No new problems

I have really enjoyed reading Ruben Pater’s book Caps Lock. It’s an examination of the close ties that have always existed between graphic designers (of one kind or another) and capitalism. From recording data, to shaping brands and advertising designers have been central to establishing and perpetuating capitalist ideology.

As part of the first chapter he examines the role of the designer in helping to build trust in financial transactions. How designers have helped to shape money, essentially.

A couple of the examples he uses struck me as interesting. The first was the example of the 100 Daler note. This was the first banknote to be issued in Europe, in Sweden in 1666. According to Pater:

“The first Daler banknote was large, almost A5, resembling handwritten notes. Bills had dotted lines where the name, date and signatures had to be written by the user. Banknotes were rare, and were used by rich merchants and nobility. Since each note carried the signature of all the previous users, it was like receiving an invitation from a club of wealthy gentlemen” (Pater, 2021, p.47)

The continuous record of ownership - the signatures on the note acting as a means of proving provenance and therefore, conferring authenticity and authority felt strikingly similar to the way blockchain technology works today.

The similarities with cryptocurrency continue when Pater talks about the early challenges created by for society by the new form of currency:

“The issuing of the first banknotes was unregulated. Problems arose when many banks started printing their own notes in the nineteenth century, and, in largely illiterate societies, people often had difficulty distinguishing between fraudulent and valid banknotes. At one point 8,000 banks were issuing 5,000 different banknotes in the US alone” (Pater, p.48)

Here, the natural comparison was to the raft of different coins available on crypto currency exchanges. It’s a useful comparison both in terms of the volume of coins being issued, but the validity and value of some of the offerings out there and how some people may end up losing their shirt.

Aside from reminding me of Amara’s Law - the notion that we over-esimate the impact of technology in the short-term whilst underestimating it in the longterm - these examples are a useful reminder that we don’t really tend to find ourselves presented with new problems, only new solutions.

Bibliography

Pater, R. (2021). Caps Lock. Amsterdam: Valiz.