Abstract
Blockchain technology makes it more feasible for individuals to exit political-socioeconomic systems at the level of the system itself and elect to accede freely to institutional systems which formulate, promulgate, keep and verify institutions and public records without a centralised authority. This essay investigates the dynamic of such a society in which political-socioeconomic systems may be organised using blockchain technology. We propose a theory of society as an evolutionary system in which the unit of selection is the institutional system associated with a particular blockchain or the state and selection pressures are applied by individuals deciding to interact within them and have their interactions entered into the public record. We establish the conditions under which institutions will thus be selected by considering the limits to substitutability and discover that any institutional system must meet requirements and provide sufficient complementarities in order to be selected and retained by the evolutionary process.
Highlights
Blockchain technology makes it more feasible for individuals to exit political-socioeconomic systems at the level of the system itself and elect to accede freely to institutional systems which formulate, promulgate, keep and verify institutions and public records without a centralised authority
We will consider blockchain and how, as a distributed ledger technology, it provides a platform which might constitute the foundation of entire institutional systems which might compete with the state, and at the very least make exit from existing political-socioeconomic systems more feasible than ever before
We investigate the dynamics of such a society as would be organised by blockchain by proposing a theory of society as an evolutionary system in which the unit of selection is an institutional system associated with a particular blockchain or the State and establish the properties of an institutional thej b b a system which is likely to be selected and retained by the evolutionary process
Summary
The basic vision of anarchism – if there can be one for such a diffuse and subtle mode of political thought – is of a society entirely free of the State and all its violence and coercion. Even while the state exists all-powerful, the technology which might allow for such large-scale action is emerging in the form of the blockchain. We will consider blockchain and how, as a distributed ledger technology, it provides a platform which might constitute the foundation of entire institutional systems which might compete with the state, and at the very least make exit from existing political-socioeconomic systems more feasible than ever before. We conclude by considering the likely outcome of this process and what will be required for the anarchist dream of a society formed by free association and interaction, or at least a serious challenge to the hegemony of the State over the institutional system to be realised. The laws of contract and property were a precondition for the development of the capital base and technologies embodied within it which drove the industrial revolution (Landes, 1969) and was a guarantor of the emerging “bourgeois virtues” supporting exchange and enterprise (McCloskey, 2006)
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