The most defensible / widespread use-case of getting money out of an oppressive regime strikes hollow to me as a lefty. Most people in an oppressive regime don't have the problem of moving large amounts of money around. And it only helps you with "temporarily store it somewhere with a wildly deviating value", how does that help when you need to get it BACK into your hands and actually spend it?
The real exploitation for 99% of the population isn't someone currency-manipulating your fortunes, it's being a de facto wage slave because we live in a system that decides at birth that you're a slave and 1% of people aren't. Crypto doesn't help you with that, ironically it makes it worse because it helps the kleptocracy move their money. That's who has a use for anonymous money, and they're normally robbing the locals. See: the Panama Papers, Russia
I've been thinking, how does one get free of the wage slavery situation, where I'm at?
Where I'm at I can't own land, only lease it from the govt for a specific purpose. A guy I know ended up paying back-fines for not actually making use of some chunk he leased. The real estate development investment sector is full of horror stories, some from people I know personally. Last year and this, many small businesses did not survive "stay home" messaging, but owe full year's worth of insurance and forward taxes non the less.
How do you accumulate wealth, exactly? Everything you could own depreciates faster and faster with time. There's no way to keep your money. You can make some money by speculating on the uneven depreciation rates of things.
Bitcoin (not other crypto) is specifically a thing one can own for 10 years, and get rid of at some point in the future presumably not having half or two-thirds of it's value gone by then. And I don't own any.
I'm the one-man shop who's business got owned by the govt messaging and now owes them.
> I've been thinking, how does one get free of the wage slavery situation, where I'm at?
Class solidarity and non-violent action. Look at history of 20th century, before neoliberalism took hold.
> How do you accumulate wealth, exactly?
Impossible to do en masse with private capital, since it is by and large ability to command other people. You can increase public goods, this is the wealth that (the society owning it) can increase and benefit from.
People will have to re-learn the lesson not to be so selfish.
I do not disagree on your points, but do on the basis of premise.
I do not believe we're any longer in a situation where people can achieve a critical mass of solidarity (even on the lower bound) leading to action. It seems to me that time has passed, and what public goods or you could say rights we have are on their way out.
It follows that an adaptation, a shift in personal thinking is required. I would have agreed with you in December 2019, but not after the summer of 2020.
Alternatively, everyone can gradually reject their manipulated fiat and embrace an alternative economic paradigm that eventually denies the government the ability to inflate away the value of their savings.
> The real exploitation for 99% of the population isn't someone currency-manipulating your fortunes, it's being a de facto wage slave because we live in a system that decides at birth that you're a slave and 1% of people aren't.
Coincidentally, the 1% are always people who have ties with the State and who have access to cheap credit. Bitcoin solves this.
> Crypto doesn't help you with that, ironically it makes it worse because it helps the kleptocracy move their money. That's who has a use for anonymous money, and they're normally robbing the locals. See: the Panama Papers, Russia
So you see Panama Papers and you infer that that the kleptocracy has any problems with storing their billions in bank accounts? The little guy needs Bitcoin, the kleptocracy does not.
The real exploitation for 99% of the population isn't someone currency-manipulating your fortunes, it's being a de facto wage slave because we live in a system that decides at birth that you're a slave and 1% of people aren't. Crypto doesn't help you with that, ironically it makes it worse because it helps the kleptocracy move their money. That's who has a use for anonymous money, and they're normally robbing the locals. See: the Panama Papers, Russia