Book Review: Cryptocommunism

Mark Alizart uses libertarian thought, thermodynamics, and the bitcoin to show that cryptocommunism is feasible in the world in some distant future, maybe in a century. Capitalism is inefficient in the use of information, being prone to crises in misallocation of money, investments, and technological progress. In Alizart’s cryptocommunism, each person can issue money, and thus the inefficiency of capitalism in financing production in a decentralized way can be solved by eliminating the banking sector. This cryptocommunism is based on the creation of information. Information cannot be destroyed and is easily adaptable to new situations.

Alizart’s book consists of three parts and an introduction and conclusion. Part I has four chapters. In Chapter 1, he describes how state and market go hand in hand in a capitalist society. Instead of alternatives such as Hayek’s idea of an unelected elite governing the society or Marx’s idea of community councils in organizing production, Alizart proposes that bitcoin may spearhead democracy and liberty. Chapter 2 advocates a communism without the interference of politicians, an autoregulated communism based on the idea of cybernetics, ‘a system with several ways in, with no centre and no overall command, endowed with multiple subsystems to one another in an “overdetermined” way’ (p. 20). In Chapter 3, Alizart proposes that bitcoin can be a way of making decisions in a decentralizing way without cheating, and that is totally transparent. Chapter 4 discusses how bitcoin, a receipt to a people who decipher a puzzle to deliver a secure message, and blockchain, a spreadsheet without duplicity, rely on faith and trust, and both are efficient. The author thinks that already that any nation works as a blockchain and a bitcoin, ‘The community rewards the contribution of citizens who take the risks for the common good by giving them tax breaks that are equivalent tokens. The salaries paid to civil servants are another way of rewarding society’s ‘miners’’ (p. 38).

Part II also has four chapters. Chapter 5 proposes that capitalism is inefficient in the use information, like steam engines. In an engine’s case, the problem is the inefficient use of energy due to temperature differences. In the case of capitalism, the inefficiency is caused by the misuse of information. Bitcoin may solve this problem of information in a collective way by the appropriation of money. In Chapter 6, Alizart suggests that the problem of information in capitalism may be solved by the efficient use of money. Money is the escape valve that can regulate a smooth rise of production. He asserts, ‘Marxism must include money in its considerations. In particular, it should aim to prevent the privatization of money, rather than abolishing private property, because it is the privatization of access to investment that is . . . responsible for the existence of private property’ (p. 58, italics in the original). For Alizart, financialization is just the privatization of money. Chapter 7 describes how bitcoin may perform better than the gold standard that provokes deflation, and better than the domain of the central banks that represent only a minority of the population. Chapter 8 demonstrates why bitcoin is better than the creation of money by a central bank, and better than world money; with bitcoin technology, there will be a multiplicity of money, and neither a country nor a bank may limit it.

Finally, Part III has four chapters, with Chapter 9 explaining why a society’s goal is to increase productivity. A society needs an adequate combination of money, investments, and technical progress, with each innovation leading to a better use of information and crises being avoidable. Chapter 10 focuses on how cryptocurrencies can go beyond money; they can be used to make contracts and endow a people with an identity. Chapter 11 compares bitcoin with DNA. Bitcoin is a living process with adaptation and rewards; every bitcoin’s transaction can spread the use of this cryptocurrency and the relations involved in it. The last chapter, 12, is a discussion of how money during financialization dead money is, and crypto is a living currency with a high rate of efficiency and adaptation. Crypto can solve the problem of rising productivity, correctly adjusting money, investments, and technical progress.

Alizart, in a short book, discusses many topics, including liberty, communism, financialization, and money. He also presents alternatives to this neoliberal era of capitalism. However, this brief book contains some contradictions regarding the role of the state, private property and money. If the main problem of capitalism is the misallocation of money in rising productivity, which is a subject of development banking, perhaps a better option is to further investigate the relationship between communal banks and bitcoin. Furthermore, I think three subjects need more clarification in the book: (1) the social conditions of progressive actors, that is, for certain social classes and some associations such as unions, inequality in today’s world is rising and working conditions are worsening, (2) the asymmetries of power in the use of money, that is, how will money work in international trade? and (3) the relationship between progressive actors and the transition from capitalism to another social system, that is, in capitalism, the product and the activity of the worker are alien to the worker, and men and women learn to see each other according to what they produce and consume (Marx, 1988). Unfortunately, we learn in capitalism to treat human beings and nature as objects, as Marx notes. Can bitcoin help us learn how to recognize each other as human beings?