Many Bitcoiners have highlighted parallels between some of Bitcoins ideals and the book first published in 1997, The Sovereign Individual. To take you in an altogether different direction, Ill draw attention to a relatively unknown and gentler text, which Ive noticed also contains a number of parallels to the Bitcoin world. This is How To Be Idle, written by Tom Hodgkinson, who also edits the Idler magazine.
Written in 2004, it predates Bitcoin. But it extols libertarian virtues in the same ways many Bitcoiners do today, such as extolling the virtues of freedom from debt, freedom from consumer culture and excessive consumption, and freedom from the wage slavery which can result from such.
Firstly, lets establish some neutral ground on the definitions front, and define the word idle as simply inactive. Many would use the word idle as a straight swap for lazy, which has negative connotations, but as well see throughout this article, its not quite that simple. Hodgkinson is aware of the many ways modern day society preys on idleness, and looks to fight back, often offering historical precedent.
Whilst How To Be Idle isnt directly concerned with economic policy or money, there are persistent themes that are symptomatic of the age we live in which Bitcoiners especially will recognise. Lets dive into some of the main ones.
Why do we work? The book is forthright at asking the reader to evaluate the status quo. To quote the text:
The idea of the job as the answer to all woes, individual and social, is one of the most pernicious myths of modern society. It is promoted by politicians, parents, newspaper moralists and leaders of industry, on the left and on the right: paradise they say, is full employment.
It is a myth convenient to the rich that it is your patriotic duty to work hard. The book quotes the late British journalist and writer Jeffrey Bernard ... as if there was something romantic and glorious about hard work ... If there was something romantic about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his own f*cking garden, wouldnt he?
Ahem no punches pulled there then! But there is a subtext here that most Bitcoiners will recognise, with implicit references to Keynesian economics and resulting policies which dominate our lives. In the 21st century the lot for the average working person doesnt necessarily appear to be getting easier, as aptly shown by WTFhappenedin1971.com. It generally requires two household incomes to support a family, rather than one a generation or two ago. Home prices are sky high. Though mortgage rates are low, the path for the young to own a property is to take out huge debt in the form of a mortgage.
Society is led, naturally, into a lifetime of work. And due to the pressures of inflation, if youre standing still, youre going backwards.
Technology should increase the quality of our lives and make them easier, but it often doesnt feel like this is happening. To quote the book ... technology has been a complete disaster when it comes to lightening the load. Labour saving devices have not saved any labour.
Over to Bitcoin. As Jeff Booth covers in the book The Price Of Tomorrow, technology is gradually replacing labour in many areas and the greatest changes are still ahead of us. All else being equal, this brings enhanced productivity, but our economic system requires endless debt, Gross Domestic Product growth and inflation to function, and ends up fighting against the tide and negating the benefits for the majority.
Generating inflation via quantitative easing and other measures deepens socioeconomic divides and centralises power. The question we should be asking is how to share the spoils of technological advancement more equally. One answer is Bitcoin.
Many of the books 24 chapters (each for a notional hour of the day) are devoted to extolling the virtues of what are, at heart, simple pleasures. Most of these concern the use of our time the most precious commodity we have, and the need to claim it back for ourselves.
Some examples include, having a lie in! More examples from the book would be: celebrating the art of enjoying a leisurely lunch; fishing; drinking tea; Ttaking naps; smoking; the ramble and the lost art of the flaneur (meaning a pedestrian walking the streets for nothing more but for pleasure and to pass the time) As well as recognizing and acquiescing to our innate love of a party, of music, and dancing.
Admittedly, the smoking chapter might feel dated to some, 17 years on, but its consistent with the libertarian ethos throughout. Personally Ive always liked the observation that smoking is the only pursuit one can indulge in where you can simultaneously be doing something and yet be doing nothing.
The idler enjoys earthly pleasures ... Talking, sharing ideas with friends old and new, this is the lifeblood of the loafer. And so the book identifies another simple, life-enhancing pleasure.
Moreover, Hodgkinson notes, this is a facet in which humans thrive:
ideas emerge in conversation and are embellished, improved, contradicted or torn about by the assembled company...
... Ones ideas are developed, modified. They are taken down from the museum shelf, dusted and put on view. And their true worth is revealed: the diamond turns out to be a piece of glass, the dusty stone a rare fossil.
