If I buy stock in the sovcorp, who protects my property rights? The sovcorp? The sovcorp is run by executives. Why would they not simply, essentially, steal the corporation?
There are cryptographic solutions to this problem: Suppose the stock/money of the corporation consists of crypto signatures. You can use threshold signatures to make heavy weapons only work for the leader most recently authorized by a majority of the board most recently authorized by majority of shareholders.
Of course the leaders could furtively @#$%^ the crypto in the heavy weapons but then democratic leaders can, and regularly do, furtively @#$%^ the vote.
Indeed, it is probably easier to @#$%^ the vote than the crypto, since most voters are idiots, and any one vote is not worth much, but most shareholders are smart, and the votes of the most important (and powerful) shareholders are worth quite a lot, so there are more concentrated interests upholding the integrity of the crypto, than the integrity of the democratic vote.
My objection is that Moldbug’s solution ignores the dynamics of ruling elites—but then so does democracy.
There are cryptographic solutions to this problem: Suppose the stock/money of the corporation consists of crypto signatures. You can use threshold signatures to make heavy weapons only work for the leader most recently authorized by a majority of the board most recently authorized by majority of shareholders.
I don’t see how any amount of crypto can keep the management+board from favoring themselves in how they account the wealth. We have ALWAYS had good crypto available for money: gold is a sort-of atomic crypto. But gold does not stop the treasurer from embezzling, and if you control the accounting rules, embezzelment per se becomes unnecessary, you just write those expenses off mendaciously as some sorts of necessary expenses.
A sovcorp is just a business operation that operates outside of the law of secondary property rights corporations. We have plenty of natural experiments in this. Organized crime is a sovcorp. Fighting it out with other sovcorps associated with competiting criminal organizations, but also fighting it out with sovcorps we associate with gov’t: police, da’s, fbi, dea, etc.
If the mafia promised to pay you a “dividend” on its operations, you could expect to receive that dividend until they decided it was cheaper to NOT pay you. Crypto guarantees I am not buying counterfeit shares in your mafia, your sovcorp. Counterfeiting is not the problem if the sovcorp decides what property rights it owes to its non-controlling shareholders in real time, and by definition of a sovcorp, unconstrained by any outside rules of interaction.
My objection is that Moldbug’s solution ignores the dynamics of ruling elites—but then so does democracy.
Democracy as implemented in the US republic certainly doesn’t ignore this. We have FOIA laws, a gigantic structure of oathes of offices and internal controls on the enhanced powers sovcorp agents have. We have a system of “checks and balances” built in from the ground level, and enhanced much since it started.
What our republic does not manage is to make the dynamics of ruling elites disappear. What it does manage is to keep the ruling elites from running away with control over the whole system with no oversight and no transparency.
Constantly dealing with a real issue in human nature is the OPPOSITE of ignoring it.
I don’t see how any amount of crypto can keep the management+board from favoring themselves in how they account the wealth.
The board contains major shareholders, who would mostly be in favor of honest accounting. It seems more likely to work, than that a democratic government would be in favor of honest vote counting.
There are cryptographic solutions to this problem: Suppose the stock/money of the corporation consists of crypto signatures. You can use threshold signatures to make heavy weapons only work for the leader most recently authorized by a majority of the board most recently authorized by majority of shareholders.
Of course the leaders could furtively @#$%^ the crypto in the heavy weapons but then democratic leaders can, and regularly do, furtively @#$%^ the vote.
Indeed, it is probably easier to @#$%^ the vote than the crypto, since most voters are idiots, and any one vote is not worth much, but most shareholders are smart, and the votes of the most important (and powerful) shareholders are worth quite a lot, so there are more concentrated interests upholding the integrity of the crypto, than the integrity of the democratic vote.
My objection is that Moldbug’s solution ignores the dynamics of ruling elites—but then so does democracy.
I don’t see how any amount of crypto can keep the management+board from favoring themselves in how they account the wealth. We have ALWAYS had good crypto available for money: gold is a sort-of atomic crypto. But gold does not stop the treasurer from embezzling, and if you control the accounting rules, embezzelment per se becomes unnecessary, you just write those expenses off mendaciously as some sorts of necessary expenses.
A sovcorp is just a business operation that operates outside of the law of secondary property rights corporations. We have plenty of natural experiments in this. Organized crime is a sovcorp. Fighting it out with other sovcorps associated with competiting criminal organizations, but also fighting it out with sovcorps we associate with gov’t: police, da’s, fbi, dea, etc.
If the mafia promised to pay you a “dividend” on its operations, you could expect to receive that dividend until they decided it was cheaper to NOT pay you. Crypto guarantees I am not buying counterfeit shares in your mafia, your sovcorp. Counterfeiting is not the problem if the sovcorp decides what property rights it owes to its non-controlling shareholders in real time, and by definition of a sovcorp, unconstrained by any outside rules of interaction.
Democracy as implemented in the US republic certainly doesn’t ignore this. We have FOIA laws, a gigantic structure of oathes of offices and internal controls on the enhanced powers sovcorp agents have. We have a system of “checks and balances” built in from the ground level, and enhanced much since it started.
What our republic does not manage is to make the dynamics of ruling elites disappear. What it does manage is to keep the ruling elites from running away with control over the whole system with no oversight and no transparency.
Constantly dealing with a real issue in human nature is the OPPOSITE of ignoring it.
The board contains major shareholders, who would mostly be in favor of honest accounting. It seems more likely to work, than that a democratic government would be in favor of honest vote counting.