immune to debasement and hard capped in its supply
It is not immune to debasement for two reasons.
First, a hard cap on supply, while it sounds so wonderful, doesn't in any way actually solve the problem it intends. In fact, I suggest the problem that it intends to solve is unsolvable by any attempt to use a unique intermediary of exchange for barter.
Supply and Demand curves look at both supply AND demand. If the supply is constant, the value (how much of one good you can get for another) depends strictly on demand. The demand for bitcoin would then be subject to how much is available at any one moment in time v. the number of people who want it.
Because it is intended to be relied upon as an intermediary of exchange for barter, that makes it subject to hording, which, according to history, was the primary means of economic manipulation prior to fractional reserve lending. It was the hording of silver (through basically a short sale on land) that is thought to have led to the ultimate demise of the Western Roman Empire. Any system that lends itself to hording as easily as Bitcoin does, is destined to fail. It can't not fail eventually. It will, as less and less is available to the general public, become so valuable that a strict stratification of society will inevitably emerge, even worse than that which exists now.
Its value is also highly dependent on the population of the planet. If population goes down (which is what is currently happening), its demand goes down, and thus its purchasing power (AKA inflation). I think this is a minor concern really, because the deflation of hording can far outstrip any inflation due to reduced demand of the population unless that depopulation occurs hugely and suddenly (zombie apocalypse, nuclear war, meteor from space, etc.).
On the other side of that, if the population goes up, it adds to the natural deflation by hording, as demand pushes up its purchasing power. This makes the hoarders more powerful, increasing general poverty, leading to a debasement of life in general.
Because the hoarders have more power, they have more power to increase or decrease population to increase or decrease their own purchasing power. If you think that's "impossible," on the contrary, that is exactly what has happened over the past 200 years, first an increase in population (to build The Machine), then a decrease as we transition to a New World "Utopia." Intentional or not (though I can make a convincing case for intentional) this is what has happened, and, if not for the increase in money supply, deflation would have occurred, and the hoarders would have had more power. They already had a monopoly on gold though, so that's really moot.
By transitioning to an infinite "resource" as barter intermediary (the Federal Reserve Note) they were able to "borrow against the future," increasing their ability to build The Machine. By removing gold from "money", it also enabled them to gather in all the gold, increasing their total supply. Moving back to a strictly gold based economy allows those who own pretty much all of it to control pretty much everything. (Not that that is in any way a "change," it just doesn't solve the problem as people think it will.)
The "infinite resource problem" is the problem that Bitcoin wants to solve by taking the opposite stance. It can't solve it, because it leads right back to the problems that existed before there was a fluid money supply.
The problem with both systems is the centralization of authority, in this case, the use of a single currency which has no value except through belief. Thus, the hoarders will do everything they can to ensure the belief remains the belief. This is generally done by the creation of taxation, and the demand that that currency be used to pay taxes (AKA "fiat currency").
If it weren't for taxation (which coincidentally came out at the exact same time as the Fed), no one would use Federal Reserve Notes at all.
The second reason it is not immune to "debasement" is because you can't "debase" something that has no base. Bitcoin has zero intrinsic value. It can't be used for anything except as an intermediary of exchange for barter. It can only do that for as long as people believe it does. The instant people realize that they can exchange real goods for real goods it fails completely.
I don't see how Bitcoin, if adopted ubiquitously, can possibly lead to anything except a dystopian nightmare worse than what exists now, or, if rejected (which I suggest is inevitable in a free market), a real solution that could be adopted instead of attempting the Bitcoin travesty as stepping stone.
The solution to the problem that Bitcoin attempts to solve through it's "decentralization" will fail because it is insufficiently decentralized. Anything that attempts to use a single intermediary (or anything other than a complete free market of intermediaries) is itself insufficiently decentralized, and will fail to accomplish it's goal. Any free market of exchanges will naturally gravitate to intermediaries with intrinsic value. Thus, the obvious solution is to start there. A system that embraces value, AND is decentralized gives the power to the People, gives meaning to exchange (because each side exchanges something with intrinsic value), and reduces the capacity for hording to cause financial manipulation.