The world of Bitcoin is nothing if not an endless conversation, an open discussion being played out in meet-ups, Twitter, Reddit and so on. The passage above reminded me of a tweet sent by Preston Pysh to Steve Hanke:
Your idler believes in both the power of dreams, and in contemplating the moon and the stars. To quote the book Stars ... have inspired our philosophers and poets to dream of better worlds on Earth Freedom is out there, somewhere, glittering, almost visible, but just out of our reach.
However, the text points to our use of language in society to demonstrate the negative use of terms that befit your average idler, and nowhere is this more on display than in the chapters entitled The Moon And The Stars and A Waking Dream.
We generally disapprove of dreamers or star gazers in todays society. Dont believe me? Consider the negative connotation with which we use the following terms:head in the clouds, starry eyed, lunatic, on another planet, away with the fairies; yet it is praiseworthy to be considered anchored, down to earth, or grounded.
The notorious idler Oscar Wilde neatly inverted these sentiments with the following famous quote:
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Bitcoin? It embodies a vision of a better world, but the vision takes work, and its up there in the stars for sure. A friend of mine was contemplating bitcoin and said to me last year I dont get it. Its either worth a million dollars a coin, or nothing. Ultimately, he has rejected it as he cant compute the world where the bitcoin price has come from nothing barely a decade ago, to one, as Michael Saylor views it, where ... its going up forever, Laura.
Its much more than just potential price appreciation though. As outlined by the likes of Alex Gladstein and Tomer Strolight, its a vision of a better future. A global sound money aiding the unbanked, decreasing our collective time preference, and helping the billions of people currently living under authoritarian regimes.
Getting back to Hodgkinson in How To Be Idle, he states that Real dreams are about seeing things that others miss. If you have your head in the clouds, you can see the world more clearly.
There is an entire chapter devoted to riot. Am I stretching this connection to Bitcoin too far? Lets consider a dictionary definition of the word: a wild or turbulent disturbance created by a large number of people.
Hodgkinson notes Paradoxically, idlers are given to riot. Our rulers tend to use relentless drudgery to create oppressing, grinding bureaucracies which stifle us with boredom. Every now and again brute force is wheeled out. The idlers modus operandi, on the other hand, is to sit around talking and thinking for months, and then to act with impetuosity, with rapid and violent diligence, with a visible outburst of passion, a rising.
Ultimately, sadly, Hodgkinson questions the ultimate impact of most of these actions throughout history on society, and concludes at the end of this chapter that perhaps the only sane thing to do is to create ones own paradise: One might conclude sadly that a better place to effect change is in oneself and in ones own immediate surroundings.
This for me contained shades of the famous quote by Friedrich Hayek in 1983 which many bitcoiners cite: We cant take it [money] violently out of the hands of government. All we can do is by some sly, roundabout way introduce something they cant stop.
Separate to the above themes, there is a good narrative for bitcoin as the perfect savings vehicle for your archetypal idler. I have heard gold in the past described as a non-investment. It sits out of the financial system. It yields nothing. It just is. And yet it has more than matched many stock markets in terms of overall returns over a 50-year period (evidenced by link below).
Nowadays, bitcoin is surely the ultimate non-investment, surpassing gold easily in its monetary properties. And its a match made in heaven for idlers. Physically, it comprises nothing. It yields nothing. It costs nothing to hold. It costs near nothing to acquire (and it will only get cheaper Jack Mallers is wholly right about the race to zero fees in this respect). And yet what has been the best investment over the last decade? Simply buying and holding bitcoin.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. -Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist, on HODLING Bitcoin
As a frustrated value investor, it maddens me that we currently drive every individual now to be their own fund manager, being pushed out on the risk curve to try and juggle investments and keep pace with monetary debasement. Under a bitcoin standard, this becomes much simpler. A bitcoin holding naturally retains purchasing power as a fixed percentage of the overall supply, by doing ... nothing.
How about altcoins, I hear you say? What would your self-respecting idler make of air drops, yield farming, atomic swaps, gas, rehypothecation, staking..?
I think you know the answer. I can only revert to the wisdom of Albert Einstein at this moment:
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Its Bitcoin.
