Today, the blockchain technology is so popular that giant banks are preparing to adopt blockchains as their core technology. Even governments announced that they will use the blockchain technology to manage identities of their people(Estonia) or records the Land Title(Honduras) or national referendum(Ukraine). Is this technology familiar with governments or current social systems?
But when I first heard about the blockchain, I was astonished that a blockchain would replace the government or even states. A blockchain is just a technology so how can it replace a government? Is it possible?
Actually, the ambition of guys who make blockchain is audacious. Not all men are but some of them who have great visions want to make big things, i.e. replacing the current social system.
(Vitalik Buterin, image from wikipedia)
Vital Buterin, Founder of Ethereum wants to make smart contract with which we can replace legacy social contracts based on papers and legals. Daniel Larimer who is leading Steem project, wrote in his self introduction that he was looking for non-violent means of rendering violent forms of government powerless.
(Daniel Larimer, image from Steemit)
Many other blockchain developers share a similar vision. Then in what aspect, we can say that blockchain be able to replace the government? If we say it in a positive viewpoint, I can mention three things. (I will not say negative viewpoints in this article because there are a great amount of negative viewpoints or even proofs that nothing can replace the government in the near future.)
First, what kinds of jobs government do? I think the most important job a government do in general is information processing. The government is an information processing machine. Bureaucracy is an apparatus to make information processing process stably and routinely. I think that it is somewhat difficult at first to understand the fact that government is an information processing machine, but let’s think about this. How about collecting taxes? They calculate annual income of each company or person and decide the amount of tax according to the tax rate defined in the tax law. How about changing the address? They receive the request and confirm the identity of client and change the address. Nowadays the address is recorded in a database controlled by the government, so the term “changing the address” means "changing the value in a database”. “Change the value in a database” is one of the most frequent activities in information processing processes. (Even if the recording device is paper, there is no difference).
The role of computer system is to process information and blockchain is the one of the computer technology. So, I think, there is a substantial similarity between the role of government and blockchain. The difference? One is processed by people who are agents of a government and the other is processed by a machine.
(image from wikipedia)
Secondly, the things that consist of a government are rules. Every activities that a government can do or should do are defined by laws. The process of changing the address is defined in laws or ordinances, and the tax rate is also defined by tax laws. In general, when public servants do their jobs, they should follow the standard processor. Sometimes or frequently a government or a public servant breaks the rules but it is not the point in this time because nobody says that breaking the rules is the nature of government. What people want a government to do is do its defined jobs within the laws.
The first blockchain, Bitcoin contains only trading information but Ethereum contains smart contracts, which contain the rules of service or information processing process. And we can build Dapps (Decentralized applications) onto a blockchain infrastructure now. In other words, we can define the contracts, rules, and processes and record them in a blockchain permanantly. Steemit is a kind of Dapp as well. As we know, a blockchain is impossible to manipulate, and the rules recorded in blockchain is also impossible to forge. We can trust that Steemit service would not deceive us because the logic of the service and the transaction history of Steemit is recorded in Steem blockchain. And this point leads us to the third point.
(Constitution of India, image from wikipedia)
The third point is a problem of trust. I think it is most important because it is related to the ground of the existence of government. What is the fundamental need of government? I think it is to guarantee the trust between people, group, organization and etc. In a ordinary life we don’t need the power of government, but when there is a problem government is the last resort. When there is a dispute between people, when there occur severe natural disasters, when there is an attack from other country, a government is the last prop. This is the basis of the existence of the government : the last bearer of trust.
When the trust is collapsed with any reasons, a government loses it’s legitimacy and sometimes it leads the collation of a government.
It is this point that blockchain could replace the government. The most outstanding feature that blockchain has is that blockchains make it possible that people don’t need to trust each other to interact together. In the preface of the book, BLOCKCHAIN, Blueprint for new economy, the author said :
It’s true uniqueness, however, lay in the fact that it did not require the users to trust each other. (O’Reilly, 2015)
The fact that a blockchain gives us the unbreakable trust means that a blockchain can do just like what a government can do. This means that a blockchain has the possibility of replacing a government.
(image from wikipedia)
Governments and the blockchain technology share three points : information processing, a series of rules, and guaranteeing the trust. So I think that it is possible to replace the functions of a government with a blockchain theoretically. Moreover governments or the civil servants, i.e. agents of governments are able to deceive people. So there is a possibility that a blockchain can do better than a government in some aspects.
I have a brief idea of the blockchain based government system and I’ll tell you more details about it in the next post.
I'm not native English writer, so my article would have some grammatical errors. I beg your pardon in advance. Whenever I find errors, I'll revise my text as soon as possible. Thanks.
It's unavoidable
I think so too. That's why I wrote this post. Thanks.
Yes, they can... but with the current state of blockchains it will take a VERY long time before that happens. In this time and age that means at that within ~6 months we will probably see a blockchain based country somewhere in the world ;-p
Would be nice but Will not happen that soon. First the Major banks Will adopt blockchain for financial transactions. Next up are countries. Will take a few years as understanding of blockchain and knowledge is not sufficiently developed throughout the world yet. Only a few people truly have indepth knowledge and still are learning new things every day
Yes. I think so. It will takes long time.
Some decades ago Stafford Beer (grandfather of cybernetics) works on replacing a huge part of goverment (economy part) by algorithms... in Chili...
A good story to understand the world and power of science in social technologies.
