Repelling points: Hi Cam,
I wouldn\'t write off the nation state just yet.
The point that I was making about the old trajectory continuing after a bifurcation might be better expressed by looking at what happens when the modern state breaks down - in places over the last decades such as Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia.
Things sort of regress to a pre-modern tribalism that is defined around what church people belong to. In the recent Northern Ireland a person was either Catholic or Protestant, and that had nothing to do with whether the person was a practicing christian. It was a tribal identity, among other things. I don\'t want to dwell on this, because it is a sensitive issue. There are many other examples where a failed state is replaced by competing social gangs or tribes.
But the point that I wanted to make was that what was acceptable and natural before a bifurcation, might appear to be wrong some time after the change.
I don\'t know how these ideas relate to economics and financial systems. I still think that there will be nation states, because we still need to define territory in terms of sovereignty. Only one nation can assert sovereignty over a territory. Wars happen when there is some dispute over who has sovereignty over some territory, and people are still attached emotionally to their nation. I don\'t think the nation state will go away.
This idea is more about how to conceptualise what a person is. Within a unitary nation state there are individuals. Individuals are also unitary entities. But, and here is the difference, each person can be a member of MANY societies: a family, a neighbourhood, a football club, a local knitting group, you name it... This is asserting that people are cultural. Our identities are social.
In computer database design terms:
Individual: one-to-many :society: many-to-one :state
The old idea of primordial nationalism asserted a one-to-one relationship between an ethnic group and a nation state - and it collapsed the nation state with society [far Right]. The Communist state squashed the individual into society [far Left]. Also a one-to-one relationship. If that makes sense...
Comments
I wouldn\'t write off the nation state just yet.
The point that I was making about the old trajectory continuing after a bifurcation might be better expressed by looking at what happens when the modern state breaks down - in places over the last decades such as Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia. Things sort of regress to a pre-modern tribalism that is defined around what church people belong to. In the recent Northern Ireland a person was either Catholic or Protestant, and that had nothing to do with whether the person was a practicing christian. It was a tribal identity, among other things. I don\'t want to dwell on this, because it is a sensitive issue. There are many other examples where a failed state is replaced by competing social gangs or tribes. But the point that I wanted to make was that what was acceptable and natural before a bifurcation, might appear to be wrong some time after the change. I don\'t know how these ideas relate to economics and financial systems. I still think that there will be nation states, because we still need to define territory in terms of sovereignty. Only one nation can assert sovereignty over a territory. Wars happen when there is some dispute over who has sovereignty over some territory, and people are still attached emotionally to their nation. I don\'t think the nation state will go away. This idea is more about how to conceptualise what a person is. Within a unitary nation state there are individuals. Individuals are also unitary entities. But, and here is the difference, each person can be a member of MANY societies: a family, a neighbourhood, a football club, a local knitting group, you name it... This is asserting that people are cultural. Our identities are social. In computer database design terms:
Individual: one-to-many :society: many-to-one :state The old idea of primordial nationalism asserted a one-to-one relationship between an ethnic group and a nation state - and it collapsed the nation state with society [far Right]. The Communist state squashed the individual into society [far Left]. Also a one-to-one relationship. If that makes sense...