BITCOIN AS A COMPONENT OF THE MONETARY SYSTEM: SOCIAL INTEGRATION, TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION AND SOCIO-POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONSThe aim of this article is a multifaceted analysis of Bitcoin as a component of the contemporary monetary system, identifying the processes of its socialization, technological diffusion, and the consequences of changes in the socio-political space. The author successively presents indicators of Bitcoinâs social and economic integration and the development of blockchain as a tool transforming trust, legitimization, and the structure of value circulation. Particular emphasis is placed on analyzing the process of blockchain technology diffusion and the social mechanisms of legitimizing new forms of value. The article concludes with the thesis that Bitcoin, transcending its financial function, has become a component of a broader civilizational shift â a harbinger of the transformation of the model of money, ownership, and sovereignty in the era of Web 3.0.
Why does industrialization in some cases generate social consolidation and in other cases political conflict? This paper argues that the answer depends on how industrial finance is allocated. I develop a dynamic political-economy model in which the government channels external liquidity into industry under either centralized or decentralized finance. Under decentralization, adverse shocks harden budget constraints and permit replacement of inefficient incumbents by new entrepreneurs. Under centralization, by contrast, the government is more likely to refinance inefficient incumbents, soften budget constraints, and block entry. Industrialization then generates concentrated rents and a higher risk of conflict. I interpret late imperial Russia as a historically revealing case of this mechanism. Rather than treating Russia as the sole object of interest, the paper uses it to motivate a general theory of industrialization under monopoly.
This article presents a comparative analysis of the perception of the cryptocurrency phenomenon based of the results of the research conducted synchronously in two countries, Poland and Russian Federation. Its aim was to capture the similarities and differences in the perception of the cryptocurrency phenomenon among representatives of both countries. The results of the research allow to conclude that among the respondents from Poland and Russia there are significant differences in terms of the subjective perception of the cryptocurrency market and the level of trust in the current financial system.
During the 1990s, a conventional wisdom emerged, based on literature going back decades, that political decentralization might be among the most effective forces for democratization. If ordinary people could participate in autonomous local governments, democracy would be built from the ground up, ultimately shaping the entire political system. Once decentralization reforms were implemented across the world, however, the results were disappointing. Authoritarianism not only thrived at the local level, it could also undermine democratization at the national level. Thus, local-national transference still held, but sometimes as a poison. In this context, the case of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is an anomaly. Here, the relative success of political decentralizationârather than its failureânevertheless failed to spur democratization at the national level. I argue that this is because decentralization allowed national authorities to appease international donors while they consolidated their own power. Moreover, while decentralization empowered local communities, it did so in ways that personalized local authority and pitted local and national authorities against one another, resulting in intense localism and antagonistic center-local relations that undermined any democratic transference. The case study findings are based on ten months of field research, which includes interviews with local and national officials, ordinary villagers, and representatives of NGOs and international organizations.
