Doug Casey thinks nation-states are slated for extinction, not to be replaced with something even bigger and more centralized, but rather towards decentralization, autonomy, and interaction among those with common interests. From Casey at caseyresearch.com:
Justin’s note: Longtime readers know what Doug Casey thinks of nation states. He says they’ve mostly been an “inefficient, counterproductive, and expensive nuisance” and a “testimony to how thoughtless the average person is.”
He also says nation states are going out of business.
I recently called him up to get an update on where we are today… and what to expect going forward.
Today and tomorrow, I’m sharing our discussion. I think you’ll enjoy…
Justin: So, Doug. Are nation states really in decline?
Doug: They’re definitely in decline, and that’s a good thing—nothing to be concerned about. It’s cause for optimism. The question is why are they falling apart?
Some background. The concept of the nation state came about with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, something that everybody only vaguely remembers from a college history class. Actually, today’s students will probably never even hear of it. That class has likely been replaced with Gender Studies or Black History.
Why was it so important? It redirected the concept of “loyalty” away from an individual—a prince or a king—to the State itself. A geographical area now wasn’t so much the possession of a ruler, as a possession of a State. This really got the concept of nationalism going; nationalism is just tribalism writ large.
That’s how the concept was born. But the idea of a nation state is coming to an end. Now almost anybody can go almost anywhere thanks to jet travel; you’re no longer married to one place, like a medieval serf. And you can communicate with anybody anywhere on the planet thanks to the Internet; that makes it much harder to keep all the sheep thinking the same thing.
So, first, people realized that it’s completely ridiculous and dysfunctional to be loyal to some thug who, through an accident of birth or through military competence, set himself up as a prince. Now they’re discovering that it’s equally stupid to be loyal to a government that’s running a country.
To continue reading: Doug Casey on the Demise of Nation States
This guy’s crystal ball probably called for the Hildabeast and Kerry.