Before we can discover what our future society without classes will look like we first have to look at the most pervasive institution of permanent inequality: the nation-state. To say anything meaningful about the nation-state each person joining the discussion has to understand as least two things:
- The history of the nation-state, and in particular how they got to be.
- How nation-states define what we have in common.
It’s not easy to determine which was the first modern nation-state. Was it the United States of America in 1783? Or the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707? Spain in 1479 or Portugal in 1139? The important aspect of the birth of nation states are not the dates but the reason why all land surface of the earth today belongs to nation-states.
The rise of the number of nation states in the 19th century in Europe and elsewhere is remarkable. The reasons for regions becoming independent are varied, but the most important one is capitalism. Capitalism is making money with money by the use of machines and people. Capitalism only works within a state that controls its own territory. Without that control there would be no protection of property and no control by a government of its workers. In other words: capitalism only works when there are insiders and outsiders.
The relationship between the nation-state and capitalism can also be turned around: nation-states as we know them can only exist as long capitalism brings the wealth it promises. The relationship between capitalism and nation-states should not be underestimated: capitalism is the concentration of money by a few to control the right of most people to make a living.
This inequality is counter-balanced by how the nation-state defines what we have in common. This is specific for each country, but in general the idea of a nation-state implies that every citizen is part of an inpersonal state in order to be protected from poverty and all kinds of abuse. This membership comes at a price: participate in the national economy as it is, and give up freedom in exchange for a stable and safe society.
This combination - being forced to participate in a society where a few leverage their capital to control many - defines modern nation-states. As long as capitalism is maintained nation-states will exist. When capitalism is replaced with something else nation-states will have to change, maybe disappear. Nation-states in exchange have a large degree of control over their national economies and can control how capitalism impacts their populations. However, capitalism defines nation-states before nation-states get a chance to control capitalism. This unequal relationship of cause and effect puts the nation-state and its people in service of capitalism. The reason is simple: the people with the concentration of money decide to impact society, and society only responds afterwards.
Now that capitalism - the concentration of money - has undone its capability to leverage it’s no wonder nation-states are trying to save it. It’s also no wonder nation-states are not very effective individually, and are also not very effective at coordinating their actions internationally. With such a close relationship between nation-states and capitalism - one can’t go with the other - a lot is at stake. Is capitalism over and done with?
I believe capitalism doesn’t exist anymore since about 25 years. Capitalism quietly got replaced with debtism consisting of people, equity/property and credit. The essence of debtism is creating money out of thin air. There are two tentative dates for the switch from capitalism to debitism: 1971 (Nixon shock) or 1995 (Netscape IPO). Notice both events happened in the United States. There are many other tentative events between 1971 and 1995 that could be taken into consideration. I believe the switch was started in 1971 by Nixon’s decision and completed in 1995 with the Netscape IPO. Since 1995 the incentives for financial accountability in the world of financial institutions were outdone by the incentives for impressing the markets which marks the start of debtism.
Debtism is over now: we’re entering something new. Debtism was sufficiently like capitalism for nation-states to continue to exist, primarily because the superficial properties of money didn’t change. The new thing is not debtism - regardless of how much the leaders of our nation-states want to reboot it - and it can’t be capitalism either. Capitalism was based on the reality that to own a machine you needed a serious concentration of money, and that those machines offered employment where the only alternative was farming or learning a profession. Today machines are in everybody’s reach except for one important industry: infrastructure (utilities). Potable water distribution, gas distribution, electricity distribution, access to communication networks all require enormous investments and - ideally for nation-states - requires the involvement of and regulation by governments.
The new thing is networkism: people, infrastructure and memory. Its essence is building networks that have memory. Unfortunately for nation-states the previous -isms were about money - making money and creating money - and the new thing isn’t. Networkism is about the value people create for each other and the memory that is created in the process is money. But not the kind of money we’re used to, and not the kind of money that can be controlled by a global network of financial institutions. The money we’re talking about is the value of past experiences.
