Fukuyama’s Revenge: Can Distributed Computing Help Reclaim Human Liberty?
In hindsight, perhaps he got caught up in the moment.
Watching as remarkable events unfolded in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1989, political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed an “End of History.” The collapse of the Iron Curtain and opening of Russia’s economy and society, according to Fukuyama, heralded a new world built on a foundation of universal liberal democracy.
Early signs were rousingly positive. After rotting under the yoke of Soviet oppression, Eastern Europe threw off its chains and embraced liberalism. Free markets and individual liberties were adopted in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states. East Germany rushed into the embrace of its estranged western counterpart, and a united liberalized country soon followed. For one tantalizing moment, it even looked as if China might fall into the liberal camp.
Elsewhere, the end of the Cold War led to the downfall of two-bit authoritarian regimes propped up by the U.S. and Soviets. Russia itself began to democratize. And from Budapest to Bucharest, the former Soviet satellites embarked on successful transitions from moribund command economies to free markets.
So for a time, it seemed Fukuyama’s world would come to pass. Consider that in 1975, during the depths of the Cold War, there were only 30 countries with popularly-elected governments. By 2005, that number had risen to 119 — a stunning victory for the cause of individual freedom.
Back to the Future
It was an auspicious start to the post-Soviet world…but you know the rest of the story. Over the past 15 years we’ve watched as tide of human freedom reached its high point, then began to recede.
Authoritarianism reared its ahead again — most pointedly in Russia, which saw a return to form with the autocrat Vladimir Putin. Elsewhere, initial movements toward liberalization failed to consolidate. This was especially pronounced in the Middle East, where Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, and other states saw promising democratization movements end in failure. On the opposite side of the Mediterranean, Turkey is locked in its own oppressive swoon.
Most concerning for Americans is the the election of a populist, authoritarian-leaning president in the United States. The Trump Administration sees nothing wrong with barring entry to the country based on religion, has placed an 80’s-style Drug Warrior as Attorney General, has made hamfisted attempts to shut down Twitter accounts of government “shadow” accounts, came to power making transparent appeals to xenophobia, and has not hesitated to stoke racial tensions to bolster its own political base. And that’s just half a year into Trump’s administration.
Much has been written about the causes of this global authoritarian backlash. Suffice it to say, the past 15 years have underscored several unpalatable truths: liberalizing markets are not a sufficient condition for civil liberties; established democracies are vulnerable to illiberal forces; and the very institutions that safeguard liberties can weaken over time.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this is a pivotal time for humanity; things are headed in the wrong direction. However, the return of authoritarianism isn’t fait accompli, and it isn’t happening in a vacuum; new technological and societal innovations are moving forward as well.
Against this backdrop, it’s a good time to ask: could one of the most promising (and hyped) new technologies — distributed computing — help to counter these worrisome global trends and empower the individual?
The answer appears to be a convincing “yes.” But there’s a caveat.
Blockchains and decentralized smart contracts offer a path toward realizing the full potential of the internet, harkening back to a time before governments figured out how wield the same technological tools to surveil, control, and manipulate. However, this optimism should be tempered with a cautionary note: authoritarian governments could also use certain aspects of blockchains as a weapon against individual rights and political freedoms.
With that in mind, let’s examine some of the most significant challenges posed by authoritarian governments, and see how blockchain technology can provide tools to counter those threats. Then, we’ll outline a significant threat posed by these new distributed systems, and conclude with a look at ways in which we might position blockchains to help, rather than hinder, global freedom.
Challenge: Mass surveillance
Since the 9/11 attacks, the digital frontier has come under full attack from governments across the world. Edward Snowden’s revelations about wholesale surveillance of U.S. citizens by their government were initially shocking, but have become taken for granted. We’ve become all too accustomed with the idea that any conversation (whether online, or on the phone) may be monitored by one of the three-lettered agencies. The same is true in other countries which are ostensibly “free,” democratic countries.
Tools: Cryptographically encrypted messaging is a powerful weapon against state surveillance, and doesn’t require decentralized computing. However, the addition of a blockchain layer adds a powerful layer of resilience and zero downtime. One flaw with apps such as Signal is that they can be shut down, and it’s easy to prevent access. Messengers such as Whisper or Status, which are based on distributed nodes, are far more resilient to censorship.
