The Sovereign Individual

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent and (mostly) dispassionate analysis of CyberAge
Review: Few people have courage to examine how their society will end - those who do usually WANT it to end, which clouds their rationality. This book is a rare and welcome exception.

Davidson and Rees-Mogg damage their credibility by vitriolic attacks on Bill Clinton, but aside from that their analysis is impeccable. They start with two premises, which are obvious to anyone familiar with information technology - a) electronic commerce and encryption hamper collection of taxes and b) miniaturization, microprocessing and telecommuting make it easy for businesses to pick up and move, thus they force governments at all levels to compete with each other for tax base. Both processes have already begun; Davidson and Rees-Mogg see them through to their logical conclusions. These conclusions are bound to upset a lot of people, and the authors pull no punches. The very name of the chapter "Exploitation of the Capitalists by the Workers" is like a red flag waved before a bull - the aim it clearly achieved with some of the reviewers here. I wonder if these reviewers bothered to actually read that chapter, since it refers specifically to mid-1930's through early 1940's - the period when unions in the US were stronger than ever before or after, - and makes it very clear that condition which gave the workers an upper hand were unusual and temporary.

Unlike wide-eyed technophiles like Ben Bova and Virginia Postrel, Davidson and Rees-Mogg predict no utopia. They expect great societal upheavals and overall decline in the living standards as nation-states employ nastier and nastier tactics to forestall their demise. They expect many people to be terrified of the rapid and uncontrolled change, and nationalist politicians to seize upon these fears and to demonize those who ride the change and profit from it. Pat Buchanan is a prime example of such a politician, but he is far from the only one. The economic forces of Information Revolution will defeat them eventually, just like Gunpowder Revolution defeated the power of medieval Church, but not without a fight. Expect things to get worse before they get better - and for those without skill and savvy to take care of themselves in the Information Age things WILL NOT get better.

Rating:
Summary: Read this book while you experience the reality around you!!
Review: An experience on a virtual reality in the future of us, the Sovereign Individual. Should be prescribed to all politicians and idiots that still believe PC stands for political correct.

Question: The resignation of the Euro Commission group: is this the downfall of the State vs the SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL?

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Summary: The Sovereign Individual and other future histories
Review: The Sovereign Individual describes how the cybereconomy, with its lack of ties to any particular country, will dissolve the bonds of taxation and regulation. It also predicts the collapse or drastic downsizing of the tax-financed welfare states.

While it is all too easy to deplore or cheer (according to personal conviction) these predictions, it is interesting to compare some books by different authors with widely different personal preferences, namely

The Sovereign Individual, by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg

The Future of Capitalism, by Lester Thurow

Turbo-Capitalism, by Luttwak

One World, Ready or Not, by William Greider

The interesting thing is that ALL these authors make mainly identical predictions, although the all cheers from James D. Davidson and the mostly jeers from Greider are obvious. Luttwak and Thurow take more balanced positions, both looking at pros and cons.

The unanimity of prediction tells me that the predicions, most starkly spelled out in The Sovereign Individual, are very likely to come true.

Nils Andersson

Rating:
Summary: Uniquely stimulating ideas in macro-politics and economics.
Review: If I found myself on the deck of the sinking Titanic, I would dash back to my stateroom to rescue this book. (Maybe you saw me in the background of some of the scenes in that movie, where the other guy was trying to reach the girl.)

Mr. Davidson's and Lord Rees-Mogg's concept of "megapolitical" forces as one of the primary engines of social and economic change feels to me like a Copernican revolution.

I don't know if they're always right! My favorite pasttime lately has been putting them in the arena with Messers. Strauss and Howe's "The Fourth Turning" to see what spectacular agreements and battles develop.

I *do* know that, on the verge of what feels like Great Changes Coming, I want badly to understand the mechanisms of such change -- the mechanisms that are usually hidden by the simple vastness of their extent and scope.

In that pursuit, Davidson and Rees-Mogg have helped me by the writing of their book an awful lot more than I have helped them by my purchase of it.

Thus this review.

Rating:
Summary: Libertarian Extremism.
Review: The trouble with this kind of techo-optimistic tract is that it is extremist. It is nothing but Classical Liberalism gone wild; in other words, nothing but un-checked Libertarianism.

Some of the more seasoned Classical Liberal thinkers, e.g. Jean-Francois Revel, or David Horowitz, issue sharp warnings about Liberalism not being a mirror-image of Marxism.

In that respect, _The Sovereign Individual_ is a grotesque failure. One sub-chapter header is entitled: "Exploitation of the Capitalists by the Workers". This is so ludicrous as to almost defy the need for comment. Anyone even slightly familiar with the history of the 19th and 20th Century knows that while the hidden self-interest of the intellectual Left has led to exaggerated claims of industrial abuse, this in no way logically implies that some abuse did not indeed take place.

Well-understood Classical Liberalism advocates in and of itself moderation, and *modern* Classical Liberalism incorporates within it those claims by collectivists, even Socialists, which are based on accuracy. That, incorporating the claims of various groups and stripping them of their self-important exaggerations, is the true mening of a philosophy that centers around the rights of the individual, viz. Classical Liberalism. The true strength of Classical Liberalism lies in advocating the Open Society, not in advocating the hegemony of a bunch of software slobs.

It is not the job of Libertarians/Classical Liberals to make moronic statements about 'exploitation of the capitalists by the workers', as these authors do. That is ignoring child-labor, the goon squads and many other of the less elegant sides of the industrial revolution. Paraphrasing David Horowitz, while we are better off shedding com/soc, we can still work for a better capitalism. Raph Nader adds many tales of dishonest entrepeneurs gone berserk. There is no utopia, not even a Libertarian one.

