SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Nation-states came late to history, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest they won't make it to the end of the century
If you'd been born 1,500 years ago in southern Europe, you'd have been convinced that the Roman empire would last forever. It had, after all, been around for 1,000 years. And yet, following a period of economic and military decline, it fell apart. By 476 CE it was gone. To the people living under the mighty empire, these events must have been unthinkable. Just as they must have been for those living through the collapse of the Pharaoh's rule or Christendom or the Ancien Régime.
We are just as deluded that our model of living in 'countries' is inevitable and eternal. Yes, there are dictatorships and democracies, but the whole world is made up of nation-states. This means a blend of 'nation' (people with common attributes and characteristics) and 'state' (an organised political system with sovereignty over a defined space, with borders agreed by other nation-states). Try to imagine a world without countries – you can't. Our sense of who we are, our loyalties, our rights and obligations, are bound up in them.
[...] This is the crux of the problem: nation-states rely on control. If they can't control information, crime, businesses, borders or the money supply, then they will cease to deliver what citizens demand of them. In the end, nation-states are nothing but agreed-upon myths: we give up certain freedoms in order to secure others. But if that transaction no longer works, and we stop agreeing on the myth, it ceases to have power over us.
Polities will return to the city-state, or will multi-national corporations step in?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by davester666 on Friday September 08 2017, @04:57AM (12 children)
Multinationals have already "stepped in".
They have no problem buying any laws they want, or overturning laws they don't like, they have language in multinational trade agreements putting them on a equal footing (or slightly above) as nation-states.
And there is no going back.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @04:59AM
I came here to say basically this same thing. Nation states will be (and have been) supplanted by "The Corporation".
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 08 2017, @05:26AM (4 children)
Toe tested the water, rather.
As much power the multinationals have, they are not interested in stepping over to take over all the governance.
As yet - wait until Google's Alphabet or Apple or the like start "buying" and "managing" whole countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday September 08 2017, @05:41AM
OTOH current political entities are letting corporations treat people like HR and have welfare, that is, people's tax money, pay for it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @12:30PM
No need to wait. It's just about how one labels the New World Organizational Chart.
Think of the MAGGAF corporations (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Goldman-Sachs, Amazon, Facebook) as the majority stake-holder board of directors, with a rotating co-chairmanship.
The US Congress and SCOTUS are just a "management team" led by a President/CEO POTUS. The military and the welfare bureaucracies are pesky but necessary overhead cost-centers. Political parties are just sales and marketing teams.
The UK, EU, and such are wholly-owned subsidiaries, while the "competition" like PRC and RF are merely takeover targets. Developing countries are reclassified as developing markets.
And Bob's your uncle.
(Score: 2, Touché) by pTamok on Friday September 08 2017, @12:44PM (1 child)
As much power the multinationals have, they are not interested in stepping over to take over all the governance.
As yet - wait until Google's Alphabet or Apple or the like start "buying" and "managing" whole countries.
Try looking up the history of the East India Company [wikipedia.org] sometime.
George Santayana [wikipedia.org] is often cited with a relevant quotation:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10 2017, @08:28PM
Those who can remember the past are condemned to watch those who can't remember repeat it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Friday September 08 2017, @08:46AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @12:34PM
"USA, the EU and the PRC with enough power to stand up to large multinational companies"
You made me spit my coffee. I don't need to laugh that hard in the morning.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday September 08 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
I'm old enough that I remember when cyberpunk was new. There were quite a few novels exploring the concepts and effects of FOQNEs aka franchise operated quasi national entities. Its not that far fetched when you consider disneyland is kind of a childrens-FOQNE or cruise ships and tour packages and vacation resorts primarily exist to amuse older Americans into pretending they're English aristocrats for a week or two.
I wouldn't mind living in Mr Wu's Greater Hong Kong, or at least visiting. Its worth keeping in mind some of FOQNE fiction was based on semi-realistic countries like Singapore, another place I wouldn't mind living. Not all FOQNEs were nice by all standards... much like countries.
One could argue that hipster urbanites are living in a virtual shared FOQNE, possibly also suburbanites.
Obviously Renn Faires are successful short term FOQNEs. Now you take a Renn Faire and run it 24x365. Then let people sleep on site, for perhaps a week. Then let them live there, aka do remote work away from the recreational areas, kind of like the present day when I camp while theoretically putting in some remote hours on my laptop. Then instead of billing them per week like a campground or per month like renting a RV slip at a campground, let them buy (or whatever) a lifetime membership, just pay your taxes. Then hire your own security force to enforce your own laws, and if your prop tax payments are larger than the local police force budget, like existing disneyland, then your Renn Faire is pretty much "The State". Let the legacy government wither and die except for some legacy services like nuclear deterrent and so forth... Imagine a government that only ran the Army and didn't regulate the local schools or drinking age anymore, that's the job of the FOQNE to enforce at the low level. That's how you get a real cyberpunk style FOQNE.
Aside from escapist stuff, there's somewhat less escapist FOQNE ideas like extremely gated communities. Fun as it was to be an aristocrat in 1300, we'll LARP that its perpetually 1950 in my gated 'burb FOQNE, perhaps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @01:28AM
It is getting the city states to *ONLY* band together militarily, while remaining *FULLY* autonomous in regards to commerce and governance, while *ALWAYS* defend any pact member.
The right 'bigger entity' sweetens the pot for one of those city states and you suddenly find yourself without the lynchpin of a particular military campaign and the whole thing collapses.
This is something most people don't realize about the jump between 1776 and 1782 from a Confederacy to the Union: The latter provided a centralized military regime that could 'legally' use force to conscript member-states citizens for military actions. Under the former 'The States are Sovereign and we're just working to get along' form of governance each state was bickering with the others or trying to get the best deal while defrauding the others/shirking their own responsibilities.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:09PM
Yep - exactly.
A number of science fiction stories have been written on the subject of multi-nationals. For one really dysfunctional version, read Jennifer Government, by Max Barry. Other authors have built a story around multinationals, without really addressing the corporate world directly. In addition to all those older stories, the more recent Expanse series is built around a theme of corporations using people up, then throwing them away. The OPA in that story arises in direct response to corporate abuse of people.
I don't think anyone has got that future story "right" yet, but I think we have reason to fear the rise of multinationals that can raise bigger, better, and better equipped military arms than any nation can.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 08 2017, @11:16PM
I see a lot of agreement with this sentiment. The only problem? Reality doesn't agree as well.
For example, businesses do have the limited capability to buy laws, but hey don't have the capability to make law. Remember there are more than one business out there and those businesses all have conflicting legal interests. So even with a completely mercenary government, your bribe has to be bigger than all the other bribes in order for you to buy law. Government on the other hand frequently doesn't have to follow laws (for example, in the US, sovereign immunity and exceptions to regulation made for government agencies, like some EPA laws for the Department of Defense).
And let's see the trade agreement that has made multinational corporations into more nation-states (not that that would be a bad thing, I'm for some diversity at the nation-state level). Do they have seats on the UN now and recognized sovereignty over territory? Of course not, these trade agreements just would create an environment where businesses can sue, if a government fucks with them, regulation-wise. Which is just sensible. A government shouldn't IMHO be able to arbitrarily impose restrictions and costs on a law abiding business.