The Politics of Steem
Steem is not just a blogging platform but a broad sociopolitical economic system. At first glance, the platform feels like an anarcho-capitalist experiment. But delving into it deeper, we find an intriguing and unique system.
Today, Blockchain is widely used as an anarcho-capitalist tool. However, Steem is the first time we have had an application of it that actually involves a vast number of people getting together, working together - producing and consuming services. Steemit is the first outlet where we actually see a new economic system unfold.
The key to this post is simplicity. I'm no political expert - I shall be boiling it down the bare basics, and also look at how the system works today, and not how it was founded. Politics is a highly divisive topic, so my intention is not to go into a deep analysis, but encourage discussion. There will be several terms used, it is my request not to take them too literally. I shall also forego pictures in favor of simplicity.
Minarchy
Right away, there's a deviation from pure anarcho-capitalism. The Steem platform does have its rules and constitution, and developers who can amend them (hard forks). However, this form of governance is the bare minimum, required to facilitate an orderly free market. Akin to a night-watchman state, a minarchy.
Weighted democracy
The platform is kept running by Witnesses, whom the developers listen to closely. The witnesses represent a consensus.
Witnesses are voted for by the community - a sign of democracy. However, Steem is not a direct democracy. The votes are weighted by stake-holding, so this is a weighted democracy. As, of course, is rewards across the platform.
Voluntarist capitalism
Beyond the witnesses and algorithms lies a system which functions on a largely free market. All rewards are stake-weighted and individuals have complete liberty to operate on a voluntary basis.
Reputation and Non-aggression Principle
An observation that always surprises me is how civil and ethical everyone is on Steemit, even at this early stage.
Sure, there's a lot of junk and the rare scammer, but they are sorted out very quickly by the community. We have seen instances of scammers being deemed irrelevant within hours. There are some miscreants that continue to function, but long term they either have to mend their ways or eventually be exposed as well.
Every person's every action is held accountable, both by the collective memory of the community and the more objective Reputation system, which is an enforcement of the non-aggression principle.
Not everyone on Steemit is ethical or compassionate, but it is clear that such behavior is what thrives here. Everyone will be forced to be ethical or risk irrelevance, and eventually it will inculcate a second nature.
So far, we have what I would broadly call a minarcho-capitalist and voluntarist system. But there's a twist to the tale.
The Socialist perspective - Stake-holding and re-distribution
I can hear ancaps shouting from the rooftops! But the reality is, there's a thin but prominent line separating anarcho-captialism and libertarian socialism, and Steem attempts to straddle it.
This is where Steemit diverges from pure capitalist models in favor of long term welfare.
Steem rewards users with an ownership of the platform (Steem Power/Vests). But where it really innovates is by encouraging and rewarding voluntary re-distribution (Curation Rewards).
Some of the heavily influential stakeholders have even looked beyond curation rewards and are now curating a diversity of content - all for the growth of the platform foregoing a quick buck. I also see many groups and sub-communities forming who are working together rather than for themselves.
This re-distribution really is happening at a rapid pace. Of course, I expect this to slow down once the platform matures and inflation rate settles down to 100%, but the trend is clear.
It is fascinating to see this in action. I feel this will extend the long term sustainability of pure capitalist systems.
So how does this translate to the wider world?
Let's face it - an anarchic and libertarian political system is going to fail in the wider world today. There are some evil people out there who require more than a Reputation system to get into line. But Steem is continuing the discussion on how this will be viable some day and is the most practical form of libertarianism I have come across till date.
In the end, the Steem platform boasts of a fascinating political and economic system which is largely libertarian and voluntarist but borrows the best ideas from a variety of seemingly conflicting philosophies. In my humble opinion, this is a remarkably mature approach.
The end goal does seem to be a long term community where ethics and morals shine through a free market. People are rewarded for the value they bring to the community, and I can't wait to see how Steem scales to millions of people!
Fire away!
I agree deeply with your statement, that Steemit is an anarcho-capitalistic experiment. It's truely is and I am excited to be a part of it. But I have to disagree with your thoughts about the socialist aspects of Steemit. Nobody gets a free lunch on Steemit. Rewards are not given for doing nothing (except the 3 SP for signing up). Curation is a job, posting is a job. And the market decides how much the reward for your work is. Also I have to add one point: With our greedy selfish aim to get Steem by posting and curating (at least in my case), we are creating something bigger: a new crypto-currency. So, it's just like Dan and Ned told in the DollarVigilante interview: we are creating a new economy based on Steem. The best thing: there are no taxes in this economy. :-)
There will be taxes for sure.
yes totally agree ! while i am eating, walking , showering, i am always thinking how to write my next post.
after watching that interview with dan and ned and dollarvigilante, i am much more confident, that this experiment will have a decent chance.
