DeFi and Democracy

Cryptocurrency developers are faced with a dilemma. Cryptocurrency's primary attraction and advantage is arguably decentralisation of control of finances: freedom from fee-profiteering middle men.

Old finance want to either own and control crypto, or else destroy it. This fits the 'Darwinian' - and largely intrinsically corrupt - modus operandi they've exhibited for most of the history of modern finance. (I have put scare quotes on the word 'Darwinian' because as an evolutionary psychology enthusiast and naturalistic philosopher, I value evolutionary theory, but I also recognise that some interpretations of the theory, and the term, are adversely ideologically affected, and get deployed unscientifically.)

The advantages of DeFi are secured through technology, but if that technology is subjected to the kind of ill-motivated regulatory impositions that stymy or nullify those advantages, then the value of cryptocurrencies to most users is removed or else significantly diminished. Profiteering middle men will again begin imposing fees and costs for adding anti-value (Things that are marketed as being value additive, but that only add value for them, and possibly some of their shareholders, while eroding or else destroying any true benefits for everyone else.)

The claim that cryptocurrency cannot operate and exist without interfacing with the existing middle-man-profiteering, anti-value banking systems is dubious at best. The truth seems to be that this claim of inseparability represents an imposition of will of predatory opportunists, rather than the truth.

There is wealth to be made by developers willing to accede to the impositions of old finance in their manipulation of regulatory authority. Yet the consequences for DeFi overall are apt to be multifariously deleterious. No true DeFi, no true value.

Given the history of Western capitalism and free market principles, there is, ironically, little chance the global democratisation of finance by deployment of decentralising fintech will survive the impositions of intrinsically fascistic financial institutions (I simply don't see how their nature, behaviour, and actions can escape such a label as apt). Nor will its benefits for most people.

The situation where regulatory bodies, well intentioned or otherwise, are being manipulated by large financial institutions as part of an anti-competitive, anti-trust strategy, is a reflection of, and reveals, the kinds of well-oiled mechanisms that constantly undermine the very concept of democracy (whether direct, deliberative, or parliamentary) and make it into the global joke that it currently is. You can talk about voting all you like, but big finance will have its way. Democratic - it is not. Perhaps big government is comparatively less of a threat to human freedom? Unless it is essentially controlled by big private finance. That is something interesting to think about, perhaps.

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