Ironically, Communist China May Be First To Move Government to Blockchain with Intelligent, Multifunctional Identities

If you’ve been around libertarians, or anarchists long, you’ve probably got at least one IT friend that has sound reasons why the blockchain may someday be able to replace many of the essential services of government, in a cheap, transparent model that allows machine processes to take the place of arbitrary human decision making in assigning resources and providing services.

I have several, one in fact, who lays out a pretty good case for an open-source, voluntary, blockchain welfare system, where resources go in one end, and needs in the other, and solutions are reached by matching the two through computer algorithms.

Crazy, right?

They talk about government being shrunk down to fit in a corner kiosk, where you go to get what you need taken care of, and the services being provided through an open source, competitive network, where price and quality are the products of the demands of the market, sounds awesome.

You’d think, if such a thing were going to happen, it would start in the USA, the home of “Free Enterprise” but seeing as how we are almost the only nation on earth that hasn’t tried fascism yet, it would appear we will be going through a dictatorial police state phase, before we are ready for anything that allows that much freedom to the individual again.

That sucks!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, in the supposedly most totalitarian state on the planet, outside of North Korea, the Chinese are ready to give it a go. In a communist state, all services belong to government. All decisions for utilities, health, housing and many other things are filtered through a wide variety of government offices, with favors and bribes required at nearly every level to get anything moved to the next phase of approval. It can be a total nightmare, worse than dealing with a city planning office in the US, a process that will make you want to voluntary offer yourself to a Volcano God to change things.

But, here in China, efficiency is becoming a thing. As they get a taste of economic growth and what a tiny bit of capitalism can do, they are ready to create new solutions that don’t waste worker’s time, so they can be more productive! (I have no delusions about WHY the Chinese would do this, they are not being magnanimous) So, one city of nearly a million, is putting government services on the blockchain!

What??

You read it right, there is a Chinese district government, within Foshan City, called Chan Cheng, that will be experimenting with moving their central services hub, recently established in 2014, to the blockchain, for ease of access, user ID, and a reduction in repetitive multiple applications and approvals for common services. Yep, sounds pretty good.

Now, I’m sure the “transparency” of these transactions will only go one way, with the central planning authority keeping tabs on citizens to make sure they are not getting more than their fair share of anything, but it could easily be used to provide oversight and accountability from the citizens, over a government! What a concept!

Imagine, instead of running through miles of red tape, being shuffled from one office to another, (I was once sent to six different offices, just to find out what my fine was and pay it!) you could look up any transaction, get date and time, and an ID stamp of every person that touched your request and what the status was! No more bullshit lies about being too busy, or losing the paperwork, the blockchain, as Steemers are constantly reminded, is forever!

You’d be able to see who was holding things up, and who had actually done what they claimed and jumped on it and done their damn job for a change. What a deal! No more getting more than one report on a traffic incident, or property complaint. No more being told you didn’t file the right paperwork for a building permit, or a business license. You could actually see every step of the process.
An announcement issued by the Chan Cheng district provided some more details. A citizen would have a central identity, controlling their own information so that things could be updated, or amended.

They, in turn, could grant access to this identity to an agency they were requesting services from. Through a combination of private and public “keys” (sound familiar) citizens could instantly prove their identity to gain access to needed information, without having to physically wade through a sea of condescending, pretending to be idiots, public service employees! Wow, what a concept.

The platform creates an Intelligent Multifunctional Identity for each citizen. That would mean you could apply for water, heat and phone services, all at the same time, from one simple to manage account. In my dream world, each user from the government side would have a similar ID marker, with each person touching your requests being marked as to when they were there and what steps were taken.

While I’m sure it’s a long way from the Voluntary Utopia we could hope for, it is an interesting step in the right direction, in my opinion. By reducing the need for human interaction at every step, government could be free to focus on necessarily complex issues, like courts and policing, without needing huge human infrastructures to manage the mundane details.

In a system like this, no issue, such as the court being on one side of the wall, while the ticket issuing police department is literally on the other side of the wall, but they two computer systems being unable to communicate, could cause days long delays, confusion, frustration, additional cost and even criminal penalties based on faulty exchange of information. Sounds pretty damn nice to me.

Congratulations to China for beginning to embrace the future while the Western World, seems intent on taking several huge steps back into an authoritarian past. Bring on the blockchain. At least robot overlords would be consistent.