Introduction
In the article I wrote three years ago, Government & Bitcoin, which is still available on the International Business Times website. I argued that governments could not stop Bitcoin.
This year, we have seen the approval of exchange-traded funds based on Bitcoin by the US Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC), finally allowing the financial industry to take a piece of Bitcoin action.
Rather than stopping Bitcoin, prominent candidates for the US elections, such as Donald Trump and R. F. Kennedy Junior, are now vying for Bitcoin donations to help support their campaigns. What a turnaround!
So, despite what you may hear in the mainstream media, Bitcoin is far more robust as a technology than they would have you believe. Consequently, it will influence profound changes in our society going forward.
Elections
Given the forthcoming elections in the UK, the EU, and the US, I have updated my previous article. Having covered the history of money elsewhere on this website, I can now expand on its significant influence on governments. Bitcoin fundamentally changes how politics and government will likely operate, and I outline why in this article.
To understand government, we need to appreciate that it is currently responsible for managing the rules and, hence, the legal structures that organise our society. The politicians are the people elected to government and, therefore, responsible for having a say in introducing and managing these rules.
Rules
Rules are powerful, and I still recall the moment I became fully aware of their extraordinary impact on the human psyche.
It was 2006, and while preparing the dissertation for my MBA, I interviewed dentists about occasions when they may have ended their professional relationships with their clients. I remember one dentist who was rather timid and uncomfortable about being interviewed. Still, he eventually divulged an instance where he considered ending his relationship with a client. But it took some digging.
He told me the story of a patient seeing him for treatment, and on the way out the door, this patient took some money lying on the reception desk. The dentist blamed himself for leaving the money available to take. However, he admitted he probably would still provide treatment if the patient returned to see him.
I was astonished by this and spent some time reflecting after the interview. I was puzzled. Suppose the same person had walked off with some money from an accountant. It is implausible that the accountant would do business with that person again. The trust between them would be broken. So, why was it different with this dentist?
Finally, I realised. As dentists, we are obliged to operate within the limitations set down by the General Dental Council. A set of rules this dentist took very seriously. A central line of which states:
I pondered this. If, on the one hand, we are taught not to steal, but on the other hand, someone can make a rule implying that someone else can wrong you, but still, you must put that person’s interests before your own – how do we reconcile that?
Laws and rules are essential in our society; it is helpful to understand the limits of our behaviour. In general, human beings love to be rewarded by being accepted and feeling like they are doing the right thing. They prefer to avoid punishment for doing something inappropriate.
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