Its funny, but i imagined Dan totally differently, i had only seen Ned in a picture, but to see Dan, the crypto enthusiast, it made me feel much better. Both seem to complement each other well, Dan the brain behind how the whole thing works technically, and Ned seems to cover the business aspects pretty well.
i heard 100s of investment pitches from founders in my life, but If i had them pitch me their story, i think i might have given them my money right away as an investment.
about the social aspects, i think that there is a circle of users, helping out others. i am giving myself 10% of all my SMD earnings out to others, to encourage them to keep pushing and to stay a bit longer. I think its important that people stay at least 30 days, and really try to give their best. if you are a bit lucky, someone will notice you and help you get more followers and voters for your posts.
If there is a social aspect on Steemit, that might be ok too, there is enough money to be made, that a part of the money might be distributed to others. the beauty is, that we only have to vote, and not to invest our money.
so the job miners are doing for bitcoin, the community is giving time instead of mining power. And is rewarded. I think the fact that every user has just to invest time, will be the most important differentiator to other platforms, and this might be the key to success for Steemit.
I would have guessed, someone going by @capitalism would have a skewed perspective of socialism. :) Socialism doesn't mean "rewards for doing nothing". Well, maybe in some extreme form of socialism. But that's not what I mean. All I mean is Steem takes some influence from the best of socialism - and brings it to the largely capitalist model. Giving users a stake and encouraging re-distribution of wealth are socialist influences that work surprisingly well in a capitalist system.
Socialism is not the devil - yes, it is deeply flawed, but there are things one can learn from it to improve capitalism. And that's what I applaud - it's a mature approach.
Enjoyed you post, but I too think you socialist comparison is incorrect. What you are mistaking for socialism is in fact simply the act of bootstrapping an currency and economy. The whales, "fee" curation and the redistribution effect will not last forever. This is simply a plan for the initial stage of the project...... It's pretty hard having a useful circulating currency if a very small group of early investors own it all.
You may be right. The re-distribution effect at this stage is pretty dramatic, but like I mentioned, I don't know how it will play out when inflation rate settles at 100%. All that said, I bet curation rewards and stake-holding rewards aren't going away.
I knew I would get called out on this! But, I will keep saying it over and over again - I don't mean that the system is socialist in any way. I'm just saying the founders looked at some libertarian socialist leaning ideas as a way to improve their capitalist model.
IMO there is maybe a misunderstanding between Americans and Europeans. Here in Europe anarchism is deeply connect with communist-socialist ideas, think of Proudhon and Bakunin, whereas in the US anarchism is deeply connected with capitalism. There's also a different understanding of socialism. Did you know, that the US had never a real socialist party? Nor, real socialism - compared to Europe. I was raised in East Germany and have a good feeling, what this (european) socialism is all about. But of course your understanding of socialism maybe differ. When you define socialism as "giving users a stake and encouraging redistribution of wealth", then every company that gives a annual bonus to the workers and discounts to the buyers of their products would a socialist entity. Ok, that doesn't match exactly. But my understanding of socialism is simply different. Nethertheless, I fully understand your point and agree with it. We are doing here something that is more than raw capitalism. Something like the open source movement, which is in my view neither connected to socialism or capitalism, its a form of communitarism.
Once again, all I'm saying is Steem takes some good ideas from libertarian socialism. That's all. You are taking it too literally. Let's not get into semantics! I do have a feeling that you are mixing communism - an extreme form of socialism previously used in the USSR and East Germany - with the broad umbrella of socialism. Libertarian socialism, for example, is pretty much the exact opposite of communism.
If a company rewarded stake holders to pass on re-distribute some of their stake to lesser stake holders, then yes, that is indeed a socialist idea. That is very different from giving an annual bonus and discounts to buyers. The important thing to note is that this re-distribution actually helps grow capital. So, best of both worlds! The top guy gains, the bottom guy gains too.
