Community Capitalism

I wanted to wrap up the year by writing about something I have been thinking about for the last few months:

Who owns the best businesses in the world?

I am trying to draw a line from inherited wealth of feudal lords to community-owned services with tokens.

The last 1,000 years can be roughly split into two 500-year chunks: feudalism & capitalism. Feudal lords controlled all of the land, farms, buildings and capital. This was passed down inside families and never distributed to the workers.

Capitalism totally changed that.
Risk, reward and ruin were separated when joint-stock companies became more common. The prerequisite for successful entrepreneurship shifted from inheritance to initiative.

People without wealth could access it and start new ventures.

Founders started founding new companies.
Equity compensation kicked off in the 1950s but it really went into overdrive when it was mixed with high-growth technology companies backed with high-risk equity bets. Silicon Valley perfected the art. Employees at many of the most successful technology companies became owners.
The SEC did two huge things this year. They raised the crowdfunding limit to $5m and introduced a proposal to allow gig workers to receive stock.

I predict that we will see competitors to Airbnb, Uber and DoorDash all take advantage of this rule.
https://t.co/ptLHUJyUbQ
What was the greatest technology investment of the 2010s that was available to the general public? Answer: The Ether Sale in 2014

Initial investors in that event who held on to $1,000+ Ether made 3,000x their money. There has never been an event like it.

https://t.co/4S7maTq6As
Every month, a bunch of new ways to earn tokens pops up: mining, staking, liquidating, curating, slashing, contributing, securing, managing.

Protocols are rewarding the participants with a share of the capital.
https://t.co/C93K1H4HD7
This year, the stock market was pushed to new heights during a pandemic while millions of people lost their jobs. The wealth gap is becoming a wealth gulf.

I do not have all the answers to this problem, but my gut tells me that we need more people to become owners of technology.
Owning public stock in the digital services is not enough. We need to own the services themselves. Big technology companies have become more powerful than nation states. The community capital of the 21st century must be distributed as far as possible.

https://t.co/b3HYOzuLIu
I hope we will look back on the digital services of today in the same way we view the feudal lords of yore. These tyrants that controlled the digital land and forced us to till their soil.

There is so much amazing stuff to be built. Community capitalism is coming.
Note: These thoughts are extremely loose and have only a smattering of historical depth. I welcome all corrections, clarifications and criticism.

I just wanted to get this idea out.

If you would like to read the full post, I just sent it out on Substack: https://t.co/3c9N31W31Y

More from Economy

Let's discuss how little you actually understand about economics and energy.

The first thing to understand is that energy is not globally fungible. Electricity decays as it leaves its point of origin; it’s expensive to transport. There is a huge excess (hydro) in many areas.


In other words, it can also be variable. It's estimated that in Sichuan there is twice as much electricity produced as is needed during the rainy season. Indeed, there is seasonality to how Bitcoin mining works. You can see here:

Bitcoin EXPORTS energy in this scenario. Fun fact, most industrial nations would steer this excess capacity towards refining aluminum by melting bauxite ore, which is very energy intensive.

You wouldn't argue that we are producing *too much* electricity from renewables, right?

"But what about the carbon footprint! ITS HUGE!"

Many previous estimates have quite faulty methods and don't take into account the actual energy sources. Is it fair to put a GHG equivalent on hydro or solar power? That would seem a bit disingenuous, no?

Well that's exactly what some have done.

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दधीचि ऋषि को मनाही थी कि वह अश्विनी कुमारों को किसी भी अवस्था में ब्रह्मविद्या का उपदेश नहीं दें। ये आदेश देवराज इन्द्र का था।वह नहीं चाहते थे कि उनके सिंहासन को प्रत्यक्ष या परोक्ष रुप से कोई भी खतरा हो।मगर जब अश्विनी कुमारों ने सहृदय प्रार्थना की तो महर्षि सहर्ष मान गए।


और उन्होनें ब्रह्मविद्या का ज्ञान अश्विनि कुमारों को दे दिया। गुप्तचरों के माध्यम से जब खबर इन्द्रदेव तक पहुंची तो वे क्रोध में खड़ग ले कर गए और महर्षि दधीचि का सर धड़ से अलग कर दिया।मगर अश्विनी कुमार भी कहां चुप बैठने वाले थे।उन्होने तुरंत एक अश्व का सिर महर्षि के धड़ पे...


...प्रत्यारोपित कर उन्हें जीवित रख लिया।उस दिन के पश्चात महर्षि दधीचि अश्वशिरा भी कहलाए जाने लगे।अब आगे सुनिये की किस प्रकार महर्षि दधीचि का सर काटने वाले इन्द्र कैसे अपनी रक्षा हेतु उनके आगे गिड़गिड़ाए ।

एक बार देवराज इन्द्र अपनी सभा में बैठे थे, तो उन्हे खुद पर अभिमान हो आया।


वे सोचने लगे कि हम तीनों लोकों के स्वामी हैं। ब्राह्मण हमें यज्ञ में आहुति देते हैं और हमारी उपासना करते हैं। फिर हम सामान्य ब्राह्मण बृहस्पति से क्यों डरते हैं ?उनके आने पर क्यों खड़े हो जाते हैं?वे तो हमारी जीविका से पलते हैं। देवर्षि बृहस्पति देवताओं के गुरु थे।

अभिमान के कारण ऋषि बृहस्पति के पधारने पर न तो इन्द्र ही खड़े हुए और न ही अन्य देवों को खड़े होने दिया।देवगुरु बृहस्पति इन्द्र का ये कठोर दुर्व्यवहार देख कर चुप चाप वहां से लौट गए।कुछ देर पश्चात जब देवराज का मद उतरा तो उन्हे अपनी गलती का एहसास हुआ।