Introduction
How did we end up in the nation-state regime?
Today, the human population is segmented into approximately 200 administrative groups referred to as nation-states. Nation-states are defined by geographic borders and are generally aligned to a dominant racial-ethnic community, a shared resource pool (commonly known as taxes), a shared language, and a variety of other elements that coalesce to create a “national” identity.
This segmentation of the human population has evolved over thousands of years and is heavily influenced by colonization and war. Nation-state borders were often built by acts of empire expansion, where self-proclaimed demigods deployed the poor to fight and die to benefit their thirst for power. Over time, these kingdoms and empires transformed into representative governments. Today, the borders of these blood-forged kingdoms remain largely intact.
Let Us Upgrade to Civilization 5.0
The nation-state regime is quickly becoming obsolete due to ineffective governments, rapid advances in technology, and crippling politics. Political structures, like all systems created by humankind, grow stale with time and are eventually unable to adapt to the new social environment. The software of how we politically organize ourselves is due for an upgrade, Civilization 5.0 cometh.
This new version of civilization is likely to take the form of Administrative Regions, which will replace the nation-state regime and further decentralize government power.
Problems with the Nation State Regime
There is a massive exodus of faith in the nation-state regime due to a variety of problems. They are:
Tribalism
Tribal politics consumes far too much time of our elected representatives, the mass media, and the citizenry. If the time spent on political hatred of the “other side” could be reallocated to the betterment of civilization, the world would be a better place.
Too Big to Manage #TBTM
The populations of many nation-states are too big to manage. When vast populations are governed under one administrative umbrella, a rift emerges between the needs of the taxpayer and actions of the tax spender. This misalignment results in inefficient or reckless public spending, sluggish governmental response, and a failure of accountability on the use of taxpayers’ hard-earned money. When we reduce the size of our primary fiscal communities, currently the nation-state, we will dramatically increase government effectiveness and efficiency.
Inequality
The geographic location of one’s birth has an enormous impact on one’s life. The artificial boundaries, also known as “international borders,” that are erected to prevent migration in and out of defined geographic areas create massive inequalities between global citizens. Tear down the false walls and tear down inequality.
The Separation of Race and State
Racial or ethnic identity should not form the foundation of government. Labels like “Chinese” or “German” have been used historically to describe civilizations, but they offer little value for running an efficient, just government. More often, racial and ethnic identities are exploited to create fear: “They are different…we must protect ourselves.” Opportunistic leaders harness this fear to galvanize their supporters, promoting nativism and racism, and using it to justify exclusionary immigration policies. In extreme cases, this phenomenon leads to genocide—the mass murder of people under the false claim of racial or ethnic superiority.
It is time to separate race and state.
War on Steroids
War is mostly nation-states fighting other nation-states driven by trade, territory, and ethnicity. War has killed millions of people, destroyed millions of families, and prevented billions of beautiful and brilliant thoughts. The large resource pools of powerful states amplify the scale of destruction; reducing those concentrations of power could help limit casualties and the scope of conflict. War is an act of the state, not the people.
Restrictions on Freedoms
The nation-state system infringes on natural liberties such as commerce, migration, personal identity, and religious freedom.
An Urgent Situation
We find ourselves in an urgent situation. A transition away from the nation-state regime is an inevitable outcome. Transportation and digital technologies have drastically reduced the reliance on physical proximity as a requirement for community. The nation-state concept was built in a time when most could never imagine conversing with someone who lived a few hundred miles away. Today, we swipe against a glass screen and can talk to anyone on the globe within seconds. As we find commonalities and aligned incentives with people across the globe, the national lines on the world map mean less and less. The irrational pride in the massive tribes called nation‑states is increasingly being questioned. The governments we fund no longer provide good value.
The Mission of this Text
The intent of this text is to raise awareness that the nation-state regime is nearing its expiration date.
This text is not an exhaustive list of all the problems with the nation-state, therefore challenge and constructive criticism of any aspect of this assembly of thoughts are welcome and necessary.
This text is not a call to arms, but a plea for common sense. Forms of government have always evolved, and thus we must transition to the next paradigm wisely. A guide to that transition is the mission of this text.
Post State: Problems with the Nation-state Regime
Tribalism is Inefficient
Bloodless civil wars are being waged across the world. The tribal warfare within most nation-states prohibits productive government and leads to vast inefficiencies. The greater the tribal conflict, the more inefficient an administrative body becomes.
The bottom left corner represented here as the Ideal Range is what civilization should strive for. In the Ideal Range, political opposition leads to constructive challenge of policy and government spending, which ultimately improves administrative outcomes. Challenge can improve results, but when not the catalyst for the challenge is tribal opposition.