The article presents a sketch of the most important legal and normative problems and challenges that are directly related to the emergence and development of cryptocurrencies. The case study is Poland, where in the first phase of existence, Bitcoin and other altcoins were considered property rights. Since 2018, under the Act on counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing, thanks to the unification of European Union law, they are classified as virtual currencies. The challenges identified in the course of the analysis that must be addressed include: the problem of creating an effective regulatory framework for the functioning of cryptocurrencies and placing them in the legal system; the problem of regulating relations with state institutions as monopolists in the field of finance and the worldwide trend of abandoning cash in favor of electronic payments and the formation of a cashless society
The aim of this study is to realize an analysis of cryptocurrencies in Albania. Cryptocurrencies have experienced tremendous changes in the last years, and have often been the subject of debates. Albania is one of the countries in which seems really difficult to have the opportunity of using cryptocurrencies as a payment tool, or as an investment alternative. Throughout this investigation, we will treat some of the main difficulties and challenges of the cryptocurrency market in Albania. As the study reveals, it seems that it has not been easy for Albanian investors to use cryptocurrency as an investment alternative, or use cryptocurrency as a payment tool. Anyway, what we can emphasize is the fact that we can see some positive steps in this direction. Even though it seems a slow process, the removal of some legal restrictions related to cryptocurrencies reflects the âbreakâ of the âwallsâ that were serving as a barrier for them in Albania. Only the future can show this, so the only thing that we can do is to wait for it
This article is about the process of globalisation supported by cryptocurrencies. It discusses the influence of cryptocurrencies on three major aspects: the political, economic and social spheres. The section on the political sphere highlights the way the authorities of some countries react towards cryptocurrencies. The evolving legal status of cryptocurrency in different regions is described. The section on the economic sphere enumerates examples of cryptocurrencies used on the financial markets. It shows how cryptocurrency might be used by the business sector. The social sphere section illustrates the major kinds of internet societies which are created around cryptocurrencies and what tools are facilitating cryptocurrency transfers. Many examples of important cryptocurrencies are used. The analysis of statistical data and literature have been used in order to evaluate the topic. The study provides additional evidence proving that cryptocurrencies have a significant impact on the process of globalisation.
The paroxysms of economic pain through which the world has been suffering for the past four years offer any number of possible vectors for analysisâfrom economic theory, to public policy, to sociology, to international affairs. An examination of the economic crisis through any of these lenses would reveal a great deal both about how we've come to be here, and how we might (or might not) find our way out of it. The âGreat Recessionâ is almost unique in modern political economics: a large-scale, catastrophic global economic meltdown, which may well persist for some time to come.1There have, of course, been other economic crises, recessions of greater or lesser duration, as well as global crises, such as the so-called âAsian Fluâ of the mid-1990s, but the Great Recession has come to be so named because its impact has been unlike anything the world has experienced since the 1930s (see Krugman 2008; Reich 2010; Stiglitz 2010). And given the increasingly interconnected and codependent nature of the global economic system, the negative effects of this downturn are affecting a much greater proportion of the world's population than the Great Depression. The reverberations continue, as we see in the ongoing European financial crisis; but the epicenter of the earthquake, in September of 2008, was the result of a conscious set of decisions and policies that led inexorably to a wide-scale economic meltdown. And the singular characteristic of that set of decisions and policies was the belief that economics had surpassed the realm of the merely human, to become a transcendent mode of thought, capable of near-omniscience regarding human actions and their consequencesâIssac Asimov's âpsychohistoryâ come to life, and given breath at Princeton and the University of Chicago.2This moment of economic crisis has intersected with another moment, one of renewed interest in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr's wide-ranging intellectual curiosity touched frequently on questions of ethics and economics, particularly during the period of his own economic crisis in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. Niebuhr's insights during that period, which formed the core of what came to be known as his âChristian realistâ approach to issues of Christianity and public morality, have something to say to us as we grapple with the questions of justice, economics, and social reform in the wake of the 2008 collapse.In the aftermath of the economic crisis, and in response to its ongoing depredations, two mass movements (each boasting greater or lesser degrees of authenticity) have emerged on the American stage. The first, dubbed the âTea Partyâ movement, emerged as a reaction to policies pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations to solve the financial crisisâin particular, by offering relief to the banking and mortgage industries. Strongly libertarian in its ideological motivation, and often rooted in a particular vision of small