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: 4, Insightful) by Bobs on Friday September 08 2017, @01:09PM
A lot of great comments above.
Another point re City vs nation states: geographic diversity.
In the event of large disaster, city-states benefit from the assistance of others not in the immediate impacted area.
For example, some say Houston / Texas would make a great stand-alone city state. But now, and for the next several years they are going to be benefiting hugely and damn glad they are part of a larger nation state.
Standing alone can seem great when everything is going well. It is when things fall apart that and you can use some help that the benefits of being part of a larger community become most apparent.
Same goes for health insurance, national defense, etc. When you stumble and fall it helps to have someone there to lend a hand.