The top right of the graph represents a total civil war, where both sides are solely focused on destroying one another. Total civil war is generally an extremely inefficient use of time, as progress in most other areas of civilization cease to exist. It should be noted that certain total civil wars can have a justified rationale, if there are ethical, moral, or social humanitarian betterment principles at stake. Most nation-states fall somewhere in the middle of the range, where tribal conflict has led to vast government inefficiencies.
Political Parties are Tribes
Tribalism occurs when a political party lets conflict with its opponents distract it from its policy agenda. Stated differently, war against the opposition party becomes the focus. So we must ask, why do political parties act in a tribal manner?
One could argue that tribalism operates in a party’s subconscious. The most influential voices in a political body aren’t consciously trying to wage war on opponents; they’re trying to strengthen the community bonds of their own belief system. War is the most effective creator of unity: nothing binds an “us” faster than setting it against a “them.” The “us vs. them” strategy has served rulers since the dawn of civilization. We must evolve beyond it.
We must distinguish constructive from destructive conflict. When elements of an idea or policy are challenged, disagreement and feedback can refine them, making them stronger and more resilient. In the current nation-state regime where tribalism dominates, constructive conflict seldom occurs. Political conflict should yield a net positive result for the populace, but when the system is infected with tribalism the result is a net negative.
Modern civilizations struggle to move forward through the tribal mud pits, and governments are not meeting their full potential due to the irrational and unproductive impacts of tribal effects. We must build a system where tribalism doesn’t strangle effective governance. Merit must rule the future, not hatred.
Too Big to Manage
Tax Spending is Opaque
It’s nearly impossible to trace exactly how governments spend money. The journey from paycheck to final government expenditure is obscured by overlapping government layers, insufficient paycheck disclosure, and hard-to-follow spending reports. The illustration below is a simplified diagram of government tax collection, transfers, and ultimate use.
The lack of transparency along the government money trail creates several problems. These include:
- Disengaging citizens as it is unclear how tax money is utilized;
- Facilitating a lack of accountability for public spending by elected representatives; and
- Making the true cost of government services impossible to track, and thus impossible to manage efficiently.
We need to find a way to make public spending more transparent and easier to understand.
State Leaders Hold Too Much Power
Nation-states concentrate excessive authority in state leaders—presidents, prime ministers, dictators, general secretaries, or equivalents. Although humanity has moved away from vesting so much power in a single ruler (for example, ending most monarchies), large concentrations of power in one individual remain. Now is the time to finish that transition: decentralizing power is necessary progress.
A Debt Fiesta
Nation-states have ever increasing debt obligations and limited discipline to reduce these growing debt mountains. The current trend of federal government spending in excess of tax collections will continue to increase as fractured political systems are unable to deal with growing budgetary issues. We will borrow until we can borrow no more.
It is only a matter of time until debt investors reject the inability of nation-states to service their debt.
Two other points related to large debt accumulation. 1) Even before a missed debt payment, the brinkmanship conducted by political parties to default on public obligations adds volatility and uncertainty to financial markets. 2) Government bailouts of private institutions distorts financial markets by mispricing risk, and enables irresponsible firms to benefit from public funding. Ultimately, the taxpayer is bailing out private enterprise.
Too Many to Govern
The ratio of tax payer to tax spender has grown too large. The census population of the United States of America upon its establishment was 4 million people.
These four million tax payers were represented by 65 tax spenders in the US House of Representatives, a ratio of approximately 60,000 to 1. In the United States today, that ratio is now ~13 times greater, with a ratio of 760,000 to 1.
Representing 60,000 people by communicating with them and understanding their views is a challenging task, but arguably possible if one is an engaged and motivated administrator. Accomplishing this same connection to be an effective representative with 760,000 is nearly impossible.
This phenomenon is present in other nation-states as well:
False Walls Create Inequality and Destroy Potential
Artificial international borders, false walls, reinforce disparities between rich and poor. Imagine two children born with identical levels of intelligence and work ethic, yet one is born in America and another in Somalia. Is their potential for success equal? Absolutely not. The obstacles that the Somalian child must endure include civil war, decrepit education systems, ailing health care systems, among a variety of other birthplace specific disadvantages. These social environmental hurdles will dramatically reduce the Somalian child’s ability to succeed.
Birthplace geographic location creates vast inequalities, we can correct this injustice by tearing down the false walls.
False Walls Cause Death
To escape birthplace inequality, many attempt to cross international borders to seek better lives for themselves and their children. Desperate to leave dire circumstances, they risk death on rickety boats in stormy seas or on long desert treks. The table below estimates deaths and disappearances from cross-border migration in recent years.
Tax Royalty
The nation-state system enables a tax “royalty”—individuals who hide wealth and income by arbitraging different national tax regimes. Inconsistent laws across countries fuel an industry of tax avoidance. Complex strategies that shift obligations to low-tax jurisdictions are available only to those who can afford expert advisers. This phenomenon produces regressive tax effects in which lower-income earners bear a larger share of their income than the wealthy. We should tear down these false walls, eliminate tax inequality, and end tax royalty.
