Ethereum Papers book chapter
Permission
Coins and tokens tend to get all the attention. Everyone wants more money and the modern world is all about incentives. But permissions are more primal. The social order of animals depends on who is allowed to do what. There is permission by force: top ape makes young ape eat last so young ape beats top ape and eats first. There are soft permissions set by example: Rick Rubin loves pro-wrestling so I can admit I like it.
Incentives drive human behavior. Permissions set the boundaries. More than incentives, permissions require agreement, negotiation, and sometimes conflict to change. Permissions from the top-down are easy to understand because it’s still about the top ape. The king says a person owing you money is not reason enough to sell their kids into slavery or the king just decides to wipe out all the debts. But from the bottom-up, it’s all about coordination. Mobs at its most basic. Protest and votes if democracy is an option. And writing rules in code and having those rules adopted by people who use the code in the case of Ethereum.