Economic Calculation in the CBDC/Digital ID/Net Zero Globalist Socialist Commonwealth
Originally published on Botsfordism Substack on October 13, 2025.
This essay applies classical Austrian economic critiques to modern digital currency and identity systems. The author revisits Ludwig von Mises’s 1920 essay on economic calculation under socialism and Friedrich Hayek’s work on dispersed knowledge to argue that CBDCs and digital IDs represent a contemporary threat similar to 20th-century central planning.
The Central Thesis
The piece contends that “CBDCs, programmable currencies issued by central banks, allow authorities to embed restrictions directly into money” to enforce consumption limits under climate mandates, reviving failed socialist planning mechanisms through digital means.
Key Economic Problems Identified
Price Signals Collapse: Without genuine market prices, planners cannot rationally allocate resources. Administrative quotas (e.g., limiting meat purchases to 10kg monthly) replace price discovery.
Knowledge Problem: Hayek’s insight applies—”much knowledge is tacit and localized,” making centralized surveillance unable to capture entrepreneurial insights or individual circumstances.
Misallocation Results: The system produces “overproduction of approved goods…amid shortages of restricted ones,” echoing Soviet inefficiencies.
Proposed Alternative
The author introduces Free Market Ecology (FME)—a decentralized system using resource tagging, science-based extraction caps, and tradeable ecological allotments. Rather than government rationing, FME lets individuals invest unused resource allotments in efficient production, creating market-driven innovation incentives while achieving sustainability goals through profit motives rather than mandates.
Key distinction: “FME ensures resources flow to their highest-value uses without central coercion.”