Challenge: Government control of the internet
Once upon a time, the internet itself was seen as a highly effective tool against oppressive regimes. However, that all changed once the regimes themselves began to control the internet. The centralization that is part and parcel of the current internet makes it vanishingly easy for governments to block access to sites — typically via IP blocks or heavy-handed control of ISP’s.
Tools: Thanks to projects such as IPFS and Swarm, we have a new, non-centralized way of addressing and storing files. Centralized DNS servers will become a thing of the past — or at least, coexist with non-centralized counterparts. Furthermore, even in countries where internet access is highly restricted, access to these decentralized technologies will be provided by satellite blockchain data and mesh networks.
Oppressed citizens are remarkably adept at skirting around regimes that stifle free speech and individual rights. Just as the samizdat underground publication of banned books and VHS tapes empowered dissidents in the Soviet bloc to pierce the Iron Curtain, the internet in general offers a view beyond the borders of repressive regimes. Blockchains can help guarantee that access to information, both within and without a country’s borders, remains open.
Challenge: Fake News
From politicians deleting tweets to stating outright falsehoods, the past few years have shown that facts are easily sacrificed at the altar of political manipulation. “Epistemic self-defense” is sorely needed in this environment; democracies can’t function without a well-informed populace.
Tools: Blockchains are uniquely positioned to help citizens ascertain whether something really happened, or existed. At the most basic level, hash-based proof of existence (a tool we’ve had since the advent of Bitcoin) provides the ability to timestamp anything that can be represented digitally.
Wikipedia has become the standard-bearer for truth. Why? Because its self-editing nature makes it difficult to foist falsehoods on readers. In the future, people may turn to blockchain-driven technologies to provide an extra layer of credibility and verification.
Challenge: Government-Sponsored Sock Puppets and Sybil Attacks
From the CIA manipulating social media to Russians interfering with elections, governments have no qualms with creating countless fictional online identities in an effort to influence online discussions, influence conversations, undermine reputations, and monitor behavior.
Tools: Proof of identity technologies may offer a powerful antidote to Sybil’s poison. Some, such as uPort, are being built on Ethereum. Others, like Civic, are building identity verification platforms on the base layer of Bitcoin. While their methods vary, their end goals promise to provide self-sovereign digital identities to everyone who uses the internet. In the future, widespread use of this technology will make it far more difficult for governments to execute sock puppet attacks.
Challenge: Government Corruption
High levels of corruption tend to show a strong negative correlation with individual rights. A comparison of Transparency Interntional’s Corruption Perceptions Index and Freedom House’s global ratings bears this out with a striking mirror image:
This sharp contrast is no coincidence. In the absence of individual liberties and property rights, government officials find it all too easy to perpetrate rent-seeking behavior and enrich themselves via corrupt systems.
Tools: Blockchain Transparency
The blockchain excels at transparency. And that’s great news from a global freedom perspective; as the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Progress is already being made on leveraging the blockchain to secure property rights; for example, Factom has worked to secure a land registry in Honduras. Ethereum smart contracts, in combination with uPort-style identity platforms, could make the process even easier.
Similarly, aid and development programs on the blockchain can provide much-needed transparency, alleviating donors’ fears about the misappropriation of funds and making it more difficult for government officials to siphon off money for their own use.
One can even envision a grassroots process whereby an entire government’s budget is tracked on the blockchain, beginning with small municipalities and gradually expanded to larger uses cases; as William Mougayar noted, blockchain technology is a good fit for a wide range of government services.
…And One Looming, Terrifying Threat
Lest we get too optimistic, let’s temper the enthusiasm with a healthy dose of reality. As Vlad Zamfir recently pointed out, blockchains are not a panacea for a better world. In fact, many of their properties — censorship resistance, for example — can be used in harmful or malicious ways.
There’s another grave, downright Orwellian threat posed by blockchains which is emerging: the prospect that centrally-issued fiat, encoded on the blockchain, will allow governments to monitor (and potentially censor) the transactions of all their citizens.
It’s no secret that Vladimir Putin himself has expressed an interest in blockchain technology. Other central banks, such as China and Singapore, are exploring the nexus of fiat and distributed ledgers. One doesn’t need to be a writer of dystopian sci-fi cyberpunk novels to see how this all might play out.
