[leereeves]

Recent dramas highlight the underlying power structures in Bitcoin and reddit, so it's now clear that neither is truly libertarian, but Bitcoin was often promised as a libertarian alternative to traditional currencies, and reddit was once promised as a libertarian "bastion of free speech on the worldwide web".

Perhaps the lesson here is that libertarian promises are, at best, temporary.

[krrrh]

You're on to something, but libertarianism probably isn't the right target for your conclusions. This is more of an example of how movements that seek to protray themselves as structureless end up with power structures that are less responsive to their communities. See the 1970s feminist essay The Tyranny of Structurelessness[1] by Jo Freeman for a timeless example.

[1] http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

[CydeWeys]

Wow, excellent reference.

If that essay were written today another great example for it would be Occupy Wall Street. I saw first hand at OccupyDC how structurelessness led to tyranny of the least shameful, the most bullying, and the loudest.

[mcguire]

Anarchy is a wonderful political system, for the roughly 8 seconds until it is replaced by some form of feudalism or something.