Fast-forward from 2004 to the present day, and its unclear whether the ongoing Idler magazine, as still edited by Tom Hodgkinson, has yet recognised the alliance of bitcoin and idlers. I could only find a single disappointing Idler article published in 2018 by Andrew Smart:The Liberating Promise Of Bitcoin Is A Fantasy.
However, Dominic Frisby is a friend of the Idler magazine and also a Bitcoiner, so perhaps there is hope. In any case, let me put out an open message to Tom Hodgkinson. Hes probably got his feet up somewhere on a chaise longue, having a nap. He certainly doesnt waste his time on Twitter. But if anyone knows him, given the chance Id happily write an article for the Idlerto reach out to all those aspiring idlers worldwide and highlight the benefits of Bitcoin.
For Bitcoiners and idlers are natural bedfellows. And for anyone to have the best chance of pursuing some of the laudable ideals outlined in How To Be Idle (at least without having a huge inheritance), they need access to the soundest money to preserve the value of their precious time.
Bitcoin and idlers were made for each other, given that bitcoin is the ultimate idle investment. Moreover, idlers are in control of their time, the most precious commodity we all have. Do not mistake this as just laziness its that in exercising this control over time, they do not automatically prize work over leisure, consumption over non-consumption, activity over inactivity.
For inactivity can be hugely valuable. They think, they dream. They talk, they scheme, they plot.
They riot.
And what is Bitcoin if not an idea? Speech? A dream? And ultimately, the most peaceful and potentially largest riot the world has ever seen?
Please read the book, and let me know your thoughts!
This is a guest post by BitcoinActuary. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
The rest is here:
The Parallels Between Bitcoins Principles And How To Be Idle - Bitcoin Magazine
- Why are Jamaicans forced to live in poverty? - Jamaica Gleaner - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- The ultimate price - The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Cornyn, Cruz lead another GOP delegation on border tour of RGV - Brownsville Herald - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Landworkers' Alliance Report: Debt, Migration, and Exploitation - Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Searching for wholeness in a nation fractured by capitalism and ... - Kansas Reflector - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Explainer: The State of Poverty and Slavery in Ecuador - JURIST - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- That AI You're Using Was Trained By Slave Labor, Basically - Futurism - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Bibb Announces Ten Winners of $5000 Restaurant Grants to ... - Cleveland Scene - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Sugarcane Burning Is a Plague on These Black Floridians Mother ... - Mother Jones - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- 18 of the Most Haunted Places in Alabama - AZ Animals - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Immigration Health Surcharge: equality impact assessment 2023 ... - GOV.UK - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Books The common cause - Morning Star Online - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Search warrants executed in alleged human trafficking and slavery ... - ACT Policing News - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Modern slavery and human trafficking: identifying and reporting ... - GOV.UK - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Report: Government needs better policies to help narrow economic equity gap - Yahoo News - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- New Zealand criminal investigation into systemic migrant worker ... - WSWS - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- What back to school means in the era of PragerU - Reckon - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- The Jacksonville Shooting and the Far Right - Left Voice - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Build support for today's union struggles The Militant - The Militant - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Work requirements wont affect the debt ceiling but they will stir up ... - The Boston Globe - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Ten Percent of North Koreans Forced To Work as Slaves: New Report - The New York Sun - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Anti-Slavery Commissioner visits the Coffs Coast - News Of The Area - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Former Server Says Customers Should Tip If They Ask Questions - The Daily Dot - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- New exhibition looks at the UK's role in indenture labour - ianVisits - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- UNITED WE STAND: THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW - Savannah Tribune - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- No, MLK Was Not a Christian Nationalist - Word and Way - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Fact check: Tipping began amid slavery, then helped keep former Black ... - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Slavery - Wikipedia - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Social class - Wikipedia - December 23rd, 2022 [December 23rd, 2022]
