Government

Hi frens,

Working with our government for a few times, I found that the government has been more like a giant private entity.

Decisions were made, proposals were accepted or rejected, all behind the scenes of the bureaucracy. And we called them public “servant”?

That experience encourages me to look into open government, participatory budgeting, etc. Some of my friends would ask why we’d spend time studying those public policies. I would say that if you don’t, some other people would do that with your paid tax without you knowing anything.

But on the other side, I’m also curious why private entities seem to work more efficiently. People in the management take power and money without publicly awared. Is that common personal motivation of working for private entities? Just as Adam Smith claimed, “capitalism fueled by self-interest is ultimately the best way to a thriving economy.”

That also reminds me of DAO, Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which emphasizes autonomy and transparency. We haven’t heard many successful stories of DAOs, but rather fights and disputes under the sun.

And that’s good. Fights and disputes are often hidden inside private entities. Harmful decision-making process inside big corporations could only possibly be revealed with legal lawsuits, often years late.

However, emphasizing transparency might reduce efficiency. We need to learn lessons from private entities when developing our DAOs.

I like the story of iPad not supporting Flash Player back in 2010, and how Steve Jobs described “things are packages of emphasis”. We could make our DAOs more successful by making clever decisions along the road.

Your friend,

Denken