On 13 Sep 97 at 23:58, iang@systemics.com wrote:
That's right, there is a section of the population that is extremely interested in holding onto their e$. Let's call them the rich, because they have e$ to think of.
Let's get into modelization! So, let's put first things first. First, you shouldn't say e$ but $, because it is what thoses you call "the rich" have. Now, does e-$ would permit govt to behave the same way as they do now?
Then there is a section of the population that is not that so interested, because they fundamentally have very little e$ to protect. Let's call them the poor; nothing to think about except lack of e$.
The problem is that the rich win in the system known as the capitalist economy, but the poor win in the system known as the democracy. There is a balance between the capitalist economy and democracy that runs like this:
How do they win? By the use of coercion (and this is why guns should not get registered).
1. a democracy is the best protector of an open economy.
Out of what hat did you got that one? Who said so and why? :-) My opinion is that your remark is falling into the same category as the the old fallacy saying "everything is uncertain but death and taxes".
2. an open economy generates a small group of rich, and a large group of poor (relatively speaking).
Statistically, yes. But it doesn't intrinsically generates *envious* poors. But that is a discussion about Values and Ethics and their link to emotions and nobody who's not an Ayn Rand fanatic or who doesn't have a few more terabytes of disk space to spare doesn't want to get into it... :-)
3. a large group of poor will vote within a democracy to tax the rich.
It depends on which moral code the legislative authorities base their actions. But the sentence "a large group of poor will always try, within a democracy, to justify the muscling-in on the rich transactually-acquired wealth" would be true.
It's the difference between politics and economics: Are you going to tell the voters that the rich can hide their e$ or are you going to tell them that the Feds will spy on them? As the voters are mostly poor, I'd be sticking with the second option.
True
Remember, everybody gets one vote, but only the smart get lots of e$.
This one for-the-time-being reason why crypto should be deployed. The true answers will be found in the nature of the data exchange system, it's robustness and reliability, and the impact of dropping the govt out of the money loop. Sometimes, an invention can change the face of the world. Mathematics did, gun powder did, the printing press did, the microprocessor did, so why not crypto? And what is the most Joe Everybody consumer-oriented use of crypto? Ciao jfa P.S. Anybody who has a clue about modelizing the effects of a behaviour/entity (use of e$) that hamper the survival of another one (govt) in a complex system, please drop me a line (any micro-biologists online?) -- Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds(Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest of Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists and engineers, LabView programing. PGP encryption keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C