Debt Colonialism, The Petrodollar, and Bitcoin
The Great Simplification #72 with Alex Gladstein
This week…
Today, I am joined by Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation to unpack how monetary policy and debt have increasingly extended the reach of colonial powers in recent decades and how bitcoin offers an alternative to the many people who are under this financial exclusion - an aspect of bitcoin I was unaware of until this interview. In the past, I’ve briefly brushed over the ‘petrodollar’ and the financial power (seigniorage) it has granted the United States. One of the (many) topics of today’s episode is a deep dive into how the petrodollar was formed and its deep intertwining with debt and global finance. This conversation also serves as the first Great Simplification episode that delves into Bitcoin, including some BTC basics, environmental implications, and whether it can play a role in a lower energy future.
Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. In his work, Alex has connected hundreds of dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, technologists, journalists, philanthropists, policymakers, and artists to promote free and open societies. He serves as faculty at Singularity University and as an advisor to Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the fintech industry. He frequently speaks and writes about why Bitcoin matters for freedom, and is the author of Check Your Financial Privilege. His new book, Hidden Repression: How the IMF and World Bank Market Exploitation as Development was just published in May 2023.
How have the IMF and World Bank upheld the power of reserve currency countries in the Global North to exploit and extract resources and labor from the Global South under the guise of aid and development? What is the origin of the ‘petrodollar’ and how has it shaped geopolitical relationships since its creation? What exactly is Bitcoin and how does it provide economic and political freedom in a low energy future?
In case you missed it…
Last week I posted a reflection on the Beyond Growth Conference and what I think the degrowth movement is getting right, but also what is missing from this important conversation. Is it possible to purposely navigate from our current system to one with lower energy and material wealth? How does a large and growing global debt overhang impact this possibility? Is a transfer of wealth between nations feasible or even desirable based on realistic outcomes? My analysis suggests degrowth is what we should do, but post-growth is what we’re going to have to do. In any case, the stakeholders in the degrowth conversation need to be expanded. It’s now the primary movement mapping out what a desirable destination might look like as we move through a Great Simplification.
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Nate, this episode was absolutely fascinating as it gave us a new lens to view foreign policy. I definitely agree with your suggestion to watch it in “chunks” because it’s a lot to take in. BTW, I think it would be great if your team could post selected excerpts of this invaluable information to stimulate more YouTube interest and doing that with the last Daniel Schmachtenberger podcast would be an excellent way to reach more viewers.
“The right to freely transact”. This idea would be considered a bit strange or even offensive for many cultures. There are ancient ever-evolving social protocols that intentionally slow the process of communication so that a richer relationship can develop thereafter. The idea that efficiency in monetary transaction is essential to democracy is similar to the idea of making any system endlessly efficient which has led us to the very exploitative relationship in the majority of cases. I just think it’s such a weird move to go from supporting dissidents (which fundamentally are about slowing or stopping the expediency of imperialism) to bitcoin (which let’s be real--it still has a corruptible “issuance” problem). So weird. Check out Tyson Yunkaporta’s podcast The Other Others. His think tank works on this financial stuff from an indigenous perspective.