This week I had the opportunity to interview the main author of Socialism and the Blockchain, Steve Huckle, a researcher at the University of Sussex in Brighton. The article was published in 2016 by Future Internet and one of the only pieces of academic research which takes a closer look at blockchain and how it could use for socialist paradigms. In the interview we talked about his thoughts on energy use, technology, and why academia tries so hard to avoid politics, at least in the UK.
Note this interview took part over email as well as over a call so some answers have been edited to make it easier to read.
Can you give a quick overview about yourself? How did you get to where you are today?
My career in computing began in the early 1990s and currently, I am researching blockchain technology for a PhD at the University of Sussex. After achieving a distinction for my BSc in Computer Science, I began work as a UNIX Systems Administrator. I then ran my own web-based business, which streamed DJ mixes over the Internet. That sparked an interest in digital music, and in 2003, I undertook an MSc in Music Technology. That led to my becoming an Audio Programmer in games. In 2010, wanting to increase my knowledge of environmental issues, I took a second MSc in Advanced Environment and Energy at the Centre for Alternative Technology. I funded that course by working as a Freelance Programmer, where my main focus became website development. Then, in 2013, a friend asked me to build him a Bitcoin mining rig, and so began my journey into blockchain technologies.
What were your initial thoughts on bitcoin while you were helping your friend? Especially considering your Masters in environment and energy and the frequently brought out point about bitcoin being energy intensive and a waste of energy.
The rig that I had running at home in 2013 was when you didn’t need ASIC miners. Back then actually, the mining rigs weren’t too bad. I was using around a standard kilowatt of energy for the whole setup.
But I think energy consumption and IT systems in general is a problem not just bitcoin and it’s something that’s not spoken about enough. Bitcoin is often criticized for using half the energy of countries but people are happy using smart phones, computer systems, and laptops that are interacting with servers. None of that stuff comes for free either. I took part in an academic engagement piece about bitcoin energy consumption where I argued that the fact that it challenges system paradigms, hierarchy, and money may make its energy consumption worthwhile.
Energy consumption, how we generate energy, and its carbon footprint is something we need to address as society as a whole. We need to move away from fossil fuels. If we do that, bitcoin and society in general will benefit. It’s a problem for society and not just bitcoin. It’s concerning that bitcoin uses a lot of energy so it’s something we need to address.
Why are you a socialist?
As an inquiring being, my first instinct was to wonder if I was a Socialist! I decided to ask How Stuff Works – it seems I am (mostly) Socialist, after all!
You are mostly socialist, and importantly, you are NOT a communist. You’re a democratic socialist; that is, someone who seeks to achieve a more redistributive society through the ballot box. Do you want to abolish private ownership of the means of production? Not entirely. Sure, you would nationalise certain things, but generally speaking, you just want to make sure that the ownership of capital is equitable and that workers get a share of the wealth they create.
That’s a fairly accurate description of my viewpoint – I believe the State should provide monopolised utilities, such as energy, water, education and public transport systems like the railway network.
However, I’ve become a little disillusioned by the ballot box. I still vote, but I’m beginning to wonder if there might be better, more innovative ways, of choosing our democratic bodies. For example, in the UK, we select jurors for our legal system through random selection. That seems to work quite well – might we use a similar process to choose State Legislature?
I don’t know if a How Stuff Works quiz would be the paragon of determining your political beliefs, but I get what you’re saying. A democratic economy is a good way of summarizing certain aspects of socialism I think. Any thoughts on the UK election and Corbyn?
Bad news on the face of it, however I’m trying to see the good of what happened and I’m taking a slightly more nuanced view. I don’t think that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour movement as a whole lost as badly as it looks at the face of it because the Conservative party are now committing to some investment to public services in the north. Some of the way they’ve been talking about it is a direct link from the Labour Party manifesto. In other words, I don’t think they would have committed to any form of public investment were it not for the push from the Labour party. I’m just trying to see the good in what happened on December the 12th.
Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party have moved to a more socialist and left agenda. I think the moment they started doing that, they got attacked by the UK’s right wing press. It makes it a hard path because the powers-that-be will attack anything that undermines them and that was everything in the run up to the election unfortunately.
How do you synthesise your ideas around blockchain and socialism considering there aren’t too many vocal supporters of both?
Indeed, blockchain technology is best known through Bitcoin, which is quite clearly a Libertarian vehicle since it aims to wrestle away monetary sovereignty from State institutions. However, consider that blockchains rely on a community of validators providing co-operative consensus. The result is a communitarian network of collaboration that is non-hierarchical and peer-to-peer. So blockchains are egalitarian; In other words, they are a good a realisation of Socialist principles! Furthermore, their means of production was Socialist because they were created through open-source and commons-based peer production practices.
How did you come with the idea to work on the “Socialism and the Blockchain” paper? Was it controversial when you tried to publish it?
During the early stages of my PhD, I wrote a short abstract for a paper that synthesised my thinking of blockchains as a Socialist vehicle. I sent that abstract to a publisher and then forgot all about it. But a few months later, I got an email from their Editor asking me where the paper was! I had to go into my PhD Supervisor (the second author) and tell him about the proposed article. Now, consider that I was working in an apolitical Computer Science department – well, my Supervisor was less than enamoured by the idea. Still, to his credit, he told me, “Well, you’re going to have to write the paper, then!”
