Bitcoin discussion and news

[kabbes]

It’s not about contraindication, it’s saying that describing some features of something is not the same as analysing its nature.

Anyway, if you want to read some analysis of money, the following are from my reading list and give a broad overview of the key themes. Once I post I’ll almost inevitably think of a tonne more but meh:

Maurer, B. (2006). The anthropology of money. Annual Review of Anthropology, 35, 15–36
Miyazaki, H. (2005). The materiality of finance theory. In D. Miller (Ed.), Materiality (pp.172-188)
Gilbert, E. (2005). Common cents: situating money in time and place. Economy and Society, 34(3), 357-388
Zaleskiewicz, T. & Gasiorowska, A. (2017). The psychological consequences of money. Ιn Jansson-Boyd & Zawisza (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of consumer psychology (pp. 312-326)
Zhou, X., Kim, S. & Wang, L. (2019). Money helps when money feels: Money anthropomorphism increases charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Research, 45, 953-972.

And these are the key books for embedding the ontology of money in its proper setting.

Simmel, G. (1990/1907). Philosophy of money
Sohn-Rethel, A. (1978). Manual and intellectual labour: A critique of epistemology
Bloch, M. & Parry, J. (1989). Money and the morality of exchange.
Basso, F. & Herrmann-Pillath, C. (2024). Embodiment, political economy and human flourishing.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is well worth a read.

 

[kabbes]

I knew I’d forget some. I mentioned money as a machine — here’s where that comes from. I’m less convinced by this, but it’s interesting.

Wilkins, I. & Dragos, B. (2022). Money as a computational machine. Finance and Society, 8(2), 110-128

And while we’re on that subject, it’s hard really to talk about money operating as a mediator of economic relations without reading Hayek, even if it’s only to point out the myriad flaws with his disembodied approach to the market.

 

[kabbes]

David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is well worth a read.

Graeber was great. Such a loss.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Big theme across all of this is that barter is something that may happen between societies, but it is something that has never been a system within a society, except where that society has completely broken down.

Echoing a kabbesian theme, exchange exists within a context of social relations, and always has done. It's kind of weird that anyone would think otherwise.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

It’s not about contraindication, it’s saying that describing some features of something is not the same as analysing its nature.

Anyway, if you want to read some analysis of money, the following are from my reading list and give a broad overview of the key themes. Once I post I’ll almost inevitably think of a tonne more but meh:

would have been useful to provide links but nevermind

Maurer, B. (2006). The anthropology of money. Annual Review of Anthropology, 35, 15–36

"The relative weight of money’s different “functions” continues to be debated, with some scholars emphasizing its function as a means of exchange (Robbins & Akin 1999), others stressing its function as a unit of account (Ingham2004, after Grierson 1977), and others refining the Marxist tradition on money as the ur-commodity (Lapavitsas 2005; compare LiPuma 1999)."

Miyazaki, H. (2005). The materiality of finance theory. In D. Miller (Ed.), Materiality (pp.172-188)

Cant get access

Gilbert, E. (2005). Common cents: situating money in time and place. Economy and Society, 34(3), 357-388

" I turn to examine the recent studies that have focused upon modern money’s capacity to act as a social medium of exchange"

I'd also argue that particularly when examining "modern money" he embeds trust as a necessary function, simply because prior to 2009, there was no way of doing money trustlessly - there always had to be a counterparty.

Zaleskiewicz, T. & Gasiorowska, A. (2017). The psychological consequences of money. Ιn Jansson-Boyd & Zawisza (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of consumer psychology (pp. 312-326)

cant get access

Zhou, X., Kim, S. & Wang, L. (2019). Money helps when money feels: Money anthropomorphism increases charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Research, 45, 953-972.

only definition of money I can find in there is "Unlike products owned by individuals to serve a specific purpose (e.g., adoll to please a baby), money is meant to be exchanged for other purposes" (means of exchange)

And these are the key books for embedding the ontology of money in its proper setting.

Simmel, G. (1990/1907). Philosophy of money
Sohn-Rethel, A. (1978). Manual and intellectual labour.
Bloch, M. & Parry, J. (1989). Money and the morality of exchange.
Basso, F. & Herrmann-Pillath, C. (2024). Embodiment, political economy and human flourishing.

thanks for the pointers, I'll get round to these at some point.

But I doubt that I'll find that they have different principles, more that these principles operate in particular ways in modern/fiat money

Wilkins, I. & Dragos, B. (2022). Money as a computational machine. Finance and Society, 8(2), 110-128

This focuses very heavily on money as a means of exchange and unit of account.

Big theme across all of this is that barter is something that may happen between societies, but it is something that has never been a system within a society, except where that society has completely broken down.

Echoing a kabbesian theme, exchange exists within a context of social relations, and always has done. It's kind of weird that anyone would think otherwise.

Barter, where money is removed and commodities exchanged directly, is almost entirely social.

Vending machines, automated toll road collection, parking meters, self service petrol stations are all examples of exchange without direct social relations - obviously there are meta-relationships - eg you cant buy a cola at the tennis club vending machine unless you are a member etc etc, but there is no direct social relationship.

Once you move to digital artifacts, it becomes even more abstracted - buying a software product for example has even less situational relationship associated with the purchase. Interestingly tho, in the crypto-realm, embedding social relationships can add value, so NFTs for example gain value by having strong relationships between the people who own the NFT, so you are not just buying the NFT, but you are also signaling belonging - and in fact, some would argue that this is a primary usecase of NFTs.

 

[kabbes]

This is the cast iron certainty of the ignorant — a belief that knowledge they don’t have access to must be irrelevant and unnecessary to engage with. Research across multiple disciplines and over 100 years, each of which contain a multitude of perspectives, waved away with one-liners and the assumption that “I doubt they’ll have different principles”.

Less than an hour between me posting the reading list and the response, by the way. It takes me a whole evening to read and take in a single one of those papers (let alone the books). But someone who has never met the ideas at all can apparently encompass all their subtlety across the whole lot and then post a response all in less than an hour.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ok I'll bite.

Has anyone anywhere ever bought an NFT for any other reason than that they think it's going to go up in value from whatever price they have paid for it?

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

.Less than an hour between me posting the reading list and the response, by the way. It takes me a whole evening to read and take in a single one of those papers (let alone the books). But someone who has never met the ideas at all can apparently encompass all their subtlety across the whole lot and then post a response all in less than an hour.

Of the 5 studies you cited, I could only get access to 3.

Your argument was that the principles of money as a store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account was outdated so I read them for how they were defining money in the papers.

The first has four functions of money, and both the other two focus heavily on medium of exchange. (Gilbert is really interesting, as it talks extensively of time and space - and I spent a great deal of time in the time section of the bitcoin rabbit hole, I havent explored space fully, but there is a lot of work being done on blockchain as digital space - including bitmaps) The third seemed quite irrelevant tbh, as it was a study looking at how people feel about philanthopic/charitable giving rather than the nature of money itself, but the principle of "medium of exchange" was prominent, both in the giving to receive warm fuzzy feelings in return, and also the fact that the donations were a proxy for the goods and services that the giver anticipated the recipient to obtain with them.