For most of the last decades, I’ve been having arguments about control versus freedom; government versus the individual; the state versus the libertarian. It began in earnest with the launch of bitcoin, where my position is always that you cannot have money without government. Then, as most of you will know, the question is: which government. It is not necessarily a national government. It is any government you want or believe in.
The thing is that this discussion goes further because it is the core of identity. Whether it be a passport, driving license or bank account, we have identities approved by governments and institutions who control us. There is no democratised, decentralised identity that we control. They control it.
We are left with systems that track and trace our individual activities and we don’t like it. The thing is that if the control systems – government – cannot track and trace us, then how can they tax us and keep us in order?
This debate has come even more to the fore as we moved from an analogue to a digital society. Our digital world is allowing us to do more and more without government restriction. We can transact globally peer-to-peer with no oversight. The problem is that this means control systems are loosening and breaking. You lose thousands in a deep fake scam, what can you do? You think you want freedom but, when freedom fails you, you expect someone to sort it out.
The core of this discussion digitally is trust.
How can I trust you if I don’t know you? More than this, how can I trust that it is you even if I do know you? And then there is the balance that fights against this: I don’t want you to know me, as I want my privacy. I don’t want you to track and trace me, I want my privacy. I don’t want government to know what I’m doing, as I want my privacy.
The discussion is all about that balance between privacy and control, which varies immensely by situation and context. When making a financial transaction, we want control whilst, when doing things digitally, we want privacy. Privacy and control; access and permissions.
Today, the question of privacy and control is a defining issue of our time. As technology advances and data collection becomes ubiquitous, the debate between libertarian views on privacy permission and government control over information is intense.
At the heart of this debate is the key friction between whether individuals should have the right to control their personal data, or should governments possess the overall authority to access and regulate information in the name of security and social order?
I guess this is a debate that has been going on since time immemorial.
“The probable outcome of too much freedom is only too much slavery in the individual and the state.” Plato
“If liberty and equality are to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.” Aristotle
It just makes you realise that, all in all, we are just another brick in the wall.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...