{"id":29479,"date":"2022-11-10T16:54:32","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T00:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29479"},"modified":"2022-11-11T08:40:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T16:40:33","slug":"mapping-money-an-implicit-to-explicit-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/mapping-money-an-implicit-to-explicit-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping Money: An Implicit to Explicit Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading Saifedean Ammous\u2019 book, \u201cThe Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking,\u201d[1]<\/a> added another layer to my global perspectives\u2019 leadership map. Part history of money and economics, part societal-political analysis through this history lens, and part technology guide to the newly developing arena of cybercurrency\u2014specifically Bitcoin, Ammous sheds light on \u201c\u2026the problems money attempts to solve,\u201d and how Bitcoin may in fact be the next sound money utilized around the globe.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bitcoin Standard\u201d is in three parts plus a thorough bibliography, helpful list of charts and figures, and a not-so-substantive index. Ammous first delves into the history of money and monetary systems. Here he also develops the terminology he will use throughout the remainder of his book. Key terms include the concept of \u201ctime preference.\u201d Time preference is the interaction between a monetary unit\u2019s \u201c\u2026ability to hold value over time,\u201d and its influence on \u201c\u2026how much individuals value the present over the future.\u201d[3]<\/a> He essentially argues that the more confidence individuals have in a monetary unit holding or increasing in its value, the more they will delay gratification and invest in their future.[4]<\/a> He gives a heavy critique of the Keynesian economic model and leans into the Austrian School of economic thought. In the second part of his book, he \u201c\u2026discusses the individual, social, and global implications of sound and unsound forms of money throughout history.\u201d[5]<\/a> And in part three he dives into explaining bitcoin and its potential to be a sound form of money (he describes it as antifragile without any reference to Taleb)[6]<\/a> with its system replacing, or at the very least offering an alternative, to the global central banking system (and SWIFT system) currently enforced upon the world.<\/p>\n

Ammous is our second Lebanese author we have read this term. He is a graduate from the American University of Beirut (and several other academic institutions), and he taught, until 2020, in the economics department of the Adnan Kassar School of Business at the Lebanese American University (a partner of the Presbyterian Church (USA)). As I read his book, I regularly wondered how his experience of Lebanon\u2019s civil war, post-war economic solutions and resultant currency inflation, and certainly its current economic collapse has influenced the development of his economic thinking (along of course with the other wars in the region). His teaching focus while at LAU was in sustainable development.<\/p>\n

Reading Ammous has moved my understanding of money and economics from a more implicit tacit knowing[7]<\/a> to an explicit exploration and re-evaluation of our current economic systems in light of his critique and proposal regarding the possible role of bitcoin in the present and future. The connections he makes between our current (and long-term) economic assumptions in the USA (the Keynesian assumption that spending, any and all spending, will automatically fuel the economy)[8]<\/a> and our government\u2019s massive military budget gave me a different lens into an issue that is a priority my church community is addressing\u2014the global impacts of unchecked militarism and the intersection this has with the military-industrial complex. In my current work, I also do a lot of work with financial grants as we collaborate with our global partners on work they have prioritized in their context. This means I am very familiar with the challenges our current SWIFT system poses and the heavy financial control exercised by the US Government and banking system and the toll this takes on other countries. At the same time, given the challenges the cybercurrency market has faced this past year and even this week, it is hard to know how sound Bitcoin and other similar currencies, or its mechanisms will actually be in the long run. (https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/11\/11\/business\/ftx-bankruptcy.html). So Ammous has given me much to consider even apart from bitcoin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Ammous, Saifedean. 2018. The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking<\/em>. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., xvi.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 7.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 74, 92.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., xvi.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 230. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. 2014. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder<\/em>. Random House Trade Paperback edition. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Polanyi, Michael (1966), and Amartya Sen. 2009. The Tacit Dimension<\/em>. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ammous, 51.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Saifedean Ammous\u2019 book, \u201cThe Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking,\u201d[1] added another layer to my global perspectives\u2019 leadership map. Part history of money and economics, part societal-political analysis through this history lens, and part technology guide to the newly developing arena of cybercurrency\u2014specifically Bitcoin, Ammous sheds light on \u201c\u2026the problems money attempts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2408,2437,2442,2443,1980],"class_list":["post-29479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-m-polanyi","tag-ammous","tag-bitcoin","tag-implicit-and-explicit-thinking","tag-nassim-taleb","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29509,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29479\/revisions\/29509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}