It is not immune to debasement for two reasons.
First, a hard cap on supply, while it sounds so wonderful, doesn't in any way actually solve the problem it intends. In fact, I suggest the problem that it intends to solve is unsolvable by any attempt to use a unique intermediary of exchange for barter.
Supply and Demand curves look at both supply AND demand. If the supply is constant, the value (how much of one good you can get for another) depends strictly on demand. The demand for bitcoin would then be subject to how much is available at any one moment in time v. the number of people who want it.
Because it is intended to be relied upon as an intermediary of exchange for barter, that makes it subject to hording, which, according to history, was the primary means of economic manipulation prior to fractional reserve lending. It was the hording of silver (through basically a short sale on land) that is thought to have led to the ultimate demise of the Western Roman Empire. Any system that lends itself to hording as easily as Bitcoin does, is destined to fail. It can't not fail eventually. It will, as less and less is available to the general public, become so valuable that a strict stratification of society will inevitably emerge, even worse than that which exists now.
Its value is also highly dependent on the population of the planet. If population goes down (which is what is currently happening), its demand goes down, and thus its purchasing power (AKA inflation). I think this is a minor concern really, because the deflation of hording can far outstrip any inflation due to reduced demand of the population unless that depopulation occurs hugely and suddenly (zombie apocalypse, nuclear war, meteor from space, etc.).
On the other side of that, if the population goes up, it adds to the natural deflation by hording, as demand pushes up its purchasing power. This makes the hoarders more powerful, increasing general poverty, leading to a debasement of life in general.
Because the hoarders have more power, they have more power to increase or decrease population to increase or decrease their own purchasing power. If you think that's "impossible," on the contrary, that is exactly what has happened over the past 200 years, first an increase in population (to build The Machine), then a decrease as we transition to a New World "Utopia." Intentional or not (though I can make a convincing case for intentional) this is what has happened, and, if not for the increase in money supply, deflation would have occurred, and the hoarders would have had more power. They already had a monopoly on gold though, so that's really moot.
By transitioning to an infinite "resource" as barter intermediary (the Federal Reserve Note) they were able to "borrow against the future," increasing their ability to build The Machine. By removing gold from "money", it also enabled them to gather in all the gold, increasing their total supply. Moving back to a strictly gold based economy allows those who own pretty much all of it to control pretty much everything. (Not that that is in any way a "change," it just doesn't solve the problem as people think it will.)
The "infinite resource problem" is the problem that Bitcoin wants to solve by taking the opposite stance. It can't solve it, because it leads right back to the problems that existed before there was a fluid money supply.
The problem with both systems is the centralization of authority, in this case, the use of a single currency which has no value except through belief. Thus, the hoarders will do everything they can to ensure the belief remains the belief. This is generally done by the creation of taxation, and the demand that that currency be used to pay taxes (AKA "fiat currency").
If it weren't for taxation (which coincidentally came out at the exact same time as the Fed), no one would use Federal Reserve Notes at all.
The second reason it is not immune to "debasement" is because you can't "debase" something that has no base. Bitcoin has zero intrinsic value. It can't be used for anything except as an intermediary of exchange for barter. It can only do that for as long as people believe it does. The instant people realize that they can exchange real goods for real goods it fails completely.
I don't see how Bitcoin, if adopted ubiquitously, can possibly lead to anything except a dystopian nightmare worse than what exists now, or, if rejected (which I suggest is inevitable in a free market), a real solution that could be adopted instead of attempting the Bitcoin travesty as stepping stone.
The solution to the problem that Bitcoin attempts to solve through it's "decentralization" will fail because it is insufficiently decentralized. Anything that attempts to use a single intermediary (or anything other than a complete free market of intermediaries) is itself insufficiently decentralized, and will fail to accomplish it's goal. Any free market of exchanges will naturally gravitate to intermediaries with intrinsic value. Thus, the obvious solution is to start there. A system that embraces value, AND is decentralized gives the power to the People, gives meaning to exchange (because each side exchanges something with intrinsic value), and reduces the capacity for hording to cause financial manipulation.