Nailing Down A Forked Tongue [Pt.2]

Explaining How and Why the World Economic Forum Promotes and Attacks Individualism

[Continued from Pt.1]

The Connection Between Blockchain & Individual Liberty

While the World Economic Forum is openly opposed to individualism, it nonetheless has praised recent technologies that are nearly unanimously recognized as enabling and supporting the decentralization of power and, therefore, individualism/self-governance as well, namely blockchain technology. As Adam Hayes explains —

A blockchain is a distributed database or ledger that is shared among the nodes of a computer network. As a database, a blockchain stores information electronically in digital format. Blockchains are best known for their crucial role in cryptocurrency systems, such as Bitcoin, for maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions. The innovation with a blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party.¹

Blockchain technology eliminates the need for traditional middle man organizations, which is problematic for those who currently possess and acquire wealth and power via their control, management, and maintenance of such institutions.

In their paper “Trust, Anarcho-Capitalism, Blockchain and Initial Coin Offerings,”² John Flood & Lachlan Robb argue that “the rise of Blockchain may indeed be a reflection of a technologically enabled modern iteration of anarcho-capitalism,”³ “a theory of society without the state…predicated on a capitalist economic system.”⁴ They explain —

Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from anarchists by their love of property acquired through free and voluntary trade. They reject the state, its agencies, and all forms of collective action…espousing libertarian, free market philosophies (and should not be confused with anarchocommunists). Indeed anarcho-capitalists would reject government defence of the realm, dispute resolution systems based on state courts, and regulation arguing the free market can supply these institutions more efficiently and economically through market price mechanisms. At the core of anarchocapitalism are the theories of the Austrian school of economics. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises espoused the freedoms of market and the price mechanism as a counter to the autocracy of the Bismarckian and Austro-Hungarian empires.

[…]

Anarcho-capitalism speaks of a society based on bilateral contract— voluntary actions—instead of collective action…Blockchain is the most recent iteration of this worldview and one which seems to have taken the philosophy to heart more than most.

Some of the founding literature on blockchain captures and exemplifies the philosophical grounding of anarcho-capitalism. For example, Satoshi in his paper, Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System, articulates its central problem thus:

“Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model.”
(emphasis added)

Satoshi’s original whitepaper essentially posits itself as his ‘trust-manifesto’, from this position it is clear to see how these ideas align as a modern, technocentric form of anarcho-capitalism.⁵

Given that blockchain technology results in such net gains for individuals, over and against middle man organizations (e.g. banks and unnecessary government departments), it is difficult to understand is why it is so highly praised by the WEF which takes nearly opportunity it has to undermine and vilify individualism⁶ (going so far as to identify it as a “cult,”⁷ ironically enough) while simultaneously promoting collectivism — in particular, communitarianism — as its best possible replacement.

Understanding the Antipathy

Well, if we want to understand why the WEF praises the technology responsible for the kind of individualism it claims is going to profoundly and negatively disrupt the current governmental, economic, and social institutions that have been in place for hundreds of years, we need only turn to Klaus Schwab. Speaking of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” and the impact of its technologies, Schwab writes —

In this revolution, emerging technologies and broad-based innovation are diffusing much faster and more widely than in previous ones, which continue to unfold in some parts of the world…The spindle (the hallmark of the first industrial revolution) took almost 120 years to spread outside of Europe. By contrast, the internet permeated across the globe in less than a decade.

Still valid today is the lesson from the first industrial revolution – that the extent to which society embraces technological innovation is a major determinant of progress. The government and public institutions, as well as the private sector, need to do their part, but it is also essential that citizens see the long-term benefits.

I am convinced that the fourth industrial revolution will be every bit as powerful, impactful and historically important as the previous three. However I have two primary concerns about factors that may limit the potential of the fourth industrial revolution to be effectively and cohesively realized.

First, I feel that the required levels of leadership and understanding of the changes underway, across all sectors, are low when contrasted with the need to rethink our economic, social and political systems to respond to the fourth industrial revolution. As a result, both at the national and global levels, the requisite institutional framework to govern the diffusion of innovation and mitigate the disruption is inadequate at best and, at worst, absent altogether.

