Questions from Readers

Debate about the ideas presented in The Post State is essential to refining and strengthening the mission. The following Q and A addresses questions and challenges raised by readers. One key principle to keep in mind: Government functions remain, institutions change. Many of the services governments provide today would continue to exist, but they would be administered by smaller, more localized governments.

Legal Contracts

Question: Who enforces contracts?

Contract enforcement would remain a function of local governmental. Just as contracts today are enforced by state, provincial or national courts, contracts in a post-state system would be enforced by the courts of the administrative region whose laws govern the agreement. The transition from nation-states to administrative regions would not eliminate contract law; it simply changes the jurisdiction exercising the legal authority. In addition, because legal jurisdictions would be smaller, attempts by leaders to influence or undermine judicial systems would affect far fewer people.

Question: How are contract disputes between regions resolved?

Private contractual disputes would continue to be resolved through courts or arbitration according to the governing law clause specified in the contract.

 

Military

Question: Who maintains the military?

Militaries are funded by taxpayers, and this principle would remain unchanged. In a post-state system, defense would continue to be financed collectively through taxation. The difference is that the political communities providing that funding would be organized as administrative regions rather than nation-states.

 

 Infrastructure

Question: How are infrastructure projects funded?

Infrastructure would be funded by the communities that benefit from it. Local projects, such as streets, schools, water systems, and parks, would be financed by the administrative region through local taxation. Larger projects that serve multiple regions—such as highways, rail networks, power grids, or major ports—would be funded jointly through interregional agreements, with costs shared according to mutually agreed formulas. This approach follows the same principle used today: those who benefit from infrastructure help pay for it. The difference is that funding would be organized around the geographic area served by each project rather than the boundaries of a nation-state.

 

Conflicts

Question: What happens if one region refuses cooperation?

No system of government can guarantee universal cooperation. Even today, some countries refuse to comply with treaties, ignore international rulings, or decline to participate in global agreements. Participation in any political system will never be 100 percent.

Question: How are disputes between regions resolved?

Nation-states currently resolve disputes through a variety of mechanisms, including international organizations, bilateral negotiations, treaties, arbitration, and judicial bodies. Similar mechanisms would continue to exist in a world organized around administrative regions, although the institutions themselves would evolve to reflect the new political structure.

 

History

Question: Small governments historically fought each other constantly. How would this be any different?

History shows that both small and large states have gone to war. The primary driver of conflict has not been the size of governments, but the existence of competing sovereign states with independent militaries, territorial ambitions, and limited mechanisms for resolving disputes. In the post-state model, local administration would be separated from collective security. Administrative regions would not maintain competing national militaries or conduct independent foreign policies. Instead, they would cooperate through shared institutions responsible for defense, dispute resolution, and other collective functions. By reducing the number of competing sovereign military powers, the post-state model seeks to reduce both the frequency and the scale of armed conflict.

Question: Why hasn’t this happened before?

In some respects, it already has. The world has gradually moved beyond the nineteenth-century ideal of “one nation, one state.” Many successful countries today are multinational, multilingual, and multicultural. This suggests that effective governance depends less on shared ethnicity and more on institutions capable of accommodating diverse populations.

 

Structure and Operations

Question: What is the smallest viable governing unit?

There is no single population or geographic size that makes a government viable. The appropriate size depends on its ability to provide essential public services effectively and efficiently. A densely populated urban region may successfully govern millions of people, while a sparsely populated rural region may require a larger geographic area to achieve the same level of service. The post-state model does not prescribe a universal size for administrative regions. Instead, it follows the principle that governments should be as small as practical while remaining capable of fulfilling their responsibilities.

Question: Who writes the laws?

Laws would continue to be drafted by legislative staff and legal experts working on behalf of elected representatives. The difference is that those representatives would serve administrative regions rather than nation-states.

Question: Who collects taxes?

Administrative Region governments will collect taxes.

Question: How are representatives chosen?

Each Administrative Region would be empowered to establish an electoral process best suited to that specific region.

Question: What prevents corruption?

No system of government can eliminate corruption, as some individuals will always attempt to abuse positions of power. However, smaller governments reduce the scale of harm that any single corrupt official can inflict. While corruption may still occur, its impact would be limited to a much smaller population than under today’s large nation-states.

Question: What happens during the transition?

The post-state is not intended to be implemented overnight. Administrative functions could gradually decentralize while existing national institutions continue operating. As new regional and shared institutions demonstrate their effectiveness, responsibilities could be transferred incrementally, allowing the transition to occur over time rather than through sudden political change.