Kerby Anderson
Yesterday I talked about the book, The Sovereign Individual which decades ago predicted the death of the nation state. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of the demise of the nation state are greatly exaggerated. Governments may still exist and exercise their power, but we can see how the power and influence of some governments are in decline. There are many reasons for this trend.
First, is geography. The information revolution has made it possible for many people to make a living online or by working remotely. A factory has a more difficult time changing locations, though many have done so by even leaving the US. By contrast, an individual participating in the cyber economy can pick up and leave a jurisdiction if taxes, regulations, or even climate is unfavorable. They can move from one state to another or from one country to another, and usually, the government is powerless to stop them.
Second, is the reality of a government monopoly. When we go into a store or a coffee shop, we expect customer service, but governments take us for granted and rarely treat us like customers. The authors use this example:
If you went into a store to buy furniture, and the salespeople took your money but then proceeded to ignore your requests and consult others about how to spend your money, you would quite rightly be upset… The fact that something very like this happens in dealings with governments shows how little control its “customers” actually have.
A third reason, not mentioned in the book, is the sad reality that governments are broke. You could argue that the US is $31 trillion past broke. Put another way, the US national debt is significantly more than GDP. And there are a dozen other countries in the world with higher debt loads. This is not sustainable.
Nation states are not dead, but most of them are dying.

Kerby Anderson
The authors of their book, The Sovereign Individual, explain that we are entering into the fourth stage of human society. First, there were the hunting and gathering societies. Then came the agricultural societies. More recently we had the industrial societies. Now, we live within informational societies.
Although the book was written in the 1990s, there are sections of the book that are quoted even now in the second decade of the 21st century. The authors predicted we would use our phones for news, information, and financial transactions. They predicted more people would be learning online. More and more people would be working remotely. And they predicted the rise of “cybercash” and privatized money.
But let me also add that they were also like a typical baseball player and had both hits and misses. But we should appreciate the predictions that were on target. The accuracy of their predictions resulted in part because of the pandemic and lockdowns. The last two years accelerated the trends of remote working and online education. A federal government that printed so much money, increased consumer interest in cryptocurrencies and digital cash.
The authors say we can learn lessons from the past as we see what happened when the agricultural revolution changed society. We can see parallels between the decline of the Church and what they predict will be the decline of the nation-state. Mass production of books ended the Church’s monopoly on Scripture and information. They predict that the information revolution will destroy the power of the nation-state, and allow people to change locations if laws, taxes, or regulations are unfavorable.
Although this book was written two decades ago, it predicted many of the changes we are seeing in our world today during this fourth stage of society.