This week I spoke with Mark Alizart, a philosopher and the author of The Climate Coup, Dogs, and most recently Cryptocommunism which has recently been translated into English from French and published by Polity Books. In the book, Mark argues that the significance of cryptocurrencies goes well beyond cryptoanarchism. In so far as they allow us ‘to appropriate collectively the means of monetary production’, to paraphrase Marx, and to replace ‘the government of persons by the administration of things’, as Engels advocated, they form the basis for a political regime that begins to look like a communism which has at last come to fruition – a cryptocommunism.
During the interview we discuss his thoughts on whether Marx and Engels would have been interested in cryptocurrencies and where blockchain potentially fits in their narrative particularly in regards to the people taking over the function of banks and the withering of the state. We also delve into some of the topics discussed in his book like socialism’s relationship with thermodynamics, how Marx and Hayek were correct and wrong about some things (but how Hayek was way more incorrect and anti-democratic), and the similarities between blockchain consensus and the Leninist’s political strategy of democratic centralism in the Soviet Union.
Podcast Platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3geORcile9E1EyPyFiAHhM?si=x7fjsFhURsSBlErXnihh9A
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blockchain-socialist/id1501607045
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-blockchain-socialist
Podcast Addict: https://podplayer.net/?podId=2598359
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/show/961422
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