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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: 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.