Decentralized Governance, an inevitable evolution of Democracy.
Albert Einstein said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” This shows that he believed the weapons used in World War III would be so devastating that civilization as we know it would be gone. If the situation continues as it presently is, the 3rd war may not be far away for Africa.
Let’s all take a good look around and see how much we’ve profited from the government in our various lives, the businesses and the non-business-related ventures where the siphoned funds pass through till it eventually landed in our bank accounts. How we have benefited from the act of keeping people in the dark and how we profited from intentionally demanding cuts, bribes, favoritism incentives among others even when we are meant to do our duties. A call for rejoice as we profited from the downfall of a nation as no man can successfully, justifiably crucify us with a justice system of just-us dictating the path of righteousness and law. We may be small, but we are mighty and without us, there will be chaos. We know the strings to pull, the laws to write, the documents to keep, the guilty-innocent to castigate and the innocent-guilty to set free and invite to our table of like-minds. We will all agree that what has made this possible originated from China. It was made possible by a phenomenon first practiced by Qin Dynasty called centralization. A government that puts an absolute power in the hands of the elected few. For we profit from this, hence we detest the rising need for decentralized governance.
Centralization evolved over time into democracy, hence Democratic centralism in which political decisions reached by voting process is binding on all members of the party. Centralization is not only limited to public governance but also private sectors and establishments and all has done nothing but put too much power in the hands of the few. Over the decades, there has been a whole lot of innovations in all the spaces and sectors, but not in democracy and creates the question of why. The public participation in democratic process since 1787 has been the same. Some will argue otherwise, as we’ve had few pocket innovations across the globe as more even embrace democracy, what they don’t quite understand. The founder of Pay Pal, Peter Thiel said “To truly innovate, achievement of vertical progress is must, which comes from creating something completely new”
A vertical progress was achieved recently in democracy, as recent as 1787. From the words of George Washington “The eyes of all our country men are upon us, if happily we are the instrument of saving them from the tyranny mediated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the world, that a free man contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth” That’s how a small group of people; John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington convinced others to create their own sovereignty that changed the world by creating a democracy that truly represented them. A democracy by the people and for the people. That was the last of a real innovation, a vertical innovation.
If the majority vote and opinion still counts, which is doubtful, then the call for an innovative change’s actualization is around the corner. Decentralization is almost as old as the first democratic vertical innovation. It became a thing in 1820’s during the French revolution as they push towards decentralization which unfortunately only became another extension of the existing centralization. The fact is, there has been many of such attempts to bring decentralization into reality but the first of such successful attempt will be the one brought into practice by the blockchain technology. Finally, an opportunity for a community of people to participate beyond voting and view from a transparent perspective all that goes on with nothing hidden from anyone.
Decentralized government by definition according to the current practices will interpret as a type of government that disperses power over a legislative body instead of maintaining power amongst a few individuals. But then again, this in reality is just an extension of the popularly known centralized governance as the power is still in the possession of the powerful few who collaboratively powered by lack of proper transparency can do as they want with no one to effectively bring them to justice. We’ve seen first hand how our voting exercises and results can be rigged an unwanted group of individuals will be sworn in to occupy the seats of government. The system that was meant to protect human rights was never perfect to begin with laws that despite written will still be misinterpreted by the legal intermediaries. Additionally is the conspiracy theory of the cabals who control the government and all the law stands for, a theory we all know to be true.
What then is a truly decentralized governance? Your guess is as good as mine. A governance that truly solves the prevailing problem by putting the opinion of the people first, in a trustless-trusted transparent automated system governed by the opinion of the masses using a unique consensus mechanism by the people and for the people. It will be the blockchain empowered form of governance. The technology of the century that truly enables a truly automated decentralization and transparent system of governance. There is much to be covered by this topic, but we grow less in lines that captures the attention of interested readers the further we move. There are several platforms today but the most efficient of it all will be multichain platforms. Such that enables a single platform by all for different use cases and purposes. The Ardor blockchain platform will be a top pick for an effective use case which comes with a full package and functionalities usable in the real world.
Imagine having all known functions of government that truly requires separate offices and management personnel to avoid duplicity in efforts on different child chains yet on the same platform. The same blockchain software on the same nodes/devices enables a perfect means of dividing labor without having to go out of the system. Just a single seat of government with several perfect functional, enabled environment and series of codes to automate some recurring functions all ending up in a transparent ledger or database in real time for all to see. The prevailing technology has made it possible to achieve equality in a reality that opposes egalitarianism, to achieve fairness in an unjust society, to weaponize transparency enough that corruption becomes extinct, and to create a government that truly answers to the people as far as the codes run on the immutable platform known as blockchain. What then do we do with it?