AIBU to be worried - Reintroducing the Truck System for the unemployed in the UK

[nickymanchester]

It has been reported that the UK government is starting a small trial in Manchester to pay (what I presume is) Job Seekers Allowance to people in a brand new blockchain currency called "GovCoin" - similar to BitCoin.

And that what this "money" is spent on will be tracked by the government - initially, the tracking will be on a "voluntary" basis.

So instead of actually paying real money in to a person's bank account they will now provide them with a crypto-currency on their mobile phone which can only be used in certain retailers and where the government will be tracking what the money is spent on. I can well imagine where this will lead.

One of the main backers of this is Lord Hunt, who is the Minister for "Welfare Reform" - boy does that phrase ever put the fear of god into me. As an aside, Lord Hunt was the government minister who, in 2014, said that disabled people were "not worth" the minimum wage. He is also the person behind the move to Universal Credit that, while it may have very laudable aims in theory, in practice it has been a nightmare for many of the people on the receiving end of it.

This is a quote from one of the sources:-

GovCoin Systems tests blockchain-based platform for social welfare payments in UK

Speaking at the Payments Innovation Conference 2016 on 4 July, Minister for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions Lord Freud highlighted the ongoing trial saying:

We have been working with GovCoin Systems (and their partners, Barclays, RWE npower and University College London) for this trial. Claimants are using an app on their phones through which they are receiving and spending their benefit payments. With their consent, their transactions are being recorded on a distributed ledger to support their financial management.

Jeremy Wilson, Vice Chairman, Corporate Banking at Barclays, explained that the initiative focuses on adding an additional layer of richer data and identity onto payments, so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

www.econotimes.com/GovCoin-Sy...s-in-UK-233316

There are many other sites reporting this as well which you can find through googling them, for example:-

www.cityam.com/245128/governm...ain-technology

www.fstech.co.uk/fst/GovCoin_...ents_Trial.php

So why the title of this post and why my concern? Well, at school, one of the A levels I studied was history and a major part of that was the Economic & Social History of Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries (the other part was Britain and Her Relations with the World 1914-1945, not that anyone's interested). Anyway, the Truck System was an infamous form of payments that became widespread in the UK and led to a great deal of abuse.

While, currently, these are just trials that are happening at the moment, I really do see the awful potential to become a fully fledged Truck System where the state monitors exactly what unemployed people are spending their money on, where they spend it and eventually will be able to control these things. This bit is really scary:-

so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

AIBU to worry about where this might lead or is it just an example of how new technologies can help young unemployed people so that they don't have to worry about pesky little things like actual having some cash in their hand but have to have pay for a mobile phone in order to access their benefits?

Thought so nicky.
The new system of payments messed up a lot of people's lives when it was introduced a couple of years ago. The same people who were fucked by that will be the first to be fucked by this disgusting plan.

LurkingHusband

I was at a recent blockchain forum event, and was intrigued that the techies were outnumbered by the lawyers who were quite candid saying they were looking into the ability of blockchain contracts to be controlled by the state. (Australia being mentioned more than once). The suggestion being that contracts the state doesn't like (either as a matter of law, or in a more sinister twist "that are not conducive to the public good") could be revoked before execution. Or even after execution
.

That really is shockingly scary.

I really wouldn't use BTC as the template for virtual currencies.

I've just been looking into this - thanks for the insights, Lurking & others!

This isn't really a benefits-related post. But it's relevant.

It's going to be unavoidable. The UK government's deal is with a chap called John Edge, who seems to be instrumental in a project to register a digital identity for every child born after 2020 (!?!) worldwide. I can't see that happening in villages halfway up the Carpathians or nomadic tribes in Sudan, but I guess there's some sort of timetable. They're all going to have digital devices. Presumably we're going to need a fuckload of satellites, given that less half the world in 2016 has mobile coverage. Now I see why villages that don't even have running water are being given solar phone chargers.

... Technical issues aside, we are witnessing the collapse of capitalism and money systems are desperately overdue a rethink. Turning us all into bytes on a system, and controlling our commercial activities via digital credits/debits, is a handy means of escaping any reliance on physical tokens of worth. The 2016 world runs on imaginary 'money' created by banking corporations as debt - this development looks to me like a bloody brilliant way of evading controls on that, by making money literally intangible.

It's also a feudalist's dream. The potentials for this go way beyond the Truck system, the company store and indentured credits. Yikes.

... I may be gone for some time. I need to learn how to hack a blockchain!

Yes cash will cancel then they can keep tabs on you.

This sounds like the stuff that Barry Smith a Christian from New Zealand used to talk about in the 90s

Yes cash will cancel then they can keep tabs on you.

This sounds like the stuff that Barry Smith a Christian from New Zealand used to talk about in the 90s

They dictate what kind of cheese you're allowed!
It's actually more specific than in that list - I think it's no organic, pretty much nothing prepared, no meat etc etc.

I don't have a heart of stone but what I do have is first hand experience of growing up living in a house where the benefits system was abused

So do I but I also know for a fact my alcoholic step father would've found alternative ways to buy his cigs and booze inc buying goods for other people with those credits and selling them on for less meaning I would've grown up in even more dire circumstances.

