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Merchant Republics of Cyberspace
In the Middle Ages, when the reach of kings and laws sometimes grew weak, no single group could regulate or dominate another, or regulate commerce and collect taxes. Throughout Europe, there were frontier or "march" regions where sovereignties blended -- Celtic and English, Christian and Muslim. These sometimes violent borders persisted for centuries; despite continuing conflicts, they often served as spawning grounds for commerce and trade.
These regions developed distinct institutional and legal forms, the type of cultural evolution we're likely to see again soon in a different type of march region -- cyberspace -- according to Davidson and Rees-Mogg.
Their idea is that cyberspace will generate free zones apart from traditional government laws on speech or other control, policing or taxation. Like the residents of the march regions, residents and businesspeople in these new cyber-zones will go largely untaxed, because taxes will be almost impossible to tabulate and collect. Their freedom to speak and act freely and gather information would be unprecedented, and their sense of individual sovereignty enormous.
The authors make the provocative argument that cyberspace will transcend nationality. "Before the nation-state, it was difficult to enumerate precisely the number of sovereignties that existed in the world because they overlapped in complex ways and many varied forms of organization exercised power." In the information age, they claim, the same will be true. Sovereignty will become increasingly fragmented, with new entities emerging which will exhibit some but not all the characteristics we've come to associate with nation-stages.
Like the Knights Templar of the Middle Ages, these new cyber-republics will organize around principles that bear ltitle relation to nationality, at least geographic nationality.
"Market forces, not political majorities, will compel societies to reconfigure themselves in ways that public opinion will neither comprehend nor welcome," Davidson and Rees-Mogg maintain. "It will therefore be crucial that you see the world anew. If you fail to transcend conventional thinking at a time when conventional thinking is losing touch with reality, then you will be more likely to fall prey to an epidemic of disorientation that lies ahead."
Many of us (including myself, I think) aren't quite ready to write off the nation-state, still the most powerful and coherent entity on earth. But the disorientation Rees-Mogg and Davidson warn of is already obvious. Note the mad scrambling of businesses in publishing and entertainment, and other institutions like education and politics, to respond to the Internet, often lashing out in legal desperation or moral outrage at the rise of the new digital culture.
"Disorientation" is the perfect term for the way that groups as different as the U.S. Congress and most journailsts respond to cyberspace. Lawyers and doctors and advertising pros are scrambling to contend with the open-model distribution of once-proprietary information.
It's also a credible idea that some of the traditional functions of the nation-state -- raising armies to protect against attack -- seem increasingly dubious. Most wars were started by nationalists seeking political or economic expansion. But if cultural and influence and economic power is increasingly tied to cyberspace, and the ballooning business moving onto the Net and the Web, the rationale for most wars would evaporate. So would the idea of physical defense, one of the mainstays of the nation-state.
So the idea of merchant republics in cyberspace doesn't seem particularly far-fetched. A number of corporations -- Microsoft, AOL/Time-Warner, Disney, Intel -- are already larger and more prosperous than many countries. They will soon be as powerful as some, if they aren't already. So it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine companies or their components declaring themselve merchants of a new and virtual realm. Microsoft could buy an island somewhere and declare the company independent (something that's probably already occurred to Bill Gates, for whom secession might seem the logical next step if the courts continue to rule against him).
Smaller entrepeneurs could use encryption and other security tools to simply put their cyber-operations beyond the reach of governments. There's no real international law governing the global implications of the Net and the Web. Even if there were, a number of countries would surely be found to ignore any new conventions.
These kinds of republics wouldn't need traditional police forces or defense industries or tax-collection mechanisms. Just as the Net has no means of policing speech, such republics could defy regulation, especially if they became numerous.
In fact, many corners of the Net already offer virtual equivalents of the "march" state, entities that fall between the cracks of regulation and control. Wander around AIM or ICQ for awhile and you'll find thousands. We're in one now.
