bitcoin as a global medium of exchange (was Re: Interesting take on Sanjuro's Assassination Market)

James A. Donald jamesd at echeque.com
Wed Nov 27 17:56:47 PST 2013


On 2013-11-28 09:56, I wrote:
 > Because of this problem, power tends to slide from the hands of
 > elected officials into the hands of a permanent and unelected elite, 
 > which is the situation we now have in America.
 >
 > In the short term this alleviates the problems of  democracy,
 > but in the longer term, which is to say now, discipline  within
 > the permanent unelected elite breaks down, and they all steal
 > from each other and the public, they succumb to the tragedy of
 > the  commons, which is the situation we now have.

Oligarchy suffers from the problem of tragedy of the commons, which
problem often winds up being solved by military dictatorship.
Thus democracy tends to wind up in the rule of one man, either
directly, as in the election of Napoleon the third, or by way of
oligarchy, as with Napoleon the first.





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