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Summary: Bermuda in the Sky with Diamonds
Review: Ask a random group of economists what the largest economy will be in the next twenty years and the answer is likely to be China. This is the accepted conventional view. However other economists, who better understand the ultimate irreversible economic consequences of newlydeveloped-Information Age-technologies, have a convincing argument to the contrary. In what is probably the most important book of 1997, "The Sovereign Individual," the authors reveal that an entirely new realm of economic activity has been created in cyberspace. One which is a jurisdictionless arena of commerce that cannot be held hostage to violence or coercion by predatory national governments or even lesser criminals. [Reading the book will remove all doubt regarding this seemingly unlikely assertion.] They project that cyberspace - a realm without physical existence - will develop into what promises to be the world's largest economy. In describing the future of the cybereconomy, the authors declare, "Not only will transactions occur over the Net, but they will migrate outside the jurisdiction of nation-states. Payment will be rendered in cybercurrency. Profits will be booked in cyberbanks. Investments will be made in cyberbrokerages." The vast majority of these transactions will not be subject to any form of taxation. Bermuda in the sky with diamonds. If you need proof of the viability of the concepts presented in "The Sovereign Individual," you can witness the predicted reality now. Direct your browser to: http://www.LFCity.com
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Summary: A bold, unemotional thesis - ignore at your peril!
Review: Davidson and Rees-Mogg put forward a dispassionate and compelling argument on the ramifications and logical outworkings of the information age. What sets the book apart from its peers' is the unemotional and, some would say, cold logic the authors use in developing their hypothesis, argument and conclusions. By comparison, most authors attempting to 'predict' the future tend to use an emotional, idealistic approach to the argument proposed - little, or dubious emperical evidence is put forth. As a result the reader will either agree,or disagree, on the basis of their personal belief system. We can assume, in the marjority of cases, that neither party will change his views. This book is therefore fundamentally different, the case provides a wealth of evidence, facts and historical precedent to support the hypothesis. The reader is challenged to seek out for himself the signs that these 'megapolitical' changes are, in fact, occuring. Recent examples include, the 'asian financial meltdown', the 'revenue problems' that taxation departments are experiencing world wide, the rise of xenophobic 'nationalist' parties reacting to globalisation and technology (Australias "One Nation Party"), the 'luddite' irrational argument of the evironmental movement, the list goes one - however, as Davidson and Rees-Mogg clearly state, you must find out for yourself. Even within this review section, several reviewers have argued, bitterly, against this book using emotional and idealistic arguments. I am afraid that 'wishful' thinking will matter not in the least as these megapolitical events unfold. However, this reaction is entirely expected. PS: The "offshore" services and facilities proposed by the authors to protect your assets and avoid predatory taxation are now readily available - use your 'browser'! Sorry 'state worshippers' the 'cats already out of the bag', so to speak.
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Summary: Bold. Epic. Awesome
Review: In the Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg take you on a sweeping journey of history and technology in demonstrating how institutions employing coercion on a mass scale(whether monarchies or states)have risen and fallen according to the demands of different technologies. In our not too distant future, microprocessing and the wide-spread dispersal of information technologies will lead to a massive devolution of power from the nation-state to "mini-sovereignties" while empowering individuals like never before. The implications are awesome for one of the most sweeping historical and economic changes(the information revolution)likely to happen--more so than what the industrial revolution did for agricultural society, and in a much quicker time frame. Many more individuals will have the opportunity to become truly sovereign, as assets and wealth are placed beyond the realm of political compulsion in cyberspace--a netherworld of total freedom. However, this is likely to provoke a furious nationalist/populist reaction against the new elite by those who are not as technologically and financially adept. Fasten your seatbelts!
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Summary: a well reasoned guide to the next 25 years
Review: Like MegaTrends, Future Shock, and the Third Wave, this book depicts the world with multiple epics in World History. From the nation-state viewpoint it is a dystopian book, but it is absolutely fascinating.
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Summary: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!