A couple of years ago, merchant republics in cyberspace might have seemed a wacky, even utopian, prediction. No more.
Watch for Part Three, The Return of the Luddites. this book is available at Fatbrain.
Unless you are outside of the territorial juridestiction of your country groups like the FTC will eventually get you good.
Also setting up a business on the ineternet also means that you have to have something to sell and quite frankly 80% of all small businesses fail in 2 years time. It's even worse for the net.
Respond to s
So, does that mean that Microsoft is Rome, trying to bring order with a very strict regime? /. the Huns and Taco would be Attila.
That'd make
:wq!
Unfortunately for the goals of some, it is wacky. Even the one place in world with a prayer of pulling something like that off, Sealand, is in trecherous waters.
The cyber revolution will change government as much as the industrial one did. Which, while significant, isn't revolutionary.
...you're saying that the Syndicate is winning the Ascension War?
"...heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
As soon as these corporations start doing harm to nations and citizens as a result, the international community will simply install a taxation system and control system to reign in the nasty companies, and nasty they will be.
NO company does good by way of its workers or the environment or community without the threat of government-sanctioned punishment for transgressing. They would pay the lowest, most poverty-pertetuation wages, pollute like bastards, without regulation. Taxation WILL begin once not paying (only fair) taxes begins to hurt much-loved and desired social programs.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I don't care how fast a connection you have, what length key you have, or how distributed your organization is. There will come a time and place where you, a living breathing human bein', will be subject to somebody putting a gun in your face. Cyber-nations would be more feasable if we had "Ghost in the Shell" type legally-recognized spirits floating around on the Internet. But since I don't see that happening any time soon, I am extremely pessimistic as to the predicitons made above.
That, and the fact that the authors seem to focus on economic interests being the primary motivators of these "cyber-states". Fuck that. I'm tired of being a consumer. I'm a CITIZEN, goddammit. I read, I think, and I like to vote. I buy shit sometimes, but that is not the focus of my being and I resent being considered otherwise, no matter how efficacious it is for marketing-types and Alan Greenspan to classify me thusly.
What exactly is the rationale for most wars?
I don't think physical defense will ever be obselete. There will always be people who want what you've got - and there are some things that can't be digitally reproduced. Food, for example. If me and some friends want your food, we will come take it. Then we will put up our own defenses to thwart you when you come to take it back. Then you will devise defenses of your own, so next time someone tries to take your stuff, you will thwart them. Then they will develop defenses...
Until there is digital reproduction of food, water, medicine, shelter.. there will always be potential for war.
wishus
Vote for freedom!
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The authors may think that nation-states will abstain from violence when threatened by whatever is seeking to replace them. I sincerely doubt that existing nation-states will roll over and die in the face of virtual territories.
As Heinlein pointed out in Starship Troopers, anyone who thinks violence solves nothing should ask the citizens of Carthage.
After all, if I'm the leadership of a sovereign nation and I can't outwit you, I can always pass laws to restrict you (examples, anyone?). Last resort, if you're located in another nation and threaten me badly enough, we use the military option. Harden those server rooms, boys.
JA
JA
http://www.johnalex.org/
Rather than the dissolution of nation states, it seems more likely that the result of "borderless" transactions will be increased cooperation between governments to create a system of rules and regulations to insure mutual survival (one could argue that the WTO is one of the first steps in this direction), to the exclusion of those nation-states who choose not to participate, and therefore risk economic isolation and collapse (e.g. Cuba).
There is a lot of work being done by various mainly opensource groups already on technology for Sovereign Individuals.
Check out my own project Neudist.org for example, where we are trying to create an online replacement for Legal Entities. Others such as WebFunds and E-Gold are creating Gold backed digital currencies a'la Cryptonomicon (They were actually doing it before Cryptonomicon). FreeNet is creating an uncensurable infrastructure and HavenCo are doing Offshore web hosting.