You punish a shitty parent you end up punishing the child twice as hard.

I don't think the job center helps people into jobs. I have a disability and mh problems. I have workedsince i were 16. I'm in my 30's and have been in and out of work for last twoyears because of ill health.
My 'advisor' repeatedly sent me for unsuitable jobs ( even jobs that i didn't have the qualifications for!) and constantly told me her husband had the same sort of disability i have but he can do more things but is older. Oh yes, because we are all the sMe
Claiming benefits is not easy.
You are treated like crap.
Told that you don't act a certain way

... I may be gone for some time. I need to learn how to hack a blockchain!

The only way is to control >50% of the nodes ...

Why is it when it comes to the welfare state it's socially acceptable to judge and punish the vast majority for the non representative minority? It doesn't happen with any other sector of society, and nobody would condone it. Anyone needing help from welfare just makes a nice vulnerable target, and unlike behaving like a twat about other groups, it isn't viewed as unnacceptable.

Even the government know ot's all bollocks, but blaming the deprived/ vulnerable is fantastic as both a scapegoat for the actual problems they won't tackle, and for divide and rule.

YY Lurked forever Owen Jones summed it up well in Chavs The Demonisation of the Working Classes.

He pointed out how the Karen Matthews case was held up to show that that is how the working classes behave and how they are all the same.

But with the Harold Shipman case that wasnt held up to show that the entire middle class or all middle class doctors are like that.

The only way is to control >50% of the nodes ...

True. Also something that bitcoin is designed to disallow. Tbh I trust a public Blockchain more than I would any government/corporate Blockchain derived currency. You can't control bitcoin, all you can do is check where it's been and where it is (to a certain extent). Also, you can't rehypothecate it, so it's totally different to all other types of currency, including gold, whose price is being kept artificially low by the release into the market of tonnes of ETFs.

Oh my GOD! I KNEW this was coming! I predicted the rise of this bullshit years ago. Horrifying.

This is all very odd going with UC though. The point of UC was to make it all just "money" so budgeting for rent etc and some more vulnerable recipients find that too hard. But this is the opposite, no money for anything that's not approved.
Mind you, UC doesn't work.

Mind you, UC doesn't work.

Because it would need a database which is kept up to date in real time, and which can trust the information placed into it from any number of diverse sources.

Step forward blockchain !

Now, when UC was conceived, there was no such thing as blockchain - certainly not the proven technology it is now.

So there is a background question of how the hell IDS thought UC would work without the underpinning technology to support it (which didn't exist).

Mind you, generally government does IT like I do ballet. Bear in mind the UC project has been "reset" at least once. And it's still failing.

Given the amount of resource Brexit will need, expect all government IT projects to be shelved for a while ....

I see the techies have picked up on it ...

www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/12/moves_by_dwp_to_stick_personal_data_on_blockchain_slammed/

Here you go, Hands: blockchain.info/wallet/bitcoin-faq

The website gives information on bitcoin, which is a public currency. It's the original one, and the largest. Others are launching all the time.

The UK government wants to introduce govcoin, created and controlled by the government. This doesn't match up with what John Edge says he's aiming to do - but poking around his many companies led me to think he has identified the value of controlled activity to governments & banks, and that's where he's really putting his efforts. It remains to be seen. There's a lot of washing to be done, as my grandma used to say.

“This trial is designed to explore how distributed ledger technology could help support financial inclusion and budgeting support through the anonymous capture of data and does not place any restrictions or limits on what a claimant can spend their welfare payments on.”

I don't believe it. Is the government interested in how we spend our money? Has it ever invited a large sample of welfare recipients and others to log their spending for this purpose? Didn't think so

If people are interested in blockchain I'd suggest trying to avoid getting too bogged down with BitCoin as an example.

More interesting and advanced is something like Ethereum.

Put the virtual currency to one side, and look more at what Smart Contracts can do.

Anyone who uses the word "revolution" describing blockchain is probably not worth listening to. If someone describes it as "an evolution" they've got it. (The interest of lawyers is the clue, by the way).

Is the government interested in how we spend our money?

The government is very interested in how we spend their money (think like a politician). Hence money laundering rules ....

As a former research geek, Lurking, I've often thought there's a really simple way to look into our spending.

They can invite appropriate samples to use a debit card supplied for the purpose. They can offer to put £20 of free money on it as an incentive, as long as participants transfer all their income to it for a month or two.

Job done - and very cheaply for research of this nature. even with the inevitable fallouts and failures.

This sounds very dystopian.

As a former research geek, Lurking, I've often thought there's a really simple way to look into our spending.

I'm sure there is. Which suggests this isn't about that.

It's like quantititve easing. If the intention was to pump up the economy it would have been simpler (and cheaper) to gift every citizen £10,000 and let rip.

If the intention was to keep the banks afloat at the (future) expense of the taxpayer, it's perfect.

Yes, exactly. And they keep on saying this about "understanding" and relationships. They don't give a shit how we spend the money, as long as it enriches the government's preferred partners.

A government that was interested in governing would be interested in the things they say they want to understand, and would have made straightforward efforts to. As it goes, this is the government which sneers at impact assessments even when told to undertake them by the UN - it's really not interested.