government, states' rights, and nationalism, this movement directed its hostility primarily toward the Obama administration, seeing in many of its policies the roots of an incipient totalitarianism.3At root, the Tea Party's ideology is a reaction to what it sees as an overreaching federal government, which is believed to have caused the financial crisis of 2008 by coddling irresponsible and unreliable home buyers on the one hand and subsidizing a venal and corrupt culture of Wall Street traders on the other (see Berlet 2011). There is a vital streak of middle-class resentment that runs through the Tea Party movement, which sees itself as representing âordinaryâ Americans who work hard, pay their debts, and don't ask for government handouts.4 Demographically, it is predominantly white, male, and older (Ashbee 2011, 159â60). From the perspective of its adherents, the financial crisis was the result of government redistribution of wealth to the underserving, either in the form of social services and subsidies for the poor or in the form of bailouts to the financial industry (158). Additionally, there is a strong theme of personal antipathy toward Barack Obama and doubt about the legitimacy of his presidency (157).While it is difficult to pinpoint one branch of the Tea Party movement that could be said to speak for the whole, the movement does seem to coalesce around a set of general principles and positions. One concise expression of these positions is illustrated by the âContract from Americaâ (2009; not to be confused with the 1990s' Republican Party âContract with Americaâ). The document begins with an expression of a set of very broad principles, encapsulated as âIndividual Liberty,â âLimited Government,â and âEconomic Freedom,â and then moves on to a set of specific agenda items including requiring all federal legislation to include a statement of constitutional authority requiring a balanced budget amendment, a cap on government spending, and a repeal of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.What is particularly striking about this agenda, given the Tea Party's claim to be a reform movement emerging from outside of the corrupt infrastructure of both political parties, is the virtual identity of its agenda with that of the libertarian wing of the Republican party.5 This is not to suggest that the Tea Party necessarily works well with the Republican establishment. On the contrary, as Edward Ashbee observes: The Tea Party movement is largely drawn from independent conservatives or âdebrandedâ Republicans. The clashes between the movement and the Republican âestablishmentâ around some of the institutional arrangements that govern the party and structure electoral processes have added to the anger and rage that the movement feels towards the Obama administration. (2011, 164) Nevertheless, rather than embodying a movement of the politically disaffected, the Tea Party looks much more like a set of organizations designed to co-opt and appropriate the genuine disaffection of many American voters and channel that disaffection toward the standard issue Republican policy goalsâif not necessarily toward the Republican party itselfâat least in economic matters.6 Its ability to do this largely relies on the coupling of legitimate economic grievances in the wake of the financial crisis with an essentially libertarian economic philosophy, heavily seasoned with class and racial resentment (Bertlet 2011, 13â14).The second movement, which has come to be known as the âOccupy Wall Streetâ or â99%â movement, emerged in the summer of 2011 as a direct challenge to the perceived oligarchy controlling the key policy makers in both political parties.7 The Occupy Wall Street movement's origins can be traced to a campaign by editors of the magazine AdBusters, who sought to capitalize on the Tahrir square protests in Egypt to launch a similar movement of nonviolent resistance in the United States. The target of the protest was, as they saw it, the corporate manipulation of democratic institutions (Schwartz 2011).Spreading quickly via social media, the initial Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan gave rise to an expanding circle of protests around the United States, and ultimately around the world. While inspired by the AdBusters appeal, the participants in the Occupy protests did not organize themselves around any set of leaders or institutions, but rather strongly and self-consciously resisted such formal organizational trappings, refusing for the most part to even offer any demands or proposals. Rather, they organized around a widely shared sentiment of a fundamental conflict between the interests of the â99%,â those disenfranchised and excluded from genuine participation in the institutions and structures of governance, and the â1%,â the very wealthy and powerful who have the ears of the president, the Congress, and the economic institutions of society.The refusal to issue demands or to propose particular policies was to a large extent rooted in the belief among many of the protest participants that the ultimate solution to this conflict was to destroy capitalism root and branch, replacing it with ⊠something. What that something might be was, of course, never specified. And the organizational structure of the Occupy protests was such that it almost by definition couldn't be specified, since the kind of consensus required to develop plans for genuine alternatives was to the organizational of what was may a and movement was 2011). social in the of among movements in from around the world. And any participants and small out in a from to public to both and the of 2011, the Occupy protests had to a as the and of the in the financial of many of the of the was with to the protests the and their ability to in large in many the to and on their to they with and that in some led to This is in striking to the Tea Party which both more in and more and to the that in some the the for this in may have been from the perspective of policy it that the of the two in the Tea Party directed its primarily toward political institutions, seeing the of the social as the root of the economic crisis, the Occupy movement directed its anger primarily at economic institutions, seeing and as an of the of the Occupy movement sought to the from particular and sought to itself as an way of as a in modern way of that in to both the economic and political of oligarchy and that they have come to social life, both in the United and the world. 