I'm sure I've forgotten quite a few, but these are the technologies that will enable or inspire the Sovereign Individuals. I loved the book, but the writers are very much involved with the really high end of the market, and when it comes down to it would probably feel a bit left behind by all this free software creating real Sovereign Individuals.
-Pelle
That should be Moggs, not Boggs. But, there again, with some of the things he's said in the past, nobody is likely to really notice the difference.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Of course this is inevitable... In fact, I can see this becoming the next marketing boon for small, 3rd world nation... Take a starving country in Africa, and tell them that if they have completely non-restrictive internet laws, they will cease being poor. Say that you can sell anything you want online, and allow for this small little country to see money beyond it's wildest dreams, which is still going to be nothing but a drop in the bucket for most large businesses. I can see it being a possibility that, in the future, alot of small countries in Latin America and Africa could make up for alot of their economic stife by allowing rich European and American corporations to have free reign.
As I read this piece,I get the idea that Katz thinks the Net will help stop wars and change individual nations into one big global entity. I don't see either of these things happening. First off,as long as you have people,you'll have war. We have a very long history of not being able to get along with each other. And if you'll notice,alot of the current conflicts are based on ethnic and religious differences. A line on a map has little to do with them. Second,people tend to like their national identities. They want to be considered Americans or Brits or French or whatever. I simply can't see the entire planet giving up all it's flags and coins and various trappings and considering themselves all Earthlings.
==== Warning:this poster contains subject matter that may be offensive. Flaming discretion is advised.
Nation States provide much more than armed forces and ways of collecting taxes. They can also provide a police force, social security, education and other services. I am having trouble seeing how an online community could provide these things without a physical presence. Any ideas?
------------------------------ Only a fool has no doubts.
The decisions you and I make today about where we buy, what we buy, how much information we permit free access to and how we choose to communicate all will affect the rise of these merchants. The difference between success and failure, early in the life cycle may only be a few customers or complainers. Does my purchase today allow that company to survive and one day develop into a vast empire. Could the first clients of the Hansa League chosen better?
Actually, probably the most important decision you and I will make in the next few months with regards to this is our vote on the 7th of November. One candidate has clearly committed to a socialist taxation/economic system. The other has chosen to continue (and enhance) our current system of supporting business opportunity. Oddly, the incumbent proposes the huge alteration and the challenger the continuity. What a wierd presidential system the USA has.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
"Like the Knights Templar of the Middle Ages, these new cyber-republics will organize around principles that bear ltitle relation to nationality, at least geographic nationality. " The knights templar were founded as a quasi-military benedictine monk sect. What they evolved into was something completely outlanding that touched on some of these principles, but in the end they were disbanded by the church and many of their leaders were burned at the stake for treason, heresy, and blasphemy. Nice analogy JK.
Snowcrash, Neuromancer and many others over the last decade or so. I think we are seeing the foundations of virtual-scape presented in books like snowcrash, et al...this idea of commerce centers (evolving), gated communities (evolving and here, e.g. aol>,and the arguable anarchy between these stable realms.
Personally, I think the writing is on the wall for net governance as we know it. The reality is that the net is *global*...that the laws that the US or any other sovereign state attempts to impliment only holds substantive force in the country of origin, treaties notwithstanding.
Either there needs to be a global government with actual enforcement powers (I'll just hold my breath and wait for that one)...or there will eventually be some sort of global internet "treaty" wherein all signatories agree to abide by certain agreed upon terms etc. Again...I'm just going to hold my breath... Even if the later comes into being, there will always be those who refuse to sign...or sign and violate (the whole issue of enforcability is an entirely seperate and monumental issue).
I think we are seeing the birth of a form of virtual company town...where you can be...and buy...and play...in exchange for various amounts of freedom. What is your comfort level...are you very timid and want relative safty, live in aolville (but we will be watching over you quite closely, but you don't mind that do you *gentle smile*).....or do you want no structure whatsoever, it's yours..but who do (or can) you trust then.