Networkism will be based on markets and money because people cannot sustain themselves with only local produce. The big tension for networkism will be caused by infrastructure still being a capitalist industry where machines and the state are in symbiosis. The state and the infrastructure industry coordinate their actions so that both can keep their power over the population. The populations at the same time continues to subvert their national governments in radically new ways but are bound to the infrastructure. Actually, the communication infrastructure is what allows the subversion to happen in the first place.
The actual tension of networkism is money: the infrastructure industry, the national governments and banks (for outstanding loans) demand money as we know it (MAWKI). The people of this planet are ready for a different kind of money but the unwinding of debtism will make this tricky. Even when you rent your home your landlord still wants MAWKI to pay back her mortgage. Eventually people will figure out how to provide housing not for MAWKI but for new money not controlled by governments. They’ll also figure out how to disconnect their houses from the utilities as much as possible, and one day how to disconnect completely. Achieving this will be hard and complicated and those people will go head-first with their national governments, completely subverting them.
People that believe MAWKI will be here to stay are centrists. They believe there are not shortcuts to radical progress. The people that don’t believe MAWKI is eternal are edgelings. Centrism versus edgeism is the battle of networkism. It’s about the re-invention of money outside the context of national governments, the unwinding of national and super-national governments, and unavoidably the redefinition of property and ownership. In this struggle centrism has to loose unless mankind chooses to eternally stop their experiments in civilization. But it doesn’t mean edgeism will win every battle. National governments are extremely powerful and are - as we’ve seen - ready to subvert even their own laws to get to people that threaten their continued existence. What will eventually give the victory to edgeism is the realization that completely destroying edgeism is destroying civilization. Every little victory by edgeism is therefore important, and every victory by centrism is a liability.
Networkism is of course not socialism or communism because networkism is based on markets. Markets are the free exchange of goods between buyers and sellers for money. Capitalism is not the same as markets; capitalism is the concentration of money by a few to dominate many. Networkism has a power law distribution of wealth (the long tail) just like capitalism does but in networkism that wealth cannot be used to abuse others without negative consequences.
In networkism money is the recollection of previous transactions of anything: knowledge, opportunities, chances, goods, favors, services, … . In networkism good teachers are supposed to be rich. Networkism is the start of the personal growth economy of people. Networkism is about exploring and living experiences. But networkism is above all the fight between centrism and edgeism. Once that fight is over so is networkism. What will follow nobody knows because the end of networkism is an outcome.
What networkism implies is that we have to find a new way to define morality, just like in the 1650’s. If we believe that we will no longer be under the control of sovereign states (the Leviathans) then we need to again discover how we are related to each other, and how we can reasonably expect others to behave moraly. Luckily, this time around that conversation can be recorded and can be completely interactive and crowdsourced.
The argument for getting rid of nation-states is that it’s the only way for humanity to get rid of money as a source of inequality. We won’t find a system that prevents all forms of inequality since certain people will always find ways of benefiting from dominating and abusing others. That is why we need a system of justice that watches over our moral behavior. Does it mean we need a state to police us? It does, but we have to figure out how each individual can retain the right to subvert government while still acting morally. It also means government has no other motives to police us than to ensure we act morally. It can’t tandem up with capitalists or anybody else without rendering its power over us void. Does it mean the state has to control a territory? It does, but that territory will be earth.
As you might have noticed I discount classes in this narrative on networkism. They have already expired in terms of being useful, we’re just waiting for them to expire effectively. Nation-states will increase their control over us compared to today through our use of infrastructure and through the protection of property rights. Nation-states have all but lost control over how we organize ourselves. Right now governments are happy they can at least control us through infrastructure, but they also realize we are subverting them.
Edgeism will manifest itself more prominently in the coming years by breaking down old bureaucracies that control how we organize ourselves. This will put a serious burden on the collection of national taxes and this is the first big way in which nation-states will have to choose: try to keep all the control they are used to, or give in in order to keep at least something, including MAWKI.
(i) inspired by Keith Hart and his book The Memory Bank.
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Great article, Steven, thank you. I enjoyed it.
It may be a beautiful addition to your eBook “A Strategy of Constant Change” and highlights the issue with all books. When printed books are out-of-date. Such a book especially about change can be a stepping stone to get up to speed on this topic and bring people to reach a current leading edge of change trough the blog.
Changeism.