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those that are at the of Niebuhr's The Great Recession came about as the result of and on the part of the political and economic who to the and of the and for a life, in to themselves at the time those for a and to for the very they themselves and they to a financial that for those who had the least in the of the the for the mortgage crisis all the themselves from the of their actions through the of (see 2011, a given by on the crisis in the mortgage had been to the on to because the at in the thought they ⊠they all and the for an the of it for Wall Street to their mortgage and ultimately the The ⊠was that most of the participants had much more to the than to the was a of economic and the was the was in had at an and the global financial was on the of 2011, The of the time is in the of a who the financial The is about to the ⊠in the of all these necessarily all of the of those And of course, the did the was never to a that could for any of time in the but to a structure that would the 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interests with general interests and ⊠is in the of The are more than is that can be in of the of by that it something to the of the of are greater than could be the of is to the of of the that and that general interests are the they The of this in their own is the belief that the are to for their own the other hand it has been the of to the for the of and then to of what they have been the to was illustrated in the of the Tea Party movement, the by on the of the in that the government was by for policies to their and that the government the to those who can the of the was by many of the traders on the which is given their for the that it was the government and the home buyers who for the crisis, rather than traders who had of such as to be to a in The that these are what the of in the never the for and his the core of is the that it is a to us from the of our own the that those like to the what they to that the crisis was but their their of course, both and there are of from those on 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that movements for reform and and that the in a that the to in the of even a and could a of in political by specific policies designed to can these of Christianity by the of political that have been at the of much of the Occupy Wall Street all of the movement's its and refusal to any specific demands or it be by one or the other political a the ability to genuine policy agenda to it for political or economic institutions to to or to many of Occupy Wall there to be interest in genuine social reform than in their own fundamental in to the corrupt institutional of government and economic such of may be they ultimately the political and economic structures the movement and the in would be to ask how such a set of one on a more than one who is to a genuine policy even with the of the political and economic with the of a set of social for those who have been by the of the economic While an in us of our for it ultimately the and become politically those who the more of it is to grapple with the of the political and economic as they find theme has to do with the between and the of This is a of which Reinhold was given the of many during the to the of or that the in never their because they are Rather, be through the of by the form of has to with the of the of social and political in on the of an that in political a of is to that even the most political policy to of a conflict of and of interests in which is because are a does not the root of conflict which is to be in the corporate of as the and nature of is not something in human a and more social a more social be to all of and conflict in human This has been one of the of the Occupy Wall Street movement its in a of and has that it has not been to for the of specific policy many of the movement, this has been as a and the it has to the that the of the the Occupy movement has about economic and oligarchy on the movement's ability to itself the the of its and its refusal to with questions of the of its ultimate was a that the Tea Party either quickly or from the The Tea Party was on by powerful political who saw in the ideological of the Tea Party an to themselves or their own a the Tea Party very quickly both among in government is not given that they merely the of the to as well as financial and may be of the Occupy movement to such of out of a not to be such come with a very strong at the of the the movement have been a in the the political to legitimate for social an that can the of in the of a more more and more for the in on the of an of the American class of his become conscious of its and its a to the of and to develop a This of and and is may be for this that a such as the are to have to the The class may many its ultimate because its social has not become and because its is either in or in intellectual ultimately to be we from the Great Recession a more and or and what these two protest movements in that The small toward economic experienced in may us that reform is or that we to with the of the financial services the market may so to and the economic and we do not deal with the of what for the of a we find much time has in the of the another economic The is not but and we the and political to to the of the financial crisis there is to that we be to do so in the