It's an amazing applied sociological experiment we are watching evolve. I look forward to witnessing it...and making a living integrating it into others lives...
rootrot
Paranoid Much? UN Death Squads? WTO Smokescreens? Do you have information to back this up, or did you just read it all in an ultra-nationalist book you saw advertised on Rush Limbaugh? Honestly, I love to hear sun out conspiracy theories as much as the next geek, but these death squads... They ride in the black helicopters, right? Over by Area 51? Until you can back this up with some proof, I don't think that anyone will be able to take you even halfway seriously.
No encryption technology will prevent the county sherrif from showing up at my door demanding payment of my property taxes. No digital cash scheme will prevent the cashier at the local supermarket from adding on sales tax when I buy a chocolate bar, or prevent the imposition of income taxes on that cashier's paycheck - the supermarket, as a fixed physical entity, is easily subject to state regulation. SSL won't keep the state from knowing who a corporation's stockholders are and imposing capital gains taxes - since corporations are state-chartered entities, there's no way they can avoid regulation. (As lax as that regulation tends to be today, don't doubt that if the tax money stops flowing that will change.)
The only taxes that might be avoided by new technology are income taxes for independant contractors who work via the net; and if that truly comes to pass, you'll just see a shift away from the income taxes toward other forms of taxes. Which might not be a bad thing, but it's hardly the destruction of taxation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Yes, I know the far side of the moon is commonly called the dark side, but that is a miss-conception and needs to be stamped out (along with flat earth etc:)
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
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Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
1) Just because people can communicate more easily across national boundaries doesn't mean that everyone will agree. Witness Slashdot's forum ;-)
2) "Most wars were started by nationalists seeking political or economic expansion." - That's ludicrous. Nationalism didn't even exist until the early 20th Century. There's this place called Jerusalem - people have been fighting over it for centuries because of religion. You honestly think that the Internet will erase the relevance of religion?
3) "But if cultural and influence and economic power is increasingly tied to cyberspace, and the ballooning business moving onto the Net and the Web, the rationale for most wars would evaporate." - So, if business is good, there won't be any wars? Hmm....
4) When the telegraph came into existence, many pundits predicted that it would mean the end of warfare, because rapid communication would mitigate arguments. Ironic that the speedy telegraph was used to set World War One in motion faster than the diplomats could act to prevent it.
The bottom line is that people start wars. Nation-states are collections of individual human beings. Think about the number of times in your own life when you've had a conflict of interest with another person. Did you always come to an equitable solution? Or did the conflict continue? Until we can govern ourselves as individuals, no amount of technology will help us mitigate conflicts among nation-states.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
As submitted to slashdot 09/07/00 and REJECTED (maybe they didn't want me to scoop katz?):
The FBI today released a report on school violence. Ironically, there is only a 1 in a million chance at present of someone being shot in school. Despite that, the political fallout has been fast and extensive. What follows is my own analysis of the report, along with my thoughts on what they did right, and what they did wrong, in the report. "... a great many adolescents who will never commit violent acts will show some of the behaviors or personality traits included on the list."
The FBI went to great pains in this report to inform the reader that this report is not intended to be a basis for forming a profile of a potential killer. There is no single metric to judge the threat someone poses. Almost all of the information in the report points to this underlying theme - "do not profile students." The FBI also cautioned against the impulsive responses that the issue of school violence has generated, going as far as to say that these demands "have been accompanied by little if any concerted and organized effort to understand the roots of school shooting incidents." The FBI also stated that as a direct result of these incidents being so rare, there was no reliable way to pick out from any group who the killer will be.
The FBI also lashed out at the media, dedicating an entire section to debunking various myths that the media has propagated. Some of these I didn't pick up. Among the myths debunked that slashdotters would be most interested in:
The FBI, in a very round-about way, also slammed schools for zero tolerance policies, saying that the "one-size-fits-all approach" many schools take was ill-advised and could even be dangerous. To quote, "...schools must recognize that every threat does not represent the same danger or require the same level of response."
