#BlockchainItalia, the title of the manifesto for a new digital public good, launched yesterday on the pages of the "Sole 24 Ore" by the Secretary General of Fim Cisl Marco Bentivogli and Massimo Chiriatti, technologist.
"A tangible asset is rival, i.e. it cannot be available to several people at the same time, an intangible asset such as information, on the other hand, can be copied and transferred at no cost and made available to several people at the same time": this characteristic, the two write, has repercussions on competitive and industrial models.
“The well known industry 4.0 paradigm is emblematic of how value is progressively moving from the material aspects of goods and services to the immaterial component - continue Bentivogli and Chiriatti - this generates gatekeepers (platform managers) who will become the control center of the transformations along the supply chains, relevant seat of value, with a tendency to control and monopoly".
For this, according to the two, technology can come to the rescue to avoid such concentrations of power. The blockchain, a technology generally associated with cryptocurrencies, actually has other potential applications: it is "a shared register, widely distributed on the internet, in which using cryptographic techniques the uniqueness and validity of the recorded data can be ensured". An industrial model underlying the blockchain - decentralized among all the subjects participating in the supply chain - is suitable for a system, such as the Italian one, characterized by a plurality of SMEs".
Furthermore, through the blockchain - the two promoters write on the pages of the financial newspaper - it is possible to verify the correctness of economic operators, used in the supply chains to increase security, increase speed and transaction costs. All elements that increase the efficiency of the system: property rights, digitally marked financial instruments. “The blockchain has all the characteristics to become a reference paradigm for Industry 4.0 production models”, from the management of remuneration, product life cycle, to disposal regulations. All passages unknown today and with high inefficiencies and environmental damage.
"Furthermore, on the basis of the distributed ledger, the so-called "smart contracts" can be created which have the possibility of being automatically perfected performance/production made and delivered" simplifying a series of legal relationships, with advantages in terms of quality and transparency. The trade unionist and the technologist write that the new forms of work can also be linked to a new system of rights and protections in order to protect them from abuses and undeclared work.
La blockchain, according to the two, "is a candidate to be the new enabling infrastructure of economic and social relations", but also representation and participatory and intelligent politics. The blockchain represents a choice available to us: it shouldn't be applied everywhere but it can eliminate problems and introduce new challenges – by designing it correctly we can seize the opportunity to do better and more, save money, “do new business to compete and improve overall sustainability, connecting the best vital worlds.