Review: So said a wise philospher! This book could have easily had this maxim as its subtitle. The authors cogently, and compellingly use historical trends to show that democracy as we know it is at an end. Many will decry this book's "apocalyptic tone" but the fact remains that statistics don't lie: the majority of people do not vote in any election, which is one of the leading indicators of a democracy's demise. The authors use the example of the Roman church's hold on power during the Dark ages as a prime example of a system that lost its hold due to decadence from within. Because the leader's lived large at the expense of the common man, people no longer felt that religion had a relevence to their lives. The same is true with politics today. We all know that the ruling class in this country lives large with perquisities and privaleges befitting royalty, all at taxpayer expense. Washington, or "inside the Beltway," is perceived as being so far removed from our daily lives that most politicians are looked upon with derision. Just watch how mercilessly they are pillioried in the popular culture, and in the media. This contempt for the nobles is but one of many signs that the nation-state is at an end. It is very hard to get the average person to understand that times have changed, and the changes will dramatically effect our lives in every way. It is natural to want to hold onto what is familiar and safe. But the things that will be, will be regardless of protest or mawkish sentimentality, and these two authors have their fingers on the pulse of the future.
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Summary: cyberspace is no substitute for community
Review: The authors in their eager and fanatical attempts to avoid paying taxes propose a future where individuals are sovereign. That is to say we can live in cyberspace and leave the rest of the world to rot. Somehow physical reality is not as relavent to the authors. While they surf in cyberspace real humans will slave on their behalf to provide food and other commodities. This to say the least is an elitist approach which blithely ignores the fact that humans are social beings who thrive best when acting in accordance to community needs. The authors present some arguments which are sensible such as the notion that the nation state is abusing its previlige to tax citizens. You don't need a phd to figure that out! What the authors ultimately present is what some have dubbed "the cult of the individual". Imagine if the organs in your body decided to act as "sovereign individuals" instead of working as a "community". Imagine if your heart decided to stop circulating blood because it felt it wasn't getting a fair rate of return on its labor. From time immemorial humans have survived and thrived by co-operating not by being "sovereign individuals".
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Summary: The Unabomber would love this book.
Review: The Sovereign Individual was somewhat interesting reading. It would have been more interesting, if it had'nt been written in such an overly complex, over-intellectualized style. With all the rambling rhetoric, if not outright venting, it may as well have been written by the Unabomber. I feel that the authors put way too much emphasis on techology, and assume that it's all going to be on thier side. Through all of thier anti-Government, anti-labor rhetoric, they never once acknowledge who invented the computer, the internet, or computer encryption: The US military, the same ones who have maintained a world-wide monopoly on violence for the last 50 years. They assume that all the computer encryption in the world is going to be on thier side, when the NSA (who they never mention ONCE in thier book)has acres of mainframe machines in thier basement, dedicated to decryption, along with some of the best cryptologists and mathematicians in the world. What the book inderectly refers to is the flight of capital, and keeping it from taxation, such as what's detailed in Edward Pankaus' book, Hide Your Assets and Disapear, where Americans renounce thier citizenship, get citizenship in another, and stash thier money in a third jurisdiction. I've heard one CPA, specializing in overseas investment say, "Good luck, after Sept. 11". Not that it CAN'T be done in the future. While I agree that governments (especially the US) are becoming more predatory with taxation, I think it's stupid to argue that capitalists have been extorted by labor. The 1937 GM strike occured when those workers were being treated like animals. It also fails to mention during it's reference to the 1834 C&O Canal strike that the workers had'nt been paid in SIX months! Just read Howard Zinns', A Peoples' History of the United States for the origins of these labor revolts. I agree with most of thier views, however, such as the illiteracy rate in this country, the welfare state, and being in the last cyclical stage of our civilization/international power.
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Summary: Thought provoking
Review: This book discusses the relationship between individuals and nation-states and predicts that "sovereign individuals" and others will choose alternative forms of protection as nation-states devolve and are replaced by new forms of organization.
According to the authors, the 4 stages of "social organization" (hunting and gathering societies, agricultural societies, industrial societies, and now information societies), and the transitions to each successive form of organization resulted from changes in the technology and control of violence. It is the author's contention that the technology of the information society will collapse the nation-state and that a new form of political organization more compatible with the information society will evolve to take its place.
During the transitions to agricultural and industrial societies, economic activities were organized around individuals or informal groups of individuals. With the advent of the industrial society and the mass production economy, economic activites are primarily organized around corporations. While it would probably be more efficient for individuals to be able to choose from a number of jurisdictions to provide the services of the former nation-states, it is not clear that corporations will benefit from the disappearance of the nation-state. Unless that were to occur, there will be no drive to supplant the nation-state unless corporate power is supplanted by individual power.