The core of the report, however, doesn't take some of its own advice and goes on to offer a series of threat assessment criterion to identify potential problems. In other words, profiling.
The assessment approach advocated in the report is based on a "four-pronged" model, with the main areas to identify falling into the personality of the student, and the family, school, and social dynamics in that student's life. This approach is *very* similar to current practices in "emotionally/behaviorally disturbed" programs for many schools. The difference between the FBI's approach hinges on the idea that a student should not be "profiled" until after a threat has been made. It is a small, but important, distinction. [Of interest to myself, the report noted that "about 25% of the adolescent population is at risk for psycho-social problems..." Also, the report notes that adolescence begins earlier in today's kids - as early as age nine. I found that somewhat suprising.]
The actual threat list had several interesting things listed in it which I will list below.
All of these, to me, seem like values my boss has. Should I turn him in?
Continuing down the list...
Hmm, apparently having unmonitored access to TV and standard media, as well as the internet, are threat factors according to the FBI. So, despite all the effort the FBI made to make it clear to people that profiling was a bad idea, here they are using a very generalized list to determine whether someone really is a threat or not.
The last leg of the report has recommendations for handling threats. As a short summary, the FBI recommends that schools form a group of teachers specifically to deal with possible threats. They specifically note that expelling or suspending the student is NOT a substitute for evaluating the student. Such an impulsive move can actually worsen the situation as the student may feel as if he/she was treated unfairly and feel a need for retribution. Also among the recommendations made, is that each case be treated individually, rather than the one-size-fits all approach common in schools.
In the conclusion, the FBI recommends additional research, and that in the interim, that both educators and law enforcement be trained in handling of such incidents and that a plan be put in place ahead of time to deal with serious, specific threats. The report also notes that school violence is continuing on a downward trend. The report concludes with the following: "Threats in schools are not just the schools' problem; therefore, neither is the solution".
The report is available directly from the FBI homepage, or via this link.
So it'll go in this case too: either the Net will tear down the Borders, or the Borders will tear down the Net.
(This is a first post for me, by the way. Not on the topic, but for myself. Consequently, it's gotten a bit stream-of-consciousnessy on me, so moderate gently, please?)
Individual nations' governments are the biggest threat, but only in the way that Hannibal's elephants were -- large, slow-moving, ponderous creatures which didn't know better than to go where you told them. They usually only attack at the orders of someone else, be it people outraged by some form of expression (the Germans against racism, Americans against pornography, the French against any advertising that written in any language other than French) out of some diluted loyalty, and a desire to stay in power. Then there's nations like China which actively seek to strangle it; even elephants get enraged sometimes.
The Borders' best way to win is to pursue. As someone pointed out, the complete freedom to transmit whatever information you want anywhere in the world doesn't do you a whole lot of good if a team of [insert nationality] marines lands on your deep-sea-ISP and opens fire indiscriminately. And when that offshore server station is doing little things to honk off the 168+ nations of the world, don't be surprised to find Maori with grenades floating in the North Atlantic looking for yourownprivateidaho.org.
The Net's best way to win is to persevere: to continue on in the face of the pressures and adversities. According to the dictum, the Net views censorship as damage and acts to route around it. "Damage" in this case means that occasionally those enraged Albanians will take out a netbarge or two, but the net's work will continue.
A Net victory wouldn't destroy the borders, but with the people dealing with each other as equals and sharing information as peers, all those borders would become next to meaningless.
The other question is, "What are you doing with the Net?"
If you're talking about pushing goods around the world, the balance tips greatly in favor of the Borders. Someone has to produce the item in question, pick it up, ship, and drop it off at its destination. Physical entities are easy to stop at border crossings, and governments will call those couriers 'smugglers' if the item is contraband (a fancy term meaning "you can't possibly pay what we'd want to let this in here, so we're just not going to allow it"), and act to stop it. At that point, some of the world's more significant governments will join the fray, like Canada.