The peer reviewers liked the paper, and they were incredibly helpful in organising the article, so it conveyed my ideas better. For them, my thoughts of blockchains as a Socialist technology weren’t controversial at all!
And I’ve had very little negative feedback since publication – I think most people seem to accept the egalitarian principles of blockchain technology.
Why do you think it is so difficult to discuss politics in the tech and software development world? At times there seems to be an aversion to it even though the work can have serious political consequences.
As I said above, the Computer Science Department where I work is very definitely apolitical. However, I will dispute the premise of the question – there’s not necessarily an aversion to politics in tech’, it’s just that, in my experience, politics is not often discussed. That might be because there is a lack of awareness that software development, as a means of production, is most certainly a political act.
I guess what I mean by discussing politics is the act of doing it. In a sense, you can say that not discussing politics and being apolitical is a political act in of itself that benefits the status quo. Do you have thoughts on that?
I think it should be discussed. I would like to see a module within the Computer Science degree that talks about the context of technology, like the implications of Twitter, Facebook, blockchain, decentralization, open source development, and ya know, the means of production. The focus is very much on the technology and I think that discussion of the social implications happen elsewhere. I’d like to see it integrated or at least expose undergraduates to it so that they are aware of what they’re doing.
I hadn’t considered that the very act of not discussing it is political in itself and that’s possibly so. Universities have become increasingly wary of being seen as political and that’s a direct consequence of the marketization of UK universities and how they get funding. All of that introduced constraints for how open discussions of politics and socialism take place. It’s a shame. I’m actually in discussions with the university for introducing some modules that look at the social implications of technology.
Do you have any suggestions for people in this world on how they can approach their colleagues to discuss left wing politics?
Listen to the views of your colleagues, then offer an opinion couched in an egalitarian left wing perspective. The moderated sense of reason can win many friends. However, if you meet obstinance, keep yourself safe, stay reasonable and move on – only air your views to those open to inquiry.
Do you think you have been successful in shifting a colleague’s in tech view on left wing politics before?
So I work at the moment in a university and most people there I would say are quite left leaning anyway. I’ve certainly gotten people to think more environmentally. One of my colleagues now cycles to work solely as a result of me saying “perhaps you shouldn’t be using your SUV to travel your five miles to work.” I also work at the Creative Technology lab in Brighton with people that are doing art-centric virtual reality work and they are quite left wing as well. Also, I live in Brighton which is far more left wing than the rest of the UK so most of them don’t need too much persuading.
Coming back to the UK election, if you look at the result, the Conservatives didn’t get the majority of the vote. They received 43% of those who voted and 30% of the available electorate. It shows how broken the first-past-the-post system is because they got a large majority of seats. It’s certainly wrong. I would like to see some form of proportional representation supported by the Labour Party because I think compared to now, Brighton and other parts of the country would be better represented.
One of the reasons I started the site was to bring up blockchain into discussions on the Left because I think there’s also a general misunderstanding of it where people on the Left see it as purely an instrument for speculation or focus solely on bitcoin and association with right wing libertarianism. There was this article titled “Bitcoin is not what Socialism Needs” where they mention your article that I believe you’ve read before. What were your thoughts on it?
Well first I agree with the title, bitcoin is not what socialism needs, I couldn’t agree more. My article was about blockhain but I think they didn’t read it entirely. Addressing something specific in the article on the criticism of bitcoin being a social vehicle, I think if I were to write the article today, I would mention interesting work about fungibility and tokens in Ethereum being done. I think I would include burning the labour token so they couldn’t provide liquidity to address that specific criticism but I’m doing this by memory since I don’t have it in front of me unfortunately.
On a more general point though, I like the piece actually. The fact that it discusses the article and it puts it out there for debate, I welcome that. I think your site as well about increasing awareness of blockchain helps and what we discussed about the social implication of technology, if this could be a more egalitarian piece of technology, the consideration of the means of production, open source technology, and decentralized governance, should all be discussed. So I welcome this criticism. I think we shouldn’t be afraid of debate as long as it’s done in a friendly way and interesting points are made where we may agree to disagree. That’s all good in my opinion.
What are the big projects that you are working on now? What is the status of Enervator?
ReportAid and Enervator are my current big projects. ReportAid is a humanitarian aid reporting blockchain-based application that is currently being investigated by a development division of the UN. Enervator is a cryptocurrency for incentivising energy efficiency. It has attracted the interest of my local County Council. My university and the council are discussing the possibility of a research project looking at the deployment of blockchains to help them streamline their energy use. I’m excited by that idea.
If people want to help with your work or keep up with you, where should they look?
You can find me on my website at glowkeeper.github.io and you can find all my projects on there where my name is glowkeeper in github. I would love to get others involved in ReportAid and Enervator. Enervator in particular is having some stuff happen around it as I mentioned before. I’m looking forward to see where it goes.
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