When Gandhi met Spinoza

Abstract

The crypto-currency movement is a Gandhian civil disobedience movement of the 21st century led by peer to peer networks that closely resemble Spinoza's multitudes. A wintery December evening at Prague’s Wenceslas square. The year 1989. Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia’s celebrated playwright and ‘’to be President of Czeck republic’’, stood on the stage of the celebrated ‘’Magic Lantern’’ theatre to unleash his velvet revolution. The revolution was in the shape of a grandiose play that involved 300,000 Prague citizens. Havel’s non-violent Gandhian dramaturgy was to pull down the much hated Communist State in Czechoslovakia. However, much to his disappointment, the alternative regime that he had presided over, did not usher in a new society. As Havel was to pensively reflect, “Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.”

Today, nearly three decades later, Havel’s dream seems to have been realised by the crypto-currency movement , perhaps the greatest non-violent Gandhian movement of the 21st century .

It was ten years ago that Satoshi Nakomoto, the pseudonymous architect of the crypto-currency ‘Bitcoin’, spoke out against the moral hazard-inducing behaviour of the State and its banking institutions. In his white paper, Nakamoto formulated an alternative protocol which ordained that the supply of bitcoins be finite and had to fold up by 2140 AD. Many economists consider this strong diktat as deflation inducing. Read more at: https://www.forbesindia.com/article/iim-bangalore/when-gandhi-met-spinoza/49413/1