If the thing being traded is information or services, though, the Net has the strong advantage. Governments have proven particularly inept at grasping ideas, much less stopping them. The honest flow of information across the Net will necessitate it being kept open, despite any legal discomforts (or attempted illegal stoppages by certain governments who shall remain nameless).
Side-thought, and caveat: The 'Web Application' qualifies as a service, rather than a good. If most companies are going to go to web apps, then sooner or later 'illegal' or 'hack' web apps will crop up, and could be brought to bear to push information through tightly locked borders. tribalfloodnetwork.com, anyone...? It could spell a quick and decisive victory for the Net if the right information is pushed through, but if not, it WILL mean the two combatants will be fighting instead to the death.
Many people like to dream that the Net is an integral part of humanity's future (at least until Internet2 comes along). I look at UseNet and think "Gawds, I hope not."
(Remember what I said about 'stream-of-consciousnessiness'? Sorry about that...)
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
So which government controls Time-Warner? Sony? Ericsson? Unilever? Volkswagen? Nike? Coca-Cola?
Sure all these companies are based somewhere, but they are hardly under the control of any government. Not even under the likes of WTO.
They are the ones who walk up tho their local government and state their terms for not moving along with their cash.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
For those who aren't familiar with the details, most of the Knights Templar were executed (burned at the stake) for "heresy." The charges were brought against them by the French king, who had heard rumors that the Knights were hoarding vast wealth. The king, in order to get his hands on the Templar treasure, conspired with groups of noblemen who were jealous of the Templars worldly power to destroy the order.
The amazing parallel here is to the internet in modern times. The internet contains vast wealth, which the greedy governments of modern times wish to acquire. Just as the king had help in the Templar's time, governments today have willing conspirators in the form of the companies who stand to lose the most from the internet.
The Golden Age of the Internet is over: the kings and their co-conspirators have decided to either control the wealth - or destroy it. The actions against MP3.com, Napster, and DeCSS are all symptoms of the growing movement to make the internet just another method of extracting wealth from the masses. In the United States, our elected representatives are fighting amongst themselves over how to tax the Internet properly. If sales taxes on the internet become unpopular, then they will simply levy a "telecommunications tax" on the service providers. Once it was obvious that the wealth was there in cyberspace, these institutions became the internet's worst enemy.
This is not a hopeless battle, though. The Industrial Revolution destroyed the power of the aristocracy in Britain by creating wealth that was not tied to large tracts of land. It did not, however, do so overnight. The decline of that institution can be measured from the mid-18th century up until the twilight of the 19th century. Much in the same way, I believe the Information Revolution was the death knell of government as we know it today, and its willing conspirators.
These institutions must evolve or be replaced, and they will. It is only a matter of time. What is important is that the replacements for them be what we dream about, not what we fear most. The hallmark of the Information Age is the burgeoning empowerment of the individual. It is this property that the modern governments and corporations in America and Europe fear most, and are trying the hardest to limit.
This is because these institutions require complacency and uniformity to exist. Consider: if all people liked the same music, finding artists to record popular music would be easier, discovering the next John Grisham or Tom Clancy would be simpler, and the products created by these people would be easier to market, and would sell more copies. This is why the large media companies focus on expanding markets by telling us what is "cool." They simply do not have the agility to deal with more that two or three different markets. This is leading to an explosion in small niche providers: the small record labels and presses. These people are doing much better in the Internet Age.
Can we make a difference? Certainly. Spend some time researching where your entertainment budget goes. Use the internet to find bands or authors or artists that are good, but not "signed" with a label or a publisher. Reward talent with money. If you are politically inclined, write. Write your newspaper, your representatives, and the executives of companies to praise moves you agree with and to condemn those you don't. Pick an issue for which you are passionate and promote it. And most importantly, if you don't feel like being such an activist, the email those who do with two lines or so of encouragement. It helps.
More accurately: those people fight on land and influence, something the US has done several time in this century (imposing US-friendly dictatorships in Cuba and south Vietnam, for instance).
