On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Karl Robillard <krobillard@san.rr.com> wrote:

I don't see how the alternative currency experiments like Bitcoin do anything
to help us move to a more egalitarian, steady-state economy.

An economist will tell you that "price is information", but I'm not sure how
they justify that. An ounce of crack, a few hours of music lessons, a lawn
mower, or a couple hours of labor might all be $100. None of these can
remotely be considered the same, but yet the dollar value is identical. Any
mechanism which equates these is an absurd abstraction which eliminates a
great deal of useful information. This dearth of relational data is a
fundamental feature of money which turns the economy into a valuation game.
Over time, the wealth gap between those who game the system well and those
that don't becomes so great that a jubilee or a revolution is needed.

I see open source production and modern information technology as powerful
tools which allow us to more fully value things. They are important because
they help make money (just a primitive form of information technology, IMO)
obsolete. I just don't understand why people want to continue to treat the
economy as a game.

-Karl

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