Second, the world lacks a consistent, positive and common narrative that outlines the opportunities and challenges of the fourth industrial revolution, a narrative that is essential if we are to empower a diverse set of individuals and communities and avoid a popular backlash against the fundamental changes underway.⁸

To put the matter more concisely — individualism is a threat to the powers that be, as technological advances are slowly pushing society to embrace individualism not merely in the economic realm but also the political realm. Blockchain technology is a problem, therefore, precisely because decentralizes power, placing it back into the hands of its rightful owners — individuals. Consequently, it must be controlled by an institutional framework. Moreover, the creation, installation, and concretization of that institutional framework to control technologies originally intended to remove the need for such institutions needs to be explained away with a new narrative so that the little people don’t react negatively.

Thinking Ahead

While the controlling ideology of the day is collectivism, technology’s potential to reinforce our good and natural disposition to embrace and practice individualism is a reality that the WEF is opposing before it is actualized by an unmanageable number of people. Schwab and his friends are thinking ahead. While collectivism is still the dominant view of many, the WEF is attacking individualism before it can get off the ground and gain popular support. But a softer approach is being taken, one that does not radically disrupt our Western civilization enough to cause its inhabitants to wake up from our stupor. The WEF is promoting the use of blockchain technology and a superficial form of individual empowerment facilitated by that technology, both of which will be monitored and controlled by business owner stakeholders & governing authorities.

Schwab makes it clear that the goal is to ultimately take control of the platform which supports these individualizing technologies, as doing so is more profitable. Schwab writes —

…technology-enabled platforms make possible what is now called the on-demand economy (referred to by some as the sharing economy). These platforms, which are easy to use on a smart phone, convene people, assets and data, creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services. They lower barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering personal and professional environments.⁹

[…]

…in a world where essential public functions, social communication and personal information migrate to digital platforms, governments – in collaboration with business and civil society – need to create the rules, checks and balances to maintain justice, competitiveness, fairness, inclusive intellectual property, safety and reliability.¹⁰

The government is here viewed as the platform regulating mechanism delimiting and keeping track of what individuals can or can’t do with the technologies in question.

There must be control of platforms, moreover, because without such controls in place, governance is much more difficult. Schwab makes his authoritarian stance very clear, writing —

Governments must also adapt to the fact that power is also shifting from state to non-state actors, and from established institutions to loose networks. New technologies and the social groupings and interactions they foster allow virtually anyone to exercise influence in a way that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Governments are among the most impacted by this increasingly transient and evanescent nature of power….There is little doubt that governing is tougher today than in the past. With a few exceptions, policymakers are finding it harder to effect change. They are constrained by rival power centres including the transnational, provincial, local and even the individual. Micro-powers are now capable of constraining macro￾powers such as national governments. The digital age undermined many of the barriers that used to protect public authority, rendering governments much less efficient or effective as the governed, or the public, became better informed and increasingly demanding in their expectations.

[…]

Technology will increasingly enable citizens, providing a new way to voice their opinions, coordinate their efforts and possibly circumvent government supervision.

[…]

Parallel structures will be able to broadcast ideologies, recruit followers and coordinate actions against – or in spite of – official governmental systems. Governments, in their current form, will be forced to change as their central role of conducting policy increasingly diminishes due to the growing levels of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible.¹¹

The WEF is attacking individualism, in other words, because it poses a threat to the existing institutions as they currently stand. Monopolies and government issued monopolies will be radically upended unless a controlling narrative is established that justifies the implementation of an infrastructure which effectively erases the individual empowerment and liberty afforded to “non-state actors” by the technologies intrinsic to the so-called fourth industrial revolution.

[Continued in Pt.3]

1. “What Is a Blockchain?”, Investopedia, June 24, 2022, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp. (emphasis added)

2. Social Science Research Network, Nov 22, 2017, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3074263.

3. ibid., 4.

4. Morris, Andrew P. “Anarcho-Capitalism”, Libertarianism, Aug 15, 2008, https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/anarcho-capitalism.

5. Trust, Flood and Robb, 4-5.

6. See —

Nailing Down A Forked Tongue [Pt.1]

7. See “Theresa May at Davos 2017: Her speech in full,” World Economic Forum, Jan 19, 2017, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/theresa-may-at-davos-2017-her-speech-in-full/.

8. Schwab, Klaus. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2016), 12-13. (emphasis added)

9. ibid., 23.

10. ibid., 69. (emphasis added)

11. ibid., 67. (emphasis added)