The alternatives that they will probably introduce are delivery taxes (payable through FedEx???), Internet Taxes payable by ISP's or tacked on to our ISP bills.
If only part of the population is taxable, you will probably start seeing that taxable low income part of the population get more and more angry, which we are already seing in the rise of hate groups through out the world. Eg. Anti Chinese riots in Indonesia, Neo Nazi Groups, Pat Buchanan etc.
The authors conclusion is that there will be much greater equality between countries, but much greater inequality within countries. Just look at India, China, Mexico etc. They all now have large growing educated middle classes, but as they grow the inequality within the countries increase.
However the traditional large semi-well paid working class of North American and Western Europe has had it's foundations torn apart over the last 30 years.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has been called a think tank, monitoring agency, rich man's club, an unacademic university. It has elements of all, but none of these characterisations captures the essence of the OECD.
The OECD groups 29 member countries in an organisation that, most importantly, provides governments a setting in which to discuss, develop and perfect economic and social policy. They compare experiences, seek answers to common problems and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies that increasingly in today's globalised world must form a web of even practice across nations. Their exchanges may lead to agreements to act in a formal way - for example, by establishing legally-binding codes for free flow of capital and services, agreements to crack down on bribery or to end subsidies for shipbuilding. But more often, their discussion makes for better informed work within their own governments on the spectrum of public policy and clarifies the impact of national policies on the international community. And it offers a chance to reflect and exchange perspectives with other countries similar to their own.
The OECD is a club of like-minded countries. It is rich, in that OECD countries produce two thirds of the world's goods and services, but it is not an exclusive club. Essentially, membership is limited only by a country's commitment to a market economy and a pluralistic democracy. The core of original members has expanded from Europe and North America to include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Korea. And there are many more contacts with the rest of the world through programmes with countries in the former Soviet bloc, Asia, Latin America - contacts which, in some cases, may lead to membership.
Exchanges between OECD governments flow from information and analysis provided by a Secretariat in Paris. Parts of the OECD Secretariat collect data, monitor trends, analyse and forecast economic developments, while others research social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and more. This work, in areas that mirror the policy-making structures in ministries of governments, is done in close consultation with policy-makers who will use the analysis, and it underpins discussion by member countries when they meet in specialised committees of the OECD. Much of the research and analysis is published.
My take on it is that it is sort of like an economic equivalent of NATO. It's pretty much involved with monitoring and creating global rules that it's member countries should or must (depending on how influential they are) obide by. They also try to bully smaller and poorer countries with programs such as the "harmful tax competition" programme I mentioned in my previous post. It's pretty interesting that this group of powerful countries should fear the unfair competition of small poor countries such as Belize, Dominica etc. May be these countries should create a black list of countries with to big economies, because thats unfair size competition?
If the idea of no war is so insane, why haven't we had a major one in years?
We haven't? I don't know what you consider major, of course, but the Iran-Iraq war was very bloody. The civil wars in Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda were quite nasty, too. Or wars between brown people do not count?
What's up with the Serbs or the Bosnians? Do we care?
Maybe you don't. That doesn't mean everybody else doesn't care either.
They fight over land and food and things we have in such great abundance
Sigh. They fight over power, not land and food. If you give them food, they will not stop fighting.
So after everyone turns to the internet, and a common global currency is developed, the only thing you would have to worry about is shipping.
Ah. Wonderful. I see it now -- all we have to worry about is shipping. Nothing else, really, it's all just shipping. Human rights, ecology, crime -- they'll just stop being problems once we deal with shipping. Joy.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Actually my perception is that the Net has already had a huge real-world effect in business, specifically the fact that the Fed has been loaning money like crazy, thus creating the Roaring 90's IPO net market.