- Author Ibram X. Kendi speaks in Portland on legacy of slavery and the tipped wage - Press Herald - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- As a Nation, We are Doomed to Fail if the 'Original Sin' of the Past is not Reconciled in the Present - CT Examiner - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Lincolnshire car wash owners handed 10-year slavery order - Lincolnshire Live - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- "Under The Banner of King Death" puts pirates in their place in the history of workers' rights - Boing Boing - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Forrest Hylton | To the Lighthouse LRB 18 October 2022 - London Review of Books - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Aussie Brands Among Most Improved in 2022's Ethical Fashion Report But There's Still a Long Way To Go - Broadsheet - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- DC voter guide: 2022 election what you need to know - WTOP - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Exploring the Fault Lines in Mental Health Discourse: An Interview with Psychologist Justin Karter - Mad in America - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Iran: 'Society has risen to overthrow the Islamic Republic' - Green Left - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Slavery by any name is wrong: the push to end forced labor in prisons - The Guardian US - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Abortion, Marijuana, Slavery: 11 Themes to 2022 Ballot Measures - The Epoch Times - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Visions of Progress tells tales of two Charlottesvilles, Black and white - Bristol Herald Courier - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Miss Malini's job advert puts spotlight back on 'exploitative bosses' and a 'pittance' as salary - Moneycontrol - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- As Hurricane Ian Threatens Florida's Southwest Coast, What's Happening On The Ground - KPCC - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Truths about student debt, college costs, and corporate freeloading on the backs of students. - Daily Kos - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- The Kohinoor, Cullinan and the enduring demand for reparations across the colonial world - The Indian Express - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Divine Politik: The rise of robots should be the downfall of capitalism The Daily Free Press - Daily Free Press - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Stop romanticizing the lives of 1950s housewives - Halifax Examiner - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Domestic workers, long excluded from labor protections, call for codified rights - The 19th* - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Pierre Poilievre Claims He's a Friend of the 'Working Class'. He's Spent Years Attacking Canadian Workers. - PressProgress - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Stockard on the Stump: Governor declares he didn't violate the Little Hatch Act Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- How Central American immigrants played a vital role in the U.S. labor - Fast Company - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - People's World - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- How FrontLine Farming Is Using Land to Grow Food and Heal Generational Trauma - 5280 | The Denver Magazine - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Queen Elizabeth II Reigned For 70 Years: Here Are The 10 Longest-Reigning Kings And Queens Of The UK - Forbes - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Ballot initiatives to watch in 2022 midterms, from abortion to slavery - USA TODAY - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- 10 Songs That Deal with Labor Rights and Hating Your Job - MetalSucks - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Conflict and modern slavery: the investment perspective - Schroders - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Santa Cruz County boom town that went BOOM - The Mercury News - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- This Labor Day, buy produce grown only on farms that respect workers rights - The Hill - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - Communist Party USA - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Agency visits US to share efforts to end fisher abuse - - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- High income tax in PNG is a disincentive - POST-COURIER - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- For women of color in care work, racial and economic inequities abound, report shows - The Boston Globe - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Opinion | Behind the Rise in Union SupportAnd the Challenge Ahead - Common Dreams - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order imposed on Lincolnshire car wash owners - Forecourt Trader - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Opinion | The Tide Is Turning: US Congress Finally Considers a National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights - Common Dreams - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Edited Transcript of ADH.AX earnings conference call or presentation 22-Aug-22 1:30am GMT - Yahoo Finance - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Conservatives Explain Why They Are Preparing For A Civil War - The Onion - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- 10 Black Millionaires Who Got Busted By The IRS For Failure To Pay Taxes - Moguldom - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- 34 Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring/Summer 2022 - Pitchfork - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Amazon Hit by Strikes Across the Globe - Novara Media - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- The Past, Present, and Future of Work - YES! Magazine - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- National Trust members: get ready to choke on your carrot cake - The Guardian - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Lost Yet Connected in Time: Brown, Peltier, Melaku-Bello, Abu-Jamal, and Assange - LA Progressive - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Mondelz commits to living wage for cocoa farmers and invests in education programmes for children - ConfectioneryNews.com - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Opinion | The Supreme Court Has Too Much Power and Liberals Are to Blame - POLITICO - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Breaking the stranglehold of speculative property ownership | interest.co.nz - Interest.co.nz - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Why fashion should act now to legislate living wages in the supply chain - Drapers - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Georgia's six-week abortion ban goes Into effect, an attack on... - Liberation - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- 10 years on, what is the true legacy of the London 2012 Olympics? - Metro.co.uk - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]