I have been studying cryptographic protocols for consensus action
of late, and I have come to a somewhat startling conclusion.
If a society is sufficiently rich in cryptographic protocols, there
is no need for anyone to work for a government.
The only sticking point is the exercise of violence -- and even
there, it is possible to create a system that issues warrants only
when a large number of people agree that it's the right thing to
do. If we posit that an ordinary citizen, if they so desired,
could take a police-action warrant and execute it, thereby claiming
the 'cash attached to the action, then the last necessary government
employee becomes simply a contractor.
I do not know whether such a society would be more "free" than
the society we have now; Protocols also allow the collection of
taxes, protection of wetlands, and other things unbeloved of
strict libertarians. If you speed, or drive on the wrong side
of the highway, a warrant will issue in seconds only, and then
the ticket is going to show up on your heads-up display and the
money for the ticket is going to automatically drain out of
your bank account. Maybe there's some kind of "general asshole"
ticket that contains the key to remotely kill your engine,
assembled from several hundred shares held by people your driving
has pissed off since you bought the car. Your insurer could
check the engine, see how many shares of that key are registering
per month, and guage what to charge you without even necessarily
knowing your name. If most of the people believed that ordinary
citizens shouldn't have guns, then sooner or later, guns would be
banned.
The point is, people could pick and choose the policies they
wanted in terms of law and governance, implement them as
protocols, and run them free of the prejudices, fears, and
reinterpretations of human officials other than the governed
themselves. The kick is that there can even be a protocol for
changing the set of protocols and enforcing the change against
holdouts (a variation on the 'byzantine generals' protocol).
But anyway, my conclusion is that it is possible to get basic
business taken care of -- whatever 'basic business' means to
the people living there -- without creating a priveleged
class or a class 'more equal' than anyone else in the form
of politicians, judges, etc. Basically, if the people are
rich enough in cryptographic protocols, computing power, and
communications infrastructure, then government employees are
not necessary.
I think AP may have contained the germ of this idea; but
Bell was perhaps too much of a nihilist to develop it in
this direction, and more bent on destruction than creation.
Bear
