This is an opinion editorial by Frank Nuessle, former television executive, college professor and publishing entrepreneur.
This is the second part of an essay that explores the lessons to be learned from how Samuel Adams framed the American Revolution and how that same framing can accelerate the evolution of the dynamic American bitcoin economy we know all that she is somewhere invisible on the horizon. The first part can be found here.
Because the United States has the most to lose with the impending destruction of the U.S. petrodollar system, the focus of my research and conversation is an attempt to answer this question: “What is the design of the social system that will enable viral growth of a bitcoin economy in the United States? The story of the US bitcoin economy is key to the viral development of a healthy monetary economy.
I believe that Samuel Adams destroyed the “divine right of kings” paradigm with his framing, just as bitcoin must destroy the “divine right of fiat money” paradigm if it is to succeed.
It is important for us to understand the mindset of the average European and American settler in the 1760s. At that time in Western civilization, a king was essentially a god and should be worshiped as such. The divine right paradigm of kings had captured the human imagination and ruled Europe for 500 years.
In Europe at this time, there was a Spanish Empire, a British Empire, and a French Empire, among other minor empires, each with its own king. This explains why Europe was in a perpetual state of war. How many divine kings can a world have?
Adams destroyed this paradigm because he recognized that America’s struggle for independence was above all a spiritual struggle. He believed that self-government and freedom were paramount to self-governance and that the essential qualities were respect for all, integrity, austerity, and selfless service to the community.
How can Samuel Adams’ framing of the American struggle for independence serve to break the current hold on the American divine-right paradigm of fiat money?
Just as Adams was able to infuse the higher qualities of respect for all and service to the community into the struggle for American independence, Bitcoiners must find new ways to infuse values into money.
A successful US bitcoin economy will embed social values into money and develop participatory social structures that foster local communities and local economic structures as well as a culture of reciprocity and mutual support.
I suggest we call this new paradigm the “divine right of community,” where money serves the whole, not the other way around. Money is just a tool and should not be put on a pedestal.
VISA founder Dee Hock envisioned such a community when he wrote, “The organization of the future will be the embodiment of a community based on a common purpose calling for the highest aspirations of the people.”
In 1968, Hock was president of a small bank outside Seattle when he took over a bankrupt credit card company franchised by Bank of America. Within three years, he founded VISA, resurrecting the fledgling credit card industry that was failing at the time. VISA has become the largest commercial enterprise on Earth.
In his 1999 book, “The Birth of the Chaordic Age”, Hock wrote: “Forward, the possibility of a regeneration of individuality, freedom, community and ethics as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with each other, and with divine intelligence, such as the world has always dreamed of.
The challenge of realizing Hock’s vision is that we all unconsciously live outside the paradigm the robber barons left us: finance capital is sacred above all else. This scarcity mindset is also the main hurdle in convincing Bitcoin skeptics.
A direct attack on a skeptic’s beliefs only intensifies his fear and resistance. Something deeper must change. As agents of change for Bitcoin, we need to address this deeper thing, this wound at the heart of the fiat money paradigm and the scarcity it produces.
Like all living beings, paradigms have a lifespan. As the fiat money paradigm ages, serious cracks have begun to appear.
My late friend Joseph Chilton Pierce used to say, “A miracle is the name we give to the crack that allows light to shine through a greater and more radiant reality. This crack indicates not only that the greater reality is coming soon, but that it is more than you can imagine. It is both a preview and a promise.
The Bitcoin revolution begins when we allow ourselves to envision another kind of economy, another kind of world. Bitcoiners must offer an invitation into this bigger and more beautiful world.
Just as Samuel Adams was able to spark the American Revolution with his revolutionary vision of freedom, so can the miracle workers of Bitcoin for the world of sound money.
This is a guest post by Frank Nuessle. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