The Fed banks are well aware that there is absolutely no difference between the money supply they create and transmit around electronically and a Net-based currency, other than enforceability and trust. I believe that the Fed has had a loose money policy during these past few years partly to ensure that there is enough investor money to keep popular portals in the hands of owners that are on board with traditional Nationalistic Corporatism and out of Net currency. I call the strategy Positive Despotism- don't crush your potential enemies, buy them out, or at least make everybody fat, dumb and happy enough to not question the freedoms that they are losing.
I also believe that the Clipper chip and associated technologies are anti-Net currency initiatives moreso than anything else, as a key component of any such system is verification and privacy for tax-avoidance. Fortunately for the Fed and the US Government, it looks like everyone who might have made a Net currency play has been bought out or gone to ground.
By the way, the Templars were the first European internationalist bankers and the first entity to allow checks to be written from one Priory and cash it at another. They achieved this by putting a validation code on the 'check' that could be deciphered and verified at cashout time. As noted before, Philip the Fair of France and his stooge Pope created trumped-up charges to allow the ransacking of the Order's riches. Encryption, money, freedoms and police power have been interrelated issues for a long time.
The key problem I see with the online Merchant Republic concept is trust in contract enforcement- how do I know the goods, services and currency I pour into such an entity will give me value and have a mechanism for redress of grievances? Short of a tribal clade treaty such as those in Stephenson's books, there would be NO enforcement or due process outside of one's Republic. Thus, the Merchant Republic/tribal system is unlikely to occur unless there is
1)a complete collapse of the justice system (therefore people lose faith in the US image-myth, bringing on chaos and a need for adhoc groups for survival),
2) or a collapse of the currency system.
So far the Fed and the Government appear to be defending the currency, so the justice system breakdown is the more likely scenario. Rampant insane corporatism crushing the individual and buying up justice is more likely to create the Merchant Republics rather than Katz' magic Net.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
Yes, exactly. Jon's recycling old story lines from the SF pros. Personally, I hope Bill Gibson sues him for infringement, as I'm betting $1 Canadian ($0.00001 US) that there's got to be a couple of copyrighted phrases somewhere in his text.
What we really are seeing develop is this:
1. Cyberhacks are repubbing words that real writers wrote and claiming them as their own. Al Gore is no longer an isolated bump, even if he's a more tech-friendly Presidential candidate.
2. Nations are being divided into feifdoms based on Net use. Only 10% of Mexico is wired, which dooms them to cyberserfdom; Peurto Rico and Guam can use shame to lift them into the Wired category as the US rushes to make sure they're fully served. Other nations will win or lose based on who gets Net-ified and who doesn't. This, naturally, will result in Africa dropping way off the scale and being a total Net writeoff.
3. Americans will project their vision of the world where it doesn't belong. While we have over 50% penetration by high-access (cable modem and DSL) within reach by 2002, the rest of the world is SOL. We will keep acting as if the rest of the world is on the Net, and wondering why we are more than half of the Wired audience, while not clueing in that only Europe and parts of Asia can hope to join in the party.
4. China will take the Great Leap To The Net. They will train cyberwarriors to hack us, start pubbing to the Net in Unicode, and generally force the US to fall back in disarray. Then we'll accidently launch missiles at Hong Kong and start WWIII. Everything will die. Except those people attending Burning Man at the time.
Will in Seattle
I find it disturbing that digerati think themselves so free from all things physical. The virtual world is powered by eletricity running through semiconductors and housed in buildings on rented real estate. The internet may be amorphous but I doubt it would stand up terribly well to a few well placed terrorist actions against fiber optic cables and satillite dishes. Some might say things are so well distributed that small outages are inconcequencial but you'd be hard pressed to handle all the high volume data of the world over phone lines and short range microwave networks. Trip a few wires from eletrical generators and entire sections of the country go dark. This is where the virtual ocean rolls onto the real beach. The cocky ones are body boarders who haven't yet felt what it's like to slam face first into the sand.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
In three or four months maybe. I'm waiting out the local telco on their DSL setup. (The only local cable modem provider won't allow servers.)
Bite my yammer.