Will the Alternocracy will emerge as the tech-inspired alternative to democracy and nation states?
A collapsing petro-dictatorship creates a cryptocurrency to evade global sanctions. This is not the plot for a sci-fi flick. It’s just one more sign of the coming Alternocracy, a world where the traditional functions of government are being replaced by computer code, notes analyst Eden Yago.
For generations a central tenet of government power has been the exclusive right to print money without restriction. On February 20, 2018, Venezuela launched a cryptocurrency with the selling point that its issuance was restricted and beyond its control. Instead, the “Petro” was limited by a decentralised blockchain to an issuance of no more than 100 million units, he writes for WIRED:
Perhaps the most dramatic thrust of the Alternocracy, but one that may take longer to materialise, will be semi-independent alternatives to the nation-state itself. Some examples are already emerging. ….In Honduras, the government has passed constitutional changes to allow for the creation of ZEDE – Zone for Employment and Economic Development – semi-autonomous zones that will be governed by private corporations instead of the Honduran government.
“Historians may well look back at 2019 as the high-water mark of democracy, before an alternative, for better or worse, took over,” Yago concludes.
Declining trust in institutions, increasing challenges tied to misinformation and concerns about trust and truth are linked to public attitudes about democracy, notes Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center’s director of internet and technology research. He presented a synthesis of the Center’s growing explorations of issues related to trust, facts and democracy at a recent forum hosted by the International Institute of Communications.