Imagine a world ten years hence where Russia’s Ruble has been physically eliminated. In its place is a digital Ruble equivalent. Russia’s citizens enjoy the convenience of digital cash, but at a massive cost: the government can track all of their transactions. Unlike its physical counterpart, which provides a high degree of anonymity, the blockchain Ruble is utterly transparent. Here the double-edged nature of all technological development rears its head: the very same transparency that can help eliminate corruption also enables universal monetary surveillance.
Transactions “off the chain,” perhaps to some untraceable counterpart such as Zcash, could be censored. The Russian citizens would be locked into a controlled financial system the likes of which the Soviet Union’s most ardent central planners could never have comprehended. A tool created to further individual autonomy thus becomes a weapon for authoritarian regimes.
Reversing the Tide
Those of us who work with blockchain technology every day tend to get caught up in the daily battles, incremental improvements, scaling challenges, and price fluctuations. But we, as a community, also have a responsibility to keep an eye on these emerging opportunities and threats.
What can we blockchainers do to halt the authoritarian trend, or at least mitigate the threat of declining freedom? How can distributed computing provide a powerful and lasting counter to authoritarianism, and help fulfill the cypherpunk vision that gave rise to Bitcoin in the first place? And, with full awareness of the potential for authoritarian governments to use blockchain technology for universal financial surveillance, how can we begin to head this threat off at the pass?
For starters, simply having open discussions about these questions can put us on a more promising path. Simply outlining challenges like those above is a good beginning. Unlike the pioneers that contributed to the advent of the internet, we have the gift of historical perspective; we can learn from what went wrong (and right) in the formative years of that technology, and apply those lessons to blockchains. We should engage those pioneers in an effort to learn from them. We should strive to live and breathe the cypherpunk ethos that gave rise to decentralization in the first place, embracing open discussion and strongly opposing anything resembling censorship. After all, how can we promote freedom and open expression if we don’t embody these in our various blockchain forums and communities?
Another crucial first step is bridging the awareness gap. An important precondition is for the average citizen to understand that it’s impossible to fudge a properly-implemented decentralized ledger. Everyday users of the internet don’t understand the protocols that make global networking possible — but they do understand that the technology allows them to connect with others. Similarly, an understanding of the inherent transparency and censorship-resistance properties will equip non-experts to use these tools.
Those who build and use the tools outlined above should seek to apply them to real-world situations. For example, perhaps uPort or Civic can find a welcoming audience in a part of the world where digital identities are lacking. The Distributed Giving Project (an effort I’m involved in) has been researching blockchain-based solutions to more efficiently distribute charitable donations in international aid situations, making it harder for corrupt government officials to abscond with donations. Projects like Status could be seeded throughout the Arab world, helping to frustrate governments’ censorship efforts and avoiding a repeat of the post-Arab-Spring Twitter crackdown in Egypt.
It’s also worth noting that there is plenty of nuance in the state of liberty across the globe. As such, we should not attempt to apply one-size-fits-all solutions. From authoritarian regimes with active resistance (such as Venezuela), to Authoritarian regimes failing to consolidate incipient democratic movements (such as Russia, or Egypt during the Arab Spring), to democratic states experiencing disconcerting slippage toward authoritarianism (such as the United States), to outright totalitarian regimes (such as North Korea) — each type of situation demands its own unique set of tools and approaches.
Finally, it’s also worth asking how we can improve upon the freedoms we already have. Democracy itself is not perfect, and is vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority. Yet it’s a far better guarantor of individual rights that other types of government. Over time, novel ways of governing ourselves — futarchy, for example — may emerge, which provide a way to more securely protect and advance the rights of all.
What lies in wait for the human race? In 50 years’ time will we find ourselves inhabiting a free, prosperous, and vibrant world, perhaps setting off to colonize the solar system? Or will our species suffer a tragic authoritarian setback, proving that the post-Soviet explosion in global liberty was a merely an aberration?
The former is much more likely if humanity can unite under the banner of universal individual rights, fighting to preserve and increase our freedom of expression, self-determination in all aspects of life, and political liberties. Blockchains can help us pursue those objectives.
Nothing in our human experience is fait accompli. Fukuyama may well prove correct, given sufficient time and tools. The road ahead will be difficult, and distributed computing is not magical liberty dust. But wielded in the right ways, it can prove to be a powerful tool against the authoritarian backlash. With blockchain technology still in its formative years, we have a unique opportunity to influence the outcome. Discussion, awareness, and action are the first steps toward a freer future.
