The concept of Bitcoin and blockchain technology can be used as an example of how to revolutionize certain aspects of life. Politics are a very likely candidate, as the way we vote or create political parties needs to be revamped. The Flux Party in Australia is taking that principle to heart, as they are labeling themselves as the “Bitcoin of politics”. Quite a bold statement but their ideology holds particular merits that are worth exploring further.

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Creating A Modern Political Ecosystem

If The Flux Party has their way, the plan is to revamp the way politics work in Australia altogether. By using the concept of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, real democracy can be reinstated in the world of politics. By electing a total of six senators who will not propose policies, the political system would be turned upside down completely.

But there’s more to this plan, as these senators have the sole responsibility of supporting or blocking legislation as directed by their members. Voting for The Flux party would take place online, and every member of the political can trade or swap their votes on every bill. This may sound like a very futuristic political model, but it gives plenty of food for thought.

Senators might not be the ideal solution to “fixing” the political ecosystem, though, as The Flux Party would rather use software or robots. After all, there is a very basic set of instructions to follow: doing what the people want them to do. Needless to say, this is unlike modern politics, where senators make a lot of promises and hardly fulfill any of them once they are elected.

The proposal by The Flux Party couldn’t come at a better time either, as Australia is set to hold new elections later this year. Keeping in mind how the country has seen new prime ministers appointed five times in five years, something has to change sooner rather than later. Moreover, the legislative agenda is currently deadlocked, thanks to a very quirky electoral system.

In this day and age of digitized services and information becoming more valuable, a new regime has to be created that can both protect and represent the needs of the people. Electoral structures will have to evolve as well, although that might prove to be quite an uphill battle. Representative democracy has been a valuable system for many years, but its weaknesses and oddities are starting to show as of late.

Opposition For The Flux Party

While The Flux Party is taking a page out of Bitcoin’s book to revamp the political ecosystem as we know it, there is plenty of opposition in Australia. Even though this concept is truly unique, there are some major drawbacks to take into consideration. For example: which political party would feel comfortable to vote via a blockchain?

Additionally, there does not seem to be any legally binding prerequisite to making the six elected senators do as the people direct them to. Creating tokens is a good step in the right direction of achieving democracy in politics, but since the vote can be traded to others, there remains a chance of individual entities trying to manipulate voting.

University of Sydney Politics Lecturer Peter Chen stated:

“These delightfully naive people are just the modern version of something that’s always been around: utopian political system designers. They’re obviously guys who are really focused on the tech thing and that has always been the problem with the e-democracy people. They’re often really tech-driven and they need political scientists at the brainstorming floor to say ‘well, I don’t know if that’d work’.”

While there might be certain mental barriers that need to be overcome in the next few months, The Flux party has filed registration papers with the Australian Election Commission. With slightly over 1,000 members so far, The Flux party seems to be in good shape to become a recognized political entity in Australia.

Source: Reuters