Potential of the Blockchain Technology for the Degrowth Agenda

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Discussion

Pete Howson, interviewed by Evgeny Morozov:

“EM: You have explored the potential of the blockchain technology for the degrowth agenda, finding that, while potentially useful, they nonetheless present advocates of degrowth with a number of dilemmas to ponder. What are those dilemmas and why some care needs to be exercised? What needs to change for blockchain technologies to be useful to the degrowth agenda?

PH: The sole purpose of a blockchain is to replace the need to trust someone. And without exception, every attempt to use a blockchain for something has resulted in the creation of a platform that would work better without a blockchain. Using a conventional shared database for example. But we’re seeing some experimentation with blockchain anyway for things like local energy micro-grids and community currencies. They’re being used by indigenous groups to assert customary land claims. The technology potentially opens doors to new possibilities. You may have heard this quote, from Zizek or Mark Fischer, “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism.” Some of these blockchain projects are helping communities get over this neoliberal crises of imagination. But, degrowthers and anyone else interested in building a sustainable post-capitalist future must be mindful that blockchain projects exist because their users do not trust their institutions or even each other. It was born from game theory. Proof of Work, which is the consensus protocol that secures a lot of these blockchains, depends on John Nash’s "Fuck You Buddy" idea. This is the idea that everyone using a network is acting purely towards their own self-interest. And that privileging of the sovereign individual brings about what Hayek and others refer to as ‘spontaneous order’ – peace through suspicion and competition. Ivan Illich, a prominent degrowther back in the 1970s, defined conviviality as “individual freedom realised in personal interdependence.” That’s the total opposite of "Fuck You Buddy". So the goal of degrowth projects then, should never be to use blockchain for degrowth. But perhaps they be open to technologies like blockchain, if a transition to degrowth requires them?”


(https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/pete-howson-on-cryptocarbon/ )