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DEBATE: Should Bitcoin Advocates Seek Regulation? The “No” Argument
The Sovereign Network Clashes with Legal Growing Pains
Click here for the “Yes” argument.
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“The Anathema of Bitcoin”
TND Guest Contributor: Daniel Rybnik
A decentralized network of peers like bitcoin is a community in which many people participate to share information for various purposes. As a group organization, it is based on a system of decentralized decision-making that simultaneously seeks to provide a control that is similar to Philip Pettit‘s concept of freedom as non-domination.
This control is:
- Individual: each user has a capacity for control equal to that of everyone else.
- Unconditional: the influence of each individual does not depend on the goodwill of others.
- Effective: it sets a clear direction for collective decisions, and in such a manner that when it does not comply with what someone wants, that is seen as a matter of bad luck, not as the imposition of the will of others.
Users can assume different roles and agree to participate to the extent they appreciate its usefulness and trust in the sustainability of its foundations. The possibilities that the Internet and free software give have facilitated the processes of depersonalization and globalization. Thus, they have become a key tool towards the establishment of these networks.
There is no central authority to assign rights or to impose obligations, but all the parties involved create a voluntary link in which the software generates rights and obligations that are also regulated by the software and the protocol.
The very question of whether these networks can be regulated by a state authority is based on a premise that is either verging on the absurd, or nearly reaches totalitarianism.
One’s voluntary use of these networks goes against the potential for anyPareto improvements — otherwise the options would have been exploited already. Thus, any state regulation that supposedly increases the usefulness for a few will decrease the expected benefits for others.
The story is already known: people will create options to satisfy the needs of those harmed, and another system will spontaneously arise to replace the network subject to state regulations, unless the state apparatus achieves full control over access to information and the use of the Internet.
That is equivalent to arguing that the coercive state apparatus can and should regulate physics and control humanity. Cracking down on the first is absurd, and the second one is totalitarianism.
Daniel Rybnik is an Argentinean lawyer, mediator, and professor of tax law. He holds a masters degree in banking, corporate and financial law (Fordham University), and is a PhD candidate in law at Buenos Aires University. He is also a founding partner ofEnterPricing. Follow @drybnik.
This article was published at PanAm Post and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Source: http://thenewsdoctors.com/debate-should-bitcoin-advocates-seek-regulation-no-argument/
