Political Economy Seminar
Cryptocurrencies as units of account: possibilities for a postcapitalist, distributed mode of measurement
Presenter: Dick Bryan
Date: Oct 25 2022
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time)
Location: Room 650, Social Sciences Building (A02), University of Sydney, NSW, 2006 and Zoom
Recording
Abstract
There is, as yet, relatively little debate about how blockchains and cryptotokens might be innovatively and effectively applied to the economic potential for post-capitalism. Unfortunately, most of the economic debate to date has been about whether Bitcoin is, or might become, a challenge to the state’s fiat currency as a means of exchange and store of value (essentially a Hayekian question).
In contrast, this paper puts the focus on the role of money as unit of account and hence on the definition of what constitutes ‘Value’ (as that term is understood in political economy) and its measurement. It re-frames the conventional, state-centred depiction of ‘unit of account‘ to make it crypto-compatible, and then explores the potential for cryptocurrencies to build the conditions for a distributed, scalable network determination of what constitutes ‘Value’, distinct from capital’s (state-endorsed) criterion of profit.
Such an alternative unit could be centrally defined and imposed hierarchically, but the objective considered here is a distributed process in which ‘Value’, and debates about what should count as ‘Value creation’, are expressed in ledger-based network relations. The goal is not to define what that post-capitalist unit of account should be, but to offer a perspective on the procedures by which it might be determined as an organic expression of network relations.
The presentation will be conceptually focussed but will also, by way of illustration, consider a range of environment-focussed tokens, and their limitations as units of account, as a way to clarify the sorts of protocols that might enable a coherent unit of account.
About the speaker
Dick Bryan is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney and Chief Economist at the Economic Space Agency (ECSA)
Anitra Nelson | Oct 18 2222
Will a recording be made available, please?
Gareth Bryant | Oct 25 2222
Hi Anitra.- so we recorded it after all! I have included link to Youtube in this post.
Gareth Bryant | Oct 20 2222
Hi Anitra – no recording plans sorry, but you can watch live via Zoom.
Anitra Nelson | Oct 26 2222
Great. Thanks for making a recording of this talk available Gareth.