The Separation of Race and State
We are one genetic community
Humans share nearly identical genetic material—about 99.9% the same. Race and ethnicity are labeling conventions applied to groups with shared traits at a given time. As people migrate, cultures mix, and bloodlines intertwine, a “nation” evolves, and an individual’s race or ethnicity can be defined in multiple ways. So why are most governments built around the concept of “nation”? Organizing by racial and ethnic categories does more harm than good. The separation of race and state is overdue.
Racial-Ethnic Elitism
The nation‑state system fosters racial and ethnic elitism. Tariffs and “Buy American” like rhetoric are framed as protecting workers but often evoke notions of superiority: “they are not as good as us.” Political leaders exploit this, demonizing immigrants from other countries to rally support. Tariffs and xenophobic campaigning are just two examples of how the nation‑state reinforces racial‑ethnic exclusion; many others exist.
Genocide
In extreme cases, political parties exploit racial and ethnic hostility in the name of “defending” the state. Systematic killing of a particular group is sometimes justified as a means to improve economic conditions or to purge an area of racial-ethnic impurities. While genocide in the developed world may seem confined to history books, economic collapse and civil unrest can make it a present danger. Many ongoing genocides in the developing nations receive little attention amid today’s fast news cycle.
We must work relentlessly to eliminate racial and ethnic hostility and reduce tensions to nonviolent levels. Ending the nation‑state regime would significantly lessen such tensions and lower the risk of genocide. It is time to separate race and state.
War on Steroids
War is an act of the state, not the people
War is rarely the choice of a nation’s citizens. Nation-state governments do not seek permission of the people when public resources are used to kill other human beings. And in fact, many nation-state governments develop propaganda campaigns using state resources to convince their citizens that war is necessary. Many wars proceed despite popular opposition. Those who authorize war do not shed their own blood—citizens do. Sending people to die is an abuse of power. The nation state killing machine must be stopped.
Nation-States Magnify the Casualties of War
War conducted by nation‑states is especially destructive. Vast resources—funded by taxpayers—supply troops, weapons, and technologies that make killing more efficient. In effect, nation states have utilized tax dollars to build an industry devoted to murder. We all share responsibility and must collectively end this atrocity.
Restrictions on Commerce
Tariffs, economic protectionism, trade-war policies, or any obstacle to free trade is estimated to cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Stated differently, nation-state economic policies destroy prosperity by enacting selfish rules of trade. This inefficient practice ultimately makes goods more expensive to citizens of the globe.
Politicians utilize an “Us versus Them” (UVT) rhetorical strategy in the context of trade to ignite passion in a disenfranchised segment of the population; “They are taking your jobs.” Why should workers of one nation-state be regarded as more important than those of another? This falsely depicts international trade as a zero-sum game; one nation wins, one nation loses. The truth is that regions of the globe are at different stages of economic maturity, and that transitioning industries from one part of the globe to another is a long-term benefit for all parties. At the root of this theology is that people of one nation-state are better, or more important, than another. Commercial racism should be put to an end, let us end Us Vs. Them.
Restrictions on Migration
People cannot freely move around the globe, which traps many in horrific local conditions. Corrupt governments and militias terrorize local populations, resulting in rape, dismemberment, murder and torture. International borders lock helpless citizens into these horrific situations.
Migration restrictions also distort labor markets: some countries have a labor surplus while others face shortages. Keeping workers confined to their country creates geographic pay arbitrage, where people with similar skills earn vastly different wages based solely on location. These disparities perpetuate global inequality.
Restrictions on Identity
The nation-state system imposes a national identity on everyone; there is no choice of state. From birth, people are assigned a nationality along with beliefs and values that may not match their own. These imposed values affect nearly everyone to varying degrees. The theology of “nation” need not be forced upon us .Top of Form
Restriction on Religious Freedom
Restrictions on religious freedom still impact large portions of the global population. Approximately 40% of the global population live in a nation-state where individuals are not permitted to practice a faith of their choice. Acts of faith in these restrictive nation-states are met with harassment, imprisonment, beatings and death in some cases. These restrictions violate critical human rights and should be retired from humanity. Top of Form
Restrictions on Voting
In many nation‑states, voting is severely restricted or obstructed. About one‑third of the world’s population cannot choose the officials who govern large parts of their lives. People who contribute resources (taxes) to the common good must be able to participate in how those resources are allocated. Anything less is a crime by government against the people. Let’s end taxation without representation.
Conclusion
For a deeper dive into some of these ills as well as proposed solutions, the full version of this text can be found here: http://www.poststate.org