I think that blockchain creates a new form of social organization and it would spread all over the world:
https://steemit.com/blockchain/@soomrack/bitcoin-blockchain-steem-middlesociety-and-math-management
I'm glad I meet you who knows Stafford Beer. I studied little about CyberSyn in Chille. Nice to meet you.
Some good food for thought here. I don't think blockchain tech can completely replace government. There will always be a need for a physical meatspace entity to take action in the real world, enforce laws, etc. But blockchain tech in general, and smart contracts in particular, can be adopted as governance tools to great improve the efficiency of governments and cut through a lot of red tape.
Corruption, bribes, unfair treatment. These are all problems that smart contracts can solve, provided that politicians agree to abide by the results of the smart contracts. Imagine how much smoother and simpler elections would be if voting was done with, say, a decentralized application living on the Ethereum blockchain! Nobody could be accused of tampering with votes. There would be no need to ever have a contested recount. Citizens could vote from the safety and comfort of their homes, free from any threat of harassment or intimidation from opposition parties (not really a problem in the first world, but there are many countries where exercising one's constitutional rights can be quite hazardous to one's health). The potential here is so vast!
That's what I'm thinking. There are so many possibilities when we adopt blockchain technology while we are running government.
Banks can't adopt a block chain. its decentralized. Do you know what has happened every time someone in control of a bank or government try to decentralize a bank? they end up dead..... We can crush the banks instead though. I prefer option 2 myself....
whatever diverts corruption are welcome 8]
Block chains to replace governments? I think this is a long long way off right?
Yes. It will takes long time, but it is not impossible.
Maybe blockchain can take over a couple of functions of a government, or at least be of assistance...but I think there will always be need of a human hand. There are always exeptional situations that do not fit in a smart contract. So completely take over the place of a government is not going to be very functional I guess, but I do think that governments should embrace it and see if they can use blockchains to make some governmental work more efficiënt and decentralized. Good post.
Thanks. I think so. I just write this article in theoretically, not practically. Practically, there would be some convergence of human organization and technical apparatus.
haha ... it can not happen :D
I think it can happen gradually.
"....replace governments...." nope. But would make a great plot for a post-apocalyptic post-government movie!
Yeah. That's interesting viewpoint. haha...
Governments are santioned by 'we the people' with the use of deadly force to enforce rules that 'we the people' agreed on. I don't see how the blockchain can pick up a gun and coerce them into action. That part of the government is needed. If the democratic government doesn't do it, then you have anarchy (anyone with a gun) then dictatorship (one guy with a gun).
In a land where anyone with a gun wins, I would lose, as I am not a big tough guy. I like civilization.
Having said all that I think blockchains can remove much of what government does for us. Especially the record keeping part.
I agree with you in some aspect. But blockchain would be more useful than record keeping. I'll say it in later post.
I don't understand this argument. You don't like people having guns so you want people with guns to be in charge?
I'd rather it be organized and under control of an elected government rather than 'every man for himself'.
I don't think the author is suggesting that democratically elected humans would be replaced, just that the administrative component of government could be blockchained to improve efficiency and transparency.
Governments would always need the ability to change direction in response to real world circumstances and that's a human task :D
Critically, a blockchain sized improvement to transparency would greatly improve trust in government...at a time when it's so badly needed !
Yes but only when people realise what governement does and how badly it does it. Bitcoin, steemite etc are part of that education.
Good post and some interesting points. The theory is sound, the technology is there to be able to achieve a different government structure. In practice there would be so much resistance from the powers that be for this not to progress far. Governments will no doubt use blockchain moving forward but will we ever see a system where democracy becomes a self governing blockchain based contract? As fascinating as crypto currencies, blockchains and smart contracts are, for now they only give us the other alternatives like opting out of the legacy banking system.
Thank you for an interesting article.I would like to make some distinctions though.
There are different types of decisions that a government or a government body makes:for instance,a national decision(for instance a declaration of war) a routine decision(your tax return) and legislative decisons like a ban on smoking.
The second of these, the routine decisions,can be be done by smart contracts following laws on a blockchain. A ban on smoking can be stored on the blockchain,but not implemented,unless you want smart contract police bots.
Butfor example in a national crisis situation,how can the blockchain react?
Btw,I´m not a statist,I´m actually an anarcho-communalist.
It is somewhat difficult to say but I have an idea about that. I'll write it next time.
I am not sure blockchain will replace governments. But, I do think blockchain will add a lot of transparency to governments and government processes. A scenario I was thinking about yesterday is in my own backyard. Oil and Gas companies lease land from farmers and ranchers for access to their land to drill. When times are good, the O&G companies pay their bills. When times are tough...this happens http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/record-numbers-of-farmers-seeking-lapsed-payments-from-oil-and-gas-industry what would happen if we had blockchain and smartcontracts? I am willing to bet we would have a fair, transparent process.
At least, blockchain will add a lot transparency to governments as you said. And I think there would be more than that.
I upvote U
@blocho thanks for the post
For an interesting read https://steemit.com/blockchain/@akshaybornare/what-is-blockchain-and-how-it-works
I wouldn't be so sceptical about this news and would agree that the Blockchain technology is much more than digital money today. Sweden, Ghana, Estonia and even Russian Central Securities Depositories already started working on applying Blockchain technology in different areas.
Very interesting. My initial reaction is concern for how much power could be wielded in a very short period of time using the blockchain for governing. I would like to see the blockchain used for voting.
Cyber security is an oxymoron...always will be.