A Distributed Government

Last week I started explaining how I would like to see the process of government change. As things stand in the West, the situation is appalling. Another decade like the last few years and we'll all be back in the Middle Ages, or even worse.

My idea  is simply that with blockchains available, and high levels of automation, including the rise of AI, we should be able to do better than the right shower we have running the Western Alliance.

OK, let's start with a simple definition.

What is a blockchain?

It's usually described  as a distributed network.

Another way of describing it is that it is similar to a giant Excel spreadsheet that is distributed across a network, and which can be added to in blocks, which are then added to the main chain, which continually expands.

The contents are checked by nodes on the network, and authenticated. When a sufficient number of authentications are aggregated the content is accepted into the chain. It then becomes immutable.

There have been various updates to this kind of structure, the most important being Ethereum, which introduced intelligent contracts.

I dont propose to explain how all this works. There are books that do that far better than I can, but for the purposes of this treatise, blockchains are capable of dealing with the routing of goods from farm to shop; creating reference databases for such things as car tax and registrations, land registry, voting registers, and so on. You will note these are mainly government enterprises, and so, structuring these entities around blockchain technology means that all these functions can be automated once set up and debugged.

In particular we are led to believe that the financial crash of 2008-9 gave rise to the birth of an alternative monetary system which was constructed precisely to prevent it being coopted and coerced by credit-happy governments. That new system was a coin called Bitcoin, and it was embedded in a blockchain.

It wasn’t long before the benefits of blockchains became obvious to other people who started to create more individual systems that could do various activities, while disintermediating those jobs. In other words, cutting out unnecessary people in the middle.

Blockchain technology is still very new, and although most people have heard of Bitcoin, very few own any, and very few understand how distributed networks function, and even fewer realise what they are already capable of.

Let’s start by looking at the Land Registry.

At the moment buying a house can be a daunting task. It took me eleven months to buy a plot of land in Portugal. I have managed to do it in just under three hours in the UK, but that is unusual. You usually need to employ a solicitor to check the deeds and planning info. That can take a month or two. You then need to transfer money after sorting out any borrowing, and then you need to wait for the documents to come back from the Land Registry.

With all the relevant information transferred to a blockchain, transferring ownership could be done in minutes, and the whole process would be automated, so with no people involved, the process would be much much cheaper, probably only involving a registration fee.

Another totally different example is how insurance will change.

You will be able to use an intelligent contract. Supposing you wish to insure your holiday travel: Enter the details of the flights and hotel. Transfer the fee. The insurer will either accept or reject the transaction, and if accepted will transfer the amount that should be paid out if you claim. The two sums of money will now effectively be in escrow. Something called an oracle will check whether the flights leave and arrive as required, and whether the hotel provides the facility or not. Depending on the confirmation (or not) one side of the money in escrow will be released to the other party.

Once again, everything will be automated. No paperwork is needed, or long-drawn-out communications. As the expensive back-office is no longer needed, expenses can be drastically reduced, and workers will no longer be required.

These systems can cope with a vast range of situations, from tracking food from field to shop, and transport from one side of the globe to the other. They can operate banking facilities, and deal with security issues, and I can see no reason why a blockchain cannot operate a Representation of the People system, linked with various side-chains that operate the collection and spending of money, and the running of the various branches of government. Each voter will need to buy a token to allow voting to take place. Proposals for improving the framework of government and its various agencies can be put before the voters, including the various arguments for and against any such proposals. This gives individuals a chance to put their own opinions forward without the need for a parliamentary representative, and the voters can either vote for or against those proposals, or not bother.

Certain criteria could be added such that only people who enter a debate can vote on the outcome, but what is set into the code would be up for debate.

This would cut down voter fraud, and make everything transparent, including any lobbying, and it would make government vastly cheaper. It would of course put a huge army of civil servants out of work.

With blockchain technology I see no reason why we cant go back to how things were in the days of the Greek city states with all those who wish to have a say in how things take place being able to be heard without the need for representatives in some far-off building.

At present the government machine has four parts to it. There is the executive branch, which is equivalent to a company’s board of directors, but in the UK government is known collectively as the cabinet. There is the house of representatives, or the body of MPs. Then there is the judiciary, and behind all of that is the back office, or the army of civil servants.

I would have thought that the introduction of blockchains into government would gradually lead to a drastic thinning of the back office. The house of representatives would become irrelevant and could be disbanded. If voters already have direct access to the process of government then who needs representatives?

The judiciary can stay where it is for the moment, but the executive branch would not need to be represented. They would ideally need to be employed in much the same way as directors of a company. In other words they could be chosen by merit rather than the complete shambles we have at the moment where any idiot who has never had a proper job in his life can be put in charge of a set of activities of which he or she knows absolutely nothing.

I have to admit, I would love to see politicians being made redundant. At the moment they are simply doing too much damage to be allowed to stay in their jobs.

We need a governmental system that is fit for a technologically advanced twenty-first century world. We are finding out that an AI can be far more intelligent than the average human being, and can make quicker and better decisions than the vast majority of civil servants and politicians.

The sooner we update our outdated traditions the better.