You need a single namespace for human beings, which is cryptographically protected so that the only entity which can link a person's reputation to their biometric profile is a court of law. When there can only be one of something - and there are good reasons for not federating biometrics databases - then it makes sense for the government to offer that service, rather than private enterprise.
On top of this, build a contract infrastructure - a set of technical standards for digitally signed contracts - this could be free market, but the standards body should again be unitary, so that contract standards are singular. Hence, the standards body is quasi-governmental.
This is infrastructure which is essential to commerce, but - because of the namespace issues - it cannot be entirely provided by the free market, which would naturally tend to fragment the namespace. You can see an entire parallel chain of development with DNS.
Similar approaches for water supply and sewage treatment: set standards for those offering the services, sue those who fall below those standards, leave it to the market. This stuff used to be unitary-provider 200 years ago, which is why govt. still does it now, but technology has moved on.
I have a couple of not-read-for-prime-time papers on the concept I've been working on for disaster relief called "State In A Box" that I can pass along if you are interested: hexayurt@gmail.com http://hexayurt.com/
You need a single namespace for human beings, which is cryptographically protected so that the only entity which can link a person's reputation to their biometric profile is a court of law. When there can only be one of something - and there are good reasons for not federating biometrics databases - then it makes sense for the government to offer that service, rather than private enterprise.
On top of this, build a contract infrastructure - a set of technical standards for digitally signed contracts - this could be free market, but the standards body should again be unitary, so that contract standards are singular. Hence, the standards body is quasi-governmental.
This is infrastructure which is essential to commerce, but - because of the namespace issues - it cannot be entirely provided by the free market, which would naturally tend to fragment the namespace. You can see an entire parallel chain of development with DNS.
Power grid: do not offer, do not want. http://smallisprofitable.org
Similar approaches for water supply and sewage treatment: set standards for those offering the services, sue those who fall below those standards, leave it to the market. This stuff used to be unitary-provider 200 years ago, which is why govt. still does it now, but technology has moved on.
I have a couple of not-read-for-prime-time papers on the concept I've been working on for disaster relief called "State In A Box" that I can pass along if you are interested: hexayurt@gmail.com http://hexayurt.com/