dvdc on Nostr: Catholics Should be Bitcoiners Catholics face many challenges living the faith ...

Catholics Should be Bitcoiners

Catholics face many challenges living the faith together in an increasingly secular age. However, Catholic communities can uphold their faith in the modern world with a simple action: adopt Bitcoin.

Freedom Money

Pope St. John Paul II famously told his American audience, “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Bitcoin gained early notoriety for its permissionless nature to enable criminals. However, just because a man can undermine his freedom does not diminish its inalienability. As a man can freely speak so others may come to know the truth, he can also use speech for harm. Similarly, the freedom to transact is necessary to provide for the common good, even if a man can use money for personal destruction. Bitcoin enables the freedom needed for the expression of public morality. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, "It is good for people to realize that purchasing is always a moral — and not simply economic — act. Hence the consumer has a specific social responsibility, which goes hand-in-hand with the social responsibility of the enterprise." (Caritas in Veritate 66) As a large portion of the population is unbanked because of their social status and governments de-bank political opponents, protecting the freedom to transact is more crucial than ever to maintain the right to support what we ought.

Sound Monetary Policy

Regarding wealth concentration in 1931, Pope Pius XI wrote, “This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.” (Quadragesimo Anno 106) The Federal Reserve, which creates US Dollars by fiat, is the single controller of the world economy because it controls the ‘life-blood’ of the world reserve currency. This arbitrary power undermines a family’s ability to save for the future and rewards cronies of the central bank by the Cantillon effect, cementing an unjust economic order.

Contrary to the Federal Reserve, whose monetary policy is at the whims of politicians, the creator of Bitcoin established an immutable and predictable monetary policy at its inception to issue all 21 million Bitcoins. Although Bitcoin may experience volatility, its sound monetary policy enables families to securely store their resources, safeguard their future, and empower them to contribute to the common good. Before Bitcoin, no one could resist the unjust exercise of power demonstrated by the central bank of the most powerful nation. However, now we can resist and are obligated to do so.

Practical Distributism

G. K. Chesterton once quipped, “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” After the Industrial Revolution, while affirming the market economy, the Church has always warned against the centralizing forces of unbridled capitalism. It has sought to create a new economic framework: Distributism. “Economic development must remain under man's determination and must not be left to the judgment of a few men or groups possessing too much economic power or of the political community alone or of certain more powerful nations.” (Gaudium et Spes 65) In Bitcoin, monetary policy is decentralized to the point that any changes need unanimous consent, which means it is practically impossible to change. A prosperous nation-state has no more power than an individual running a Bitcoin server. Decentralized money is the first step toward a Distributist future from which distributed economic activity can flow. With further technological advancements, the Bitcoin network will be able to support dense local economic activity and allow a community to organize around the common good while removing the unjust influence of the central bank.

Lastly, Pope St. John Paul II left us invaluable wisdom about the post-World World II attempt to create a just economic order: “In general, such attempts endeavour to preserve free market mechanisms, ensuring, by means of a stable currency and the harmony of social relations, the conditions for steady and healthy economic growth in which people through their own work can build a better future for themselves and their families.” (Centesimus Annus 19) Let us heed his wisdom and adopt Bitcoin to create a more just future for families and communities.