Optimism Synthesizes a New Economic Paradigm | Layer 2 Review
Optimism Synthesizes a New Economic Paradigm | Layer 2 ReviewQuick Reads and Hot Links Covering the People and Projects Who Are Scaling EthereumDear Frens, The Layer 2 ecosystem is so busy right now that it’s challenging even for us to keep up! Total Value Locked crashed through the $10 billion ceiling, and zkSync had a breakthrough day earlier this week: Ethereum’s scaling solutions are rapidly growing, and governance is beginning to take top priority. July saw the introduction of Polygon’s Three Pillars of Governance and Optimism dropped the Law of Chains. These are frameworks for thinking about how to grow and scale ecosystems, and their development will provide valuable insights into how to best build an interoperable onchain world. As we move toward the future we hope to create, such frameworks will become the history upon which we can reflect, and we’ll hopefully improve with the benefit of hindsight. In this issue, HiroKennelly looks back at two of the textual works which have profoundly influenced the pursuit of socio-economic progress, and illuminates the Optimistic Vision as a framework which takes the best of both models to create a future where public good and profitability are two sides of the same coin. Read on for the latest stats, threads, proposals, and tidbits from around Layer 2, and don’t forget to vote in our poll to tell us which Layer 2 you use the most. Contributors: Warrior, jengajojo, thinkDecade, trewkat, HiroKennelly This is an official newsletter of BanklessDAO. To unsubscribe, edit your settings. ✅ Action Items🏃♀️ Catch up with the action on the Polygon Forum re: the Three Pillars of Governance. 🗳️ Vote in our first user poll below! 🔥 Hot NewsArbitrum Foundation Grants ProgramThe Arbitrum Foundation has announced its Foundation Grants Program, initially focused on decentralized applications, tools and infrastructure that will benefit the Arbitrum ecosystem. Note, this is a Foundation-based initiative, and does not overlap with any grants program administered by ArbitrumDAO. 🏛 Governance⭐ Featured ProposalsThe Three Pillars of Polygon GovernanceThe three pillars of Polygon 2.0 governance are:
The post ends with a call for proposals seeking community feedback on the Three Pillars, so please help Polygon build an ecosystem that supports web3 values! Check out this 🧵 for more info: 💬 Proposals in DiscussionArbitrumOptimismPolygonStarknet🗳️ Polling Station
🪂 Airdrop Station📈 DataTotal Value Locked on L2s Surpasses $10 Billion!Top Ten Projects by Total Value Locked:🔭 Project WatchArbitrumTop Projects by TVL in the Last 7 DaysTrending NFT CollectionsWhat Projects Are Users Flocking To?OptimismTop Projects by TVL in the Last 7 DaysTrending NFT CollectionszkSyncTop Projects by TVL in the Last 7 DayszkEVMTop Projects by TVL in the Last 7 DaysOptimism Synthesizes a New Economic ParadigmAuthor: HiroKennelly
― Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
― Karl Marx, Das Kapital
It’s not news to us that something is wrong with capitalism, this system that has brought so much material wealth to so many, but has also destroyed traditional ways of life, brought large-scale, potentially irreversible damage to our planet, and has turned most people — many of whom want nothing more than to leave work and reunite with the selves they left at home — into data points on the map of economic conquest. This was foreseen, but it is not our destiny. In modern times, there have been two foundational texts upon which much of our social and economic structures have been built: The Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith and Das Kapital (1867) by Karl Marx. Although academia continues to spill much ink over their differences, these are both core philosophical texts — rich with social and economic data — that reach back into premodern history to demonstrate why and how the world is as it is and what can be done to further their respective visions of human progress. Even if you don’t agree with what they wrote, it’s hard to argue that the two are great thinkers struggling with big questions, certain in their seemingly incompatible visions for how to lift up humanity and move the needle of progress forward. Dicing Up the DialecticSmith and Marx offer complex socio-economic theories, and without a framework it’s difficult to know how to move through their work. One of the best ways to analyze competing information is via dialectics, with the basic formula as follows: The Wealth of Nations, written nearly 100 years before Das Kapital, sets forth the thesis that society will be better off if individuals pursue their own self interest inside of an unrestricted, competitive marketplace. Marx’s response to witnessing what he saw as the dehumanizing effects of unfettered ‘capitalism’ was to publish his antithesis, Das Kapital, arguing that the economic system promoted by Smith exploited workers, forcing them to disjoin their labor and its fruits, causing alienation from their own worth because their labor is used to enrich others, to maximize profits for the “owners of the means of production”. To resolve this conflict, Marx advocated for a worker-led revolution to overthrow the capitalists and institute a society where all had equal status and wealth, a type of social welfare state. Fast forward to the present, and even the most ardent Marxist is forced to see that the implementation of his ideas have proven ruinous, even if his intellectual work may have been priceless. And yet, we understand the necessity of marketplaces, of enabling those to pursue their self-interest, but as we exist in this state of hypercapitalism where we labor for the profit of others while spending our leisure time enriching the shareholders of social media platforms, many of us wonder if there is another way to create value, to feel valued. Two hundred and fifty years after Smith and 150 years after Marx, it’s time for a more Optimistic economic model that combines the best parts of capitalism (competition as determined by a marketplace) and socialism (care and support for our fellow humans) to create a synthesis of the two, an Optimistic Vision, and share it with the world. The result is the Optimism Collective’s simple equation to build a better world:
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