Technology and Decentralization
Gandhiji believed that everyone should create the resources to feed and clothe themselves. He wrote in Young India, (15–11–1928): “For the universal realization of this ideal, it was necessary, that the means of production of elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses …. Their monopolization by any country, nation or groups of persons would be unjust.”
I was curious to examine whether the idea of a decentralized future sought by Gandhiji is consistent with the fundamental way in which technology changes society. Technology, like living things, evolves. Once technology gets into a culture, it acquires higher and higher complexity. This concept is called the Technology Imperative. This development is not driven by technological determinism but by the human tendency to pursue change.
The printing press is a classic example of how technology promotes decentralization. Printing changed how information was collected and distributed and was the earliest technology driver for decentralizing knowledge resources. Internet and digital technology made decentralization more effective. Cloud technology and the shift to the digital economy infused new possibilities for devolution. The digital economy can transform finance, money and governance through dispersed trustless consensus, allowing transparent and secure transactions.
Stewart Brand’s “The Whole Earth Catalog” symbolized early stirrings of the idea of decentralization. This compilation of technological tools returned to the Do-it-Yourself (DIY) practice of individual, distributed production. Recipes for manufacturing, not freely accessible in the past were identified as a critical resource and made openly accessible to achieve a paradigm of decentralized production.
By 1972, DIY concepts had permeated cyberspace. Access to free technical knowledge helped nucleate proto-computer groups at US universities in the 1960s, a forerunner to the amateur computer scene of the 1970s and the micro-computer industry of the 1980s. The hurdles to sharing knowledge due to proprietary software triggered the development of an open-source operating system as an alternative.
Personal computers changed the power balance in the early 1970s, raising new hopes for decentralization. In addition, the videocassette heralded the end of the traditional mass media. With its wealth of information and the “open channels,” cable television offered the once passive media clients new opportunities for selection.
Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web became an elegant interface to the Internet. Within a short time, the Web emerged as a “free and open” medium that would promote greater public participation by eliminating the space between the broadcaster and the viewer. Nicholas Negroponte attested to the Internet’s ultimate victory to its capacity to decentralize, globalize, harmonize, and empower.
The mid-2000s saw the emergence of 3D printing technology, which enables distributed production of material goods. The next step in techno-societal development is the decentralisation of economic processes and the return of control over production to the masses. It allows bottom-up entrepreneurship and distributed innovation, leading to the emergence of what is termed a “maker economy” in which one could realize products anywhere. 3D printers, online technologies, cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things could now tap into all of the opportunities for social transformation that previously was not viable (1). Four principles drive the Makers Movement: the open-source sharing of new inventions, the promotion of a collaborative learning culture, a belief in community self-sufficiency, and a commitment to sustainable production practices (2).
With the full realization of 3D printing culture, we see a powerful new narrative that could meld civilization in the 21st century. A recent study (1) says: “Thanks to new forms of technologically mediated communication, distributed production communities (FabLabs, Makerspaces) can now exchange data and knowledge at all stages of development regardless of time or location. They will lead to a sustainable system of economics. Decentralisation of production makes the transport of goods redundant.
Blockchain technology makes a decentralized system of commercial, financial and legal transactions capable of operating with no trustee. Harward Business Review defines blockchain as a distributed digital ledger of transactions recorded and replicated in real-time across a network of computers (3). A new block at the end of the chain gets generated when a new transaction is subjected to cryptographic validation. A central approving authority is not needed; hence its qualification as a peer-to-peer trustless mechanism. Blockchain technology will herald the emergence of post-capitalism, as intermediary organizations and platforms become redundant. Boyd Cohen writes in the October 2016 issue of the Journal of Management Studies (4): “…. beyond its impact on traditional industries operating with market-based capitalistic models, blockchain, and their derivatives pose opportunities for radically new forms of post-capitalist organizing.”
Before power grids came up in the 19th century, the generation and use of electricity happened co-locationally. Factories and large consumers had their generators and distribution networks. With the advent of Alternating Current, these isolated micro-grids merged into systems with large generation plants, long transmission lines, and a one-way energy flow. The reversal of the centralized architecture to a decentralized, distributed network model is happening now in the form of microgrids: small integrated systems capable of autonomous operation.
Decentralized electricity has greater sustainability by integrating giant Distributed Renewable Energy Resources. Parties to decentralization are homeowners, small communities or businesses owning power generation and storage assets such as solar photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries. Digital Technology aggregates distributed energy resources into ‘Virtual Power Plants’ (VPP). Data can be collected from these resources and used to control them remotely. Algorithms can then optimize the energy flow across the city to serve the needs of end customers. In addition, De-centralization allows owners of DERs to trade surplus energy with each other through peer-to-peer interactions and makes the energy companies redundant.
The Snowden revelations and Cambridge Analytica scandal triggered public concerns about data privacy. The proponents of the decentralized Web want a web where everyone communicates without relying on centralized operators, as in the pre-internet days when computer-to-computer communication was the norm. Then, web 2.0 depended on communication and information sharing through centralized agencies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. The DWeb intends to be free of these intermediaries to connect us.
DWeb works with peer-to-peer connectivity, where your computer requests and provides information. DWeb protocols use links that identify information sources based on content, making it possible for websites and files to be stored and distributed from computer to computer (5). It need not depend upon a single server as the diffuser of information. Blockchain technology records data movement, registering unique usernames and even data storage. Data will be commodified, creating an incentive to develop decentralized data storage networks. You can store others’ data and earn digital money with spare capacity. The deals get recorded on a blockchain.
The decentralized Web isn’t quite here yet. But apps and programs built on the decentralized model are beginning to emerge. For example, a new independent experimental browser for exploring the peer-to-peer Web called Beaker Browser is available.
So, it appears that the Gandhian dream of a decentralized economy is entirely consistent with the trajectory of technological evolution. This lack of conflict is good news for all. The irony is that the technology-driven future is machine dominated, which Gandhiji found abhorrent.
(1) Jan-Felix Scrape, in his Discussion Paper №2019–01, Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
(2) Jeremy Rifkin: The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, pg. 99–10
(3) Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani: https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-truth-about-blockchain)
(4) Boyd Cohen: The Rise of Alternative Currencies in Post-Capitalism, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joms.12245
(5) https://thelivinglib.org/decentralisation-the-next-big-step-for-the-world-wide-web/
