
Is blockchain transparency the panacea for democracy?
Jan 14,2023
3847Blockchain is not a panacea for the challenges of democracy and transparency, but it has great potential to help improve efficiency and reduce costs. People's recognition of the concept of government and even democracy is not 100%. The following content will answer for you.
1、 Is blockchain the panacea for democracy?
Blockchain is not a panacea for the challenges of democracy and transparency, but it has great potential to help improve efficiency and reduce costs. People's recognition of the concept of government and even democracy is not 100%. For example, the Center for Democratic Future of Cambridge University said in its 2020 report that most people are not satisfied with democratic government, and most people's satisfaction with this data rose sharply in the 1990s.
These data of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also see this change, which shows that people's confidence in governments is actually very low. Of course, despite that, despite that. Francis Fukuyama has a famous saying that when the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, we were already at the "end of history". However, the trust of the people and institutions needed to support democracy has been very fragile. In Estonia, people are aware of this, because the recognition of post-communist countries entered a new low point in the 1990s.
2、 Opportunities for progress in blockchain technology
However, this low starting point provides an opportunity for progress. The Cambridge report shows that although the dissatisfaction of most large democracies is rising, some small democracies have improved, especially in Scandinavia and post-communist Europe.
The author believes that one of the key parts of Estonia's improvement is to explore blockchain technology to support various government information systems.
As an emerging technology, blockchain has been tested as early as 2008. The preliminary test was earlier than the 2008 BTC white paper, which brought a voice to the word "blockchain". In fact, in the early days, this technology was called sound internally. Timestamp linked to hash.
One of the earliest demonstrations was Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI), a blockchain-based technology developed after a series of major hacker attacks on Estonian government departments, banks and newspaper platforms.
These early experiments have proved successful. Since 2012, the country has been using blockchain to protect national data, electronic services and intelligent products of the public and private sectors. Although this does not explain Estonia's increased trust in the government, it does play an important role in it.
The success of blockchain technology in government applications also shows its great potential in all walks of life. For example, in agriculture, blockchain technology can prove the supply data of agricultural products transferred from the field to another store.
Deloitte's research highlights how to obtain similar benefits in the supply chain of multiple units. Researchers explained that this may be particularly meaningful when the supply chain is complex and globalized.
3、 Support for transparency
Like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the key part of confidence-building is transparency, especially when the wrong information leads many people to doubt what they see and hear. When the recognition of corruption and poor accountability to the person in power is far greater than the direct financial cost, the situation is doubled.
In fact, the Economic Forum believes that public administration corruption is the biggest challenge faced by many regions in the world, because it has the ability to stifle social, economic and environmental development. They pointed out that blockchain technology played an important role in addressing this challenge. Similarly, in terms of transparency, blockchain has many possible use cases in the business environment, including real-time settlement, smart contract, supply chain traceability and enhanced purchase order management. These have the ability to enhance trust and transparency in processes that may be opaque.
For example, in Estonia, people use blockchain to support land ownership registration. According to the use of blockchain, citizens can obtain a secure and publicly verified record system through which they can prove their land ownership. This will then reduce the possibility of any manipulation of records and strengthen land ownership.
Blockchain is also used to register assets and businesses, as well as healthcare and digital court systems. Under each premise, blockchain brings valuable tools to ensure the integrity of data in each deployment. Although this has a significant impact on the establishment of trust between the public and the government, it is also meaningful to establish trust between the industry and the government. This is very important for small enterprises without large legal teams.
4、 How to build trust?
Although blockchain is by no means the only way to build trust, it is a lever that we can apply. It's like a lever. In a recent paper from IBM, blockchain has the power to ensure data sharing between citizens and institutions and reduce all concerns about data use. As early as the 1970s, economist Kenneth Arrow pointed out that the lack of mutual trust would damage the operation of any economic system, but as the United Nations pointed out, it is also crucial for the effective operation of society itself. Public institutions and leaders with mutual trust and trust are the basic elements of social and economic progress. Trust allows people to cooperate with each other and express solidarity.
summary
To sum up, public institutions and leaders with mutual trust, mutual trust and mutual trust are the basic elements of social and economic progress. Trust allows people to cooperate with each other and express solidarity. Blockchain is not a magic drug to meet these challenges, but it has great potential to help improve efficiency and reduce costs. When democracy is in crisis, companies that have the strength to participate in this experiment and reform may grow longer.