Great question @phgnomo. I think "no regulations" exist only in an ideal Libertarian State. Or should I say, in a Utopian Libertarian State. Which has a better chance of ever existing than a Utopian Socialist State - but not by much. At any rate, it's going to take thousands of years of human evolution or progress to get anywhere near to it, if it's even possible. In the meantime, just like Socialists are happy to move in the direction of a Utopian Socialist State, I think Libertarians are happy to move in the direction of less government coercion and more personal autonomy.
But here's the thing, the very computer programming that produced the Steem blockchain is in and of itself Government Control. Not the government "out there", to be sure, but the government we have all bought into (with time and/or money). It's the "laws" of the blockchain which governs the payout from the Steemit Rewards Pool. On top of that, it's the same form of government as the United States: Democratically Elected Republic, though it is without a Constitution, or at least an easily identifiable Constitution. It's a Republic because we elect people (Witnesses) to represent us when changes to the Law (the blockchain) are being considered at each hardfork.
So what makes it "Libertarian"? Well, good question. No one has the ability to "punish" or "control" the kind of behavior we see in Whale Wars, though there are certainly many calls from others for just that. People are begging @dan and @ned to do something about this. And control of individual behavior could actually be accomplished through an update to the blockchain, if the Witnesses were to approve of it, or a programmer could be bought off and he or she insert it into the program, me thinks.
Hey @moeknows, does your understanding of the blockchain concur with this? Thinking of making this into a separate blog post. I'm particularly not-to-sure about my last couple of comments.
I also think steemit is kind of a democracy, since we vote on our representatives (witnessess).
But It maybe we could call It a libertarian democracy, since there is Very small amount of regulations (blockchain implemented rules)?
I say that because what i learn about libertarianism is that what would define what is right or wrong is the community itself.
This may be seen on the most recente flag wars, where community opposing forces are pushing each other around. Maybe someone Will Win, maybe not.
Theoretically, unless a whale Control a lot more than 50% of all avaiable circulating steem(wich means a shitload of money) It cant fully Control the system.
But there is still rules. If there where no rules at all, then i dont think this would survive for long besides for only a very small circlejerk community, where the steem coins would have much value compared to the outside world.
And that is what bugs me on the full libertarian Idea that the market would adjust itself. It would never work, because those that dont have Power would never have a real opportunity to get some, because those who already have the Power would Just do everything to keep the status quo.
I'm glad to have had you in this conversation because you've hit on something that could be a major flaw in how things have been set up - how things are actually working against Libertarian ideals such as self-correcting market forces. I'll have to do some more research and thinking about this. I might just throw my hat in the ring and "run for office" as a witness in order to affect the integrity of this system.