep things from getting better. Fiat money changes productive people into entitled brats.
A Fiat pénz mélyen konzervatív
A rossz ösztönzők a fiat pénz középpontjában állnak. Ha munka helyett lophat, a legtöbb ember lopni fog – és a politika révén megteheti. A politika sajnos negatív összegű játék, és ez a civilizáció visszafejlődését jelenti. A háborúhoz hasonlóan a politika is a felhalmozott tőke elfogyasztásáról szól.
Fiat money redistributes wealth so that the incumbents can stick around. There's little room for new ideas or new goods or new products because the incumbents have so much political clout.
Indeed, we've reached a tipping point where there's more rent seekers than there are productive people creating stuff. How many people work email jobs? How many people even work? Way too many people are happy with an XBox, a mattress and pizza delivery. Do these people benefit society in any way? It's no wonder so many people are olyan depressziós.
A gazdaság átpolitizálása és elzombizálása valódi következményekkel járt a társadalom működésében. Az építési szabályzatok új formákat hoznak létre ház nagyon nehéz építeni. A légitársaságok szabályozása teljesen illegálissá teszi az új terveket. A nukleáris szabályozás nagyon megdrágítja a különböző, hatékonyabb energiaformákat.
Az ősi iparágak, a lejárati dátumukat már régen lejárt vállalatok kiszívják a termelékenységet a gazdaságból. Kevés értéket adnak, de továbbra is támogatást kapnak fiat pénzen keresztül. Az olyan iparágak, mint az olaj, a vonatok, a légitársaságok és az autók, mind zombikká váltak, és a fiat pénzen keresztül védettek a kihalástól. A fene, még egyes elektronikai gyártók is, és szoftver cégek, amelyek viszonylag újak a gazdaságban, jelenleg zombik. A zombik nyernek.
A zombisodás pedig felgyorsul. Facebook valószínűleg átállított a termelőtől a bérbeadóig sokkal gyorsabban, mint mondjuk IBM.
Sajnos ez a fiat pénz valósága. A producerek egy bizonyos ponton lakbért keresőkké válnak, miközben politizálnak. A zombik hamarosan meghaladják a normális emberek számát, és minden lefelé megy.
Bitcoin Kijavítja ezt
A jó hír az, hogy Bitcoin fixes these incentives. Removing fiat money means the normal market process of supply and demand and prices can work. Politics takes much less of a role and the zombification of the economy reverses. Civilization can progress again. Bitcoin is the antidote and the great hope for reversing the decline.
Unfortunately, we have about 100 years of rot to clear out and that's going to take some time. The people most embedded in the current system, the Cantillon winners, such as Ivy League business school graduates, rich old people and bureaucrats of all types, are the least likely to convert to Bitcoin and will fight tooth and nail to preserve their positions. These people are not going away quietly and you can already see that they're making their own bid to further zombify with CBDCs.
Szerencsére, Bitcoin has the advantage of time on its side. The Cantillon losers, such as young people, citizens of developing countries and actual producers of goods and services will inevitably turn toward the much fairer system in Bitcoin. The zombies will be consuming themselves.
Üdvözöljük a forradalomban. Menj, mentsd meg a civilizációt.
Ez Jimmy Song vendégbejegyzése. A kifejtett vélemények teljes mértékben saját véleményük, és nem feltétlenül tükrözik a BTC Inc. vagy a Bitcoin Magazin.
Eredeti forrás: Bitcoin Magazin