It seems like the more people think about cryptoeconomics, the more they bring up Friedrich von Hayek. And that's cool. I read 'The Road to Serfdom' and 'The Use of Knowledge in Society' when I was an undergraduate too.
Maybe I need to re-read Hayek (I plan to), but given the very early, immature stage crypto finds itself, I think that it may be of more use for individuals and teams who are building some of the first consumer facing dapps to look for other figures whose ideas may be able to offer more immediate and practical insights.
For me at least, I think that the time has come to look back at Lewis Mumford, and in particular his work and insights on cities and their development in history.
As prolific a writer and polymath as Mumford was in early twentieth century America, outside of a small group of urban planners today, he and his numerous works have all but been forgotten, but not by me.
In his later works, particularly in the National Book Award winning 'The City in History' and in the second book of his The Myth of the Machine series entitled 'The Pentagon of Power,' the dual concepts of 'Materialization' and 'Etherialization' figured prominently in his thoughts on cities and cultures.
Although Mumford originally came across these terms in Arnold Joseph Toynbee's 'A Study of History', Mumford made them his own.
Materialization is the process wherein a subjective, pre-linguistic idea becomes embodied materially in objective reality. It always starts with an idea so faint that it's barely a dream. As a helpful example, think about the original dream that brought together the first cypherpunks. These original cypherpunks, over a period of decades, kept the seed of the idea alive by relentlessly, but very slowly, studying, researching and discussing - which is to say incubating - their nascent idea until that fateful day Satoshi Nakamoto appeared.
Mumford refers to the stage of materialization when an idea becomes inextricably intertwined with a person as 'incarnation'. This person normally strikes a chord with a large group in society who have been yearning for something different than their rigid depersonalized surroundings. Sort of like how, amidst the occupy movements and the frustration with the system in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008 that many felt, Satoshi and the idea of Bitcoin appeared who in turn saw a group of devoted disciples from around the world spring up who helped give voice and intellectual formulation to the idea of crypto.
It is at this point, when the subjective thoughts about the idea begin to manifest as objective reality. The formulation, ideation, and elaboration of 'the idea' by many people in their daily experience of living bridges that original dream with the realities of social life. Think about all of the unique insights that people have just started deriving over the past few years from Satoshi's white paper that have been incorporated in new projects and collectives. This wider socialization of the idea Mumford calls 'incorporation'.
And this is where we find ourselves today. It is here that the design of these projects and collectives needs to be fully thought through in order to ensure the best possible long-term outcome.
Let's take Cent as an example. Just like Mumford's conception of incorporation, a conscious rational effort amongst the community of Centians is just beginning to create distinct habits, customs, routines, practices, rituals and procedures that will shape its future. But it is still raw. Its initial design needs to account for the inevitability that, over time, the original organizing idea of the Centian culture will become played out and rigid in some ways. In Mumfordian terms, the expectation that the original organizing idea will become fully embodied needs to be reflected within the design set during incorporation in order to allow for new ideas to take hold in the future.
To paint a few very broad strokes this could roughly mean that whilst a few Centurions may be introduced early to Cent to help curate a culture that I have described elsewhere (here and here), the decentralization of this centrally set institution needs to also be baked into the original design. The same holds for future airdrops or any other future plan. That near future, and more importantly the far future beyond that, needs to be set *loosely* and allowed for today.
If the original design doesn't allow for new ideas and uses to manifest out of the original culture and associated infrastructure, there will be a breakdown, or in Mumfordian terms 'de-materialization' will occur. This breakdown is an example of the negative side of 'etherialization'. For a project like Cent users would begin defecting to other networks that better incorporate the urges and impulses behind their new idea that is seeking expression.
If, on the other hand good design is employed, the positive forces of etherialization will play off of the existing creative culture by transmuting its energies into more refined forms (e.g. symbols). Technical infrastructure (e.g. market mechanisms, incentive architectures) will become simplified in design and operation. The longer etherialization is allowed to continue, the larger the environment will be, both in space and time, for further user development.
According to Mumford, good city design ensures continuity by providing both stability and creativity. Existing institutions and structures take on symbolic meaning. At the same time they provide collective support to help translate new ideas into habits, customs and new design choices that will be applied to the city in the future that will, in turn, impact the next generation in new and surprising ways.
In simple terms, the goal of good design should be to build containers in both a technical infrastructural sense as well as creative cultural sense that, with minor changes here or there, can last over time to hold new generations of dreams.
In 'The City in History' Mumford wrote, "The rhythm of life in cities seems to be an alternation between materialization and etherialization." Whilst designing dapps and their incentive architectures, the relation of and interplay between it and the waxing and waning forces of materialization and etherialization that the community will exert needs to inform the design. If Cent can accomplish that it will be able to set up something that will continually enrich and nourish generations of Centians.
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