Realistic Classical Liberals, and even techno-optimists, will have to condemn this work for its harshness, its unabashed advocacy of stark egotism, its depiction of a society of gated communities and working poor. The authors of this work engage in blind extremism, and degenerate into a mean-spirited Social Darwinism. This Classical Liberal, for one, finds the future as depicted in this work appalling. While we are all relieved by the passing of the 20th Century tendency to have a huge State plan society and social justice, advocating abolishion of any and all compassion is not attractive. The biggest political danger is extremism in anything.

Koos van der Wilt

Rating:
Summary: Probably the most important book I have personally read
Review: The trouble I have with most futurists' views of the future is that they only predict what will happen in a particular country or region and ignore the fundamental reason for why things will change. The Sovereign Individual looks at first principles, the prime mover if you will, of why change will happen. The reason is the widespread deployment of microprocessors, the Internet that connects them together, and unbreakable encryption merged with cyber commerce.

As a person intimately involved in the development of microprocessors and memory chips for over 20 years, I, like so many of my colleagues seldom actually ponder the implication of our work. This book has changed all of that for me by analyzing the implications of this technology as only an economist can do. It has been nothing short of a revelation to me. I have told several close associates about it and a number of them are also reading it.

I honestly believe this may be the most important book I have ever read, bar none.

Rating:
Summary: Davidson and Rees-Mogg personalize Megapolitics
Review: Davidson and Rees-Mogg, in their huge tome, The Great Reckoning, detail the properties of their theory of Megapolitics. In The Sovereign Individual, they "personalize" how megapolitical conditions--primarily information technologies--are shifting the modern world into the "fourth stage of human society." The theory of megapolitics is a socio-economic metaphor for the progress of humanity throughout history. Davidson identifies that the central problem of all societies is the control of violence. Pivoted upon that perspective, he shows how social, religious, military, economic, and other factors are driven or constrained to operate optimally within the context of the returns to violence. Knowing these factors allows Davidson and Rees-Mogg to very capably construct how information technologies affect modern societies through changes in the margins of violence and coercion. A hopeful outcome is described by Davidson, in that he outlines upwards of thirty strategies that the reader can personally exercise to exploit the transitional discontinuities--already accelerating apace.

Rating:
Summary: Develops a factual possible perspective on the future.
Review: A book that could be the basis for a futuristic tale of life on a planet without the rule of law or the nation state. A bit off the wall at times but not easy to completely dismiss. Authors seems earnest to explore what will happen from a well informed perspective as opposed to pushing a philosophy of what should be.

A bit wordy but an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Uninhibited Exuberance & Unabashed Honesty
Review: First, Kirkus Reviews ought to go back to the beginnings of western liberalism and come forward to realise where we are today and to get a true perspective on Davidson's and Rees-Mogg's views. This book is bound to irk the nationalists, socialists, marxists, et. al. i.e. neoredistributionists of all persuasions as many of the reviews here demonstate. Further, if your unfamiliar with the writings of the classical-liberal authors, like John Locke, you could have difficulty understanding the premises upon which many of the author's arguments are based, but read it anyway. This is a good place to begin your journey.

Rating:
Summary: Issues that the authors don't mention
Review: It seems like one of the authors premises is that in the future there will be a mass of dangerous poor in the midst of a technosavy mobile elite. What the authors do not seem to disscuss is the question of how do the elite become elites? I believe they become elites because of their high level of knowledge (whether through public education or personal education). Well knowledge in the future will not only become far more easily obtained (through the likes of the internet, and software) but I believe ATTAINED as well. That is, new forms of sophisticated learning devices will appear (like DVD, and personal multimedia systems) that caters to a person on an individual basis (issues like a persons age, background, current reading level, subjects the individual enjoys, etc) that will make learning ENJOYABLE for everyone. And once learning is enjoyable than more people will learn, and once more people learn, more people will attain the same level of knowledge that those elitist would have as described in the book. Thus more and more people will become those learned sophisticated elitest and less and less poor people will be generated.

Now how many learned people do you know of that is selfish, and greedy? Sure there may be a lot, but I believe there are FAR more who are generous, and compassionate, not to the point of giving all of their money away to the poor but to the point of contributing in some way. Also the more knowledgable a person is the more he or she wants to experience, and develop, and grow and reach out to not only himself, but to others as well. (And by knowledgable I'm not just talking about someone who is well faceted in one aspect of knowledge like a mathematician, or an artist, or a stock broker, (these people are nerds) but someone who has a multifaceted knowledge base and genuine interest in a variety of subjects, and experiences) For example I enjoy looking up words in a dictionary, but I also like to watch movies, and go out to restaurants, and read literature, and go out dance clubs, and swim, and ride my motorcycle, and read about mathematics, and occasionally go to a musuem, etc. (See, I'm not a nerd!) That is what I am getting at by being knowledgable, and enjoying experiences. BUT I also make it a point to give out a quarter to a begger, if he asks, and plan on volunteering in the future in some way to help the homeless.

I don't know if I made any sense by the above but I guess the point I was trying to make is that I believe that more and more people will become knowledgeable in a more richer, varied way in the future by a sophisticated means, of computerized education empowering the individual and this will reduce if not eliminate, the gap between the mobile technosavy elites that the book mentions, and the mass of uneducated poor.

Basiclly this book speculates a great deal about the future, and leaves a lot of questions to be answered about its "horrible scenerio" of the future.