Monday, February 12, 2018

The role of government in an ideal society

To be honest, modern governments are obsolete.

Think about it.  Aside from the dictatorships and monarchies of the world, governments have been formed to ensure the well-being of a nation’s population.  Enter most democracies and republics of the world.  Believe it or not, but communist countries were also initially structured to serve the population, just like the Bolshevik’s struggle to overthrow the Russian monarchy to create a first socialist state, led by Lenin.[1]  However, in almost every case, these governments founded “by the people, for the people”, changed to compete in global economies and with other countries ideologically.  With few exceptions the benefits of governance have slithered to some sort of ruling class.  Popular democracies, republics and communist nations have turned into oligarchies or plutocracies benefiting only a precious few.  Some countries, like the United States of America and Russia, are plutocracies masquerading as democratic republics and communist countries, respectively.

In our ideal world, we need to restructure governance to give it back to the people, as it should be.  Even though I’m a fervent believer of decentralization, I believe central governance is still needed, but it must be structured in such a way to prevent abuse of power.  Thankfully, our understanding of human nature through science and technology allows us to create an entirely relevant and incorruptible model of government.

As mentioned in the very first section, we want people’s basic needs to be covered.   To do this, we need to have processes that ensures basic needs are distributed to those who have difficulty taking care of themselves.  Here we include the socially forgotten, such as the elderly with no family support, orphans, some sick citizens and a portion of the handicapped.  The automated systems that feed our society need to be overseen whether they are government-run or privately run.  We need some people to take care of regulating new discoveries and adapt to social, economical and political changes in the world, much of which is beyond any individual nation’s control.  We need an entity that will ensure our health and education system is up to par, adaptive and available to all citizens without prejudice.  We also need some way to maintain and decide what infrastructures to build for cities and urban areas impacting large sedentary and migratory populations.  We need an agency to ensure the Internet connects us and wavelengths used for such communications are only beneficial, don’t cause disruption in different industries and uses protocols that play well with other nation’s infrastructure deployments.  We need some form of organization that will take care of national threats.  Finally, we need to identify some representative group or individual that will speak on behalf of the government domestically and on behalf of the nation internationally. 

These are national needs that are extremely hard to cover leveraging disconnected individuals with a wide range of interests.  They need to be organized and must be unbiased so that everyone in the nation is treated equally.

Power, water and public transportation can definitively be privatized or given away to the free market with regulation coming from a governing body.  Plenty of options to choose from very soon to ensure every home, apartment and neighborhood has those things covered.  These can even be subsidized by the government to ensure a great transition towards an independence from the state for those elements.

As we move forward and develop new ideas as societies, we may figure out great ways to decentralize more elements while keeping it unbiased and fair, thus replacing whole public-sector organizations.  Progress and replacement of a better system should be a celebration whenever it becomes possible.

I recommend a structure where all the needs that need to be covered by a central entity are organized by entity.  Each entity is responsible for a single aspect of social need and are directed by a democratically elected expert.  Each ministry can be semi-independent from each other following the regulations of the lawmaking entity.  Each ministry would communicate with each other through rules established by the lawmaking entity. 



For this exercise, let’s call these entities “ministries” even though depending on the nation, they may not be called such.  At the center, we find the lawmaking ministry that discusses and establishes laws fitting the people’s desires, wishes and for the common good.  All other ministries must follow the laws, regulations and constitution put forth by the lawmaking ministry, but they are not under its direction.  Then each ministry would communicate with each other directly in a dynamic fashion to avoid overlap, conflicting goals and to generally get best results.  Artificial intelligence can definitively be used to ensure each ministry receives regular suggestions on changes in directions and adaptation based on each individual ministries’ decisions, to ensure optimal efficiency.

Currently, “government still really works off how a 19th or 20th century society works.  In fact, I think right now, politicians are just starting to barely wrap their heads around some of these [technological] changes.”, says Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, Canada.  An AI-assisted system will help all these ministries adapt faster than any human organization could, led by relatively small groups of expert human beings that take decisions for all of us.

We know that given the right institutional guidance, innovators, charitable personalities and business people will drive an economy faster than any centralized government could.[2],[3]  Thus, the ministries don’t require many employees.  They do however, need highly qualified individuals driven by the desire to do an excellent job that will impact a whole nation, including spending national resources.



[1] Communist Russia.  Alpha History - http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/communist-russia/
[2] Empowering the private sector to drive economic growth in low-income countries.  UNESCO Science Report: towards 2030.  Natural Sciences Sector (2016).  - http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/empowering_the_private_sector_to_drive_economic_growth_in_lo/
[3] Brent Wilton (September 2014).  How the private sector drives economic growth and well-being - http://www.tradeforum.org/article/How-the-private-sector-drives-economic-growth-and-well-being/

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