Your point is sound and your articulation of it quite thoughtful. However, you have glossed over a dramatic presumption: that everyone believes that voting is a desirable mechanism for effective democratic change.
It happens that the matter before us - the process by which state-sanctioned currency is created and distributed - is a wonderful example of the failure of voting to create policy which is in line with the civic polity of the voters in question.
Very, very few people believe that the current configuration of the federal reserve is just, yet over 40 million people voted for the current US President.
Thus, there is obviously a chasm between the beliefs of the voters and the outcome of their democratic exercise.
One of the most important (in fact to me, the most important) critiques made by the open source collaboration model is that, in some cases, a seemingly more chaotic system of decision-making can (but of course doesn't have to) result in a power dynamic more consistent with the underlying politics of the constituency.
Bitcoin, while obviously flawed in many ways, and blockchain technology generally, are formulations of this critique. They say, "here's a different imperfect way of making decisions about the operations of power structures."
In this way, it makes more sense to judge them on how they apply the desires of a constituency to the power structure, not merely the matter of whether or not they facilitate one particular mechanism for doing so (ie, voting).
By my assessment, Bitcoin is actually somewhat less horrible than USD when judged this way. Future cryptocurrencies may emerge which are not at all horrible.
"Very, very few people believe that the current configuration of the federal reserve is just..."
(Critation needed). From my vantage point, very very few people - mostly cranks and charlatans - are against fractional reserve banking or the Federal reserve.
Milton Friedman, a man who was awarded the Nobel prize for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy, called for the end of the Federal Reserve.
I agree that it isn't a popular viewpoint, and I don't think it is even feasible with fractional reserve banking as well as other nation state risks to a currency, like foreign manipulation, but I don't argue that it's all that crazy to call for the end of the Federal Reserve.
I surmise that you have defined "crank" and "charlatan" to mean anyone who, regardless of their study on the matter, is opposed either generally to fractional reserve (and central-) banking or specifically to the current federal reserve.
For those opposed to the general system of fractional reserve and central banking. I also said "mostly" because I do beleive there may be eventually a better system.
I think there's plenty of room to debate the policies and structure of the United States federal reserve.
It happens that the matter before us - the process by which state-sanctioned currency is created and distributed - is a wonderful example of the failure of voting to create policy which is in line with the civic polity of the voters in question.
Very, very few people believe that the current configuration of the federal reserve is just, yet over 40 million people voted for the current US President.
Thus, there is obviously a chasm between the beliefs of the voters and the outcome of their democratic exercise.
One of the most important (in fact to me, the most important) critiques made by the open source collaboration model is that, in some cases, a seemingly more chaotic system of decision-making can (but of course doesn't have to) result in a power dynamic more consistent with the underlying politics of the constituency.
Bitcoin, while obviously flawed in many ways, and blockchain technology generally, are formulations of this critique. They say, "here's a different imperfect way of making decisions about the operations of power structures."
In this way, it makes more sense to judge them on how they apply the desires of a constituency to the power structure, not merely the matter of whether or not they facilitate one particular mechanism for doing so (ie, voting).
By my assessment, Bitcoin is actually somewhat less horrible than USD when judged this way. Future cryptocurrencies may emerge which are not at all horrible.