by Richard Martin
I’ve started reading Jason Lowery’s master’s thesis on the national security implications of Bitcoin (Softwar: A Novel Theory on Power Projection and the National Strategic Significance of Bitcoin). I’m a little over halfway through the work, and I find that the insights I’m gaining on almost every page are mind-blowing.
This article in not intended as a full review of Lowery’s book or a critique of his thesis. My purpose is to start reacting in writing to his overall thesis and providing commentary and analysis of the insights I’ve been gaining from it. I’m inspired to do so by the impact his thesis is having on my thinking as well as those “reaction” videos that are so prevalent on YouTube®. I will address these to Jason through Linked In and Twitter, in the hope of starting a fruitful dialogue.
With the publication of Softwar, Lowery presents a novel theory on power projection in nature, human society, and the cybersphere. The latter is where Lowery gets into the national security aspects of Bitcoin. I’ve not yet gotten to that part of his thesis, so I will leave that aside for now.
With that said, there is plenty to digest in the book about power projection in nature and society and its implications for peace, security, and prosperity. In a nutshell, Lowery claims—convincingly—that power projection is fundamental to the genesis, evolution, and survival of life in general and of all organisms.
This may seem self-evident, but his formulation of what he calls “primordial economics” is compelling, as he bases it on physical power. Physical power is measured in watts, the amount of energy transformed or, alternatively, work performed in each second (1 watt equals 1 joule per second; the joule is the unit of work produced by a force of 1 newton to displace a mass by 1 meter; 1 newton is the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kilogram at a rate of 1 meter per second per second). In other words, physical power is defined as the rate of displacement of mass over distance.
As we can see, basic physical concepts are all based on mass, energy, space, and time. Lowery equates the physical with the real. If there is no displacement of mass, or transformation of energy, then the phenomenon isn’t physical and is within the realm of human imagination and mentation, and therefore abstract. While we could possibly quibble about these conceptions, Lowery’s purpose is to advance the discussion by providing functional definitions of physical power and abstract power, and he succeeds in that respect. I will address abstract power and its relationship with physical power in a future installment of this series, as I’m still digesting it.
To survive and prosper, organisms must project power so they can acquire and consume resources while simultaneously protecting themselves from being attacked and consumed by other organisms. This is summarized in a simple mathematical expression:
BCRA = BA / CA, where
- BCRA stands for Benefit-Cost Ratio of Attack. The higher an organism’s BCRA the greater the likelihood that it will be attacked and consumed by another organism.
- BA stands for Benefit of Attack and represents the resource payoff for an organism of attacking or consuming the prey organism or object of consumption. The higher an organism’s BA for any given value of CA, the higher the BCRA.
- CA stands for Cost of Attack and represents the “price” the prey organism or object of consumption imposes on attacking or consuming organisms. The higher an organism’s CA for any given value of BA, the lower the BCRA.
An organism with BCRA greater than 1 is attractive to a predator, and the higher the ratio, the more attractive it is as prey. Conversely, an organism with a BCRA between 0 and 1 is unattractive as a potential object of attack and is much less likely to fall prey to a predator trying to consume it for its resources. In simple terms, an organism with a BCRA below 1 is likely to inflict a high cost and even potential death on the predatory organism. The closer the ratio gets to 0, the higher the probability that the organism will survive attack by another organism. This is the essence of what Lowery calls “primordial economics.”
Now, I’d like to propose that Lowery’s formulation can in fact be construed as a formal statement of what Ludwig von Mises called “praxeology,” the science of human action. Mises theorized that human beings act to relieve felt uneasiness. Resources (food, water, vitamins, etc.) for energy and matter and the imperative to survive and prosper are the driving forces of human action, and life in general.
In this sense, Lowery’s primordial economics can be viewed as a more general statement of Mises’s notion of praxeology (human action), one that applies to the entire living world. Organisms must survive and thrive, and to do so they must feed and breed, and secure their existence against predators and entropy. The basis for this is power projection.
I won’t address the details of his exposition and argument, but it strikes me as a way to reconceptualize the relationship between war/politics and exchange/economics. Austrian economists, especially the more libertarian types, tend to see war/politics and exchange/economics as mutually exclusive categories. However, Mises always saw economics as being the most well-developed part of praxeology.
For Mises, praxeology is the science of human action, and economics is part of praxeology, specifically the tool to analyze market exchange (catallactics), the division of labour, and other categories of human action unhindered by coercion. This approach then undergirds the analysis of the effects of coercion—i.e., politics, violence, and war—on unhindered economic action.
The following diagram summarizes how I see the relationships between each of these concepts. Power projection includes praxeology, which includes economics, which includes catallactics (the study of market exchange).
There are implications of this conceptualization for peace, security, and prosperity. I will address these in another instalment along with other insights and reactions to Lowery’s thesis on power projection.