Humanity’s greatest challenges today are global, not limited by national boundaries. Examples include stopping climate change, reversing inequality, eliminating the risk of war, and unlocking economic opportunity for everyone. Yet our global governance system is failing to solve these problems, primarily because it is comprised of separate countries, whose defining attribute is an absence of accountability beyond their borders.
This archaic system of separate countries no longer works, and it’s no longer necessary.
Today, for the first time in human history, we have a better option. Using blockchain technology and a new model called liquid democracy, we can now enable everyone on Earth to participate directly, if they so choose, in a global democracy.
Blockchains are the secure, distributed ledger technology that powers Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is being rapidly adopted by major institutions today.
Liquid democracy is a new model of voting logic, enabling everyone either to vote directly on issues, or to assign transferable proxies to someone they trust to vote on their behalf. Each person can revoke their proxies at will, and reassign them or vote directly.
Initially, we can introduce a new global governance layer as an umbrella over today’s countries, with its mandate limited at first to certain matters that can only be handled at the global level, such as climate change. Critically, the global layer must not depend on countries for its authority; rather, countries must grant the necessary authority to it at the outset, by treaty; otherwise the structure is no different from what we have today.
Over time, with the global layer in place, people will come to see that more and more issues either can be handled locally or require global cooperation. The mandates of the global layer and of localities will grow, and more authority will shift to them. Gradually, countries will lose relevance and fade from the picture.
Even as the new global democracy takes root, most issues can be handled locally. Applying the principle of subsidiarity, every issue will be handled at the most local level capable of addressing it. The global layer will handle only those issues that can not be resolved more locally.
As in any democracy, there must be checks on the power of the majority. A global constitution will guarantee fundamental human rights for everyone.
Our global democracy will have the power to protect these rights, and to enforce laws and policies enacted globally, through armed force, just as national governments exercise similar authority within their borders today.
Yet those who fear “big government” should bear in mind that increased citizen participation through the global liquid democracy will naturally limit the scope of enforcement discretion, thus constraining the growth of executive power.
A global democracy is undeniably an audacious goal. “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” (BHAGs), are widely recognized as effective tools to generate enthusiasm and commitment to a shared purpose. They can unlock humanity’s potential for tremendous progress, as when the US rose to President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to put a person on the moon. BHAGs also stimulate valuable advances along the way: the original moonshot has been credited with spurring the development of computer technology and the internet. In our case, setting the goal of a global democracy within our lifetimes will not only make its achievement more likely; it will also put today’s countries on notice that the global public demands greater international cooperation, now, on urgent threats such as climate change.
Of course, a goal requires a strategy. Our strategy is two-fold.
First, we can support and help drive the adoption of secure, blockchain-based voting, beginning in low-stakes elections and leveling up over time. As people develop comfort with blockchain-based voting, and as the technology proves itself, we can level up to apply blockchain voting in larger and more consequential settings, such as city, state/province, and national elections. We can gradually introduce the liquid democracy logic, and also pair it with deliberative fora so people can generate their own policy proposals, discuss them, and vote on them in a set of closely linked, official platforms.
Within the foreseeable future, we can use these tools to enable whole populations to participate in transnational deliberation and voting on policy matters such as international trade agreements, crowd-sourcing the text and ratifying the agreements directly. From there, the last step, to a global democracy handling all global matters, will be a far shorter one than it is today.
Second, we must build a movement calling for a global democracy, generating a public conversation about its feasibility and benefits, and telling a new, uplifting story of the brighter future we can create together.
To its great credit, the Global Challenges Foundation has launched the present competition to stimulate this vital conversation on how we can best restructure global governance.
Many more contributions are also needed to advance this movement, such as the production of films and other popular media exploring the idea of a global democracy, along with collateral materials such as discussion guides and curricula, and the convening of meetings and informal gatherings to discuss this topic.
This is an opportune moment. In the face of increasingly clear global threats, numerous prominent leaders have called for increased global cooperation in one form or another. So, although our central idea of a global democracy remains outside the mainstream for now, we have a wealth of material from credible sources to draw on.
Times are dark, but people have woken up to the dangers we face. We now have a chance to chart a new, more hopeful, and audacious course to our shared future: a global, liquid democracy on a blockchain. An equal voice for everyone.
The time for this bold idea has come.