Bitcoin is pure anarchism
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Bitcoin is pure anarchism
Freedom, democracy, prosperity.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: SHINOBI
Translation: Block unicorn
Bitcoin's "governance" process can be clearly and succinctly defined in one word: anarchism—governance within a voluntary and decentralized system where any other form of "governance" is entirely impossible.
"Anarchism" is a deeply divisive term for many people, often evoking images of chaos and complete disorder, which fundamentally misrepresents what anarchism actually means at any level. It simply refers to a system without rulers or central authority, where all cooperation and coordination occur purely on a voluntary basis among peers within the system. The etymology of the original Greek word "anarhkia" literally means "without ruler," with "an" meaning without and "arkhia" meaning ruler.
This concept underpins the fundamental reality of how Bitcoin operates as a distributed network and protocol—there truly is no one in control of the network. If there were, it would cease to be a distributed system of sovereign individuals voluntarily choosing to interact with each other.
People tend to view Bitcoin as an objective fact, a fixed reference frame for humanity, something that exists like physical laws. This is incorrect. Such thinking blurs the boundaries between objectivity, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity.
Objective facts do exist, independent of subjective human beliefs. For example, the law of gravity means that objects with sufficient mass exert gravitational force on all surrounding objects. No matter how many people refuse to believe this fact about the universe, it remains unchanged. (Subjectively) you could convince all of humanity, young and old, male and female, that gravity does not exist, but (objectively) this wouldn't stop gravity from affecting them all.
Take the value of the U.S. dollar as an example. Does the dollar have intrinsic value? Is this an objective truth? No. The only reason the dollar holds value for individuals is because they subjectively assign it value. Why do individuals subjectively assign value to the dollar? Because other individuals also subjectively assign value to it—this is intersubjectivity.
It is merely a shared subjective belief among many individuals. This is precisely what Bitcoin is—a distributed, intersubjective system. So what distinguishes Bitcoin from the dollar? The absence of rulers and coercion. The dollar system has controllers: the Federal Reserve, commercial banks that effectively issue new dollars through credit creation, government agencies regulating its use, and tax authorities mandating the use of dollars when fulfilling tax obligations.
Bitcoin has no such rulers. There is no Federal Reserve Board, no commercial banks dictating when and how many dollars enter circulation. There are no taxes forcing payments upon you. It is merely a distributed collection of economic participants who voluntarily run a piece of code to interact with each other.
"But Bitcoin has rules." Yes, it does. Rules that people voluntarily choose to adopt. No power structure or governance mechanism was involved in establishing these rules. These rules were released into the world by Satoshi Nakamoto, and everyone who has joined the network since then has voluntarily chosen to adopt them. There is no structure declaring "these are the rules"—only a set of rules that everyone has freely and fully chosen to follow.
Even the numerous changes to these rules over the years occurred entirely voluntarily, with no governance body or authority imposing them on anyone. There is no "process for changing the rules." Anyone can step forward at any time and propose a new rule to be added to the Bitcoin protocol and network. People can choose to adopt the new rule at any time, and if enough people do so, it becomes the network’s rule.
Many assume that because the protocol and network have rules, there must be some underlying "foundational rules" framework—some binding requirement regarding the system's purpose or nature that must be followed in order to change the system's own rules, something immutable or unevolving. This completely fails to grasp the reality of what an anarchist system actually is: beyond the rules people voluntarily choose to follow, there are no other rules.
Within the scope of these rules, it is anarchy. Within these rules, anything any individual voluntarily chooses to do when interacting with others is permitted. Even these rules themselves are merely the outcome of consensus achieved through a purely anarchic process—people voluntarily interacting within the framework they choose. This is its essence, regardless of how much you might wish to distort the definition to fit other frameworks.
There is no authority to appeal to here. Beyond the consensus rules themselves, there are no prescribed rules that people must follow—and even these cannot be demanded or enforced. All you can do is hope that people will continue following them out of their own self-interest. At any moment, a persuasive individual or group may convince others to change even these rules. If that happens, there is nothing you can do except try to become more persuasive yourself.
This is anarchism: free association, with no form of authority, coercion, or control over how others associate or under what conditions. Bitcoin is anarchism. If this fact unsettles you or instinctively provokes resistance, then you never truly understood Bitcoin to begin with.
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