This entire system is 100% voluntary, and thus it is not communist, statist, or socialist. An there can never be "taxes" as taxes require theft from individuals(outside of protocal/ hacking flaw). Thus this is also not a nightwachtmen state either. As such a state requires taxes.
Steem is obviously 100% voluntary.
However, Night-watchmen need not necessarily require taxation. Either way, we do pay for bandwidth. There have been people who have been unable to post or interact with Steemit if their Steem Power is too low given their activity.
We'll see about that civility once money starts coming in for the express purpose of buying influence. For example, there are stories that the Russian government operates social media propaganda labs, where agents' full-time jobs are to talk about how great Putin is on social media. This would be a perfect place for them! Putin could toss a million dollars (chump change, really) at a Steem-voting botnet and start pushing pro-statist, anti-western articles to the front page. I suspect it will be a very different landscape when that sort of thing starts happening.
The problem with buying influence is that we're now seeing the "Feed" feature. People will not be interested in propaganda and so it won't show up in their feeds. And as the friends/followers feature develops more people will just get info from the networks that interest them. So it becomes a waste of money to try and game the system. The money they pour in will just feed the value of Steem making it more attractive for more people.
You just said: "everybody will ignore the advertising and propaganda" but "they money they pour in will fund everybody."
Why would they pour money in if their message is totally ignored? It seems like there has to be an equilibrium; the advertisers/politicians need to have enough voice for it to be worth their money to spend it on us. It's an interesting conundrum, don't you think? We want (and, I would argue, really really need) their money, but the only way we get it is if we give them our eyeballs.
Yeah good point. I was just riffing and prob should of used a conditional tense. In another post I pondered whether there could be a way to control how much advertising you want, like a scale, and that could be tied to your earnings on the site in some way. the more advertising you allow the more money you can make. Just a thought.
Yeah, I think that's a pretty interesting idea - I've seen a couple proposals along those lines. I'll be curious to see how things look as they develop!
That is a fair point! I wonder if there's some mechanism in place to prevent such abuse - I bet there is or is being actively worked upon. Perhaps someone more familiar with the platform can comment? Somehow, I doubt I could go to that Buy Steem Power link and willy nilly power up worth $1 billion.
Honestly, I'd argue that in a sense there shouldn't be a mechanism to prevent it, because Steem can only be successful if money is flowing into the system. Where does the money come from? Politics and advertising. Some of that will be distasteful, but without it the financial future of Steem withers and dies.
Money can keep coming in from private sources powering up to gain influence in the community. I don't know how sustainable this will be as Steem scales up to the millions though.
Beautiful @liberosist I feel like sometimes I can get carried away Dan & Ned Takeover the World but it truly does feel like STEEMIT will have millions. And yes, I think most here are quite supportive if not civil. I am truly excited for and because of STEEMIT.
FULL $TEEM AHEAD!
@streetstyle
Nice post! I don't know how it will turn out when there are millions on board. But I can't wait to find out!
Thanks for the upvote @liberosist I know it was over the top, but your last paragraph just makes me believe that this can truly work. We shall see.
Thanks again @liberosist
@streetstyle
I really like the point about the voluntary re distribution. Maybe this is the secret sauce to gaining more widespread acceptance of libertarianism. The ability to support someone worthy as a patron is very satisfying and the patriotism of the network for lack of a better term is probably the same sentiment that helped each Italian town save and fund "the best church in Italy". The system encourages sacrifice to build something better for the whole community.
Indeed, and the beauty of it is the re-distributor is rewarded as well. Not just a curation reward, but as they are stake-holders, they benefit as the platform grows in value.
great debate, i'll read all comments 8]
That was a good read!
Thanks for pointing out that "Let's face it - an anarchic and libertarian political system is going to fail in the wider world today"
I suspected I'd get some slack for this statement, but couldn't resist saying it. :)
Glad you did I can't be the only one!
Blockchain is a distributed database. It is not anarcho-capitalist. It has no particular political philosophy.
You are right there. I didn't mean to say it's a fundamental property of a blockchain as much as how it is being used right now. I should make that clear. Thanks for pointing it out.
Good afternoon. Your article is very useful. I voted for you.
I was thinking there were a few posts I wish I could delete...But, the interesting side of not being able to change content is it can't be manipulated once it is written and can't be removed. For example, people suggest that US history has been changed. But, in the future I'll be more particular on what I post.