"The Revenge of Nations"

Dear community, I wanted to share with you a piece of relevant literature from a book written in 1997. It discusses the possible advances in technologies in the 21st century and the issues it will pose to governments. I thought it might be interesting at this point for those who have not read tit before.

"The Sovereign Individual - Mastering the Transition to the Information Age"

(you can find it on Google Books or somewhere as PDF download)


The Revenge of Nations

Like an angry farmer, the state will no doubt take desperate measures at first to tether and hobble its escaping herd. It will employ covert and even violent means to restrict access to liberating technologies. Such expedients will work only temporarily, if at all. The twentieth-century nation-state, with all its pretensions, will starve to death as its tax revenues decline. [..] New technologies will allow the holders of wealth to bypass the national monopolies that have issued and regulated money in the modern period.

In the informational Age, individuals will be able to use cybercurrencies and thus declare their monetary independence. When individuals can conduct their own monetary policies over the World Wide Web it will matter less or not at all that the state continues to control the industrial-era printing presses. Their importance for controlling the world's wealth will be transcended by mathematical algorithms and have no physical existence. In the new millennium cybermoney controlled by private markets will supersede fiat money issued by governments. Only the poor will be victims of inflation and ensuing collapses into deflation that are consequences of the artificial leverage which fiat money injects into the economy.


!


Lacking their accustomed scope to tax and inflate, governments, even in traditionally civil countries, will turn nasty. As income tax becomes uncollectible, older and more arbitrary methods of exaction will resurface. The ultimate form of withholding tax - de factor or even hostage taking - will be introduced by governments desperate to prevent wealth from escaping beyond their reach. Unlucky individuals will find themselves singled out and held to ransom in an almost medieval fashion. Businesses that offer services that facilitate the realization of autonomy by individuals will be subject to infiltration, sabotage and disruption. Arbitrary forfeiture of property already commonplace in the United States, where it occurs five thousand times a week, will become even more pervasive. Governments will violate human rights, censor the free flow of information, sabotage useful technologies, and worse.



Comments


[3 Points] MuchoLoco:

Good shit . very interesting read


[2 Points] ieiururu3r8388:

Another relevant chapter:

Merchant Republics of Cyberspace


You will see the re-emergence of associations of merchants and wealthy individuals with semisovereign powers. like the Hanse (confederation of merchants) in the Middle Ages. The Hanse, that Operated in the French and Flemish fairs grew to encompass the merchants of sixty cities. [..] It came to exercise semisovereign powers powers in number of Northern European and Baltic cities. Such entities will re-emerge in place of a dying nation state in the new millennium, providing protection and helping enforce contracts in an unsafe world

In short, the future is likely to confound the expectations of those who have absorbed the civic myth of the 20th century industrial society. Among them are illusions of a social democracy that once thrilled and motivated the most gifted minds. They presuppose that societies evolve in whatever way governments wish them to - preferably in response to opinion polls and scrupulously counted votes. This was never as true as it seemed fifty years ago. Now it is an anachronism, as much an artifact of the industrialism. as a rusty smokestack. The civic myths reflect not only a mindset that sees society's problems as susceptible to engineering solutions; they also reflect false confidence that resources and individuals will remain as vulnerable to political compulsion in the future as they have been in the 20th century.

[..] Market forces, not political majorities will compel societies and reconfigure themselves in ways that public opinion will neither comprehend nor welcome. As they do, the naive view that history is what people wish it to be will prove wildly misleading. It will therefore be crucial that you see the world anew. That means looking from the outside to reanalyze much that you have probably taken for granted. This will enable you to come to a new understanding. If you fail to transcend conventional thinking at a time when conventional thinking is losing touch with reality, then you will be more likely to fall prey to an epidemic of disorientation that lies ahead. Disorientation breeds mistakes that could threaten your business, your investments and your way of life.


[2 Points] BananasAndBlowMe:

I think this was basically Ross' bible.


[2 Points] None:

Good old freedom. Can you smell that freedom?