Toward the end of the book, the authors make a few succinct statements to the effect that independent contractors and virtual corporations will replace the corporation as it exists today. Unless that happens, it seems more likely that the nation-state will evolve and change rather than disappear. The basic necessities of life still revolve around "hard goods" such as food and water, energy, housing, and transportation and, while there will be increasing informational components to providing these necessities, it is unlikely that corporations or governments will be replaced as the primary providers of these necessities or that individuals or virtual corporations will be able to provide anything other than adjunct contributions.
This book is worth studying and will help put current events in context regardless of the outcome.
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Summary: A frightening future devoid of humanity
Review: This book is the third in a series of predictive essays by this duo of financial wizards. It is another attempt to estimate future events using trends from the present and historical analyses. As with any philosophical exercise, it is crucial to identify the project, or standpoint of the authors to place the work in perspective. They are well-known in the world of offshore finance and financial services and one is a former editor of the London Times. Both would appear to be independently wealthy and from previous works, supporters of the entrepreneurial movement which pervades the Western world currently. The book begins with a fascinating interpretation of the changes in society over recorded history. The authors argue a convincing case for a common, economically based theme running throughout history: one which has persisted despite great discontinuities in the organisation of society. They argue that the principal determinant of societal structures throughout history is the economics of the use of violence, by individuals or groups. They go on to describe the alterations they see in that equation consequent upon the introduction of microcomputing and the interconnectivity of the Internet. Early in this book they make the point that an enormous amount of the revenue of nation-states derives from a tiny portion of its inhabitants and that the state redistributes this income to their disadvantage. The changes they foresee will remove any benefits to such contributors who will be in a position to seek newer and more favourable jurisdictions. They predict that people of 'wealth and talent' will be able to avoid the strictures of geography and 'predatory taxation' and sketch a world view of Sovereign Individuals who can shop around for protection and advantageous taxation systems. The language of the middle part of the book is pejorative. They talk of 'have-nots'; 'under achievers with credentials' and label the critics of their worldview as neo-Luddites. I found this irritating after a while and it left an unpleasant feeling that the authors might actually visualise people in this fashion. The timescale for these changes is naturally vague, but they talk of the end of the first quarter of the next century. They deal with many ramifications of their thesis, but the gaping hole in their vision arises from their own standpoint. Their view is ultimately of a global, 'winner takes all' economy and naturally they see themselves as among the winners. They have given some thought to the problems of poverty but the reader is given the impression that it is the fault of the poor that they are poor. The authors1 vision of the future, while no less valid than anyone elses, leaves nothing for disadvantaged groups, except for violent opposition. In the last chapter, on morality and crime, the authors hope for a common and generally accepted moral code based on religion that would introduce some humanity into their scenarios. Whether this happens and how the uneducated poor will react to these changes and, in turn, what effects their reactions will have, are the imponderables from this vision. Without injecting some humanity from whatever source, their vision, very plausible as it is, will be one of a feudal, Hobbesian 'war, .... of every man, against every man'. For those who wish to avoid this unpleasantness, and more importantly have the wherewithal to do so, the authors provide a section full of adverts for their services disguised as Appendix 2.
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Summary: Interpretive history by authors who know some economics
Review: This book makes many forecasts about what the 21st century will be like; many, perhaps most, will prove wrong. This is not intended as a criticism of the authors, but as a reminder of the perils of the crystal ball business! In any event, Davidson and Rees-Mogg can be quite guilty of wishful libertarian daydreaming. Nevertheless, I value The Sovereign Individual for its interpretation of our past. Reading this book, any intelligent lay person will understand that the technologies of taxation and violence are deep factors underlying the rise and evolution of the nation-state. Now information technology is increasing the possibilities for untaxable income. This will erode the power of nation-states, which is no more than the power to use the threat of violence to compel payment of taxes. Granted, many of us pay taxes voluntarily. But if nations had to rely solely on voluntary taxation, they would be a lot weaker than they are at present. Information technology has implications for the future payoff to private violence (crime, terrorism) and national violence (war), but these are less evident. For those of you out there who are academic economists, Davidson and Rees-Mogg interpret history and politics in terms strongly derived from Coase and Oliver Williamson (transaction costs, property rights, asset specificity, opportunism, and so on). And it is definitely true that if a firm owns a lot of physical assets that can be rendered worthless during a strike, its workers can easily hold those assets hostage in exchange for higher wages.
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