One cool thing about the blockchain is just how new the ideological and philosophical aspects of it still are. We've all heard about the purity of trading sentiment or the cool stuff you can track/store with it, not to mention how everyone HODLing keeps purporting that it will change the world. On a basic level, blockchains are consensus ledgers that can confirm and lock the validity of single transactions or additions to the system, right? This could essentially revolutionize the middle-man industry but couldn't you make the claim that the most power in both business and government resides in middle-management(MM). Even companies whose revenue is wholly based on the production of material goods often try to become their own middle men. Down this same logic track, corporate management could itself be considered a type of MM behavior, which in a perfect world, does not need to exist. A farmer does not need the government or a supermarket to buy or facilitate his goods, they just make it easier for the farmer to sell his stuff and interestingly, make more money even after commissions. The KitKat company doesn’t need massive office buildings filled with boardrooms to make KitKats. I guess the revolutionary aspect of the blockchain could be equated to maintaining the existence of the ‘government’ or supermarket without either of them ever depending on management from individuals. If my logic stands up, you should be able to apply this to any governing body or company, but should the KitKat company be included in this or is a private company inherently not part of the large scale equation?
Is the existence of management the problem?
Another claim one could make is that middle management or even 'just management’ is the extension of micro-centralization into the larger scale centralization many are afraid of. The reason I use micro-centralization is because on the smallest level, individuals are central, self contained, self policing, and although arguable, completely responsible for their own actions or reactions. An example to illustrate my thinking; imagine a chef who creates a recipe so good everybody wants it. Some want to eat the finished food, while others want the recipe. As an individual, he can choose whether or not he reveals the recipe or cooks the food thus centralizing his recipe much like KitKat. What's cool though, is that this remains decentralized overall and thus perfectly fine; Anyone can try to recreate the recipe and have access to the same earthly materials used to make the food, plus create offices or advertising branches if they want. The problems then arise when, not only does the chef keep the recipe to himself, but also monopolizes at least one earthly material used to make it. This could be taken down very deep rabbit holes but the gist of this claim is, decentralization is the equal availability of materials and resources to everyone. So then, a centralized system holds its own resources and chooses what to do with them. In the case of YouTube, these resources are probably their servers and algorithms. The central aspect is the actual service provided by YouTube, the decentral aspect is the fact that anyone can set up servers and build algorithms. If the above is true, then management does not centralize anything, it's just that an individual or individuals choose whatever they want to do with their creations.
What does management do, with respect to centralization, for a good or service?
If the claim - that management as a whole centralizes everything - is false, but the claim saying that getting rid of it with blockchain/AI-like technology will decentralize everything – is true, where is the line that makes big banks so scary. To try to answer this question, I believe one thing we need to strip from management is the new-decision-making. In a blockchain, management is done based on a set of hard coded rules. With Steem, a consensus of those using the system decides what those rules are. As of right now, the Steem witness system that depends on a user consensus to change the rules, all while anyone still has the ability to run their own full node/fork, is the closest I think anyone has ever gotten to decentralized management next to Switzerland’s direct democracy. Management still exists in the system but it is done in such a way that makes exploitation of users by non-users much more difficult. The ability for the system to make new decisions is based on a consensus of the users. Actual democracy definition maybe? I mean, sure there are still problems concerning whale stakes and how the currencies are distributed but theoretically, true power over the base functionality of the system cannot be bought out. Back to banks, is it not true that they can only run due to exploitation of users by non-users? They quite literally use your money to make them money, and it works but they obviously twist it in such a way to make it seem like a necessary process to render bank-account-creation free. A Steem wallet needs measurable work to be created as well, but the idea should be, that this remains in my hands. The power of mining is that I can choose to offer up my own measurable work for a wallet, right? If banks exploit users as part of the foundation of the system, this value generated from exploitation needs to funnel somewhere. You could make the case that it funnels purely into relevant infrastructure (anything helping the system including fat cat management), but then the success of BTC and the massive paychecks in banking both say otherwise.
Conclusion
If the management of a system puts power in the hands of the managers, but the system is inherently centralized anyway, then the system itself needs to start at ground zero, it has to become decentralized the moment it is released into the wild. And that is where blockchain technology shines. The entire idea I think I’m getting at is not only the importance of being able to distinguish between private and non-private companies, but also the necessity for us to decide what should be publicly managed, and what essentially doesn’t use enough non-obtainable resources to be deemed significant enough to be publicly managed. Some of them seem pretty obvious like the governance of a country, or the structure maintaining a currency, but if those are logically the best candidates for decentralized blockchain-like systems, it’s no wonder they’re starting to get scared shitless. I’ve heard the notion several times now that representative democracy is a necessary failure, that it’s ok if banks are essentially scams too big to fail, and that massive companies can privatize public resources, but the future is now and I’m wondering if this new idea of decentralizing management itself could turn those notions on their heads. Internet should be publicly managed and available? Categorize internet as a public resource and slap a couple blockchains onto new ISPs. Direct democracy should be a thing more experimented with, Blockchain. Currencies need to have trustless direct transactions, Blockc… oh wait, that kinda works already.